There will always be doubters when science establishes links between our chemistry and our behavior. A friend of mine once insisted that people suicidal tendencies were selfish and just not trying hard enough. What can you do? Some prefer uninformed intuition.

But discoveries like this could mean real freedom for people suffering from addiction of all stripes, as recovery could incorporate normalizing beta endorphin levels. It may help us understand why some are able to engage in risky or addictive behaviors without harm, while others tend to spiral out of control. It could one day possibly predict, in a very broad sense, the likelihood of an individual losing control with addictive substances. All speculation, true, but it will be very interesting to see where it takes us.