Fact-Check
Most of this category runs on confident-sounding claims with nothing behind them. This book does the opposite: the central claims are listed here with the primary research they rest on, and the places the popular story gets it wrong are named plainly.
Correct, the popular framing is wrong.
Dopamine is an endogenous neurotransmitter central to motivation and movement, not a toxin that accumulates and can be flushed. Abstaining from a stimulus does not "reset" or deplete it in the way detox marketing implies.
Supported.
Research on incentive salience distinguishes "wanting" (motivation to pursue) from "liking" (hedonic enjoyment). Dopamine is far more tied to wanting than to liking.
Source: Berridge & Robinson, incentive-salience research
Supported.
Dopamine responses track the difference between expected and received reward, the surprise, not the reward itself. Variable, unpredictable rewards produce stronger responses, which is why variable-reward feeds are so sticky.
Source: Schultz, reward prediction error research
Supported, and stated separately.
The book uses a risk table rather than a single scare level: pornography is framed as a behavioral, variable-reward pattern; nicotine as high dependence risk; cannabis as moderate; alcohol as moderate-to-high; cocaine and non-prescribed stimulants as high risk.
Source: Hasin et al. (NESARC); Henningfield & Benowitz; CDC
Supported.
Mindfulness-based relapse prevention teaches observing an urge without acting on it, on the evidence that cravings peak and subside rather than rising indefinitely.
Source: Marlatt & Bowen, mindfulness-based relapse prevention
Correct, the book uses the clinical term.
Rather than loose pop-psychology labels, the book refers to Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder as formally classified, and is careful about what that classification does and does not mean.
Source: ICD-11
Sources are cited by name here and in full in the workbook's research appendix. This summary is a plain-language reference, not the appendix itself.