Understanding & Treating Addiction | Dr. Anna Lembke

**Andrew Huberman** (0:00)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. Today, I have the pleasure of introducing Dr. Anna Lembke. Dr. Lembke is a psychiatrist and the chief of the addiction medicine dual diagnosis clinic at Stanford University School of Medicine. She's a psychiatrist who treats patients struggling with addiction. She has successfully treated patients dealing with drug addiction, alcohol addiction and behavioral addictions, such as gambling and sex addiction, as well as other types of addiction. In fact, during our discussion, I learned that there are a huge range of behaviors and substances to which people can become addicted to and that there is a common biological underpinning of all those addictions. I also learned that there is a common path to the treatment and recovery from essentially all addictions. Dr. Lembke explained that to me and explained how to think about and conceptualize our own addictions as well as the addictions of other people who are struggling to get treatment, move through treatment and stay sober from their addictions. In addition to treating patients, Dr. Lembke is an author and was featured in the 2020 Netflix documentary, The Social Dilemma. I'm excited to tell you that she has a new book coming out called Dopamine Nation Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. The book comes out August 24th and is an absolutely fascinating read into addiction and ways to treat various types of addiction. I've read the book cover to cover and all I'll tell you is that at the very first chapter and throughout you are going to be absolutely blown away. The stories about her patients are extremely engaging. It brings forward the real struggle of addiction and the incredible, I think it's fair to say heroic battles that people fight in order to get through addictions of various kinds. And all of that is woven through with story, with science and ways that make it very accessible to anyone, whether or not you have a science background or not. I can't recommend it highly enough. So again, the book is Dopamine Nation, Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. It comes out August 24th of this year, 2021 And you can pre-order that book by going to Amazon. We will provide a link to that in the show caption. Our first sponsor is Athletic Greens. Athletic Greens is an all-in-one vitamin mineral probiotic drink. I've been taking Athletic Greens since 2012 So I'm delighted that they're sponsoring the podcast. The reason I started taking Athletic Greens and the reason I still take Athletic Greens once or twice a day is that it helps me cover all of my basic nutritional needs. It makes up for any deficiencies that I might have. In addition, it has probiotics, which are vital for microbiome health. I've done a couple of episodes now on the so-called gut microbiome and the ways in which the microbiome interacts with your immune system, with your brain to regulate mood, and essentially with every biological system relevant to health throughout your brain and body. With Athletic Greens, I get the vitamins I need, the minerals I need and the probiotics to support my microbiome. If you'd like to try Athletic Greens, you can go to athleticgreens.com/huberman and claim a special offer. They'll give you five free travel packs plus a year supply of vitamin D3 K2. There are a ton of data now showing that vitamin D3 is essential for various aspects of our brain and body health, even if we're getting a lot of sunshine, many of us are still deficient in vitamin D3. And K2 is also important because it regulates things like cardiovascular function, calcium in the body and so on. Again, go to athleticgreens.com/huberman to claim the special offer of the five free travel packs and the year supply of vitamin D3 K2. Before we begin, I just want to mention that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, I'd like to thank the sponsors of today's podcast. And now for my discussion with Dr. Anna Lembke. All right, great to have you here.

**Anna Lembke** (4:10)
Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

**Andrew Huberman** (4:12)
Yeah, I have a lot of questions for you. I and many listeners of this podcast are obsessed with dopamine and what is dopamine? How does it work? We all hear that dopamine is this molecule associated with pleasure. I think the term dopamine hits, like I'm getting a dopamine hit from this, from Instagram or from likes or from praise or from whatever is now commonly heard.