Shankar Vedantam

We received this question from listener Amritha.

What do you think, Anna?

Some listeners have asked the question, if I notice that I'm heading down a path that looks like it's on a path to addiction, how do I break this cycle?

Here's a question we received from a listener named Andrea.

What do you think, Ana?

When you feel like you're on the road to someplace bad, is there something you can do to nudge yourself in a more positive direction?

You know, we talked earlier in the conversation, Ana, about how the term addiction can get used as a form of name-calling, where we're just describing people whom we don't like or activities we don't like.

We brand them as addictions.

But we also talked about how people who have addictions often don't have the insight to know that they are on the road to addiction.

And a few listeners have asked the question, what if I can see someone in my life, a friend, a family member, a co-worker, heading down a path that looks like it's an unhealthy path?

How do I bring that up?

How do I launch that very difficult conversation to have the person say, do I have a problem?

Anna Lembke is a psychiatrist and researcher in the behavioral sciences at Stanford University.

She's the author of Dopamine Nation, Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence.

Anna Lembke, thank you so much for joining me today on Hidden Brain.

Hidden Brain is produced by Hidden Brain Media.

Our audio production team includes Annie Murphy-Paul, Kristen Wong, Laura Querell, Ryan Katz, Autumn Barnes, Andrew Chadwick, and Nick Woodbury.

Tara Boyle is our executive producer.

I'm Hidden Brain's executive editor.

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