Essay: Revenge Is Like an Addiction

If you've ever wanted to go the Count of Monte Cristo route and take vengeance on all of your enemies, your ego may revel, but your brain may not thank you. That's because "your brain on revenge looks very much like your brain on drugs," according to James Kimmel Jr., who started looking into the neuroscience of revenge after a childhood in which he was bullied led him to become an aggressive attorney as an adult. "I threatened and retaliated my way through grievances involving the people who hired me, as well as personal grievances I had with my family, friends, neighbors, and sometimes even myself," he writes. "It seemed like I was addicted to revenge." It got so bad in Kimmel's case that he became suicidal, eventually ditching his legal career to more fully explore revenge's ties to addiction.

Research cited by Kimmel shows that taking revenge, or even just dreaming about it, seems to flood the brain with dopamine that eases the negative feelings triggered by being hurt, mocked, or otherwise made to feel bad. The good news, per Kimmel, is that we can now try to repurpose addiction treatments to address one's penchant for vengeance and its accompanying violence, though he says there's one free "wonder drug" that could do the trick best of all: forgiveness. Citing a study showing that more forgiving subjects seemed to better handle "the pain of grievances" than those who strike back, Kimmel notes that "we now have neuroscience support for the ancient forgiveness teachings of Jesus and the Buddha." He adds: "We need to Make America Forgiving Again." More here.