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If you live under a bridge, dopamine makes you want a tent. If you live in a tent, dopamine makes you want a house.
denying sexual satisfaction actually enhances passion—not necessarily forever, of course, and not without significant sacrifice, but the effect is real.
Dopamine, the neurotransmitter whose purpose is to maximize future rewards, starts us down the road to love. It revs our desires, illuminates our imagination, and draws us into a relationship on an incandescent promise. But when it comes to love, dopamine is a place to begin, not to finish. It can never be satisfied. Dopamine can only say, “More.”
What happens when the future becomes the present—when the dinner is in your mouth or your lover is in your arms? The feelings of excitement, enthusiasm, and energy dissipate.
In fact, it’s an example of the desire circuit breaking its promise. It told you that if you bought that expensive car you’d be overcome with joy, and your life would never be the same. Except, once you became its owner, those feelings were neither as intense nor as long lasting as you had hoped. The desire circuit often breaks its promises—which is bound to happen, because it plays no role in generating feelings of satisfaction. It is in no position to make dreams come true. The desire circuit is, so to speak, just a salesman.
On the other hand, if a drinker can’t achieve thirty days of sobriety, it’s an indication that he no longer has full control of his drinking. That can be an eye-opening experience that may persuade a drinker to get alcohol out of his life.
In fact, the most effective way to reduce the problems caused by these substances is to make it more difficult to get them.
people who become trapped in a cycle of excessive pornography use spend more and more time pursuing this activity—sometimes many hours every day. They abandon other activities so they can focus on adult internet sites. Sexual relations with their partners tend to become less frequent and less satisfying.
“Sex addicts showed higher levels of desire when watching pornography, but did not necessarily rate the explicit videos higher in their ‘liking’ scores.”
The dopamine desire circuit is powerful. It focuses attention, motivates, and thrills. It has a profound influence over the choices we make. Yet it isn’t all-powerful. Addicts get clean. Dieters lose weight. Sometimes we switch off the TV, get off the couch, and go for a run. What kind of circuit in the brain is powerful enough to oppose dopamine? Dopamine is. Dopamine opposing dopamine. The circuit that opposes the desire circuit might be called the dopamine control circuit.
But it’s dopamine that makes the work possible at all: no dopamine, no effort.
The ability to put forth effort is dopaminergic. The quality of that effort can be influenced by any number of other factors, but without dopamine, there is no effort at all.
Without dopamine there is no effort at all
Dominance triggered submission, and submission triggered dominance.
