goldfish wrote on 15 Jul 2025 19:11:
Hi. I don't know much about the workings of addiction and there is clearly something I am missing here, but I recently noticed people taking supplements of caffeine and of nicotine to help them get away from their addictions to coffee and smoking. I read the packet of the nicotine supplements and it claimed that it was a healthy way to get the nicotine without the "hit" thereby reducing the dependency, or something like that. If so, there should be a supplement for dopamine, or whatever other chemical the body gets when I fornicate, thereby reducing the need for the actual women in the story. Which bit am I missing?
Thanks.
Dopamine isn't exclusive to fornicating (great choice of word there). You get it when you eat highly palatable food (that's why it's hard to quit junk). It's your brain's way of saying, "This is good, I want more of this." It's the natural pleasure reward system.
Smokers get a dopamine hit when they smoke. Porners get a hit when they porn. Unlike nicotine, it's not something you can take; it's the brain's response to an experience it learned is pleasurable.
The path you're looking for is retraining your brain to recognize other (healthy) activities as pleasurable, and release dopamine for a good workout, learning, etc.
The challenge is that sexual activity is, by design, highly dopaminergic (it feels great with almost no effort), so it can be very hard to get your brain to climb down from that ladder and learn to enjoy other things.
Basheferspeed.
