By the way , I highly recommend it if you haven't read it already . It's a fascinating uh exploration into dopamine as it relates to addiction , not just drug addiction but other types of addiction . Again , the name of that book is dopamine nation .
The same is also true for things like methamphetamine or cocaine or other types of substance addictions . And the same is also true for a lot of behavioral or what are sometimes called process addictions , things like sex addiction or video game addiction or any type of behavior that frankly is leveraging the dopamine system . But that engages this progressive narrowing of the things that bring someone pleasure such that nothing else is really salient .
So what's happening in addiction ? Well , addiction involves dopamine among other things , often the opioid system , et cetera . But if we were to think about what's the stimulus in an addiction and what's the peak in dopamine ?
Well , addiction involves dopamine among other things , often the opioid system , et cetera . But if we were to think about what's the stimulus in an addiction and what's the peak in dopamine ? And then what happens after that peak ?
So if somebody craves cocaine , what are they craving ? They're craving that dopamine peak , they're craving the increased level of alertness , they're craving a number of things associated with the feeling of being under the influence of the drug . But the stimulus for it simply becomes that line of cocaine or in the case of crack , that crack rock that they're gonna smoke and God forbid they're mainlining it , you know , they're shooting into a vein .
