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I'm an addict

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Re: I'm an addict

#291

Post by anonymoushn »

burner22 wrote: post #286
thomastjeffery wrote: post #271

Sounds like OP isn't necessarily an addict: they have ADHD. Half the article was them complaining about poor working memory, and the rest about getting stimulation/dopamine from unhealthy sources. Everyone has "a little ADHD". We all occasionally , forget things, hyperfocus on things we are excited about, etc. ADHD is the disorder of having those struggles so often it's debilitating. It stems from having an underdeve…

I feel seen. My mechanism for remaining focused and getting through work has been to consume harder illicit substances, mostly cocaine. It's effective but definitely not sustainable long time and I'm not too sure where from here.

Desoxyn 5mg is highly reviewed by people who have it prescribed for ADHD.

Re: I'm an addict

#292

Post by weatherlite »

cyphar wrote: post #21
artemonster wrote: post #9

This hits hard. I recently counted hours watched on YT (via history export) and OH MY GD, it averaged around 3 hours daily throught the year, for several years. I just imagined WHAT IF I have spent this amount of effort and time on ANYTHING else: playing an instrument, learning a new language, coding a side-project. The thought scared me so much, aka the difference between current me and "potential" me that I have ab…

I started learning Japanese about two years ago now and now all of the time I used to waste watching YouTube is spent watching YouTube in Japanese as language practice. It's still the same activity but is at least somewhat productive. I barely go on Hacker News too, since it feels like more of a waste of time ("I could be studying Japanese right now!").

Nice! is there some purpose like career advancement or is it simply about pleasure and learning a new culture?

Re: I'm an addict

#293

Post by thomastjeffery »

klik99 wrote: post #93

The broadest definition of addiction I've heard is "When you do something compulsively enough that it's affecting the rest of your life" - the implication being that everyone compulsively do things and that's fine but it's only really a problem when it damages your relationships, careers, happiness, etc. All brain stuff has a chemical component but chemical dependency/addiction is a particuarly dangerous subset of ad…

That "superpower" you mentioned is a good description of ADHD hyperfocus.

People with ADHD are naturally at a constant deficit in stimulation/dopamine. That's why we get distracted mid-conversation: the conversation wasn't stimulating enough to fill that deficit, so the brain started looking for more stimulation, thinking it could just multitask to compensate.

The deficit in simulation/dopamine is why people with ADHD can hyperfocus: as soon as there is a satisfying source of stimulation, the brain tries to squeeze out as much dopamine as it can.

Re: I'm an addict

#294

Post by hn_version_0023 »

burner22 wrote: post #286
thomastjeffery wrote: post #271

Sounds like OP isn't necessarily an addict: they have ADHD. Half the article was them complaining about poor working memory, and the rest about getting stimulation/dopamine from unhealthy sources. Everyone has "a little ADHD". We all occasionally , forget things, hyperfocus on things we are excited about, etc. ADHD is the disorder of having those struggles so often it's debilitating. It stems from having an underdeve…

I feel seen. My mechanism for remaining focused and getting through work has been to consume harder illicit substances, mostly cocaine. It's effective but definitely not sustainable long time and I'm not too sure where from here.

I have been in this situation. I only saw two options for myself: move from cocaine to adderall, for the focus specifically, presuming you didn’t leave adderall for cocaine, of course.

Second, seek medical help. Today, thats the path I would choose. You need a social safety net too, or things might take a bad turn.

Good luck with it, be well, and try and care for yourself the way you’d care for a sick parent or child.

Re: I'm an addict

#295

Post by Guest19023892 »

bitexploder wrote: post #210
fipar wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm an atheist, yet I don't think science can answer why we exist and what is the meaning of life. I think those questions are syntactically valid but semantically invalid. We kind of (in the 'broad strokes' you say) think ( ) we know how we got here, how life got started, etc. But why? How do you know that? It's an honest question because, again, I don't think that question makes sense so I'd love to know your take…

A fair response to my blithe and confident answer. In general, though, we have figured enough out to understand our origin well enough to rule out religious theories in our existence. To reduce things the way you did is a denial of progress at some level, while couching it in caution against trusting science too far. Our first bridges sucked, now they are better. Our first stabs at cosmology were not much better than…

> “Why” we exist is coincidence and millions of years of happy little evolutionary experiments blindly conducted by nature.

I'm not religious either, but I always find this hard to believe. What are the odds nature happened to provide all the building blocks for us to be here to question our existence? It seems far more likely that (i) nothing would exist, (ii) the universe wouldn't have the right combination of properties and forces to maintain its own existence, or (iii) it would be a boring universe filled with a couple of basic elements capable of producing nothing of interest. Instead, we have complex life and we're here building iPhones and spaceships.

For that reason I can't believe there's a single universe and through coincidence it happened to contain everything needed for life. Even if we go with the multiverse theory and a near infinite number of universes, I still find it difficult to believe. You can argue the universe is filled with a bunch of garbage and we're assigning meaning and value to that garbage because it's us, and we want to feel important. However, I really don't feel like anything (and certainly not something as complex as us) should exist in the first place. I want to say it's too much of a coincidence to happen by chance, but at the same time, I don't have a better answer as to why we're here.

Re: I'm an addict

#296

Post by thomastjeffery »

yamrzou wrote: post #13

> I'm simply incapable of doing things I've set out to do. Simple things. Everything is difficult. “Independent discharges of dopamine neurons (tonic or pacemaker firing) determine the motivation to respond to such cues. As a result of habitual intake of addictive drugs, dopamine receptors expressed in the brain are decreased, thereby reducing interest in activities not already stamped in by habitual rewards. ” From:…

Are you very familiar with ADHD? It's very much the same effect, except instead of substance abuse/addiction as the cause, it's a natural chronic deficit in stimulation.

I find this YouTube channel very informative (albeit cheesy): https://m.youtube.com/c/HowtoADHD

Re: I'm an addict

#297

Post by lukas099 »

Jaruzel wrote: post #123
SnowHill9902 wrote: post #23

Knowing that HN is generally against it, I say it anyway: I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. Christianity and Judaism both have excellent resources. Religious scholars have actually been the best psychologists but are generally dismissed by non-believers. Edit: for those asking for specific recommendations. It’s always best to find your own p…

> I recommend religion and religious teachings which address this and many other daily worldly issues perfectly. This advice simply doesn't work if the recipient is an atheist. To me, Religious texts are made up fiction that hold no more meaning in my world view than Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. If you read enough fiction on a shared topic, you'll be able to pull the same number of 'enlightening' quotes from thos…

I hold spirituality to be a choice to hold things sacred. Almost everyone holds something sacred, whether it's family bonds or whatever. You can also choose to hold more things sacred, even the entire world, without believing in divinities.

Re: I'm an addict

#298

Post by kayodelycaon »

thomastjeffery wrote: post #271

Sounds like OP isn't necessarily an addict: they have ADHD. Half the article was them complaining about poor working memory, and the rest about getting stimulation/dopamine from unhealthy sources. Everyone has "a little ADHD". We all occasionally , forget things, hyperfocus on things we are excited about, etc. ADHD is the disorder of having those struggles so often it's debilitating. It stems from having an underdeve…

> Everyone has "a little ADHD".

I get what you’re saying but I want to push back hard on this. Everyone has some of the symptoms of ADHD at any given time.

But, ADHD isn’t more of the same symptoms. That’s how it’s diagnosed, but the underlying mechanism is a severely compromised ability to self-regulate which is categorically different from what people experience when they are out of mental energy.

Edit: I've clarified what I mean in other comments in the thread. My issue is the use of the phrase without explaining why it is wrong.

Re: I'm an addict

#299

Post by alfor »

paskozdilar wrote: post #261
alfor wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what is ’I’ in this sentence? Personally I see it a ’truth’ like in scientific truth and personal integrity. Imagine Jesus as the incarnation of the best possible person. I you where to try to based your actions in a similar way, what would you do? "No man comes to the Father but by me”: You won't be the best version of yourself by chasing any other things (fame, money, pleasure, etc) I too was disgusted by the f…

One thing I dislike about Christianity in particular is how malleable to interpretation it is, making any kind of discussion with a Christian tedious. No matter what part of Bible you try to argue with, a Christian will always be able to say: "But that's not the real meaning! The real meaning is [thing I pulled out of thin air]", rendering your words moot, without actually engaging in your argument at all. I still ca…

I see it as a fusion of the campfire stories that humans have told themselves over thousand of years.

The fact that it was written in a book gave it incredible power and have allow our civilisation to exist and science to be developed but also removed much of the evolutions of the stories.

Now that our world change so fast the stories seems very outdated to our modern mind but most of them speak about a deep human conditions and traps we feel into multiple times.

It hard to speak to christians as most see it a first level reading (literally true) but most people are not ready to go into deep analysis of meaning, they need a story to unite them, to show them a way to a good life and so it was for all people 200 years ago.

Without those stories people put other things in its place (false idols) like money, pleasure, diversity and equity, communism, fascism, etc.

To the question is there a God, the God of the bible is a mix of the natural environment (god of wind, god of the sun, etc) and the human civilisation ’thou shall not kill’ if you kill, God will be angry: you are going to have a bad time (at the hands of other humans)

If you have the time, the Peterson lectures gave me a way to understand it that make sense to me (no bearded magician in the sky)

Re: I'm an addict

#300

Post by tonyarkles »

misiti3780 wrote: post #216
tonyarkles wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going to start by absolutely agreeing with you on the second half: I have had direct personal contact with a number of addicts over the years, and in virtually all cases it started (and generally continued to be) as a way to escape or numb some kind of unaddressed trauma or other emotional pain. Victims of (childhood or adult) abuse, parental rejection for whatever reason, etc. Additionally, people who I wouldn’t…

I have many family and friends that are christians, and was raised christian. It's a full fledged government-subsidized cult, maybe a benign cult, but a cult nonetheless.

I think you'll find that that varies dramatically from denomination to denomination. When I was a kid, my grandparents and parents took us to a Southern Baptist church. I agree, 100%, and I'm not even sure that I'd qualify that with the word "benign" :)

In university, I dated a Lutheran (in Canada, there's two "sub-Lutheran" organizations, she was a part of the "more welcoming one") and it was a night and day difference. Not to go too far into theology, but these folks were some of the most "Christ-like" folks I have ever met. They really embodied the "be good to each other" concepts and strongly rejected the more evangelical/recruiting position that many churches take; their philosophy was "be good people, treat others kindly, feel free to have a conversation about your religion if someone asks, but don't try to guilt/shame/whatever, just be a good person."

I'm actually surprised this morning to be defending churches somewhat. It's a tragedy: the worst kind of Christians, to me, are also the most prominent and vocal. From my own understanding of the Bible and basic theology, I absolutely agree that many denominations are cult-like and have also lost their way from the teachings they purport to embody.

Meanwhile there's folks like the Lutherans I hung out with who, for lack of a better turn of phrase, are actually bringing light into the world. These folks get painted with the same brush as the... crazies.

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