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Drug addiction: The complex truth

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Re: Drug addiction: The complex truth

#71

Post by Ziomislaw »

yebyen wrote: post #65
mumbi wrote: post #11

My question is this: if the rats knew that taking the morphine after moving to the park would keep the withdrawals away, would they have still taken the water?

Yeah good question! Reading that story, I understood first that rats like sweet things and hate bitter things. Second that rats are usually willing to take Hobson's choice, and the point of the article being that most scientists don't realize that's what they've actually been testing. I understand that heroin withdrawals are pretty terrible, I've even heard said that "you'd do anything" to make them stop, but they ca…

I have 2 rat pets. I can confirm that they LOVE sugar. It probably is the single thing that makes them fight each other for it (if one finishes candy first etc)

Re: Drug addiction: The complex truth

#72

Post by snom380 »

rwmj wrote: post #34
rdtsc wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A while back (some years perhaps) on Reddit there was a story about someone who basically documented their experiment with heroin. It could have been a hoax of course, but most agreed it wasn't. It was this person who was already doing milder illegal drugs. He goes to his dealer and dealer proposes something different this time. He decided to try heroin. Had pretty high confidence he wouldn't get addicted. Anyway he…

So you've got an anecdote, and you didn't even link to the source of the anecdote.

I think the main problem is that lots of people who have heard the "try it once and get hooked" story realize that they did try it once without problems, and therefore assume that addiction won't be a problem. From once to a few times to regular use to addiction is a slippery slope that most avoids, but for some it can take several years. But none of them started it with the assumption that they themselves would get addicted, and along the way made up many rationalizations for their drug use. So in that way, this anecdote is interesting.

Re: Drug addiction: The complex truth

#73

Post by techtalsky »

bane wrote: post #38

Like lots of folks I drink a bit, and I smoke the occasional celebratory cigar. I'm fortunate to not have found myself addicted to anything though (that I'm aware of at least). However, I have family members who have deep addiction problems. Life affecting. One thing that I've noticed is that even when they get off of the substance, the addictive personality traits are still there -- years later. One of my relatives,…

The book Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace is an astoundingly good illustration of this. He follows characters as they use work, tennis, video entertainment, and even addiction recovery itself as addictions. I feel as if my understanding of addiction and its depths was deepened a great deal. The older I get the more healing from addiction seems like an actual real miracle.

Re: Drug addiction: The complex truth

#74

Post by TeMPOraL »

robbiep wrote: post #15

I have previously commented on this topic on HN, but since it's back i'll go again. As a medical student I was taught that addiction is a spectrum. Each drug falls somewhere on that spectrum in terms of addiction potential, (And as GotAnyMegadeth comments, Nicotine is more addictive than Heroin) and every person has some prior probability of becoming addicted, due to the complex interplay of social/biological factors…

Are you talking about pure nicotine or tabaco? I read that pure nicotine (as found in e.g. nicotine gums) is little to non-addictive.

Re: Drug addiction: The complex truth

#75

Post by codyb »

delluminatus wrote: post #45
AznHisoka wrote: post #23

We should not look towards drugs to satisfy the void in our lives. We should not look to eating for pleasure, just for health. We should not look to our career as a source of fulfillment - it's just a means to an end. We should not look to our mates as a source of salvation - we should focus on giving. We should not look to our kids as objects to make us whole - we should focus on giving... Ok, so if we're gonna take…

This is the real question. I think there are only three choice categories: * Reject everything. This is basically the path of the Yogi. * Assign meaning to something. It could be your kids, your spouse (I wouldn't recommend that one), philanthropy, a "vision," or whatever. If people ask why it's important to you, don't explain in logical terms. "I decided that it would be." * Stop thinking about it. Chase the dopamin…

Why do you recommend not assigning meaning to your spouse?

I think the Yogi is eventually one with it. He doesn't try any of the methods you offered. Controlling it, embracing it, or rejecting it. He just let's it be. And in that way he becomes free from it.

Re: Drug addiction: The complex truth

#76

Post by MichaelGG »

snom380 wrote: post #67
konstruktor wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure you are talking about the destructive potential of heroin itself and not the circumstances in which it is consumed? It is not necessarily an IV drug, but the price, driven by criminalization, makes smoking prohibitively expensive (see the other comment about the Vietnam soldiers). In countries where the distribution of syringes is criminalised (Russia, USA), syringes are reused and shared. The price of t…

If you look at heroin and meth addicts, I think it's pretty easy to see that it's not only dependent on price (which for meth is quite cheap in some countries). A lot of addicts will in the long run be unable to hold a job because of their drug use, and will only turn to crime when that happens.

On meth: remember in the US this is a legally prescribed medication, and effectively indistinguishable from other amphetamines such as the Adderall mixture. There are plenty of professionals using amphetamines. The difference is probably that they're not smoking it for a rush, but using it to gain a long mental advantage. They're certainly very functional.

On heroin: Opiates are far less harmful than smoking, as long as you don't overdose (which is often caused by improper labeling or mixing with other drugs). You'd be surprised how many professionals are using opiates (such as time-release oxycodone) daily. Again, the difference is in using it for the mental advantage, not IV'ing it to get a rush and high.

It's just that in general, you're not going to have such people confess their usage due to negative social stigma. Thus the only "addicts" you see, are the ones that couldn't hold a job, couldn't get a supply (it's generally easier to buy heroin than proper opiate pills), and so on.

Re: Drug addiction: The complex truth

#78

Post by guerrilla »

1337biz wrote: post #62
bane wrote: post #38

Like lots of folks I drink a bit, and I smoke the occasional celebratory cigar. I'm fortunate to not have found myself addicted to anything though (that I'm aware of at least). However, I have family members who have deep addiction problems. Life affecting. One thing that I've noticed is that even when they get off of the substance, the addictive personality traits are still there -- years later. One of my relatives,…

For example, she found a puzzle game on her phone that she would play obsessively Actually an interesting observation on how difficult it is to draw the line between obsession and passion. It seems that she (can devlop) an extremely high level of focus, something that what would probably regarded by many as a trait for becoming successful in a specific discipline.

To me, this and the parent post are the most interesting thing here. I find myself to be quite like the parent's family member in that all that I do is obsessive, often to the point of self-destructive results. It's always been this way with work and hacking (to the extreme) and certainly for other less productive things like alcohol, food, news (ctrl-R) and especially television/films.

What I'm wondering is if we could extract some positive gain from this. Maybe there's a way to gamify certain activities so that people could hook themselves on something positive. I know this has been done for certain types of exercise (I can't recall any webapps right now but a simple search for mobile apps should show a hundred or so.) I'm curious if it would work for such things as meditation, self-study, diet, social activity, etc.

I get the feeling there's a lot of research out there about gamification, but I wonder if there are any webapps out there allowing people to gamify in their life so as to allow the person to more efficiently build positive habbits. If it hasn't been done, maybe this is a new market niche to be taken advantage of.

If anyone finds anything or is interested in potentially collaborating, let me know. I'll be looking into it myself in the meantime.

EDIT: After reading a bit, I just remembered https://chains.cc/ was posted to HN a while back.

Re: Drug addiction: The complex truth

#79

Post by snom380 »

MichaelGG wrote: post #76
snom380 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you look at heroin and meth addicts, I think it's pretty easy to see that it's not only dependent on price (which for meth is quite cheap in some countries). A lot of addicts will in the long run be unable to hold a job because of their drug use, and will only turn to crime when that happens.

On meth: remember in the US this is a legally prescribed medication, and effectively indistinguishable from other amphetamines such as the Adderall mixture. There are plenty of professionals using amphetamines. The difference is probably that they're not smoking it for a rush, but using it to gain a long mental advantage. They're certainly very functional. On heroin: Opiates are far less harmful than smoking, as long…

Well, I think that a big part of those "functional" users are like functional alcoholics. They continue for many years to hold a job, but their daily usage causes problems for everyone around them.

At least that's the story you'll often hear at family group meetings. Not the usual homeless drug addict story, but people keeping up appearances while hiding some pretty big problems.

My brother was a functional meth user for many year before he lost his fiancée (mostly because of the anger outbreaks and lies, we didn't know he was using then), then his license and car, and finally his job. Of course then again there may be far more people that just continue using without ending up in the same situation.

Re: Drug addiction: The complex truth

#80

Post by jjsz »

guerrilla wrote: post #78
1337biz wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For example, she found a puzzle game on her phone that she would play obsessively Actually an interesting observation on how difficult it is to draw the line between obsession and passion. It seems that she (can devlop) an extremely high level of focus, something that what would probably regarded by many as a trait for becoming successful in a specific discipline.

To me, this and the parent post are the most interesting thing here. I find myself to be quite like the parent's family member in that all that I do is obsessive, often to the point of self-destructive results. It's always been this way with work and hacking (to the extreme) and certainly for other less productive things like alcohol, food, news (ctrl-R) and especially television/films. What I'm wondering is if we co…

An example is: 7min for iOS has badges and achievements. You should look at the companies that Badgeville or someone similar has worked on. Amazon has the layer of highlighting and the percentage you've read and that can be gamified and sold to them. Watching TV shows and series has been gamified by apps like GetGlue. Civic participation is already being gamified. It's highly saturated.
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