Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence

by Anna Lembke

It was easier to take a pill than feel the pain.”

All that distracting yourself with devices may be contributing to your depression and anxiety. It’s pretty exhausting avoiding yourself all the time.

The reason we’re all so miserable may be because we’re working so hard to avoid being miserable.

Not to mention that the entire cycle of anticipation and craving can occur outside the threshold of conscious awareness.

The drug becomes the reward when they succeed and the consolation prize when they fail.

That’s a pretty powerful statement.

Today, I’m finally okay with being a somewhat anxious, slightly depressed skeptic. I’m a person who needs friction, a challenge, something to work for or fight against. I won’t whittle myself down to fit the world. Should any of us?

In medicating ourselves to adapt to the world, what kind of world are we settling for? Under the guise of treating pain and mental illness, are we rendering large segments of the population biochemically indifferent to intolerable circumstance? Worse yet, have psychotropic medications become a means of social control, especially of the poor, unemployed, and disenfranchised?