Anna Lembke

I've probably learned more from my patients than I think I've given them in return.

I really see people in recovery from severe addictions as modern day prophets because these are folks who have had to figure out pleasure and pain and consumption in a dopamine overloaded world.

And they've had to do it as a matter of life and death.

And they've been able to do it.

And so they really provide this roadmap of deep wisdom for the rest of us.

Very surprised.

So I was talking with a colleague just before it came out and he said, well, what's it about?

And I said, well, basically it's a book about how pain is good for us.

And he started laughing and he said, oh, that'll be a New York Times bestseller.

And I said, right, exactly.

And to, you know, my surprise, it was.

So I think though that, you know,

This is a very old idea, really.

It's thousands of years old.

And it's also an idea that many other people have been putting out there.

But somehow it's an idea that I think is right for our times.

Yeah, to resolve it, to name it, at least to some extent to understand it, and also some actionable items in terms of what to do about it.

This is a great question, and it's a question about which there's remarkably little science, and there needs to be a lot more.

We call this the concept of drug of choice, which is to say what is highly reinforcing for one person's brain may not be so for another and vice versa.

And when I think about this from an evolutionary perspective,