How to Overcome Addiction to Substances or Behaviors | Dr. Keith Humphreys
Huberman Lab
Scicomm Media
4.8 • 30.3K Ratings
🗓️ 12 January 2026
⏱️ 207 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Someone says, I want to quit smoking. A good clinician will say, why would you want to do that? |
| 0:03.6 | To say, so tell me, what would you want to? What do you want to get out of this? Because it's work. I mean, I'm happy to work with you, but what is it? What are your motives? And sort of helping them build up, you know, in their own mind, because again, this is about them, not you. What do you get? And that's what the therapist does. |
| 0:20.4 | The other thing is really important is that like any other, anytime you're making behavior |
| 0:23.9 | change, hang out with other people who are trying to make the same change. You want to start jogging, join a jogging group. You want to stop drinking. I would, you know, just go check into an AA meeting or one of the other fellowships we have. Having other people on the same journey is good for us. Everything shows that, no matter what you're doing, I'm losing late, I'm exercising, I'm more, whatever, I'm quitting, smoking, because it gives you two things. It gives you support, but it also gives you some accountability. Say, hey, you were going jogging. I mean, Tuesday, you weren't there. What's up? Are you going to be part of this group or not? And that is helpful for people. Welcome to the Huberman Lab podcast, where we discuss |
| 1:00.9 | science and science-based tools for everyday life. I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor |
| 1:09.1 | of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. |
| 1:13.8 | My guest today is Dr. Keith Humphreys. |
| 1:16.2 | Dr. Keith Humphreys is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford School of Medicine, |
| 1:21.5 | and he is one of the world's foremost experts on addictive substances and behaviors |
| 1:25.5 | and how to overcome addictions of all kinds. |
| 1:28.5 | He is also an expert on how science, commercial marketing, lobbying, and the legal system |
| 1:33.1 | interact to create what are called addiction for profit businesses. The alcohol, food, and opioid |
| 1:38.4 | industries come to mind as just a few examples of these, and he's an expert on how all of that |
| 1:42.8 | shapes things like legal policy. |
| 1:45.1 | Today, we discuss all the major addictions to give you the most up-to-date information on |
| 1:49.8 | alcohol, cannabis, opioids, gambling, and much more. Dr. Humphreys gives us the unbiased facts, |
| 1:56.3 | and more importantly, he explains how to think about the health risks of any substance or |
| 2:00.7 | behavior in a logical way. For instance, while it may be true that a importantly, he explains how to think about the health risks of any substance or behavior |
| 2:01.1 | in a logical way. For instance, while it may be true that a certain amount of alcohol could |
| 2:06.2 | afford you some heart health benefits, we hear this, then we hear it's not true, it goes back and |
| 2:10.1 | forth, he explains that any heart benefits that exist from alcohol are greatly offset by the increased |
| 2:16.4 | cancer and other risks of alcohol. And with respect |
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