Amber Hollingsworth explains the brain science of addiction with a focus on dopamine: its role as the 'wanting' chemical, how addictive drugs and behaviors cause rapid excessive dopamine release, and how the brain adapts by increasing receptor sites (metaphorically "monster mouths") leading to tolerance and loss of enjoyment in ordinary life. Recovery requires stopping the dopamine-flooding behavior so the system can normalize over time (often beginning to improve after a week or two) and avoiding substitute addictive triggers to reduce relapse risk. The speaker previews a follow-up on other brain changes in addiction.
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Alright, it's time to get your recovery nerd on. Because in this video we're going to talk about the science of addiction. Specifically, we're going to talk about the brain science of addiction. And you can't talk about the brain science of addiction without first understanding dopamine. Dopamine is a naturally occurring chemical in your brain. It's considered one of the reward chemicals, which basically means it's chemical in your brain that when it's released, it feels good. But this particular reward chemical is responsible for wanting. Its biological purpose is to make us want and drive our behaviors to go after things that historically were good for survival. Things like food and sex, acquiring things that would help us to survive. That's what dopamine is supposed to do. But these days we've found all sorts of ways to sort of basically like hotwire our dopamine system. Pretty much anything that's addictive is probably going to work on your dopamine system. We're talking about all the addictive drugs like alcohol and other sedatives, or things like benzodiazepines, opiates, cocaine, amphetamines, mdma, hallucinogens, pcp, ketamine, cannabinoids, inhalants, nicotine, caffeine, and even anabolic steroids. All of those drugs act on our dopamine system in the brain, which is what makes them addictive. But there are also dopamine releasing behaviors. So let's take a look at what those behaviors might be. Food, sex, relationships, codependency, gambling, cults, performance, which is why people can get addicted to work and the collection and accumulation of things, which is why people can get addicted to spending or hoarding. All of those chemicals and all of those behaviors can trigger the dopamine system. And if it triggers it in a really excessive, in a really fast way, then that's when we're going to run into a problem. You see, when something starts to trigger dopamine excessively or extremely quickly, remember it's the wanting chemical. So then we start wanting to do that again and again and again. And as we do it over and over and over, then our dopamine system in our brain begins to adjust to the new levels of dopamine. You see, our bodies kind of like to stay within these normal levels. In science or in medicine, they call that homeostasis. It's just a fancy word that means same status. So your brain starts to pick up on these excessive levels of dopamine and it says, ooh, I gotta level this out. So what it does is it. It changes the way it actually absorbs that dopamine. The best way I like to explain it to you is probably not the most scientific way, but it's the easier way to understand is you start growing all these little monster mouths that eat dopamine in your brain. And the more you release, and the more often you release it, the more of these little monsters that you grow. And they're constantly hungry, so you have to feed them more and more. And the more dopamine you release, the more of these things that you develop. Now, even though I'm calling them monsters, it's really more dopamine receptor sites. Basically, what I'm explaining to you here is the science behind tolerance. This is why it takes more or you have to use for a longer period of time to get the same effect. And this is why that when you have an addiction, you lose the ability to enjoy other regular things that maybe you used to enjoy, like your hobbies and your interests and your talents. Now, because those things don't produce such a massive amount of dopamine in your brain, and you have all these monster mouths, it just doesn't cut it anymore. So the more addicted you get, the less and less and less you enjoy other outside things, which on a brain level should help you understand why the idea of getting sober can seem so extremely hard. Because it can seem like, I'll never enjoy anything again. But the reason you've lost the ability to enjoy the regular things is because of this excessive dopamine release that you're getting from the substance or the behavior that you're addicted to. And the only way to get that to go back to normal is to stop flowing, flooding it with the dopamine. When you stop flooding it, basically when you stop engaging in the addictive behavior, your brain will begin to normalize back out. Now, that'll take some time. It's different for everyone, but for most people, I'd say it begins to get a little better after a week or two of being abstinent from the behavior or the substance. Now, if you will simultaneously start to add in regular things in your life that you used to enjoy while you're not doing the big dopamine flooding activities. This is what's going to help your brain normalize back out. And eventually you're going to begin to enjoy the things that you used to. You're going to begin to like normal things. In fact, you're going to be able to experience joy in your everyday life. You're going to look Forward to things, you're going to want things again other than the addictive thing. And to me, that is the absolute best benefit of recovery. It's the ability to enjoy your life again. Because when you're stuck in addiction, you can only get pleasure and reward out of those addictive behaviors. And what that means is everything else in your life becomes just crap. You have to do in between engaging in that addictive behavior. Doesn't matter if it's Christmas morning. It doesn't matter if you're winning a big reward at work or in sports. It doesn't matter if you're graduating college. It just doesn't seem fun or exciting unless the substance or addictive behavior is on board. Taking your kids to the park, you know, all those regular things. Once you get that dopamine system to regulate itself back, you'll have the ability to enjoy those things again. This whole dopamine thing, it truly is at the center of the addiction problem. Now, the good news is it can be fixed and you will feel better. The bad news is this. Now I'm about to tell you something that I tell all of my clients, but pretty much no one listens to me about, at least not on the first time. Eventually they do, but they don't listen to me the first time. Maybe you can be that one person. When most people come into my office or really any addiction counselor or treatment centers or 12 step program, they really feel like they're addicted to one particular substance. They may think that they're addicted to cocaine or alcohol or shopping or whatever. But what you're really addicted to is the chemical called dopamine. And it's also why most people in recovery and most clinicians will tell you that if you stop the one substance, but you continue to do the other things, that that will become problematic or it will lead back to the original addiction. The most common ways that I see this are when people think, oh, I had addiction to drugs, but I can still drink alcohol. Or you might think, oh, I had an addiction to alcohol, but I can still smoke weed. Alcohol and marijuana are definitely the two fallbacks that most people want to continue to engage in one or the other of those two behaviors. And maybe it never was a problem for you before, but the problem with it is it continues to trigger an abnormal response from the dopamine. So let's say if your main addiction is cocaine, but you think, I'm not going to do that anymore. But I never really had a problem with alcohol or I never really had a problem with when you use those substances, maybe it doesn't produce as much dopamine as the cocaine did. Well, probably what that's going to mean is you're going to need to use a lot more of it to get that same amount of reward. The only way to get your dopamine system to re regulate is to quit. With the major spikes in dopamine, this makes a lot of those monster mouths kind of go to sleep. Now, I will talk about the monster mouths. The reason I call them that is because it's like they're talking to you all the time. Telling you lies, playing you, whatever, just trying to get you to engage in that addictive behavior. You've got to make those monster mouths go to sleep so you can get some peace and quiet and enjoy your life again. Now the thing here is you've got to be very careful because those monster mouths can be woke back up once you've grown. The monster mouths, they don't go away, they can go into hibernation, which is what recovery is. But if you start introducing your addictive behavior or substance or another addictive behavior or substance, the chances that that dopamine system is going to go all the way back to the way it was before is pretty high. If you've ever tried to get sober before or you've worked a 12 step program or something, you might have heard you pick up where you left off. And what I just told you about is the science behind why that's true. Now your tolerance may be down for a day or two, but if you engage back in your addictive behavior, it's going to be back where it was before you stopped in a week for sure. But usually less time than that. Alright, there you have it. There is the dopamine problem with addiction. Guess what? It's not the only brain problem that occurs. In the next video, we're going to talk about other brain changes that also contribute to the problem of addiction.
