“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.”

“Recounting our experiences gives us mastery over them.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“One of the biggest risk factors for getting addicted to any drug is easy access to that drug. When it’s easier to get a drug, we’re more likely to try it. In trying it, we’re more likely to get addicted to it.”

“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.”

“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?”

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

<ul><li>The relentless pursuit of pleasure (and avoidance of pain) leads to pain.</li><li>Recovery begins with abstinence.</li><li>Abstinence resets the brain's reward pathway and with it our capacity to take joy in simpler pleasures.</li><li>Self-binding creates literal and metacognitive space between desire and consumption, a modern necessity in our dopamine-overloaded world.</li><li>Medications can restore homeostasis, but consider what we lose by medicating away our pain.</li></ul>

Lessons of the Balance Part: 1

<ul><li>Pressing on the pain side resets our balance to the side of pleasure. </li><li>Beware of getting addicted to pain.</li><li>Radical honesty promotes awareness, enhances intimacy, and fosters a plenty mindset.</li><li>Prosocial shame affirms that we belong to the human tribe.</li><li>Instead of running away from the world, we can find escape by immersing ourselves in it.</li></ul>

Lessons of the Balance Part: 2

“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.”

“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.”

”The smartphone is the modern day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. If you haven’t met your drug of choice yet, it’s coming soon to a website near you.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

Impactful quotes selected from Dopamine Nation by Dr. Anna Lembke.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES and LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER “Brilliant . . . riveting, scary, cogent, and cleverly argued.”—Beth Macy, author of Dopesick, as heard on Fresh Air This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting . . . The increased numbers, variety, and potency is staggering. The smartphone is the modern-day hypodermic needle, delivering digital dopamine 24/7 for a wired generation. As such we’ve all become vulnerable to compulsive overconsumption.   In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Anna Lembke, psychiatrist and author, explores the exciting new scientific discoveries that explain why the relentless pursuit of pleasure leads to pain . . . and what to do about it. Condensing complex neuroscience into easy-to-understand metaphors, Lembke illustrates how finding contentment and connectedness means keeping dopamine in check. The lived experiences of her patients are the gripping fabric of her narrative. Their riveting stories of suffering and redemption give us all hope for managing our consumption and transforming our lives. In essence, Dopamine Nation shows that the secret to finding balance is combining the science of desire with the wisdom of recovery.

Understand yourself and those around you.

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Dr. Anna Lembke is an accomplished writer whose work has resonated with readers around the world. Dr. Anna Lembke has published several books that explore a range of topics, from fiction to nonfiction, and has received critical acclaim for the ability to weave compelling narratives. Dr. Anna Lembke's writing style is known for its depth and authenticity, and has earned quite a loyal following of readers.

ANNA LEMBKE, MD