Dopamine Nation

Lessons of the Balance
1. The relentless pursuit of pleasure (and avoidance of pain) leads to
pain.
2. Recovery begins with abstinence.
3. Abstinence resets the brain’s reward pathway and with it our capacity
to take joy in simpler pleasures.
4. Self-binding creates literal and metacognitive space between desire
and consumption, a modern necessity in our dopamine-overloaded
world.
5. Medications can restore homeostasis, but consider what we lose by
medicating away our pain.
6. Pressing on the pain side resets our balance to the side of pleasure.
7. Beware of getting addicted to pain.
8. Radical honesty promotes awareness, enhances intimacy, and fosters a
plenty mindset.

---

9. Prosocial shame affirms that we belong to the human tribe.
10. Instead of running away from the world, we can find escape by
immersing ourselves in it.

---

Author’s Note
The intimate conversations and stories in this book are included with the
interviewees’ informed consent. In order to protect privacy, I’ve deleted and
changed names and other demographic details even when participants were
willing to include them unchanged. The process of obtaining consent
included participants assenting to the following: “Someone who knows you
well and reads your story here will likely recognize you even though I’ve
changed your name. Are you okay with that?” And “If there are any details
you don’t want me to include, let me know and I’ll leave them out.”

---

Notes
“contemporary prophets that we ignore”
: Kent Dunnington, Addiction and Virtue: Beyond the
Models of Disease and Choice (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2011). This is a
wonderful theological and philosophical treatise on addiction and faith.