Why bad cravings are actually valuable

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]I was 6 days into quitting a 12-year addiction and I was about to break. The cravings were so powerful and it was this one piece of neuroscience knowledge that saved me. We've covered how behind every urge is a dopamine spike. That spike is your brain making a prediction.

[00:00:17]You will have the reward or you will go get it. That's why it feels so compulsive. If you fulfill this prediction, have the reward or start pursuing it, go down to the shops to get more snacks, then you'll feel relief.

[00:00:31]The prediction came true. But if you don't fulfill the prediction, you don't pursue the reward, it feels well, it feels like crap. You feel deprived, frustrated, miserable. But do you know what these emotions mean? They are what happens when your brain goes through a dopamine dip. Now, we've all heard of neuroplasticity and we usually think of strengthening wiring when we hear that.

[00:00:55]But the other side of neuroplasticity is weakening.

[00:00:58]And that's exactly what happens when you go through a dopamine dip, weakening. So every time you feel all those horrible emotions, that is direct evidence that that toxic wiring that feels so compulsive is being weakened. So that's what I did. I embraced the dip 1,164 times till the wiring had weakened to a point where it was barely a whisper.