I'm an addict

The way I view this is that there's no such thing as idle brain time. When you take away focused conscious thinking, the brain is built to do background problem-solving on its own. (This also makes sense if the purpose of dreaming while asleep is garbage-collection of unresolved thoughts and anxieties.)

> You often get a mild euphoria when you first start or increase a dose but it stops after a few days of use.

Anecdotally, green tea or just L-theanine extracted from it helps. Even mild euphoria is unwelcome as it can reposition dopamine (and possibly serotonin) baseline and lower effects from following doses.

> plenty of evidence to suggest that the end effect of stimulants is different for many with ADHD and that they're less likely to abuse them due to this.

Unmedicated ADHD person is even more likely to seek dopamine hits and get addicted. We are commenting a post titled "I'm an addict" which seems to be written by someone undiagnosed (I'm not a specialist).

So true. Pork is forbidden for muslims for many centuries (an awesome kind of motivation) and yet people struggled to wear masks during the Covid19 pandemic while facing own potential death, maybe killing relatives or unknown consequences (at the time).

> I can't trust myself. Cause: I'm simply incapable of doing things I've set out to do.

My ADHD alarms were going off right as I saw this. It is exactly how I characterized my struggles with ADHD too. If anything, I have had a point in my life when I would have written this exact same post. I have since found some reasonable solutions without medication. So, I'll post some of them here.

> Getting over it: Besides blanket ban on all things video and social media, I don't think I have a better solution

If I was a betting man, I'd bet against this working,

_______

Recommendations:

1. Don't fight your base state. If hedonism and continuous stimulation is what you are. That's fine. I literally walk around with a podcast on at all times and I watch ALL my YT subscriptions everyday. It is more wasteful to spend an entire day fighting off those urges, than to just do them in one go and get them out of the way. Those blockers/procrastination-extensions never help. I have tried. It only makes me more miserable.

2. ADHD people do a lot better with external deadlines than internal deadlines. Make small-tangible (about 50% of your capacity) daily commitments. If a task takes longer than 1 day, break it down until it seems like a '1 day' task. Communicate it in a formal settings (standups), and just like that, the fire under my proverbial butt, lights up.

3. Post-covid there is no such thing as weird working hours. If the wave of productivity hits you at 8pm, so be it. Traditional hours don't work for you, and trying to follow them will only make you more miserable. Just make sure you get your sleep and food on time.

4. Learn to give up and ask for help. ADHD people also tend to be perfectionists with weirdly strong ethics around commitments in the worst way possible. If the task has become an albatross around your neck, then ask for help. Pair program, have a white boarding session or plain old ask someone else to do it. If your rigid ethical system is blocking something critical, then it's better to be humble and move on.

5. Channel procrastination productive directions. I am known in my friends group for being the most resourceful person with encyclopedic knowledge about absolutely random things. Guess how I learned that? It has helped facilitate relationships and I get to stay at the top of my 'learning' by procrastinating. Another awesome way of procrastinating is unblocking your peers, my ADHD brain loves it. Sometimes I will use procrastination to build out the helper-package I had been planning for weeks or cleaning up old code. Not ideal, but better than nothing.

6. Do something you love. ADHD people above all, cannot do mind-numbing work. I changed my entire career direction to be in something that I loved instead of liked, and it has paid off big time. When work feels like procrastination, it is easier to finish work.

7. Pick up a deeply exhausting hobby. Drums are an amazing way for me to decompress if the ADHD side is peaking too much. I bang the living daylights out of that thing for 20 minutes, and it clears my mind up for easier work. Progmetal serves a similar use-case for me. ________

I am yet to figure out if I should get medications. I have self-medicated with a lot of coffee, but am scared of going any farther with real medication. I personally will wait until an adverse life event before choosing medication as a necessary solution. However, a few of my ADHD peers swear that they would not be able to function in society without their drugs. So yeah, maybe try some medication and things might just work out.

Lastly, watching normal people give ADHD folks recommendations is some of the most hilarious stuff ever. They simply can't fathom the complete lack of self-agency that's so central to being ADHD person.

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My procrastination creds: (odd flex but OK)

* 100k comment karma on reddit (no memes) * 5k comment karma on HN (pure brute force) * 3 hrs/day YT videos watched on average (most of it is podcasts in downtime) * Medically diagnosed with ADHD * Was the most restless kid I've seen (undiagnosed till adulthood) * Was called 'smart, but the biggest nuisance I've had in a classroom' by professor (easter egg)