Dopamine Nation

Dopamine Nation: Anna Lembke

This is a fascinating book about addiction and how people can get addicted to various substances and behaviors.

Life is Duhkha . The cause of suffering is unsatisfactoriness. Damn, those Buddhists were so right, weren’t they? You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Seek too much pleasure, you suffer. Seek too much pain (as in exercise), you suffer. Be humble, do the thing that needs to be done. Develop compassion and kindness. You’ll have a chance to find happiness and fulfillment. Our brain circuits also seems to support these hypothesis.

Writing a long review to this book might trigger a lot of dopamine which could lead me to not enjoy writing reviews anymore, so I’m calling it a day. After all, we are all junkies, we just crave different things.

I will be re-reading this one for sure as this provides a simple framework for understanding dopamine and addiction. Goes into a list of highly recommended books.