Garrett Irwin’s Reviews > Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence > Status Update

2.) Chronological Self-Binding
The act of trying to impose time limits. I will only smoke once, then only on weekends, then only on days I have classes, then only on days I don’t have exams, then only before 9am. Once we partake in our drug of choice, we aren’t ruled by time, but by our pleasure pain balance.
-less work means more leisure activity time

3 Types of Self Binding
1.) Physical Self- Binding- Create a physical barrier for drug of use. Ex, lockbox for pain pills, locked cabinets for alcohol, get rid of Kindle and made it to where you had to go to bookstore/library

D- Date
O- Objectives
P- Problems
A- Abstinence
M- Mindfulness
I- Insight
N- Next Steps
E- Experiment

Chapter 2 (Cont.)
- 34% of Americans feel pain often/very often, the most of any country.
Stimulants doubled in children from 2006-2016, nearly 2/3 of American children were giving medicine for ADD symptoms.
Adults are taking more opioids, which have killed more than guns/cars in the year 2012.
“The reason we’re all miserable may be because we are working so hard to avoid being miserable.”

Chapter 2 (Cont.)
- Are we striving too much for a pain free world? Kids currently receive stars every week in grade school, but then become anxious and depressed when getting into the real world. Should we allow kids to feel some pain and go through some difficulty in safe ways? Doctors in 1900s believed some levels of pain were beneficial.
- 50% increase in new depression cases from 1990-2017

Chapter 2
- David Story, began taking adderal and anxiety medicine. Ends up getting addicted and taking 3 types of medications every single day. Becomes suicidal, wife gets pregnant and he realizes he needs change. Takes two weeks in a psych ward and turns around

Jacob is caught by wife who leaves him. As other people control the electricity in chat rooms. “It is never as good as I Imagine. The reality is always less. I tell myself never again and destroy my machine. But at 4am the next morning I am rebuilding it. I want to stop. I want to. I don’t want to die an addict.”

Detective story about older brother seeing Japenese cartoon sex drawings and doing them on younger brother.
- “The internet promotes compulsive overconsumption not merely by providing increased access to drugs old and new, but also by suggesting behaviors that otherwise may never have occurred to us”

Chapter 1 (Cont.)
- Patient Chi was addicted to the process of ordering and receiving items online. Amazon worsened it, leading to tens of thousands of dollars in debt and returning cheap items the second he received them, because he didn’t even care what he bought
-Jacob’s story. Wife dies, he remarries and moves to Seattle. Uses electricity to pleasure himself and post videos online of masturbation

Chapter 1 (Cont.)
An attempt to find less addictive opioid painkillers to replace morphine, chemists found a new compound, Heroin. Named after the German word for courageous, Heroisch, turned out to be 2-5x more potent than morphine.
-Today’s cannabis is 5-10x more potent than the 1960s version, and our food has become filled with artificial flavors.
-Patient Max used timeline to explain drug use. 14 types