I imagine him attached by his genitals through the internet to a room full of strangers. I feel horror, compassion and a vague and disquieting sense that it could have been me. Why did you want to open the book with the story of Jacob? I wanted to draw an analogy between this wonderful man with this terrible sex addiction and the rest of us who in various ways are now getting all of our needs met without any other human being.
In “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence,” Dr. Anna Lembke says today’s superabundance of pleasurable stimuli makes us all vulnerable to overindulgence. But don’t lose hope. Anna, the medical director of addiction medicine at Stanford, says that by understanding how modern stimulants — from Instagram to masturbation machines — prey on our primitive brains, we can find ways to overcome the unhealthy dependencies that prevent us from leading balanced lives.
(This episode originally aired in December 2021.)
Host: Rufus Griscom
Guest: Anna Lembke
Executive Producer: Caleb Bissinger
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