Jackson Smoot's Key Ideas from Dopamine Nation
by Dr. Anna Lembke

“The world now offers a full complement of digital drugs that didn’t exist before, or if they did exist, they now exist on digital platforms that have exponentially increased their potency and availability. These include online pornography, gambling, and video games, to name a few.”

“Americans no longer talk to each other, they entertain each other. They do not exchange ideas, they exchange images. They do not argue with propositions: They argue with good looks, celebrities and commercials.”

“The paradox is the hedonism, the pursuit of pleasure for it’s own sake, leads to anhedonia, which is the inability to enjoy pleasure of any kind.”

“addicts are bored or frustrated problem-solvers who instinctively contrive Houdini-like situations from which to disentangle themselves when no other challenge happens to present itself. The drug becomes the reward when they succeed and the consolation prize when they fail.”

“When we realize that we are capable of this inner legislation, the (natural) man feels himself compelled to reverence for the moral man in his own person.”

Here Kant emphasizes that humans possess a unique capacity for “inner legislation,” which refers to the ability to act according to principles we rationally determine ourselves, rather than being driven solely by external influences or natural impulses. When we recognize our ability to act morally through inner legislation, we feel compelled to “reverence” (or respect) the moral dimension of ourselves.

“In medicating ourselves to adapt to the world, what kind of world are we settling for?”

“there is a cost to medicating away every type of human suffering, and as we shall see, there is an alternative path that might work better: embracing pain.”

“When you consider that we evolved to traverse tens of kilometers daily to compete for a limited supply of food, the adverse effects of our modern sedentary lifestyle are devastating.”

Exercise has a more profound and sustained positive effect on mood, anxiety, cognition, energy, and sleep than any pill I can prescribe.

“Radical honesty - telling the truth about things large and small, especially when doing so exposes our foibles and entails consequences - is essential not just to recovery from addiction but for all of us trying to live a more balanced life in our reward-saturated ecosystem.”

“Recounting our experiences gives us mastery over them.”

“Telling the truth draws people in, especially when we’re willing to expose our own vulnerabilities… They see in our brokenness their own vulnerability and humanity.”

“No longer endeavoring to manage my environment, I began to feel invigorated, to find a balance, to permit a feeling of connection with the spontaneity of the natural world and with my own inner nature.”

“find a way to immerse yourself fully in the life you’ve been given.”