Drowning in dopamine

How "coffee" and Alana Haim are the same to my brain

Illustration by Stephanie Davidson, @asiwillit

The range of drinks that we are now allowed to call “coffee” is truly stunning. A cup of oat milk with ice + vanilla flavored sugar syrup with a shot of espresso: “coffee.” A cup of whole milk with a shot of espresso + French toast flavored syrup + yellow food coloring: “coffee.” A cup of ice with coconut milk + coffee-flavored syrup + whipped cream on top with a drizzle of caramel: “coffee.” Starbucks has performed an incredible sleight of hand by enabling us to say, “I’m going to buy a coffee,” and to have that phrase include such drinks.

I’ve been thinking about this recently because, in the context of my own austere Hashimoto’s diet (no gluten, no dairy, minimal added sugar), I still allow myself the odd “coffee” (decaf, oat milk, sugar-free sweetener, if I’m feeling splurgy). If I’m on a trip or out on a walk on a sunny day, a “coffee” in hand makes the whole thing feel more fancy-fun. 

But it is not really coffee in my hand, and what I am getting is not anything that coffee is meant to offer: the caffeine, which is removed, or the actual flavor of coffee, which is buried beneath the oat milk and sugar-free vanilla syrup. So really what I’m buying is a sweet taste and the feeling of holding a coffee cup.

But what I’m really really buying is a feeling. And the mechanics of that feeling are fascinating: reading Dr. Anna Lembke’s book, Dopamine Nation, helped me see the “coffee” phenomenon in a new way. What I am really really really buying with this so-called “coffee” is a hit of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that provides a feeling of reward or pleasure.

I have long heard that our food is designed to be addictive or websites are designed to be addictive, and yadda yadda, but it was kind of a vague theoretical idea. Learning from Lembke about the primary biological mechanism for this addiction brought it home for me. When we are in the process of desiring and attaining, the brain releases two hits of dopamine, one right before we get the thing we want, and one right when we get it. The dopamine release before we get our object of desire causes that wonderful anticipatory feeling when you sit down in front of Netflix with a fresh bowl of buttered popcorn. The fading of this first dopamine gives you the incentive to get the thing you want—to press play and dig into the bowl. Those first moments of enjoyment are then accompanied by a second release of dopamine, the reward for getting what you desired.

Then the brain corrects. Before returning to equilibrium, dopamine levels in the brain sink below our brain’s neutral set point, inducing the sense of let down that we feel, like when we remember that the popcorn is going to run out and feel pre-disappointed. From here, we can re-up on our desire—start another show, get another bowl of popcorn—but we will require more than before in order to induce the same pleasure state. As we keep getting the thing we want, the brain continues to become desensitized, and we continue needing more of the pleasurable stimulus to feel satisfied.

Even more profound is this: as the brain becomes desensitized to the pleasurable stimulus, the dip of sadness after the pleasure becomes larger. It’s a double whammy: as we get more of what we want, the pleasure declines and the pain of losing it grows.

Now place this neural mechanism in our modern world. Lembke lays out the ways in which our lives have become jam-packed with opportunities for dopamine, far more opportunities than we have ever had before: from foods stuffed with sugars and fats to social media to easily accessible pornography to internet shopping to a range of available drugs. Any given day we regularly obtain dozens of email-induced dopamine hits (is there a new email in my inbox? DOPAMINE. There is! DOPAMINE). It is not too difficult to see how we might be drowning in dopamine and the subsequent withdrawal, like, as Dr. Tom Finucane puts it, “cacti in the rainforest.”

My Alana Haim Dopamine Experience

The other evening I snuggled up in my favorite green blanket and watched Licorice Pizza, the offbeat, meandering, Oscar-nominated film debut for singer Alana Haim. The movie was bizarre and aimless and weirdly compelling, with a bunch of random cameos. After watching it, I was curious about how singer Alana Haim had gotten around to acting in this Oscar-worthy film, so I Googled it, and before long I was on Ms. Alana’s Instagram.

I do not have Instagram, I got off of it during my first infertility journey—there were far, far too many babies there for my sanity at the time. Maybe my usual disconnection heightens my experience of the thing, from a dopamine perspective. Whatever the case, as soon as my eyes hit those neat squares of color I was captivated. There was Alana in a red and maroon striped dress with a big cutout at the thigh. There was Alana attending the BAFTAs in a custom foam green gown by Louis Vuitton with a low V-neck and a high slit and two massive, glittering rings. There was Alana drinking champaign with her sister on her birthday, there was Alana in a black power suit shot from below to look like a boss, there was Alana in maroon cashmere on the cover of Bizarre, there was Alana in a white halter top and tights shot for Vanity Fair, and then I’m at the end of her Instagram. Lucky for me, the account appears to have started in 2021 and she’s not very active. Alana Haim is known and loved for being super “real,” so basically I was getting the diluted baby version of the standard celebrity Instagram experience. Thank goodness, otherwise I might still be back on the couch scrolling.

The feeling I had looking at this woman in each of these beautiful outfits is, I guess, a really really strong good feeling. That is kind of weird, if you think about it—I wouldn’t say that the beauty in those photos is greater than other beauty I see every day. I think the root of the good feelings is probably more about imagining myself in those dresses, or at those awards shows, or being rich and famous like Alana. In any case, there is definitely dopamine involved. Once I started, I needed more, more, more photos of Alana in dresses. I’ll tell you this: my husband tried to speak to me while I was scrolling and I did not hear him nor did I have any desire to hear him.

Then, having run out of photos of Alana, I spent the next hour until bed feeling genuinely shitty. It was like for five minutes my life was glittering and wonderful, and then for the following hour it was dark and worthless. For those few minutes I was able to enjoy some portion of the pleasure of being an international pop star who also attends the Oscars in custom gowns and, apparently, is basically always dressing up for parties. And then I was just me again, but less than before, much more aware of my profound lack of formalwear.

This moment was really obvious to me, since I had just read the book on dopamine and I don’t usually go on Instagram, but it shines a light on all the less obvious ways I recreate this experience every day: checking email, checking Substack statistics, buying super sweet coffees that technically lack sugar, and so on.

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The reason to avoid constant dopamine release, according to Lembke, is that it diminishes our ability to experience pleasure in other parts of our lives. As a psyciatrist who treats addiction, she see this in her patients: people who are addicted to drugs, alcohol, sex or anything else tend to be unable to find pleasure elsewhere, their brain’s reward systems being so worn out. By buying a sugary, milky coffee and scrolling on instagram, I too am hindering myself in the same way, training my brain to need such pleasures in order to experience pleasure. This, to me, gets at the core of the problem with phone checking and sugar—my two big ones—and makes me consider my options for “quitting” with new urgency.

If you are interested in tactics for this, I do recommend the book: Dopamine Nation, Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence. What a crazy state of affairs: living in this world of plenty requires us to actively abstain in order to feel pleasure.

—Rae