Welcome to the Relationship Revival Podcast, your go to show for expert advice and guidance on relationships, marriage, divorce and dating. I'm Nicola Beer and for over 20 years I've helped thousands of individuals and couples worldwide transform their relationships and create lasting change through one to one online sessions and healing retreats in Asia.
Whether you're trying to save your marriage, figure out if you're in the right relationship, find the courage to walk away from something that no longer serves you, or break free from unhealthy relationship patterns once and for all. You're in the right place. This podcast is about sharing the tips, tools and strategies that have transformed countless lives. You'll get practical advice and insights that you can start using right away to create the love and happiness that you deserve.
And if you're looking for more support and valuable free resources to heal, grow and strengthen your relationships, then head over to nicolabeer.com and click on the Gift page to explore what's waiting for you there. Welcome. I'm so glad you pressed play today. Whether you're a regular listener or joining me for the first time. Thank you for being here. Today's episode is a deeply personal one. We're going to be talking about dopamine addiction.
Not just what it is or how it hijacks our moods and motivation, but how it impacts our ability to connect in relationship, how it affects emotional availability, and how it shapes the way we show up for ourselves and those that we love. Because the truth is, when we're addicted to high dopamine habits, alcohol, social media, overworking, even sugar, we often stop being emotionally present. And when that happens, our relationships suffer. For a long time. I used alcohol to escape my pain.
Instead of allowing myself to feel tired, stressed and emotionally flat, I drink my evenings away. My body and brain became so dependent on that artificial dopamine spike that without it, life just felt hollow. And it didn't stop with alcohol. I could spend hours online shopping, looking for something, anything to lift me up. I didn't realize I was self medicating the dopamine. I just thought I was tired, wired or doing what everyone else does to unwind. I know now that I wasn't broken.
I was just caught in a cycle that almost all of us are conditioned into chasing relief instead of being with what is. So if you've ever felt that way too, trapped in habits that numb, drain or disconnect you, you're not alone and you're not weak. You're responding to a system that teaches us to cope by consuming to escape instead of Feel and to disconnect rather than face what hurts.
In today's episode, I'll be breaking down how dopamine works in the brain and why so many of us feel addicted and how these habits affect our ability to be emotionally available and truly present in our relationship. And most importantly, I'll guide you through four powerful steps to begin healing dopamine addiction on a physical, emotional and mental level.
These are the same steps I walk my clients through, whether they're healing from over drinking, workaholism, emotional eating, overthinking or disconnection in their marriage. And if someone you care about is struggling with addiction, emotional numbness, or relationship breakdowns, please feel free to share this episode with them. It might be just the support they need right now to take that first step towards healing. So let's begin.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter, basically a chemical messenger in the brain that plays a major role in how we experience motivation, reward and desire. It's often called the brain's feel good chemical, but that label is a little misleading. Dopamine doesn't just make you feel good, it's the anticipation of feeling good. It's what drives you to want something, to chase after a goal, to pursue a reward. It's the promise of pleasure, not necessarily the pleasure of itself.
And here's where things get tricky. When your brain receives high levels of dopamine artificially from things like sugar scrolling gambling, cannabis, porn, alcohol, or compulsive shopping, it starts to protect itself from being overstimulated. It does this by reducing the number of dopamine receptors, like turning down the volume on your pleasure system and producing less dopamine. Naturally, this process is called dopamine downregulation.
Dr. Anna Lembeck, author of Dopamine Nation, offers a powerful metaphor to explain what's happening. She says to imagine a weighing scale. On one side we have pleasure, on the other, pain. The brain is always trying to keep these two in balance, what scientists call homeostatus.
But when we tip the scale too far forward towards pleasure binging on high dopamine activities, the brain doesn't just gently reset it, it presses down harder on the pain side to restore balance and often over corrects it. So what does that look like in everyday life? It means that after a short burst of pleasure, you experience a crash, a dip in mood, energy and overall satisfaction. And that's what's known as a dopamine deficit state.
So now you're not just back to the baseline, you're lower than when you were started. And what do most people do to feel better? They go back to the same dopamine source. Another drink, another scroll, another bite, another hit. The more we chase the highs, the more the deeper our lows feel. And so begins the cycle. Over time, this process numbs our ability to enjoy life's simpler pleasures. Like a walk in nature, a good meal, a meaningful conversation, or just being still.
Everything starts to feel flat, boring or emotionally muted. You might notice that you need more and more stimulation to just feel okay. Whether it's another glass of wine, another online purchase, or another dopamine loaded distraction. As Socrates said over 2,000 years ago, if you pursue pleasure, you will reap pain. And now the neuroscience is proving that he was absolutely right. It's kind of crazy when you think about it.
The more wealth, freedom and technological progress we make, the more depressed, stressed and anxious we seem to become. Globally, rates of depression and anxiety are skyrocketing. Suicide rates in some countries are an all time high. Antidepressant use has doubled, even tripled in just a few decades. At the same time, more people are dying from modifiable behaviors than anything else. By modifiable, I mean behaviours that can be changed, yet we don't.
In a way, it means that we're slowly killing ourselves through the habits that we could shift. Things like poor diet, obesity, smoking, alcohol use, physical inactivity, overworking and addiction. These aren't random illnesses. They're often the result of coping mechanisms we've developed to manage life patterns we fall into because we're trying to survive the noise, the pressure, the constant doing. Which brings me to a deeper question.
What if we're not facing a mental health crisis, but a dopamine crisis? We've become so uncomfortable with simply feeling that we now medicate ourselves out of being human. When we're tired, we reach for caffeine, Red Bull or stimulants just to keep going. When we can't sleep, we turn to alcohol or pills to shut our minds off. When we're sad, anxious, bored or uncertain, we reach out for our phone, snacks, online shopping, a glass of wine, or anything that helps us to avoid what we're feeling.
We no longer allow the natural highs and lows of life to just move through us. Instead, we try to flatten and regulate them through artificial means. And it's making us mentally, emotional, emotionally and physically sick. The problem is, stuffing down our pain doesn't heal it. In fact, when we depress our emotions, we feel depressed and often get unwell. Avoiding pain only magnifies it over time.
And blaming others for our pain or the world might offer temporary relief, but it traps us in a story that keeps us stuck. Dopamine in itself isn't the enemy. It's essential for motivation, joy, and experiencing life's rewards. The real issue here lies in how we're getting our dopamine and how often we're spiking it through unnatural high intensity sources. These are the quick fixes that give us a surge of pleasure, followed by a crash that leaves us more depleted than before.
To really understand how dopamine works and how it gets dysregulated, it helps to compare the different ways we spike it, some naturally and some artificially. Let's start with the more intense and natural sources of dopamine. Eating something sweet like two chocolate bars can increase your dopamine levels by up to 50% above normal baseline. Nicotine takes it even further, giving you a 150% increase. Alcohol typically spikes dopamine around 200%.
But if you're binge drinking, say six to eight drinks in one session, that spike can jump even higher, approaching the 300% mark, which is similar to the effects of cocaine. Cocaine itself causes about a 300% spike, while methamphetamine sends dopamine levels soaring, up to 1,000%. Then there's social media scrolling, especially platforms like TikTok and Instagram or online dating sites, which give you small, fast micro spikes.
They may not seem intense individually, but because they repeat rapidly, they keep your brain hooked in a loop, constantly chasing the next hit. Now, let's compare that to more balanced natural dopamine boosters. 30 minutes of moderate exercise gives you about a 50% increase in dopamine, similar to chocolate, but without the crash.
Hugging someone, laughing with a friend, or having a meaningful connection creates a small but steady rise in dopamine that's deeply regulating for your nervous system. Meditation, nature walks, or cold exposure, like ice baths, also help your brain regulate dopamine in a more natural, long lasting and balanced way. And then there's sex. But here's an important distinction. Sex on its own doesn't necessarily cause a dopamine spike. It's the orgasm that triggers the release.
When the orgasm happens, dopamine levels can rise by about 100% above baseline. So if sex doesn't include orgasm, that spike often isn't there. That said, when orgasm is part of a healthy, emotionally connected relationship, it becomes a powerful and natural way to experience pleasure, deepen intimacy, and support the nervous system regulation. It's not just a release. It can help a couple feel bonded, seen and closer.
Unlike artificial dopamine spikes that crash us afterwards, this kind of pleasure tends to nourish us and sustain emotional closeness rather than deplete us. You see the difference? The more unnaturally high the spike, the more intense the crash. These intense sources of dopamine, sugar, alcohol, chocolate, cannabis, pornography, online shopping, gambling, even overworking and over exercising have a common thread. They offer us instant escape.
Escape from boredom, from sadness, from loneliness, and from emotional pain and self doubt. But the cost is steep and often invisible at first. Let's take social media for example. It's designed to keep you addicted. Every like every notification, every, every video that auto plays, that's dopamine. But the more we scroll, the more emotionally empty we feel. It's not just a time waster, it's a brain rewirer.
It chips away at your self worth, your attention span and your ability to feel joy from life's simpler, slower pleasures. And the danger runs deeper than we realize. Social media promotes a false self, a carefully created version of us that's polished and filtered for the world. And over time, the disconnection between who we really are and who we present ourselves to be can lead to depersonalization, numbness, anxiety and depression. And this is just one form of dopamine addiction.
It's one that many people dismiss as harmless. Yet it's actually one of the most widespread and socially accepted ways we numb ourselves today. And it's not the only one. Some of the most common coping habits people rely on might seem helpful or harmless at first, but over time, they can quietly spiral into patterns that do more harm than good.
I've seen this play out time and time again in my work, so let's take a look at some real life examples of dopamine driven behaviors like alcohol, cannabis overworking and even over exercising. And how that once felt lifeline can over time become the very thing that can drag us down. I've worked with many people who became dependent on substances or behaviors that initially helped them cope, but eventually became the very thing causing their distress.
One client used cannabis to manage her anxiety. At first it gave her some relief and helped her feel calm. But over time, she needed it just to feel normal in the mornings. Without it, her anxiety became overwhelming. She felt that she couldn't face the day unless she smoked. So we agreed that she would take a break, just one month to see what happened to her anxiety. And if it was still there, we could explore other solutions. But something remarkable happened.
Within a few weeks, her anxiety disappeared completely. What she once relied on to calm her nerves turned out to be the very thing keeping the anxiety alive. The weed that once helped her to cope was in fact perpetuating the very symptom that she was trying to escape. Another man I helped turned to alcohol. He was drinking every night to wind down after work. He believed it helped him sleep and relax so he could work hard the next day. And it did. Until it didn't.
After a while, he began waking up groggy, foggy, and increasingly stressed. His energy permitted, his mood became unpredictable. He was convinced that it wasn't the alcohol giving him stress, it was outside factors. But he did agree to pause the alcohol and just see what happened. After 20 days, he was shocked at how much better he felt. Clear headed, lighter, and far more emotionally balanced. And he's not alone. Research backs this up.
Dr. Mark Sugart, a professor of experimental psychology at the University of California, studied a group of men who were drinking heavily and who also met the criteria for major depressive disorder. After just one month in hospital, without any depression treatment, just abstaining from alcohol, 80% of them no longer qualified as clinically depressed. This shows us that in many cases, what looks like mental health issue might actually be the result of substance use itself.
The alcohol or cannabis we think is helping us cope might actually be the very thing keeping the anxiety or depression going. That's because repeated use leads to dopamine spikes, followed by crashes, creating a kind of chemical deficit in the brain that can mimic or worsen symptoms like low mood, anxiety and emotional instability. Even exercise, something typically seen as healthy, can become addictive.
I've supported high performers who were working out for hours a day, pushing themselves to the extreme in the name of health and discipline. But the result wasn't strength, it was burnout. Their moods dropped, their motivation flatlined, and they began to feel emotionally numb. Overtraining spikes dopamine too, and the crashes are just as real. What starts as a coping mechanism, a way to soothe, distract, or survive quietly become the root of emotional imbalance.
And that's the tricky thing about dopamine. It lures us in with the relief at the start. But if the source is artificial or gives too high of a spike, then that relief comes at cost. The reason I'm bringing all of this into a relationship podcast is because there's a darker side to the dopamine addiction that doesn't get talked about enough. And it directly affects how we connect with people we love.
Studies have shown that when we're caught in a dopamine driven habit, our ability to be present, empathetic and emotionally available starts to fade. And that can have a serious impact on our relationship. When we're in a dopamine addiction, we become more self focused. It's not because we're bad people, it's because our brain is wired for survival and craving. It becomes obsessed with the next hit. In Dopamine Nation, Dr. Lembeck shares a study involving rats.
When given opioids, a free rat will stop helping another rat trapped in a cage without the drug. The rats consistently tried to rescue their fellow rat, but when they had opioids in their system, they didn't help their fellow rat. This might sound extreme, but the same pattern plays out in human relationships all the time. When someone is hooked on social media, alcohol, cannabis, work or any other dopamine spiking habit, they often stop being emotionally available.
They become distracted, irritable or emotionally numb. Contact conversations feel shallow, moments of connection fade and eventually their partner starts to feel invisible or unimportant. I've seen it time and time again in couples I work with where one partner is scrolling, zoning out, emotionally absent and the other feels alone in the relationship, even if physically they're in the same room. And it's not just digital habits.
Workaholism, overtraining, over drinking, over controlling the to do list. All of these are ways people chase dopamine without realising that they're disconnecting from the present moment and from each other. This disconnection chips away at trust, intimacy and emotional safety. And because many people don't realise what's happening, they blame each other instead of seeing the underlining pattern. It's a tragic irony. We crave connection more than ever.
Yet the things we turn to for relief are often the very things driving us further apart. And then there's social media, which not only distorts the self, it distorts the reality. Even though we live in a time of abundance, many people operate from a mindset of scarcity. Why? Because the platforms are built on comparison. Someone who is always thinner, happier, wealthier, more loved, someone's marriage always looks more romantic, someone's family always seems more together.
And suddenly your partner doesn't feel like enough, your life doesn't feel like enough, you don't feel like enough. This creates an emotional scarcity that bleeds into relationships. We stop appreciating what we have. We feel jealous, restless, dissatisfied, bored. We start comparing our partner, our relationships, our sex life to what we see online. And that comparison Kills connection. We scroll because we feel bad, and we feel bad because we scroll.
The craving intensifies and the emotional walls get higher. And what's the antidote? It's authenticity. When you're grounded in your true self, when you're connected to your values and your body, you don't need to chase likes to feel worthy. You don't need substances to feel relaxed. You don't need constant stimulation to feel alive. You're already here. Present with yourself, with your partner. Able to give and receive love.
Not because you've numbed your pain, but because you've allowed yourself to feel again. And that's when relationships thrive. Not through more effort, but through more presence. The good news? Dopamine addiction is absolutely reversible with the right support and approach. In my experience, supporting people through this to make lasting change. The most effective healing addresses all three. Physical, emotional and mental.
So here are four powerful steps I take, those I help through so that if this episode is resonating with you, you can take those steps and begin your healing journey. First, the physical reset. One of the most powerful things you can do is to give your brain a chance to rebalance its reward system. And that starts with a 30 day detox from the substance or behavior that's been hijacking your dopamine. Of course, once you start feeling better, you might decide to go even longer with your detox.
And that's great because as we discussed earlier, when we constantly flood our brain with high levels of stimulation, it adapts by trying to protect itself. It does this in two ways. First, it reduces the number of dopamine receptors, like turning down the volume on your ability to feel pleasure. And second, it slows down the natural production of dopamine altogether. Why? Because your brain is always working to stay in balance.
So when there's too much stimulation, it starts to numb things to avoid being overwhelmed. The problem is, over time, this numbing effect makes life feel flat. A walk outside, a heartfelt hug, a delicious meal, or even a moment of peace. They just don't register the same way. Everything starts to feel dull or muted. And that's when people often find themselves reaching out for more and more stimulation. Another glass of wine, another scroll, another dopamine hit just to feel okay.
And here's the good news. When you take a break from these high dopamine habits, you, Even for just 30 days, your brain begins to heal. It slowly starts to increase the number of dopamine receptors again and produces more dopamine naturally. In other words, you begin to Feel again during this detox phase. For various reasons, I often recommend natural support for the brain.
Supplements like amino acids, which act like protein, for your brain's neurotransmitters, ensuring that your levels are balanced. Omega 3 fatty acids, which support brain structure and mood regulation. And they're essential if there's heavy alcohol. Use magnesium, B vitamins and zinc to nourish and stabilize your nervous system. Compare that with moderate movement a few times a week. Walking, stretching, swimming, yoga. You're giving your body exactly what it's been asking for.
Nutrients, rest, rhythm and balance. So that's a physical healing. Let's look at emotional healing. If dopamine addiction at its core is a strategy to escape pain, then true healing means learning to be with pain without needing to push it away, fix it or distract ourselves from it. That might sound difficult, but it's absolutely possible and deeply powerful. Your body is strong and so are you. Our bodies are incredibly sophisticated. They're built to survive, to regulate and to heal.
In fact, your body is capable of producing every chemical you need to feel calm, energized and connected. It even has a built in warning system that sends you a clear message when something is not right. Pain. But instead of honouring pain as a valuable signal, like a smoke alarm alerting us to a fire, we often try to shut it down. We ignore it, suppress it or numb it. That's like unplugging the smoke alarm instead of putting the fire out.
And over time, that disconnection from our pain creates more suffering, not less. We all need what psychologists call a holding environment, a space where pain is allowed, seen and soothed. As children. This ideally comes from our parents, but many of us didn't get that kind of emotional support. In an ideal world, it's the moment when a parent gently picks you up after you fall and says, I know you're hurting, but you're gonna be okay.
If we had that consistently throughout our childhood, we learn that pain is horrible, that it passes, that it doesn't define us. But if we were told to stop crying, shamed for being emotional, or left alone in our distress, we start believing that pain is unbearable, that we have to hide it, fix it, escape it. And that's where many of us learn to soothe through substances, food, work, sex or constant doing anything to avoid sitting with what we feel.
To truly heal, we have to recreate the relational holding for ourselves. You can simply begin by placing your hand on your heart when emotions arise and breathing deeply into the feeling, saying to yourself, this hurts, but it's okay. I can hold this. It will pass. Sometimes when I'm having a particularly bad day, I I'll give myself permission to rest, maybe even stay in bed with a book or a show, and I gently remind myself that this will pass. Tomorrow I will feel better. And I always do.
Because usually when I feel low, it's because I'm mentally, emotionally and physically exhausted. And allowing myself to feel emotions helps release them. Allowing myself to have a digital detox day, detaching from my phone and just being with myself, being in the present really helps me. So it doesn't last longer than a day. And of course you might not be able to do that for a whole day. Do it for an evening, whatever you can.
You can also write down your thoughts and feelings without judgment, like you're holding space for a dear friend. You can also talk to people that you trust, a therapist, a friend, a family member. Let yourself be emotionally seen, heard and felt. And if you want to go deeper, consider emotional body based therapies like Somatic Therapy, which I often use with my clients because I found it works best for deep emotional healing.
It helps bring you back into the body to feel the emotion where it lives, to be fully present with it, and yes, even to communicate with it. That might sound strange, but our emotions are messengers. They carry wisdom. They often have something that they want us to know. When we pause and ask, what do you need? What are you trying to tell me? Something inside begins to shift. You don't need to fix your pain, you just need to feel it. Stay with it long enough to let it soften.
This is the true work of self compassion. As a Tibetan book of Living and Dying says, whatever you do, don't run away from pain. Running only leads to more suffering. The moment we stop running and meet our pain with gentle presence, we begin to feel free. Not because the pain disappears, but because it no longer controls us. Because we've remembered that we can hold ourselves and that we're safe even in discomfort. The third step is mental rewiring.
Retraining the brain to pause, to delay, and to choose presence over impulsivity. Dopamine addiction thrives on instant gratification. The scroll, the sugar, the swipe. It gives relief now, it even if it creates regret later. But healing comes when we flip the script and start choosing what feels good later, not just now.
This might look like meditation instead of doom scrolling journaling instead of emotionally venting online a walk instead of netflix stillness instead of rushing to fix or do waiting in a queue and not Looking at your phone, just being present with the what's is. Every time you delay gratification, even for just a moment, you strengthen your brain's capacity for self regulation. You build emotional resilience. You grow your presence. You begin to choose with intention, not compulsion.
And perhaps most importantly, honesty plays a huge role in mental healing. Being radically honest about how you feel, what you're doing, why you're doing it, and what it's costing you can open the door to lasting change. When you feel something, then you can heal it. And when you name what's true for you, you can then focus on the solutions to help you. So start by being honest with yourself.
Do it in a way where you're not making yourself bad or wrong because we have too much self criticism and judgment these days. But approach it with curiosity and compassion. Why am I doing this pattern? What is it doing for me? Is it really helping me? Awareness is the first step towards any kind of healing. And ultimately, we don't just want to heal the addiction. We want to build a life we no longer need to escape from. That means making space for real joy, not just quick pleasure.
Hit joy that nourishes, balances and connects. Start by filling your life with natural dopamine sources that lift you up without crashing you down. Like spending time in nature, dancing, laughing, singing, or getting creative. Hugging, meaningful conversations, shared meals, acts of affection, intimacy. These moments of human connection are deeply regulating for the nervous system and help us feel safe, seen and satisfied.
Eye contact, holding hands, shared vulnerability, and even just being truly present with someone you love. These are all slow, steady dopamine activators that nurture connection as well. It's about choosing authentic relationships over superficial ones. Letting go of the pressure to perform or to compare instead. Making time for real heart opening connection. It's also about slowing down enough to actually fill your life instead of just managing it.
Noticing what's here, what's good, what's beautiful, even if it's small, and creating moments of stillness or spiritual connection that remind you that you're already enough. Even when life feels messy. Because when you stop outsourcing your comfort, when you stop needing food, alcohol, social media, or someone else's approval to feel okay, you begin to reclaim your power. You start showing up for yourself in ways that you long for others to do. You become your own emotional anchor.
And that's where true freedom begins. And the beautiful part is when you become what you need for yourself, you no longer place that burden on your partner. You can show up in your relationships more Fully more present, more patient and more open hearted. You're able to love from wholeness, not emptiness. You're not just getting through the days, you're actually experiencing them together. This is how healing yourself transforms how you relate to others.
It's not selfish, it's the foundation for deeper love, connection and lasting intimacy. And here's the thing that I think is really important to reflect on. It's become such common practice these days to medicate ourselves with dopamine hits. For years, I was medicating myself to fit into the world. I was escaping rather than engaging. I was numbing rather than feeling. But in doing that, I was missing out on so much.
But when you're free, you're able to connect with everything, nature, animals and others. Don't get me wrong, it's natural in our world, I believe, to long for a relief, a break from the relentless voice in our head. Why did I do that? How come I'm not like them? Why can't I just be happy? But what if instead of escaping life, we turn towards it? What if we allow the discomfort to rise, move through us and then pass?
And when we stop running, we realise we never had to escape ourselves to find peace. We only had to come home to what's real. If this episode has spoken to you and you know it's time to make a shift, please don't feel like you have to do it alone.
Whether it's breaking free from a pattern that's draining your energy, finding healthier ways to release past pain or regulate your emotions, or just having someone to guide, support and hold you accountable for the changes as you reconnect to yourself, I'm here. I offer one to one support online and I also host private healing retreats in Asia, where we work together intensively to release addictive patterns and restore balance emotionally, mentally and physically.
If you'd like to explore working together, just send me a message. Share a little bit about what you're going through and what you'd love to shift or feel more supported in, and I'll gently guide you through the next steps. And we can arrange a free introduction call to see if we're a fit together. Please know that everything you share is held with the utmost care and kept confidential. Sometimes simply reaching out is the beginning of everything changing.
And if you know someone who might be struggling, feel free to share this episode with them. It could be the gentle nudge or clarity that they've been needing. Lastly, if you found this helpful, I'd truly appreciate it if you could leave a quick rating or review. It helps the show stay visible so more people can find the support they need and it really means a lot to me. So from my heart to yours Sending you love. Thank you for listening and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.
Visit nicolabeer.com gift for free valuable resources designed to support you Whether you're looking to revive your relationship, break free from unhealthy patterns, rebuild your confidence, or heal after a breakup, everything you need to create the love life that you deserve is there waiting for you. I truly appreciate you being here.
If there's a topic you would like me to cover on this podcast, or if you're interested in working with me one to one online or attending a healing retreat in Asia, I'd love to hear from you. My contact details are on my [email protected] and if you have a burning question or just need some guidance, come and join our warm and welcoming Facebook community. It's a safe, supportive space where members share valuable insights and I also answer your anonymous relationship questions.
To join us, simply visit nicolabeer.com Facebook and all the links I've shared today will be in the show. Notes from my heart to yours Take care and I look forward to connecting with you again soon.