David Eagleman Quotes

I can't get any satiation. My brain is wired in such a way that I - in my research, I probably have a lack of D1 and D2 receptor sites. These are dopamine receptor sites, and satiation is a process that involves a cascade.

The drug or cult has major if not exclusive sources of brain rewards.

You start doing the addictive behavior to feel good and then your receptors get overloaded with dopamine, then you stop doing the addictive thing and some of the receptors have shut down and you don't have enough dopamine to feel good. So then you feel bad and go back to the addictive behavior to get more dopamine. The strange thing is that it works with what we think of as uppers and downers and whatever you call gambling - sidewaysers.

When I talk about drugs and alcohol, I'm talking about sex addiction, gambling addiction, eating addiction, throwing-up addiction. I'm not talking about mental illness.

But when I don't smoke I scarcely feel as if I'm living. I don't feel as if I'm living unless I'm killing myself.

There are no outdoor games in China, or indeed games except in a gambling sense. Absolute dullness and dreariness seem to prevail everywhere. As these two demons drive the Caucasian to drink, so they drive the Chinese to his opium….The Japanese to a man fear opium as we fear the cobra or the rattlesnake, and they despise its victims.

The American who drinks wine is in danger of becoming the victim of drunkenness, licentiousness, and gambling.

Addiction is a neurological disease—a disease of the brain…. No one wakes up in the morning and says today ‘I want to become an addict.’

I think what television and video games do is reminiscent of drug addiction. There's a measure of reinforcement and a behavioural loop.

I don't believe in alcohol. It's a sort of a medicinal necessity for the human condition, none of that stuff. I'm not a gambling man.

No amount of therapy will take care of a chemical imbalance of the brain.

We have all learned that addiction and mental illnesses are illnesses, and I think a lot of people overlook that it is a chemical imbalance; it's like cancer, a sickness, and people need to see it as that.

For me, addiction exposes all of the brain mechanism under the influence of a profoundly distorted primary motivation. It's such a window into how we function as human beings. And the patient doesn't know that's happening! Doesn't believe that's happening! That's the fascinating part.

Though addiction is a disease - a brain disease that's often progressive - addicts who relapse are often blamed.

Addiction is a chronic disease of the brain and it's one that we have to treat the way we would any other chronic illness: with skill, with compassion and with urgency.

Singing and dancing have been shown to modulate brain chemistry, specifically levels of dopamine, the 'feel good' neurotransmitter.

I sometimes overeat or drink too much, but I don't eat chocolate, and I gave up smoking when I was 39.

Dopamine makes up less than one percent of the brain's neurotransmitters. It's a small portion. Dopamine is released when people are happy, angry, stressed. So it's really hard to call this specific neurotransmitter "the pleasure neurotransmitter."

There's no such thing as addiction, there's only things that you enjoy doing more than life.

If you're a drug addict, often you're stealing - I've gotten done for shoplifting a few times.

When we scratch the wound and give into our addictions we do not allow the wound to heal.

However, when given the chance, many people choose cocaine over love. I wouldn’t say that’s a bad choice. The endorphins released during infatuation are similar to heroin. OxyContin, “the cuddling hormone,” most often found in new mothers and newlyweds, is like ecstasy; every touch tingles. I think I read that somewhere. Love exists in powder. Love exists in pills. We are all addicts.

I watch a lot of TV, I drink a lot of coffee, but you know what's really addictive? Heroin.

Drugs are merely the most obvious form of addiction in our society. Drug addiction is one of the things that undermines traditional values.

If you're addicted to gambling, you know where to go to gamble. So, if you have a condition where you're addicted to sex, you know where other that are looking for the same thing are going.