Rethinking Pain and Pleasure in an Age of Excess
A Review of Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence by Anna Lembke
As a philosophical counselor, I approach Dopamine Nation not merely as a clinical text about addiction, but as a diagnostic mirror held up to the moral and existential condition of late-modern life.
In my practice, I repeatedly encounter individuals who are not “ill” in the medical sense, yet who suffer from a diffuse restlessness, loss of meaning, and an inability to tolerate discomfort or silence.
Their struggles are rarely about substances alone; they are about how to live well in a world of excess.
