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I'm an addict

onetwo.bearblog.dev

451–460 of 602 posts

Re: I'm an addict

#451
I read a lot of the advice already on this comment thread but I have a fairly different take based on the path I've weaved through this world so far.

You're in control, the end. Give yourself grace when you find that you've strayed from your target. Classify things into "Crisis" and "Not A Crisis" and set up daily, hourly, etc redirections to knock out whatever falls into the crisis bucket before anything else.

As for me, my path has been from just how the author describes the feeling to fairly functional. Years of anguish, piles of notes on how to act vs actually acting any different. My suggestion to you is to write down a morning routine that redirects you into taking care of what will cause you anguish up front if not taken care of.

I've personally written software for me that literally text-to-voice's reminders and redirections to an earbud my morning routine tells me to put in first thing. Second thing says to enable "repeat mode" so it can chime in with redirections.

If you want something lightweight just on your PC that does the same thing, alter this bash one-liner to your heart's content. It's osx specific but there are other ways / commands to do this on linux or otherwise. I've personally written an android launcher / service that does this so I can have it while I walk around in the world but isn't in a state yet that would work for others. Hopefully this will help keep you on target. :D

while true; do say --rate 230 --voice Daniel "Stay on target"; sleep 18; done;

Re: I'm an addict

#452

I dont like the idea of replacing the time spend compulsively procrastinating with "learning a new language, getting a pet, going to the gym" is the right way. I see the root cause (for me atleast (used to read HN and blogs for 4 hours everyday)) is that i cant stand being with myself. During the last two months ive been trying to not panic when i'm idle. And not take out my phone or read the nearest material i can l…

> I hold unto my right as a mammal to be inefficient and sit drooling looking at trees. OK, I get this. Really, I do. I've spent many many hours doing "nothing" just like this, and those have generally been happy times. But ... how would that change if you had a lot more free time? Could you spend all day every day in such a state? Would it be healthy if you did? The reason I ask is that I've had to grapple with that…

I agree. I recently came on sick leave due to stress and had to grasp the immense amount of sudden time on my hands.

Since i am on sickleave due to anxiety, stress and skizotypia i dont usually like being alone with my thoughts.

so what ive done with my time is this:

Wake up, fill my thermos with hot water. Leave my apartment.

Drive around on my bike looking for hidden places. It can be an empty lot behind a supermarket or an off-path place in the forrest.

Walk around and study the vegetation. Find a nice place for some instant coffee, chill.

Sit-drink coffee-stare-listen-repeat.

Decide to leave. Bike to a place where there is a lot of people i know. Leave cuz i am too anxious to talk to any of them.

Have a quick chat at the harbour with some strangers.

Go to the library and read a bit of comics or newspapers. Take the bus to another harbour.

Make minor.fixes to my small boat from the 70's.

Go to the swimming hall. chill in sauna and max up the heat. Stare.

Go home, make food for minimum money as an exercise. Eat.

Think about projects i could imagine would be fun. Imagine the details of them. Maybe write them down. Be okay with never doing them.

Watch some hbo.

Plan when i have my kids again "maybe tomorrow?" And where to take them? Usually the beach or the forrest and have fun in the woods.

Go my my bedroom without any devices and sleep.

I live in denmark

Re: I'm an addict

#453

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 was exactly like OP for 2 years. I was in therapy talking about it that whole time, to no result whatsoever. Then I got on Wellbutrin and literally ten days later all of that behavior just completely ended, and I returned to taking care of important shit and being productive. No willpower required. I just suddenly felt compelled to do different things. Just saying.

Wellbutrin is known to fuck with dopamine, presumably sometimes for the better.

Re: I'm an addict

#454
post #384
post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My 78-year-old father, who doesn't even drink or smoke, gets Norcos for his back. He's a pool player and he just uses them when he plays long enough to trigger his back pain; on a normal day at the house, he won't use any. The hoops and ridiculous requirements he has to jump through are crazy. He just got a random drug test the other day. He has to meet with the doc all the time. They ask him stupid questions (I've b…

I think it's really hard to look at the opioid epidemic and not think that these medications should have a really high bar to acquire. I'm sorry your father has to put in so much effort.

Opioids should require a reasonable bar, if we go from a really low bar to a really high bar, all we are doing is making the same mistake twice, but in opposite directions.

The wildly excessive prescription of oxycontin & opioid is a crisis and a tragedy. If the response is an overreaction in the opposite direction, the result is also more tragedies.

Pain doctors seem like they are really stuck between a rock and a hard place now. You have a whole population of patients who have been given pain meds like candy, and when you suddenly take them away they're left dealing with the problem. Some of them turn to street drugs out of desperation, and that's a countdown to another fentanyl overdose.

Then there's people with chronic pain who may legitimately need the medication on a continued basis (some of whom have had their dosage increase to dizzying levels during the opioid crisis!) You frequently have patients with chronic pain who, after the pills are taking away, spend their time thinking of ways of killing themselves, as a pain management option. They cannot deal with the all-natural, constant torture.

When I look at the opioid epidemic, to me it's really hard not to think that the onus should be on pharmaceutical companies to not advertise their pain medication to doctors as non-habit forming when they are the very opposite, and results in those extremely addictive pills being given like candy to an entire population.

Re: I'm an addict

#455

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…

Very un-HN take but maybe you're not meant to be 100% efficient all the time, maybe having some time to be passive and relax is good actually. Maybe we work far too much already and expecting to be additionally productive outside those hours is an express train to burnout?

The self-perceived problem with such behavior is not the hours spent per se, but the hours spent in state of absent consciousness. You jump from one compulsory behavior to another, it's not fun, it's just unconscious existence.

Re: I'm an addict

#456
post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Medication came with unacceptable side-effects for me. Real bummer.

Bupropion (Wellbutrin, Zyban) is not a stimulant but can help with ADHD. May be worth checking in cases where stimulants aren't an option. It's however not an ADHD wonder drug and Wikipedia article[1] states that: > bupropion may be effective for ADHD but (...) this conclusion has to be interpreted with caution, because clinical trials were of low quality due to small sizes and risk of bias [1] https://en.wikipedia.o…

Anecdotally, Wellbutrin XR 150mg did help me with some problems, but not the ones described in OP.

There's a couple week period of euphoria where I didn't have those issues at all, but I've come back down to baseline.

Re: I'm an addict

#457

I dont like the idea of replacing the time spend compulsively procrastinating with "learning a new language, getting a pet, going to the gym" is the right way. I see the root cause (for me atleast (used to read HN and blogs for 4 hours everyday)) is that i cant stand being with myself. During the last two months ive been trying to not panic when i'm idle. And not take out my phone or read the nearest material i can l…

> I hold unto my right as a mammal to be inefficient and sit drooling looking at trees. OK, I get this. Really, I do. I've spent many many hours doing "nothing" just like this, and those have generally been happy times. But ... how would that change if you had a lot more free time? Could you spend all day every day in such a state? Would it be healthy if you did? The reason I ask is that I've had to grapple with that…

>i suggest that your "war" only needs to be fought because you don't have enough total free time, and it will seem like a very different war when that changes.

My war is personal, ive been over productive for 7 years like this: Work 50+ hours as it engineer, taking on too much responsibility. Doing opensource projects in spare time. Doing srt projects like stage shows and stuff on weekends. Being a dad to 3. Being main supplyer of moneys in the home. Having some heavy duty mental ilness diagnoses on the top. All the while i never felt i was worth anything. Not a dime.

Now i aim for having low amount of recurring bills. Chill with my kids (i now dont live with anymore since the above details produced my divorce) Be outside, all weather, all the time. Be helpful. And accept a new way of not being productive. And therefore also not consuming a lot.

Re: I'm an addict

#460
There's nothing wrong with being an addict. I prefer hanging out with addicts than with persons without addictions.

Become a Christian! It's a religion of slaves, three Popes were freedmen, it's a religion of slaves! Addicts are slaves!

I will say that despite disbelieving the miracles entirely on scientific grounds, I started going to a Protestant service to develop a work ethic. And it worked!

And the second thing I recommend is getting screened for Attention Deficit Disorder. Find a psych who has it too, like Dr. Matthew Stubblefield in California (show him this post), there's others too. So that will consolidate your addiction into depending on a single substance--under medical supervision--and be sated.

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