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How to know if you’re addicted

psyche.co

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Re: How to know if you’re addicted

#121

Post by jwdunne »

loudtieblahblah wrote: post #107
kranner wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've always said that there's no such thing as an ex-smoker; they're smokers who haven't smoked in a long time. This kind of absolutism may end up discouraging present-day smokers from trying to quit at all. It's also not necessarily true. Some people do go from being smokers to hating the sight/smell/thought of smoking.

Smoked from the time I was 13 until I was 29. That was 11 years ago. I was tempted to smoke for the dirt 2-3 years after I quit. But I've grown to despise it and being around it.

Interesting how close our timelines match up, minus the 11 years. Smoked from 14 to just before my 30th birthday, which was 6 months ago.

If I smell it in passing, it smells pretty disgusting. But if I spend the weekend at my parents (both heavy smokers), I quickly fall in love with the smell again and yearn for “one last cig”.

A big problem for me is that tobacco smoke very much smells like home - it’s what home smelled like growing up. And nothing takes you back like a strong, familiar scent.

Re: How to know if you’re addicted

#122

Post by matheusmoreira »

champagnois wrote: post #59
matheusmoreira wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't cause the severe dysfunction found in substance abuse. Opioid addiction for example is among the ugliest things in existence. Video games, gambling, social media addictions are all bad but not to the same degree.

Social media addiction can lead to severe mental health issues, eating disorders, depression, and even suicide. Video game addiction often leads to children and adults completely destroying their professional or academic lives. In many cases, a child grows up to find a balance between working just enough to afford their videogame habbit. I have read stories of an adult who was so addicted to a simple cellphone game t…

I don't dispute any of that. I once fell into the mobile game trap myself, it's really bad. I've posted many times here on HN about how these games are deliberately designed to form habits in players and I think they should be illegal.

The thing is I've personally seen opioid addicts do literally anything for a drug. Not for pleasure, just to avoid the pain of abstinence. One guy killed his own mother because she tried to cut off his access to the drugs, he ended up homeless and reduced to crime and was eventually arrested and forced to undergo treatment. The power of these substances cannot be underestimated. As bad as predatory video games are, I'm convinced opioids are worse.

Re: How to know if you’re addicted

#123

Post by buscoquadnary »

laurex wrote: post #120

I have more than a passing interest in neuroscience and psychology and I’m still on the fence a bit but truthfully I do think most descriptions of addiction make my relationship with my phone at least in the realm of applying the addict label. There’s the idea in neuroscience of not liking a behavior but still doing it compulsively with a unconscious hope of repeating a high that becomes harder and harder to access a…

Honestly I am at that state right now with HN and Reddit.

Re: How to know if you’re addicted

#125

Post by silicon2401 »

laurex wrote: post #120

I have more than a passing interest in neuroscience and psychology and I’m still on the fence a bit but truthfully I do think most descriptions of addiction make my relationship with my phone at least in the realm of applying the addict label. There’s the idea in neuroscience of not liking a behavior but still doing it compulsively with a unconscious hope of repeating a high that becomes harder and harder to access a…

personally I think everyone's addicted to their phones, or at best has a horrible habit of being on their phones. I used to be the standard modern person, phone always in hand and finding something to do. Over the years I put in work to change that, and now I generally go to my phone if I need it, rather than being on it by default and finding something to do with it. It's incredibly liberating. IMO The experience of using a phone is incredibly cheap and shallow compared to almost anything else you can do, even watching the same videos but on a proper tv or monitor.

Re: How to know if you’re addicted

#126

Post by blobbers »

"Addiction can be defined as a persistent, compulsive need to use a substance, despite the negative consequences to you or others."

What about things that are beneficial but unclear if they're healthy? Staying up late on the computer but then taking a sedative to fall asleep immediately so that you don't spend an hour staring at the ceiling. You get more sleep, but you're probably addicted to the sleeping pills. Without them, you don't get enough rest.

Re: How to know if you’re addicted

#127

Post by hn_version_0023 »

throwaway98749 wrote: post #93
pdenton wrote: post #65

The worst of the bunch is tobacco. The effect is basically nothing, but it hurts ones health and wallet. I've done cocaine, marijuana, mdma, speed, xtc pills, and some research chemicals. Protips: don't smoke, and never combine any two drugs. If you really want a certain substance, do at least the first session with someone sober to keep an eye on you. Never accept drugs from strangers and don't give in to peer press…

I disagree. As an addict (weed, alcohol, cocaine, and tobacco if you go that way), cocaine is much harder to quit than tobacco. But actually, telling that drug X is harder to quit that drug Y is a lie. For each person, each drug will be different. Maybe you struggle with tobacco, but that does not mean that its the worst. There's no worst, they're all equally bad.

To underscore your point: cocaine was much easier to kick for me than tobacco. But neither had the grip that caffeine had on me!

I’m pleased that all three are a distant memory now.

Re: How to know if you’re addicted

#128

Post by openknot »

blobbers wrote: post #126

"Addiction can be defined as a persistent, compulsive need to use a substance, despite the negative consequences to you or others." What about things that are beneficial but unclear if they're healthy? Staying up late on the computer but then taking a sedative to fall asleep immediately so that you don't spend an hour staring at the ceiling. You get more sleep, but you're probably addicted to the sleeping pills. With…

Sleeping pills may be better than getting no sleep at all, but cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia (CBTi) may be a better treatment approach than medication [0]. A problem with sleeping pills is that they reduce sleep quality, so you aren't as well-rested versus sleeping without them. From an interview with Matthew Walker, a professor of neuroscience and psychology [1]:

"The quality of sleep that you have when you’re on these drugs is not the same as normal, naturalistic sleep. They’re classified as “sedative hypnotics,” so the drugs actually just sedate you — and sedation is not sleep."

[...] "They don’t tend to increase sleep much beyond placebos. People may be fooled into thinking that they’re getting more sleep, but actually they’re not. This was not my conclusion — it was a committee of experts, who reviewed 65 separate drug placebo studies, and their conclusion was simple: There was no objective benefit of sleeping pills beyond placebo. Their summary was that the impact of sleeping pills was small, and of questionable clinical importance.

"And my third problem: They are associated with a higher risk of death and cancer.

"About that last point, in your book you do raise the possibility that it’s not sleeping pills that’s causing those things — it’s whatever is causing you to have trouble sleeping, which weakens your immune system.

"Yeah, I think that would be the counterargument, and I think it’s a very reasonable one at this stage. But I think an equally reasonable, equally tenable explanation is that they do shorten your life and increase your risk of cancer. The answer is we just don’t know which of those two things it is.”

[0] https://aims.uw.edu/nyscc/training/sites/default/files/CBTi%...

[1] https://www.thecut.com/2017/10/the-vicious-cycle-of-insomnia...

Re: How to know if you’re addicted

#129

Post by iSnow »

bodge5000 wrote: post #90
pdenton wrote: post #65

The worst of the bunch is tobacco. The effect is basically nothing, but it hurts ones health and wallet. I've done cocaine, marijuana, mdma, speed, xtc pills, and some research chemicals. Protips: don't smoke, and never combine any two drugs. If you really want a certain substance, do at least the first session with someone sober to keep an eye on you. Never accept drugs from strangers and don't give in to peer press…

Guess its just a matter of experience and perspective, because for me tobacco is the "best" due its lack of any effect on you mentally, even if it is pricey and bad for you. Though I guess Sugar is probably a bit better and has pretty much the same consequences. Regardless of your perspective though, I'd say heroin is absolutely the worst

Sugar is not a drug though and doesn't create addiction, maybe a mild dependence.

Re: How to know if you’re addicted

#130

Post by openknot »

goldcountry wrote: post #124

Can we finally stop calling it "drugs and alcohol" and just acknowledge that alcohol is a drug?

From the perspective of academic psychologists, this is true: "Substance use disorders (SUDs), as described in DSM-IV, are part of a class of disorders (substance-related disorders) that are “related to the taking of a drug of abuse (including alcohol)” [1 p. 175]. Although the transition from DSM-IV to DSM-5 involves changes at multiple levels for SUDs, this basic definition remains unchanged [1,2]."

However, most likely readers of the article are likely unaware of the distinction (or may resist it), so the usage of the colloquial and informal definition of "drug" that excludes alcohol would help more people with alcohol use disorder find the article and learn about its main points.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK519702/

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