DOPAMINE ADDICTION

Using brain scanning equipment researchers have found that there is only one addiction—dopamine addiction (DA). When heroin addicts shoot up, the street drug causes their brains to produce dopamine. Heroin is a trigger. It’s the dopamine flow that actually creates the sensation of being ‘high.’ When it comes to scoring dopamine rewards, there are many triggers. For some the trigger is cocaine. For others it can be nicotine, alcohol, sex, gambling, or food.

Street drugs are examples of physical dopamine triggers that are difficult to deny because they require the ingesting, inhaling, or injecting of highly-addictive substances. Physical dopamine addictions destroy lives and wreak immense amounts of societal damage, but the most dangerous dopamine triggers include a short list of easy to deny psychological addictions. Psychological dopamine addictions are more insidious because the dopamine is triggered by highly addictive emotions, memories, thoughts, fantasies, ideologies, rhetoric, and deceptions. Researchers have recently added video games and texting to the list while continuing to ignore the most dangerous triggers that have come to be considered “normal” behaviors.

Decades ago, psychologist Abraham Maslow identified and categorized what he called deficiency needs, or D-needs for short.

Level 1: Physiological – air, water, salt, food, sex.
Level 2: Safety.
Level 3: Peer approval.
Level 4: Esteem.

What we know:

• Maslow’s four lower D-needs deliver dopamine rewards.

• Any behavior that can deliver a dopamine reward can be turned into an addiction.

• The more powerful the addiction, the greater the denial, the weaker the free will, the more likely addicts are to detest any information that threatens to keep them from feeding their addictions.

• It’s possible to get addicted to safety, peer approval, and esteem.

• Safety, peer approval, and esteem addictions aren’t considered addictions because our ancestors were clever safety, peer-approval, and esteem addicts who excelled at denying they were addicts.

To keep the dopamine flowing, heroin addicts use needles, safety addicts swallow lies, peer-approval addicts join groups, and esteem addicts chase status. One important distinction between addictions is that heroin addicts have to hide their needles whereas safety addicts get to wear their weapons, peer-approval addicts are free to flock to groups, and esteem addicts get away with flaunting their status symbols every chance they get. A second difference is that safety, peer-approval, and esteem addicts do a lot more damage than heroin addicts.

To learn more, read The Perfect Pandemic.