On handling the various different addictions of the 21st century?

[TopHatFox]

Been playing Fallout 4. Great game--in fact, learned some stuff about post-apocalyptic survival lol-- but addicting. I've been thinking of the dramatic change in well being if potential addictions are transitioned to more positive avenues.

I think in order to be a successful FI human, these transitions are required. A life filled only with social media, netflix, and video games sounds awful by week 2.

What is a potential addiction you struggled/are struggling with? Which "potential addiction" do you enjoy and are okay with keeping around? Do you limit it?

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Here are some of the main potential addictions in 21st century developed world. They range from the obvious to subtle:

1. Alcohol
2. Pot
3. Other drugs
3. Video Games
4. Netflix
5. Work
6. Social Media
7. Internet use - General
8. Junk Food
9. Credit Card Debt

Choices include avoiding them, limiting/eliminating them, or replacing them with:

1. Writing a blog post or forum post
2. Learning a skill, like juggling or acrobatics
3. Learning a language, like French or Portuguese
4. Listening to a podcast, like Radical Personal Finance or Good Fortune
6. Reading a book, like ERE (lol)
7. Going on an adventure, like to a state park or museum
8. Exercising, like weight lifting or roller skating
8. Watching documentaries
9. Meditating or doing yoga
10. Volunteering, like at Habitat for Humanity
11. Talking to close friends, family, and partners
13. Sleeping more
14. Exploring a place, like a thrift store or window shopping at a mall
15. Playing board games, like chess
16. Learning to play an instrument, like the harmonica or piano
17. Gaining educating, like by auditing a college lecture
18. Working on mechanics, like building an e-bike

[TheWanderingScholar]

Honestly?
Work addiction.

Whenever I get bored, I begin working on my next project for class. Which is really annoying because I want to relax however I can't.
However my current situation, I cannot relax as I am doing my work placement and working on a mini-thesis for class, with a couple another starting up next week, which require my attention. So hopefully this summer I get to relax. Although mostly I will be trying to work to save up money for next academic year

....Anyways actual ways to cope with it?
Trying to out more and talk to my roommates who are fellow Americans, and trying to socialize more in general.

[Loner]

I never had any drugs. Pot looks boring (why would you want to feel down?) and while cocaine looks fun, it's too dangerous, not to mention costly. Penny-pinching does have an upside after all. Mostly, drugs just don't produce meaningful living (for me) so I try to keep them far. There's nothing in life like the feeling of skillful activity: writing a well-flowing a logically arranged text, manoeuvering a bike around a tight corner, understanding and applying a new PF concept, engineering your web-of-goals, all that is much more fun to me. It's probably more about temperament than anything. When I was a kid, nothing was more fun than Mecanos, and Legos, and even, sometimes, school, though I hated the structure.

Alcohol is also boring, so I drink a beer maybe twice a year. Video games were sort of fun when I was 15, but I decided at that point to cut it entirely because, well, I'd rather play real life hockey than NHL 2004. Low-intensity real-life experience are always more intense than the most intense simulated ones. Climbing a local hill is much more fun than climbing everest, in a video game. I do remember being pulled by video games. I remember at some point playing GTA for the first time, and "waking up" after 4 hours or playing. Worse feeling in the world. I felt like a lifeless garbage blob wating the few years of existence I had. I sweared never to play again. It must be so bad nowadays that they're optimising the reinforcement schedules to make people play more and more. Video games were better when they were games.

Same for TV. I haven't gotten close to one since I was 16. Movies are ok sometimes because the cinematic quality is higher and it's more contained. TV series exist just for going on an on. There's never an end.

I think the easiest way to manage addictive substances or products is just to steer clear of them when you realize it's risky. Makes it easy to manage mentally.

[sky]

Beer, screentime and the lazyboy chair. I am currently about 1000 miles from the chair, but now spend too much time in the drivers seat. My remedy is to make walking my hobby. Still too much screentime but reading and knitting are helpful in providing alternate activities. Beer is only a problem if I drink more than two, so I am trying to make two beers my limit.

I am looking for new things to do to make life interesting, having a focus of fascination or passion helps replace the negative addictive behavior.

[Jean]

Video games. In most of them, you can build something in a few day, and no one is going to tell you no. How can you resist that.

[Farm_or]

What will you do when you are no longer directed to do? I looked at a lot of examples when I was still working for the man.

The fifty year old momma's boy living in his parents basement? Existing in a virtual video gaming world? Not for me.

The early retired guy free spending his grandfather's inheritance? No silver spoon in my mouth.

The unemployed woman living off welfare and food stamps, desperately searching for a sugar daddy who doesn't notice the overweight, unkept environment? I don't think so!

Of all of those people that I observed from a safe distance, the poison they all had in common was a hatred of work. They did not want to do any work, not even if it was selfishly beneficial.

We are all here on borrowed time. Do you want your existence to stand for something more than passing time with self serving addictions? What difference would there be if you were locked away in a prison cell?

Or do you want to live every moment purposeful with intent on constantly improving the world? That is going to take a lot of work. Work, life, serving others, there's not a whole lot of idle time for self serving addiction?

[7Wannabe5]

Don't drink, don't smoke, what do you do?

Coffee, pastry, recently published books (IOW, books I self-indulgently spend $$ to read.) I watch antenna TV with my BF, but I am usually reading a book at the same time.

I kind of wish I could get into video games, because it might motivate my tech studies. I don't think 3-D landscape design counts as a game if you are modeling a real garden.

I don't think you can simply will yourself to substitute a healthier choice. There has to be some degree of similarity of the pleasurable feedback mechanisms, the level of vigor and attention needed to do the activity, and careful thought and planning towards reducing inertia and barriers.

[sky]

I don't think that making work and serving others your goal is a good way to find happiness.

[7Wannabe5]

@sky:

I think it depends on how securely your own oxygen mask is already affixed. Some people distract themselves from more difficult work they should be doing themselves by focusing on serving others, others make the opposite mistake. Strong, self-aware appropriate boundary at the level of self-care is key. Relevant to this forum might be questioning what level of independent financial functioning would best be achieved prior to choosing to engage in financial generosity? Enough porridge for your next meal, or $$$ be like zucchinis in August?

[7Wannabe5]

The unemployed woman living off welfare and food stamps, desperately searching for a sugar daddy who doesn't notice the overweight, unkept environment? I don't think so!

I won't go into long explication, but since I am someone who once scored pretty high when she took the "Are You a Sugar-Baby?" quiz in the back of Cosmopolitan while waiting for an oil change, I would note for the record that the psychological/economic mechanisms of an IRL relationship of this type are almost the opposite of what you imply above. Men don't seek out models of virtue for role of sugar-baby. More like they prefer somebody who keeps a box of cigars and a box of doughnuts on hand and is game for a roll and a giggle in the messy bed. It's men who are still on their way up who seek inspiration from females.

[7Wannabe5]

@Augustus:

Borrowed a note from Ms. Lewinsky for that imagery. Some uber wealthy and/or powerful men, Rockefeller comes to mind, are also uber Puritanical and/or refined in their predilections. Others not so much

Different men want different things from different women at different phases of their lives. Men hit their peak of attractiveness at around 37-42, but don't hit their peak earning years until around 54-59. So, most single or divorced men around that age (depending somewhat on number of remaining dependents) are going to feel financially bountiful, but otherwise on the steep decline in terms of what they are able to ante up or offer in contract. So, it never happens that a reasonably attractive 39 year old woman would be fretting about whether being a little bit of a hot mess is going to preclude her ability to meet a 55 year old man willing to help her out with that. In fact, that guy is going to hope she needs some financial assistance, because otherwise he is imagining that he is competing with some other guy who is still able to mount the same sort of performance he could when he was 39. I like older men because I was already reading John Updike novels when I was 13, so I somewhat prefer the freer style of men who lost their virginity prior to approximately 1979*, but the fact that they almost always pick up the tab is a very nice side benefit.

*A few years ago I hit it with a very fit (early retired, biked miles every day) 56 year old, and I was quite pleasantly surprised by both his stamina and style, so while we were chit-chatting over midnight snack, I was compelled by curiosity to inquire about his early sexual experience, and had my theory confirmed when he revealed that he lost his virginity at the age of 13. It's almost directly analogous to style of dance. For instance, you don't expect a man who was born in 1980, to lead you into the Charleston.

[BRUTE]

1.coffee

literally drinking coffee right now.

out of the list THF posted, brute only does "general internet usage", which he isn't sure qualifies as an addiction.

[Jean]

But I think it should be diferentiated between addictions, and lack of a better thing to do.

[Bankai]

Men hit their peak of attractiveness at around 37-42

This might be true for a small minority of men, however I don't see this being the case for vast majority of guys, considering expansion of BMI as people age, effects of 2 decades of sedentary lifestyle starting to show up as well as "natural" signs of ageing (balding etc.).

[BRUTE]

Bankai implies that male attractiveness is primarily based on their physical attributes.

[2Birds1Stone]

I've struggled with food addiction in the past. Binge eating, yoyo dieting, and general unhealthy habits.

I've overcome this over the years.

I struggled with tobacco addiction from the age of 15 to 23, but gave that up (will still have maybe a pack of cigarettes a year, mostly on vacation with a drink)

Currently I am making a point to consume less alcohol. I've always loved beer and wine, and the stress of work and boredom of living in the northeast winters has me drinking more often and larger amounts than I should. Sometimes it's to deal with stress, others it's simply a habit. Once I have a few beers it's harder for me to stop.