Sign in with Facebook
Martin's Reviews > Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence
by
by
Moral puritanism disguised as science. The author uses her credentials to make it seem like she is coming from a rational, scientific point of view, and then uses the kind of anecdotes you see in tabloids to cause scare/terrify you. For example, she tells the story of a four year old sodomizing his little brother as an example of the impact of widely available pornography on our society—as if such a bizarre, singular event had any statistical significance, and wasn't just meant to terrify you.
There is no other way for me to interpret her polemic on "availability" and touting the success of prohibition as tacit approval of the war on drugs.
This is what happens you spend your whole life wielding a hammer. Your love of romance novels and sexy vampires looks like a nail. Having a beer or surfing reddit every day looks like a nail. Everything that brings you any amount of joy that isn't "productive" is on the same spectrum as being an opiate addict or hooking yourself up to a masturbation machine for hours a day. Sorry, "the dark side of capitalism" is not the fact that you can now buy really good weed without fear of jail time—It's that if you do anything other than work your job and raise your kids, you should feel bad about it.
If you really enjoyed this book despite all that, I would highly encourage you to read Dr. Karl Hart's "Drug Use For Grownups" for a different perspective. I don't agree with everything in it either but I think it's a better bellwether for progress in the world of addiction medicine.
There is no other way for me to interpret her polemic on "availability" and touting the success of prohibition as tacit approval of the war on drugs.
This is what happens you spend your whole life wielding a hammer. Your love of romance novels and sexy vampires looks like a nail. Having a beer or surfing reddit every day looks like a nail. Everything that brings you any amount of joy that isn't "productive" is on the same spectrum as being an opiate addict or hooking yourself up to a masturbation machine for hours a day. Sorry, "the dark side of capitalism" is not the fact that you can now buy really good weed without fear of jail time—It's that if you do anything other than work your job and raise your kids, you should feel bad about it.
If you really enjoyed this book despite all that, I would highly encourage you to read Dr. Karl Hart's "Drug Use For Grownups" for a different perspective. I don't agree with everything in it either but I think it's a better bellwether for progress in the world of addiction medicine.
Sign into Goodreads to see if any of your friends have read
Dopamine Nation.
Sign In »
Reading Progress
Finished Reading
September 11, 2021
– Shelved
Comments Showing 1-15 of 15 (15 new)
date
newest »
newest »
message 1:
by
Joanna
(new)
Sep 27, 2021 09:35PM
Martin, you're a smart man!
reply
|
flag
I googled anna lembke and karl hart multiple times to see if they ever debated and was disappointed that NO ONE HAS PUT THEM IN A ROOM TOGETHER or even written an article comparing their diametrically opposed arguments. Only a few goodreads comments!
I would love to see that! Karl Hart's work still feels like it's quite fringe. Most people still seem to be hungry for content that tells them they aren't being good enough, but I think the past year is making many of us question that!
Thank you for this review! I agree wholeheartedly, and would love for Dr. Carl Hart to educate her on drugs. When she talked about LSD being addictive I couldn't help wonder just how much research went into the book. It surprises me though that I actually got to that part, because after listening to her talking about advising a patient to go down on his knees and pray to God to stop masturbating 😳 I almost threw the book away.
She was on Rogan's podcast and wasn't approving even medical drug use, or, let's say, she was overcautious with her statements on this subject
Highly biased nonsense review full of distortions and misrepresentations of the ideas the author is trying to convey. The reviewer clearly did not approach this book with an open mind! Please don’t let this negative review put you off reading this wonderful book. It is engaging, thought-provoking and written with real honesty and humanity. It has the potential to change how you approach life for the better.
I agree with the points made in this review.
I did not read anything Lembke said to pertain to morality in any way
Thanks for writing this review. I too was a bit dissapointed by Anna's moralistic approach. Although I still think that advice in this book will be good for addicts with damaging behaviours. Thanks for book recommendation too!
Yeah her book kept coming off as preachy and I noticed that she never addressed the underlying issues her patients had for using their drug of choice. The sex addicted man for example almost always relapsed when faced with family/work stress but she never helped him to learn to face and unpack that instead of running to his machine. Yes we need to treat symptoms but there is usually an underlying problem to them. Maybe if her learned to process stressful situations and learned healthy stress management he could manage his addiction better. Instead she told him to kneel and pray then call his sponsor.
I do agree that some of her “moralistic” and “abstinence” approaches to addiction turned me off a bit. And I was pretty disappointed at her caution in diving deeper into the root issues with our society that cause people to feel the need to turn to drugs/alcohol/video games etc. but she did mention them and didn’t shy away from them completely. I think there’s a lot that can be gleaned from the book with an open mind, but thanks for the alternative book suggestion, think I’ll check that one out next
I’m right at the part of the book you mentioned about the sodomy and paused to check reviews. I honestly don’t appreciate the author using such a horrific example involving children for no other reason than to shock the reader. There’s a million other example she could’ve shared that didn’t involve sex abuse and children. Your review confirms my feelings, so I’m going to walk away from this one.
Thank you. I am just starting the first chapter and I already detected the over moralist tone and the war on drugs propaganda. I came to check if it was something they she would repeat on the next chapters. Yes, stopping right now.
I didn’t think it had a moral argument. The thesis seemed to be that we live in a society that encourages and facilitates overindulgence/overconsumption.
Maybe she isn’t sex positive, or maybe she is. Maybe she is anti drug and maybe she isn’t.
TBH I don’t think the book really said any one thing was bad in-and-of-itself, but rather it’s bad that industries thrive on eschewing and at times subtly discouraging mindful consumption.
I walked away from the book refreshed that I didn’t need to feel bad for enjoying enjoyable things, but overconsumption of said things end up canceling out their effect. And in fact continuing to cross that line leads to harm.
I think of the woman who died in a contest where you drank a gallon of water first. Nobody finished their gallon, but she did in less than five minutes. She drowned from the inside.
There’s no moral argument there that water is bad. But how you use it can kill you.
It seems like the obvious adage everything in moderation. But the book revealed to me we live in a culture where industries want to subtly coerce you into an “everything in excess” mindset.
That said I am surprised she stuck to her guns on the implication prohibition was a good thing.
I was hoping she would circle back around to mindfulness and more informed markets and consumers is the solution.
