Addiction and You Part 1
When I talk about addiction I don’t just mean substances such as cocaine, but also sugar, shopping, browsing social media, YouTube, pornography and so on. All of these things, along with many others, can become addictive. We talk of these addictions as if the external thing itself, the sugar for example, is addictive. That is true, but it would be more accurate to say that we are addicted to the result of the substance which, for most of the common addictions, is a neurotransmitter, specifically dopamine.
Dopamine gets a lot of press and quite rightly so. It is often called the ‘pleasure hormone’ (although it isn’t a hormone) and this is the impact of dopamine we will explore with regards to addiction, although dopamine is involved in many more processes within the body. This is because, when we do something that would have been immediately beneficial to our tree dwelling (and much further down the tree of evolution) ancestors, it triggers our brain neurons to release dopamine, making us feel pleasure and, therefore, encouraging us to do that thing much more.
This is why chocolate, cakes, biscuits and sugary drinks taste so good and are addictive. Because our brains encourage us, through dopamine, to eat more because the sugar, and fat, they contain were incredibly valuable to our tree dwelling ancestors. But not, so much, in our current climate of abundant food. If there was an alien species that couldn’t turn sugar or fat into energy, biscuits would probably taste pretty bland to them.
So, what of addictions outside of food? Well shopping, and even browsing, can be incredibly addictive, but why? Well, the accumulation of stuff can also be seen to make sense evolutionarily. Useful stuff was scarce and the one with the most stuff – things to use for shelter or weapons etc – was more likely to survive. We are attracted towards browsing and shopping, yet similarly to food, stuff is now in abundance. A great deal of it is not needed and clogs up our living spaces, which can often lead to stress. This attraction to the accumulation of stuff is commonly exploited by retailers (a topic for a future post).
How about social media? Humans are hypersocial animals and there aren’t many mammals who are as sociable as us, especially when both sexes are taken into account. Rats and dolphins are too. Social connection releases a myriad of hormones and neurotransmitters in the brain making us feel positive, increasing our mood and making us feel pleasure. Obviously, we are not big and powerful like male gorillas or Tigers. So, belonging to a group was, evolutionarily, the only way to provide safety and security, as well as more hands to do the necessary work. Today, however, we still have that deep desire to belong and social media provides us with that feeling, somewhat. It is addictive in that it gives us a community and a sense of connection. Yet, social connection via social media and technology, is not the same, neurologically, as face-to-face social connection. This results in the sad combination of addictive social media to make us feel as if we belong, yet also never feeling truly connected to others, resulting in low mood and even depression.
Lastly, pornography. Sex is pleasurable, it results in offspring, the more one has, the more offspring, the more we increase the species which is the “goal” of our DNA. Yet, pornography gives us a dopamine rush as if, although no quite, we were having sex. And, unlike sex (for most!), it can be acquired continuously. So, it is addictive, yet we never have that sense of connection with another with pornography, which again can lead to low mood and depression.
This is a pretty bleak picture of our common predicament – much of our brain is thousands of years out-of-date, yet we live in the modern era of abundance. Read my following posts in this series to find out the dangers of “dopamine addiction” and (hope!) what can be done about it.