Order of Alexander

Gooning will inevitably make you gay. When dopamine levels stay that high for long periods, then: -Receptors are repeatedly activated and internalized (pulled inside the cell). -Many get degraded rather than recycled back to the surface. -Gene expression for new D2 receptors often decreases. As a result you can have fewer functional D2 receptors available on the cell surface. This is why the same amount of dopamine produces a weaker signal. So you will go from gooning to Playboy models to God knows what these days. You will need more and more degenerate stuff just to get hard. It’s ridiculous. “George you are right. My dopamine receptors are fried. I can’t focus. I am depressed etc etc. What can i do?” When people say that their dopamine receptors are “fried” they usually try to refer to, but don’t know how to articulate, 3 key changes that are adaptive responses your brain makes to chronic overstimulation of the dopamine system. These are: -Downregulation of D2 receptors -Reduced transporter function -Depleted stores These 3 contribute to issues such as high tolerance to stimulants, reduced reward sensitivity, anhedonia, irritability, low motivation, low libido and so on. Here’s a brief explanation of each one and some practical tips you can take to recover (disclaimer: if you have absolutely fried your brain, it can take up to 18 months to recover). First and foremost, D2 receptors are one of the main types of dopamine receptors. They are especially important in the striatum, including the nucleus accumbens (a key reward area). They help regulate motivation, reward sensitivity, impulse control, and fine-tuning of dopamine signaling. Now when it comes to reduced transporter function (DAT). The dopamine transporter (DAT) is the protein on the surface of dopamine neurons that reabsorbs dopamine from the synapse back into the neuron after it has been released. This clears the signal and recycles the neurotransmitter. Now if you use lots of stimulants, some of them are substrates for DAT. They enter via the transporter, reverse its direction (causing dopamine to spill out), and also disrupt normal reuptake. So chronic exposure leads to: -Internalization and downregulation of surface DAT. -Reduced DAT density and function With time you have less efficient recycling and clearance of dopamine. And finally, when it comes to depleted stores, dopamine is synthesized in the neuron and packaged into synaptic vesicles (with the help the vesicular monoamine transporter, VMAT2) so it can be stored and released in controlled bursts when the neuron fires. Stimulants disrupt this storage: -They compete with dopamine for VMAT2 or collapse the vesicular pH gradient needed for packaging. -They force release of stored dopamine into the cytosol and then out of the cell (reverse transport through DAT). So over time, the readily releasable and reserve pools of vesicular dopamine become depleted. Even when the neuron tries to fire, less neurotransmitter comes out. Also, these 3 changes reinforce each other: -High extracellular dopamine (from stimulants) → receptor downregulation + transporter adaptations + store depletion. -Lower effective signaling → the brain needs more of the drug (tolerance) or feels flat without it. -Oxidative stress from excess cytosolic dopamine (when not properly stored) can add further damage. So your system adapts to protect itself from overload by becoming less sensitive and less well-stocked. This habit (degenerate gooning) of course has even more side effects if you have a psychiatric condition such as ADHD, bipolar disorder, a personality disorder in cluster B and so on. Flooding the ventral striatum with dopamine acts like throwing gasoline on an already erratic fire. “So it’s not weird that these dysregulate me and turn me into a rude ahole? I have ADHD” Maybe not. Once again, anything that suddenly drops, depletes, or disrupts baseline dopamine will rapidly lower an ADHD individual’s threshold for frustration, directly triggering severe irritability, mood slumps, and emotional volatility Biochemically speaking, irritability in individuals with ADHD is not a personality flaw. It is a direct byproduct of your neurotransmitter dysregulation and altered brain connectivity. “I thought that ADHD was just about attention/focus”. No. The exact same biochemical pathways that govern focus also manage our “emotional brakes”. For example, the ADHD brain is characterized by a baseline deficiency or rapid reuptake of dopamine and norepinephrine. But besides focus and alertness, these also act as chemical stabilizers for frustration. When dopamine levels are chronically low or fluctuating wildly, the brain’s threshold for frustration drops significantly for example. So minor inconveniences, like a sudden interruption, a delayed task, or sensory overload, cause a rapid chemical crash, triggering an immediate, irritable “fight-or-flight” response. This is why you can be mislabeled as rude, an a-hole etc while your reactions are not targeting the person you have in front you. “So it’s just about dopamine?” I wish it was that simple. In individuals with ADHD, there is an altered structural and functional connectivity between the PFC and the limbic system. The prefrontal cortex is the executive command center of the brain, responsible for self-control, logical reasoning, and overriding impulsive reactions. So without strong, catecholamine-driven signals from the PFC to dampen down an overactive amygdala, emotions surge rapidly and cool down slowly. While ADHD is most famously linked to the prefrontal cortex, abnormalities in the limbic system are also heavily linked to core symptoms like emotional dysregulation, impulsivity, and attention deficits. Think of the limbic system as our survival software. -The amygdala scans the environment for danger and processes emotional responses. -The hippocampus helps store long-term memories so the brain can remember past dangers or safe spaces -The hypothalamus manages basic needs like hunger, thirst, and body temperature. So it’s crucial for homeostasis overall, reward and threat detection, memory and learning. Now in many individuals with ADHD, the amygdala shows structural differences or atypical connectivity with the rest of the brain. This can lead to “bottom-up” emotional hijacking, where feelings like frustration, impatience, or boredom are felt with extreme intensity, driving impulsive actions before the prefrontal cortex can step in to modulate them. The hippocampus is essential for contextual memory. In ADHD, alterations in this area can cause struggles with working memory (forgetting what you were doing mid-task) and “time blindness” (difficulty using past experiences to judge how long a future task will take) The limbic system is a major pathway for dopamine. In ADHD brains, a deficit in dopamine signaling makes it difficult for the thalamus to filter out irrelevant sensory data, resulting in chronic distractibility, fatigue, or low motivation. “How to fix?” There is no simple way to “fix” the limbic system. It is not a single broken part that can be repaired. It is a network of structures whose activity and connectivity can become dysregulated by chronic stress, trauma, sleep deprivation, inflammation, or other factors. Recovery and better regulation are possible because these circuits are plastic, but the process is gradual. There is a long list of things that can help. For example: -Exposure-based therapies and CBT help extinguish exaggerated fear responses by repeatedly pairing threat cues with safety in a controlled way. This strengthens prefrontal inhibition over the amygdala and builds new extinction memories. -Regular physical activity is one of the most reliable ways to support hippocampal neurogenesis. -Optimizing sleep. Chronic short or fragmented sleep amplifies amygdala reactivity and weakens prefrontal regulation. -Trauma-focused therapies (including EMDR and prolonged exposure) are particularly relevant when past trauma has left the amygdala hyper-reactive and the hippocampus less able to contextualize threats. -Regular meditation is associated with increased prefrontal and anterior cingulate thickness/activity and reduced amygdala reactivity to emotional stimuli. For the entire list of tips, go here: fitandball.gumroad.com/l/bra… “Okay so how do i quit though?” If you are actually interested in outgrowing your bad habits with things such as alcohol, nicotine, dr*gs, gooning, video games or even social media, realize that the reason most people struggle to change and get rid of their bad habits, isn’t that change has to take years. It’s because they keep targeting the symptoms instead of the underlying patterns. Your bad habits live as automatic, stimulus-driven neural circuits inside your brain’s basal ganglia. This means that pure willpower usually fails once stress exhausts your prefrontal cortex. Thankfully, the techniques inside this offer practical, science-backed ways to interrupt these loops and rewire your brain. Most advice fails because it forgets (or doesn’t know how) to target the biological changes that happen during addictions. You can not “outwillpower” or “outlove” your way out of deeply ingrained biological changes. That’s like you breaking your leg and me coming over and saying, “love yourself man, love heals”. If this sounds insane, great, a lot of the advice surrounding addiction is detached from what produces long term results that don’t turn recovery into a full time job. Of course, most people who are still somewhat functional despite their bad habits do not want to get rid of them. I am not talking to them. Addiction overall is a sensitive topic because it requires the courage to admit that something else might have more power than you right now and that you need help to deal with it. I can spend 5 minutes for example, explaining to you why you might fit the clinical definition of addiction and that you severely underestimate how much your life will improve if you quit/outgrow your bad habits, but if you do not want to truly change, help can’t reach you. But if you are somewhat aware of what your bad habits are actually costing you and want to change, this is for you. Because it’s not only about the financial cost. Temporary relief comes with extremely high costs sooner or later. You could be sacrificing your health, mental well-being, confidence, relationships, financial success, business and to be fair, your true self. You could be repressing the same qualities that you are looking to get a taste of in your bad habits whether that’s called confidence, focus or inner peace. It might sound contradictory, but it’s true. A lot of times, the crutches we use to deal with certain uncomfortable feelings are based on entirely false stories we believe about ourselves. And these crutches are slowly feeding this identity. Let’s say that you drink because you (falsely) believe that you are socially awkward. Then, after a few drinks, you do in fact something socially awkward. The next day you replay the event and you feed the identity of the socially awkward person. And the problem is that a lot of people do not even realize (let alone like) the person these bad habits are turning them into. “George won’t i miss the relief of the bad habits?” No. Your new life experience will be so much better that you won’t feel the need to escape any longer. So: -Understand your problem -Hijack the loops -Replace and restore Inside of this you will discover: -The little-known experiment that changed what we know about the brain regions responsible for cravings and states like rumination -Why drug-related cravings can be much stronger than cravings for survival needs like water and food. -Why a psychiatrist and neuroscientist with years of experience believes literally EVERY addiction can be solved (it’s not just neuroplasticity) and how to use this knowledge to your advantage. -Why some people form habits more easily than others, and what determines how easy or difficult it is. -The experiment showing why asking yourself why you relapse into a bad habit or addiction may not be that useful, and what to do instead. -The little-known reasons people keep doing things even when they know they hurt themselves and the people around them, and how to bring awareness into the picture to stop the behavior. -The simple 3-step framework for breaking a bad habit (number 3 is what most people overlook, making it difficult to break the habit no matter how hard they try). -What animal experiments reveal about a brain region heavily involved in repeated alcohol and opioid use. -Why substance addiction and repeatedly performing bad habits are more similar than you might think, and the little-known yet highly effective way to become addicted to something that doesn’t involve substances but can happen naturally. -Why some habits feel so hard to form while others come easily, including the little-known term coined by a neuroscientist that explains why some habits are harder to form than others, and a technique for using easier habits to build harder ones. -How to finally stop relying on willpower, motivation, and discipline alone (and why these alone often don’t work) -How a normal survival mechanism gets hijacked and can work against you. -What to actually do the next time you feel a craving instead of relying on discipline alone so you reduce the chances of relapsing -The little-known experiment that showed decision fatigue might be real (and how it relates to recovery and how easily you give into cravings) -Why saying “no” to your cravings many times might make you more likely to say “yes” later on (and what to do instead when you feel a craving) -Why relapsing isn’t necessarily a failure (and how to use it to your advantage instead). -How to know if you’re actually addicted to something or not -Why therapy might be useless/not work that well on its own for many people until they do something else that’s essential for recovering from any type of addiction. -Why fighting with yourself over breaking a bad habit or addiction is not a good idea (and what approach to take instead) -Why feeling ashamed of something you repeatedly do might only make things worse (and what to tell yourself instead). -Why you might be addicted to something without even realizing it (and the simple question to ask yourself to see if you actually are) -Why discipline alone doesn’t work. -Why you don’t need to rely on motivation. -How some people broke a bad habit they’d had for years in just 5–15 days. -Why the reason you do something or relapse often isn’t what you think it is. -The little-known driver behind repeated alcohol and opioid use. -Why you probably misunderstand bad habits, addiction, and their relationship with dopamine. -The habit you engage in daily that contributed to a 5% increase in emergency department visits for children aged 0 to 5. -The “slot machine” everyone uses and how it affects your brain. -Why neuroscientists warn that avoiding a negative feeling can be more dangerous than seeking pleasure. -Why the 21-day habit rule is a myth and where it comes from (and what science actually tells us about how long habits take to form). -The real reasons you might keep doing something even when it hurts you and the people around you (it’s not just dopamine or trauma). -What parents should be very careful about even if they’re not addicted to any type of substance (the habit that might put children at risk) -Why you’re not broken and there’s nothing wrong with you if you’re addicted to any type of behavior or substance (what’s actually going on in your brain when you reinforce a behavior and the mechanism around it) -The two opposite states that can result in the same behavior (and how they’re related to you forming a new habit) -What we actually mean when we’re talking about using neuroplasticity to break bad habits and addictions (it’s not as simple as repeatedly doing something) -What scientists injected into rats in experiments that reduced excessive drinking and opioid use (and what these findings can teach you about why you reinforce such behaviors). -The little-known stress-signaling neurotransmitter/brain’s main stress-signaling system that scientists have linked to excessive drinking and drug use -How one of your brain’s essential survival mechanisms gets hijacked every day. Here’s your link: fitandball.gumroad.com/l/bra…