Dr K (Bad Habit Addiction Doctor): The Truth About Dopamine, Addiction, Pornography & Masturbation

Alok Kanojia (0:00)

Anytime we watch pornography, masturbate and get sexual stimulation, or negative emotions like fear and anxiety, that part of your brain just gets suppressed. And this is where people get into a lot of trouble because suppressed emotions just grow over time. So the more guilty I become, the more of a loser I become. The harder it is to date, the worse I feel about myself, the more I fall into pornography. So this becomes a neurological cycle. But here's the real problem, all addictions are on the rise, and this is why.

SPEAKER_2 (0:25)

Dr. K is back, and the Harvard-trained psychiatrist is breaking down modern mental health, addiction, and the non-traditional ways to break away from their cycles.

Alok Kanojia (0:35)

There's lots of stuff happening around us that affects our lives that we have no control over. For example, because of the dating and mating crisis, we no longer have sexual connections, emotional connections, and there's a part of the brain that is getting starved because sex is so important. So there's something missing in our lives, and that's what is necessary for addiction to grow. And this is creating huge problems because it's sort of like, if I fill up your stomach with unhealthy food, you don't have any micronutrients, but you're not going to crave broccoli. So that's what's happening in our society. We're using porn as a substitute for relationships, and that's creating these really strong societal pressures, including a mass extinction event, because we've got 32-year-olds who do not know how they're going to ever have children. Men are getting really, really angry. There's like this incel movement, like women feel safer with a wild bear than they do with a man.

Steven Bartlett (1:22)

I mean, there's a lot that I'm thinking about, like what do you do about this?

Alok Kanojia (1:25)

The whole reason we get trapped in a cycle of addiction is because we have one solution to one problem. The moment that we create a second solution, a lot of things change and we'll get to that.

Steven Bartlett (1:35)

What about psychedelics?

Alok Kanojia (1:36)

So here's the real problem with psychedelics.

Steven Bartlett (1:45)

Dr. K.

Alok Kanojia (1:46)

Steven, what's up, dude?

Steven Bartlett (1:47)

We've obviously met several times before, but for those of you that might not be familiar, who are you and what do you do?

Alok Kanojia (1:54)

I'm a psychiatrist, and what I try to do is help people understand themselves, because one of the harsh lessons of the world that we live in today is there's lots of stuff happening around us that affects our lives that we have no control over. So if you look at fundamentally, there's war, there's inflation, there's a dating and mating crisis, like whatever, there's AI, there are all these like existential threats, but like you as a human can do nothing about any of that. All you can really control is like the bounds of what's in here, right? That's like literally the only thing that you have control over. And so one of the lessons I learned very early on, I spent years studying to become a monk, was that if I can learn how to master this, then the rest of the world becomes way more manageable at a minimum, and hopefully incredibly easy.

Steven Bartlett (2:48)

Is there a step one in understanding that this is all we can control and taking control of just this? Is there a first step that you went through?

Alok Kanojia (2:55)

Absolutely, yeah. The first step is trying to control things outside of me and failing miserably time after time after time.

Steven Bartlett (3:03)

Check.

Alok Kanojia (3:04)

Because I think it's wild, right? So I think it's like most people will try to get their boss to do something, try to get their boyfriend to do something, try to get their girlfriend. And forget about boyfriend, girlfriend. This person that I am texting, right? Try to get them to respond. And we spend so much of our energy trying to shape the world to fit us. And this has also been the direction of like technology too, where we don't want to change any more. We want the things around us to adapt to our environments, like air conditioning. I don't want to change my tolerance to heat. I want to change the entire space that I live in to be more comfortable for me. And this is creating huge problems because I want to change the environment to suit my preferences. You want to change the environment to suit your preferences. And then we have to be in the same room. So this is why we fight over where the climate control is.