Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

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OTCW
Posts: 437
Joined: Thu Mar 31, 2011 12:55 am

Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by OTCW »

subgard wrote:We're all hopeless addicts. It's just how the brain motivates us.
Healthy well adjusted people are hopelessly addicted to keeping their job/finances in order,
Getting a good night's sleep,
Consuming adequate nutrition,
Maintaining good relations with loved ones,
and so on.
They feel compelled to maintain those things at the level of a hard drug addict, and if one of those things were disrupted, they would have withdrawal symptoms on the level of a hard drug addict, and would probably relapse like an addict.
I agree with most of this. The brain is continually programmed by environmental stimuli and that programming naturally leads to repeating pleasureable activities which in turn leads to reinforcing the original programming, which in turn leads to even more of the pleasureable activity, which in turn....

....anyway, feedback loop occurs enough, and you have yourself an addiction. That's why it is easy to get an addiction and hard to shake one. And hard to replace one with another that isn't that pleadureable.

Get addicted to sugary donuts. Easy. Replace donut addiction with broccoli addiction. Not easy at all.

If you are easily addicted ( some folks are more than others), it is best to be careful about what you subject yourself to.

Lucas
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Location: Brazil

Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by Lucas »

@subgard: I agree that it is hard to break habits once they are formed, but to equal them with addictions is simply too far-fetched.

If we stop eating, we deprive ourselves of the energy we need to survive; lack of proper sleep also messes up basic bodily functions; most of us, however, can endure both for some days without experiencing intense fevers, shivering, vomiting, hallucinating and so on—all of which can happen when going cold turkey on heroine, for example.

And if people start stealing stuff from around the house, threatening relatives for money, and engaging in a number of other illegal and/or immoral activities just to keep their finances in order, as they might do to get a fix of opium, we probably would not consider them healthy and well-adjusted—then again, maybe society at large does.

Moreover, there is a difference between fundamental and accidental necessities—every human being needs nourishment of some sort; not everyone requires a regular influx of caffeine (or nicotine, etc.) to remain productive, though—and I believe the distinction is particularly important in the context of this forum.

If you meant what you wrote as a metaphor or analogy, I think it is not an accurate one; otherwise—and I mean no offence—I believe that either you exaggerated some similarities or your post is not at all based on facts. Visiting a drug den and seeing how the regulars live goes a long way in showing how much it takes before we can call ourselves "hopeless addicts."

BRUTE
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by BRUTE »

@Pagliaccio:

interestingly though, while cold turkey'ing heroin can be uncomfortable, it is not dangerous unless combined with other drugs (benzos/alcohol mostly). alcohol withdrawal, on the other hand, can be fatal. carb addiction can be fatal via diabetes, cardiac arrest, and other indirect ways.

the average carb-addict in the west probably feels like they're dying when they haven't eaten in 3 hours. it's amazing to brute how some humans will claim they're "literally starving" because they haven't had lunch that day.

the biggest difference is that donuts are legal and therefore cheap and accepted. heroin itself is very safe and has - ironically - the same side effects as broccoli in large quantities, namely, constipation. the danger is just in combining it with respiratory depressants (benzos/alcohol) or cutting it with god knows what.

subgard
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by subgard »

I meant that it's the same neural circuitry that causes both good habits and bad habits, good addictions and bad ones.

Anything that we're motivated to do repeatedly is caused by the same brain structures.

The end consequences of these behaviors can be very different (and the consequences of withdrawal), but the underlying motivation is caused by the same phenomena.

Anorexics are interesting. They initially have two competing addictions. First, is the usual (and obviously beneficial) addiction to consuming adequate nutrition. Second, is the addiction to feeling in control by depriving oneself.
The second addiction eventually wins out.

And they no longer get hungry.
They no longer desire food.
They have successfully quit their addiction to eating. (Obviously a bad thing, though)

What I meant by calling us "hopeless addicts", is we cannot escape this reward system. We are going to be addicted to something. The brain simply cannot work any other way. So, not "hopeless" as in our lives are hopeless, but "hopeless" in the sense that we cannot escape being addicted to something.

So, it behooves us to choose beneficial addictions. Like eating, and saving money, and being kind.

I think it's an important realization to make about one's own brain. It has helped me form positive addictions and replace bad ones (mostly thinking patterns).

https://aeon.co/essays/why-its-high-tim ... on-changed

7Wannabe5
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

subgard said: What I meant by calling us "hopeless addicts", is we cannot escape this reward system. We are going to be addicted to something. The brain simply cannot work any other way. So, not "hopeless" as in our lives are hopeless, but "hopeless" in the sense that we cannot escape being addicted to something.

So, it behooves us to choose beneficial addictions. Like eating, and saving money, and being kind.

I think this is very true, but there is some inherent limit to our choices, and this becomes quite obvious if you have spent a good deal of time in the company of very young or mentally ill people. For instance, there is a young friend of my DD25 whom I have known since she was 3 years old. She was a very pretty, tiny, other-worldly sort of child, and she absolutely refused to eat anything but noodles in spite of the best efforts of her thoughtful, well-educated, middle-class parents. She is now an addict who supports herself as a stripper. Another example, which makes me feel amused rather than sad, is that the little long-haired hippie boy (son of long-haired hippie-chick single mom) I babysat when he was a very high-strung, hyper-active 3 year old (would scream and scream and scream when he scraped his knee) in the early 90s, is now an investment banker like his grandfather.

Unfortunately, there is one means by which we do escape or become vanquished from this reward system. It is known as clinical depression. Since I am mildly cyclothymic myself, and I have been in close relationship with others who suffer much more severely from depression or depression/mania, it is very apparent to me that a bi-polar individual is sort of like the "canary in the coalmine" for what motivates "normal" people. A simple example would be that reactivity to bright colors is indicative of mania. A complex example would be that "limerence" or "infatuation" or "the feeling of being in love" is an example of a state of mania often experienced by those who do not otherwise suffer from bi-polar disorder. So, if you do not feel like it is in alignment with your self-interest to be "in love", you just need to submit yourself to the same course of treatment as is applied to adrenal-hormone-disorder mania. If you want to cheer yourself up or boost your motivational energy, turn on the lights and look at two bright contrasting colors in conjunction. I would also note that a lot of what passes for "normalcy" in our culture is really low-level functional depression brought on by lack of physical exertion, low exposure to sunlight, and rigid adherence to dull routine. As in "sitting in my beige cubicle, entering data into a form" vs. "riding my pony across the tundra on the hunt."

Smashter
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Location: Midwest USA

Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by Smashter »

7Wannabe5 wrote: I would also note that a lot of what passes for "normalcy" in our culture is really low-level functional depression brought on by lack of physical exertion, low exposure to sunlight, and rigid adherence to dull routine. As in "sitting in my beige cubicle, entering data into a form" vs. "riding my pony across the tundra on the hunt."
This makes a lot of sense to me. I would guess the functional depression is the main contributing factor to the high number of functional alcoholics in my line of work. You can't ride a pony across the tundra, but you can definitely ride the mechanical bull at the Saddle Ranch after 5 margaritas.

On my walk home in the evening, I usually pass a Coors Light ad that displays a picture of a beer with the tagline: "Your Commute Can Wait"

It always saddens me. I read it as saying: "Got nothing to look forward to at home but a TV dinner and a shitty sitcom? Might as well get drunk!"

7Wannabe5
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

Smashter said: On my walk home in the evening, I usually pass a Coors Light ad that displays a picture of a beer with the tagline: "Your Commute Can Wait"

It always saddens me. I read it as saying: "Got nothing to look forward to at home but a TV dinner and a shitty sitcom? Might as well get drunk!"
Yeah, wouldn't it be cooler if there was something like a trail head with a sign that said "Your job can wait." I do not always practice as I preach, but I am a firm believer that if you aren't getting an hour of sunshine and an hour of physical activity each day then you really shouldn't be self-medicating or medicating for depression, and generally your priorities are way out of whack.

Lucas
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by Lucas »

@BRUTE: Oh, indeed; I was focusing on its "uncomfortable" aspect; after all, and interestingly, the symptoms I mentioned are the same exhibited by some teenagers when they are forced to go cold turkey on smartphones—conversely, who knows what kind of poison gets mixed into the heroin that reaches Brazil; it is surely not hospital-level pure. As for the doughnuts, I remember Nassim N. Taleb saying that the addiction to carbohydrates is one of the three most harmful ones—the other two being to heroin and to a monthly salary.

@subgard: I surely get the point. I have seen and experienced what living in subhuman conditions can do to our minds; being deprived of the basics—not just food and shelter, but also (and specially) decency and respect, for example—can make us feel beast-like and even behave accordingly. Thus my disagreement regarding your argument does not concern substance, but gradation—I mean that it takes time and a lot of pressure before we start forsaking our humanity, as it were. In the level of skipping a few meals and worrying about debt, the result can indeed resemble addiction (for, as you correctly pointed out, the patterns and mechanism are the same), but it takes much more than that before we actually reach a condition akin to being hooked to a hard drug.

@7Wannabe5: I hope you have never had to undergo the kind of experience that demonstrates how right you are about that, but I can attest to the truth in your words. Last place I rented was a room in a boardinghouse that had no windows; the neighbourhood being really tough—guys smoking crack in broad daylight, muggers roaming around with guns—I only went out to eat on a government-sponsored restaurant that served a R$ 1.00 meal at noon on weekdays—basically all my nourishment came from there. During the weekend, though, when the place was closed, I survived on the few loaves of bread I could afford (sometimes with slices of cheese), and that was it. After two days in the darkness, munching carbohydrates, leaving that hole and getting to bask under the hot, tropical sun was the most unbelievably delightful experience; I could feel my brain getting back on track, the gears slowly beginning to turn again. The amount of pleasure I can derive from that bright star in the sky is outlandish, something that I will always have and that I doubt most people can imagine—unless they have lived under a perpetual winter, been incarcerated, or something of the sort.

enigmaT120
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by enigmaT120 »

I think those of us in Western Oregon have an idea what you're talking about.

Jason

Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by Jason »

I'm not going to 12 step this thread into oblivion, but, if you are like me (pretty much a fucking basket case), read "Thinking Fast and Slow" by Kahneman.

Learning how you think. How to change your thinking. That's the key to all addictions. It starts with a mustard seed (thought) and ends up well, places we don't like to recollect.

Lucas
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Location: Brazil

Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by Lucas »

@Jason: Due to my being predisposed to lose myself in unpleasant reveries, I know exactly what you mean. The book you recommend has been in my reading list for a while; I'll move it up in the queue. Could you write about your own experience with "basket-case-ness?"

Stahlmann
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by Stahlmann »

how do you do fellow addicts :-D ?

ertyu
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by ertyu »

ohai, here's a resurrected thread for me. Short answer is, not that well. I have, however, started to cotton on that when I get all tangled up in an insurmountable struggle with a bad habit, that's usually because my life is somehow out of kilter in a fundamental, bigger way that I don't feel I can do anything about. Example: focusing on my struggle with eating sweets rather than focusing on how I fear uncertainty, the future, and the possibility that I will never again work and make money, therefore I must not spend, therefore I must not move out, therefore I must live with parents even though I'm miserable. I am a pretty idiotic creature deep down. Subconscious constantly engaged in pulling psychological BS on me.

ertyu
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by ertyu »

Riggerjack wrote:
Thu Jan 19, 2017 9:04 pm


If I have another cigarette, ever, I will be a smoker again.

Since I was a quitting smoker, that isn't such a big deal, it is just reverting back to where I was a week ago, right?

But, and this is key... All smokers quit. And quit. And quit. If I became a smoker again, that would mean that sooner or later, I would quit again. The only way to never quit again, is to never start again.
This was completely correct for me and quitting smoking. "Just one, and I will not smoke again for a while" lol no back to the one-two packs a day we go. Did not truly quit until I accepted that to quit, I must really truly never have another cigarette in my life. Ever.

Also, it was true with not being able to quit caffeine. I spent approx 1.5 - 2 yrs not using caffeine, mainly because the Barnes and Noble Starbucks I used to hang out at (and read books for free) had this awesome mint tea I could substitute -- this after quitting a pretty horrid caffeine habit I had developed in grad school where I just walked around with a Nalgene full of coffee and I drank that all day almost to the exclusion of any other liquids. "Certainly a cup of green tea in the morning would be nice-" BAM here we go, back to 4 large mugs a day as of this writing. Less bad than before, and I do make a concerted effort to drink more water, but still a BS habit.

While I never was an alcoholic - when I drink, I do it more out of desiring a sense of belonging rather than the substance itself - if I have one drink, I will have many drinks. Fuck savings + the entirety of the following day will be shot. [and because denial is such a classic part of having an alcohol problem: it really is only about the sense of belonging for me. I would purchase sweets and caffeine and consume them on my own, alone in the house, but would not be at all drawn to buying alcohol to have on my own, e.g. to have a glass of wine or a beer "to relax" or whatever]

Another instance where I have noticed this works: "oh, a new ice cream stand, I will try this flavor here just once-" Nope. It is not just once. Brain will draw an association between the location of the stand and that that's where a Highly Palatable Substance can be found, and will generate cravings + total bullshit excuses to get me there. [Total bullshit excuses = "oh the second hand store has a sale on Tuesday, I will see if I can find a cheap, large pair of jeans for a simple upcycle bag I could make -- oh, and oops, the ice cream stand juuuust so happens to be in the way, oh well" <-- have read alcoholics are briliant at this BS, was really surprised to discover myself doing it about sugar]

Tl;dr: if you do not want a bad habit, DO NOT START. Yoda said, do or do not, there is no try. Ert says, use of use not, there is no, "just this once."

Frita
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by Frita »

ertyu wrote:
Sun Jun 07, 2020 6:26 am
...if you do not want a bad habit, DO NOT START...
Agreed, eliminating is challenging because substituting a replacement behavior is most effective for most people. One is still left with an additional habit than could experience some shift to something less healthy or former bad habit resurrection.

I would also add that avoiding people who engage in bad habits is even more important if one is to never begin in the first place. The behavior isn’t normalized.

ertyu
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Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by ertyu »

I read/listened to both articles/podcasts linked upthread. I really liked the emphasis on, if you have addiction, to focus on improving your life and your health rather than to focus on not doing the substance. Focusing on not doing a bad habit locks you into a struggle that at least to me feels quite helpless. But then my addictions are more in the realm of what are considered bad habits vs. Class A substances.

Stahlmann
Posts: 1121
Joined: Fri Sep 02, 2016 6:05 pm

Re: Addictions & Unhealthy Habits

Post by Stahlmann »

google translate this, interesting points of views:
https://blog.krolartur.com/jak-poznac-z ... est-twala/
https://blog.krolartur.com/struktura-skutecznej-zmiany/
trying to tackle the biggies with tips from second article.

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