Dr. Anna Lembke: The Opioid Epidemic and How People Get Addicted to Pain

Smarter Not Harder

In this episode of the Smarter Not Harder podcast, host Dr. Ted Achacoso is joined by Dr. Anna Lembke who educates us on the opioid epidemic and answered the question: how can a person get addicted to pain? Doctor Anna Lembke is a professor and the medical director of Addiction Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine, and a New York Times Best Selling author. She received her undergraduate degree in humanities from Yale University and her medical degree from Stanford University. Dr. Lembke is a diplomat for both the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, and the American Board of Addiction Medicine. She is also a specialist in the opioid epidemic of the United States. She appeared in the 2020 subcommittee The Social Dilemma. Her works include “How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop,” and the New York Times bestseller “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence” which was released in August 2021. What we discuss: 00:00:40 - About Dr. Anna Lembke 00:01:45 - Uncovering co-occurring addictions alongside subsctance abbuse 00:03:46 - Uncovering substance addictions with behavioral-addicted patients 00:04:54 - Is it true that people have addictive personalities? 00:08:02 - Decreasing the amount of the addictive substance over time vs. total abstinence immediately 00:13:16 - Statistics on substance addiction 00:18:14 - How dopamine plays into addiction 00:22:23 - The journey to abuse 00:30:08 - How does one get addicted to pain? 00:39:28 - What happens to dopamine once abstinent 00:42:55 - How does opiate induced hyperalgesia happen? 00:46:25 - How does mindfulness help with addiction? 00:52:02 - Is romantic love an addiction? 00:53:48 - Should hard and sudden heartbreak be treated with drugs from sudden dopamine drops? 00:57:42 - Can psychedelics lead to addiction? Can it help in mitigating addiction? 01:00:29 - Smarter not harder advice to parents on how their children can navigate the dopamine nation Find more from Smarter Not Harder: Website: https://troscriptions.com/blogs/podcast | https://homehope.org Instagram: @troscriptions | @homehopeorg Find out more about Dr. Anna Lembke: Website: https://www.annalembke.com/ Dopamine Nation: https://www.annalembke.com/dopamine-nation Publications: https://www.annalembke.com/selected-publications Get 10% Off Your Purchase of Metabolomics Module by using PODCAST10 at https://www.homehope.org Get 10% Off your Troscriptions purchase by using POD10 at https://www.troscriptions.com Get daily content from the hosts of Smarter Not Harder by following @troscriptions on Instagram.