Most of us think of dopamine as the pleasure hormone, but in reality, it’s the habit hormone. The science is complicated, but the explanation is not. Essentially dopamine is a neurotransmitter that sends messages between cells. Dopamine is present in all animals and is associated with rewards.
Dopamine is responsible for learning — sometimes referred to as rewards-based learning, although that is somewhat redundant as all learning is based in “rewards” (results). The reward can bring pleasure (positive reinforcement — as in taking a bite of chocolate) or avoid pain (negative reinforcement — as in pulling your hand away from a hot stove).
If you’re familiar with Pavlov’s Dogs, his experiments demonstrated positive reinforcement with classical conditioning. Although it’s one of my favorite things to do in my spare time, I don’t want to go too far down the scientific rabbit hole, so I’ll try to keep it very simple here.
Dopamine is the key ingredient to both classical and operant conditioning. Dopamine is released any time our body interacts in any way with a stimulus — the more novel (or the more dangerous) the stimulus, the bigger the “hit”. First kiss? Huge dopamine hit. Subsequent kisses? Less dopamine and more oxytocin. First time you touch a hot stove? Huge dopamine hit. Second time you touch a hot stove? Huge dopamine hit. Third time you touch a hot stove? Huge dopamine hit. Your brain is telling you “stop touching that hot stove!”
Dopamine is why people self-harm (dopamine hit with physical pain) and dopamine is why we become addicted (to escape emotional pain).
Dopamine is part of the cocktail that gets released into our bloodstream both with joy and with the fight/flight response of survival. Dopamine is partly why passionate sex is so wonderful, and it’s also partly why a person can walk a mile on a broken leg right after a trauma.
The role of the amygdala in response to trauma helps explain why brain circuitry sometimes triggers a wanting for what hurts. “The addictive-type desire was equally strong, whether the target was liked or disliked, the researchers found.”
Dopamine is highly responsible for addiction because it exists to get you to repeat (or avoid) certain behaviors. Dopamine is responsible for habit formation, and addiction is nothing more than un unhealthy habit. Unhealthy habits (repeated behavior despite adverse consequences) are trauma-responses.
Not all people with complex-trauma become addicted, but all addictions are the result of complex-trauma.
Inexplicably, this is a controversial concept in mental health circles, and I’m not sure why. I’m not here to debate it — that’s for a different article — so I will try to make my explanation brief, which, as anyone who has read my pieces knows, is a challenge for me. ;)
“Over-explaining can be a trauma response to having your truth ignored or being gaslit in childhood. After years of being silenced you are trying your hardest to be heard.” — Nadia Addesi @evolveandbloom
Over-explaining and over-thinking are my own addictions (trauma-responses). My brain gets a hit of dopamine every time I solve a problem — to the point that I become obsessed with finding the “right” answer. Obsession gives my brain something to do and provides me with a false sense of security.
My complex trauma lies in growing up as The Mistake (aka scapegoat) in a seemingly “great”, but terribly unsafe, family controlled by a Charming Bully (aka covert narcissist). I didn’t discover my complex-PTSD until a breakdown at 55 led to a (mis) diagnosis of bipolar disorder — r/o borderline personality disorder.
In my own recovery from complex-trauma, I’ve come to understand trauma very differently.
“Trauma can also arise in our psyches, not so much from an event, but through erosion; the slow wearing away of the sense of trust, security and worth through prolonged exposure to neglect, abandonment or shaming. This is what is called Developmental Trauma or what I call, Slow Trauma.” — Francis Weller
Trauma does not have to be that bad to be THAT BAD, especially when it is the slow drip drip of subtle emotional neglect in childhood.
We drink, smoke, use our cellphones, take risks, kiss, solve puzzles, perform in public… because all those behaviors give us an even bigger hit of dopamine than simply tying our shoes (which was also dopamine driven when we first learned how to do it). We form both healthy and unhealthy habits thanks to dopamine. In fact, many healthy habits (exercise) can become unhealthy (obsession with exercise) if we are doing them for the wrong reasons.
The only way a habit becomes unhealthy is if we are doing it to escape (avoid) something. What are we trying to escape with our unhealthy habits? Pain. Always pain.
All addictions are an attempt to escape pain. All addictions are unhealthy trauma-responses.
The only way to change an unhealthy trauma response is to address the trauma underlying the response.
Process the trauma > heal the pain > break the habit > recover from the addiction.
It really is that simple. Getting people to understand it is the complicated part.
More reading on addiction and trauma:
