The biology of desire

What Hacker News says

1. slothtropSep 2024
   Everything we do impacts brain chemistry. By extension, non-pharmaceutical interventions can change brain chemistry. The mistake is in the notion that said chemistry is invariably statically a-priori "wrong" in every single case people get addicted or depressed (it becomes as such), and acting as though addiction in itself is only relegated to the realm of the abnormal, that "normal" human beings can't be addicted.

   And yes, notwithstanding that there are cases where people are, owing to genetics, more susceptible to x/y/z, or where interventions can be insufficient. But that's the first line of defense, and should be.

   There's a lot of anecdotes surrounding this but a popular one is rate of morphine abuse during and after the Vietnam war. The rates plummeted.

   A really good book on the topic of addiction is the Biology of Desire by Marc Lewis.

   I would also caution against any conflation of environmental and behavioral intervention as "willpower". These are not the same things (you didn't say they are, but you didn't give any credence to intervention). Willpower may be highly overrated, but ultimately, you can't "force" someone to rehabilitate in any way shape or form. They have to want to, they have to make the choice, and commit. As for therapy/rehab, some of these have been thoroughly studied. Interventions help (and therapy such as CBT or 3rd-wave CBT), considerably.

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2. sphJul 2023
   > Choosing to enjoy life today instead of waiting for tomorrow for that enjoyment isn't a failure, it's a choice.

   This conveniently papers over a critical mechanism of how biological brains operate: we do not choose 99% of our actions. It would be extremely inefficient and energy-consuming.

   99% of our life we are on autopilot, driven by our habits engaged as response to sensory and internal stimuli.

   Habits explain neatly concepts like addiction, while the choice story applied to concepts like addiction or self-destructive acts is reductive at best, and catastrophic on a societal level. Yet the majority of people, those that have been lucky not to have yet felt the grip of addiction, tend to have this opinion that addicts are just weak-willed idiots. This is not referred to you in particular, I am generalising based on common and frustrating opinions about addiction and recovery by well-meaning, but ignorant people.

   Functionally and neurologically, there is no difference between a heroin addict and someone that has been going on a run every day for a decade. It's just that their autopilots have been trained to prefer a different action in response to similar stimuli, and brains respond and adapt much more readily to super-stimuli found in drugs and other destructive habits, than with natural and healthy "highs".

   I recommend the book "The Biology of Desire" by Marc Lewis, an ex cocaine addict turned neuroscientist.

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3. haswellJul 2023
   > 99% of our life we are on autopilot, driven by our habits engaged as response to sensory and internal stimuli.

   This is such a critical insight, and over the years it was eye opening to realize gradually how much I judged myself for factors that I clearly cannot control. Which is not to say that I’m helpless, but more interested now in focusing on systemic factors that directly influence automatic behaviors.

   Judgement is such a major cultural response to addiction, and also happens to be one of the primary impulses that feeds it. Addicts often turn to their drug of choice to feel relief from the shame…of their addiction to their drug of choice.

   > I recommend the book "The Biology of Desire" by Marc Lewis, an ex cocaine addict turned neuroscientist.

   Adding this to my reading list. In a similar category, Anna Lembke is a psychiatrist and addiction specialist who wrote a book titled “Dopamine Nation” that I found worth reading.

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4. benjamaanApr 2022
   For context I studied mechanical engineering and have been a founding employee at two successful tech startups one mobile payments another a multinational dev recruitment marketplace - and a few others with mediocre success or exits over the last eleven years.

   I’m currently on a career break and travelling in South America. It’s been worrying to step away from my career and out that gap in my cv but it’s something I did think about for pretty much all 11 years I was working and so I’m not going to look back when I’m 80 and wonder what if. And it’s been deeply restful and helped me to build confidence in who I am as a person, without hiding behind a job title.

   Best investment I made was quitting drinking and drugs and getting an addictions counselor. I had taken myself to 0 financially and health wise. Doing the AA program and exploring that community helped me immensely- I love communities and I can take from programs what I need and leave the rest. Life changing book in this space to grok addiction IMO is The Biology of Desire. Not just opinions, actual neuroscience and field investigation combined from a PhD.

   6 years later I have 3-4 years of runway and possible 20+ years runway in equity (at current valuations). I’m pretty fit and hike, surf and rock climb regularly. I also have amazing friendships and family relationships that I’m deeply grateful for.

   Another great investment was getting a tennis coach who had broken tennis down into a cheat code of 7 rules after watching 1000s of hours of pros playing. I learned so much from his deep work making a simple “tennis principles for noobs” class. Just 7 lessons.

   I have done therapy for two years recently which has felt more advanced and vague. In some areas of my life I’ve had fundamental changes in thinking that my therapist has really helped me to persevere with, without which I just wouldn’t have had the energy to keep working on. I’m still waiting to see how impactful it is - but it’s been quite a lot harder to navigate than quitting drugs because I don’t have a clear problem other than I am looking for a new direction in life.

   I’ve read a ton of self help books and I’ve gleaned many principles to carry away with me. I only really return to a few of them: specifically Untethered Soul, The Courage to be Disliked and The Courage to be Happy - as does a close friend who is en route to billionaire.

   Finally the best self improvement you can do is to spend time travelling, working with, socializing with or playing games with smart and driven people who are also kind, mindful. We learn fastest through experience and mirroring others and there’s no substitute from running alongside a master in something else - and sharing your experience together.

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5. yositoMar 2022
   Not the commenter you were replying to, but Biology of Desire by Marc Lewis was a good one. There was also a lot of good info in The Sober Truth by Lance Dodes, but it's more of a rebuttal against 12 step programs.
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6. mbrockJan 2022
   I like the book “The Biology of Desire” on addiction. It views addiction as an instance of the same kind of desire-driven habit-forming learning that’s the core of our motivational system. And so quitting an addiction is not exactly just quitting something bad. It’s more like a continuation of one’s general lifelong process of learning. This is a kinder framing and it’s thoroughly neuroscientific. And it reveals that addictions are actually very clever behaviors in some ways—so we can even learn from them as we try to develop healthier habits to replace the ones that harm us. It’s also a narrative perspective that respects the subject’s life story. The addiction was a part in my troubled human journey. And now my narrative needs to find a new charge, a new quest, a new act. Maybe I was drawn into addiction in part because my life story didn’t make sense, I felt disconnected from past and scared of the future, etc. Addictions also form around the need for connection: it’s not just the beer, it’s the pub. So I have to find other social contexts that center around something that doesn’t harm me.
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