E76: Learning the Truth About Your Drinking with Dr. Anna Lembke, Author of Dopamine Nation

Gill welcomes Dr. Anna Lembke to the podcast. Dr. Lembke is a professor of psychiatry at Stanford University School of Medicine and chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic. Her new book, Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence (Dutton/Penguin Random House, August 2021), an instant New York Times bestseller, explores how to moderate compulsive overconsumption in a dopamine-overloaded world.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• How whatever perceived positives alcohol is bringing to your life (like less anxiety) with repeated use, alcohol causes or worsens the very thing you are trying to improve
• Why alcohol isn't actually your best friend or the only thing that is helping you 
• Why a 7-14 day break isn't long enough to see the truth about your drinking
• How taking 30 days off can significantly improve your mental health for the majority of people
• Why doctors are hesitant to ask about alcohol and drug use
• Ways to evaluate the amount of alcohol you're consuming
• How long does it take to restore balance in the brain 
• How to set expectations in sobriety 
• Sobriety obsession: can we get addicted to sobriety?

In 2016, she published Drug Dealer, MD – How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016), which was highlighted in the New York Times as one of the top five books to read to understand the opioid epidemic (Zuger, 2018). Dr. Lembke appeared on the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, an unvarnished look at the impact of social media on our lives.

Get your copy of Dopamine Nation here

What to listen to next:

E62: Dopamine and Addiction

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Disclaimer: all of the information described in this podcast is my interpretation of the research combined with my opinion. This is not medical advice.

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