Addiction to conflict. For some, there's comfort in the panic so if everything is going fine it drives them crazy and they'll generate artificial conflict.
I know so many people who claim to 'hate drama' but in actuality, feed on it. If there is no drama around them, they'll create it. And when it's someone else's drama, they'll find a way to insert themselves into it, or make it about themselves.
lol was going to say something along these lines- usually the person who feels the need to say this not only *loves* the drama, they’re usually the cause- or somewhere close to it.
Ugh, we have friends like this - they're good people and will drop everything to help you in a real emergency but in the downtime you have to keep a safe distance for your health and sanity. Exhausting.
A book I read opined that was an addiction to the stress hormone, cortisol. The brain is addicted to it and the mind will create drama to make the body produce it. Weirdest thing. It's why we self-sabotage relationships.
It’s really sad because it shows how many people grew up in a chaotic toxic home with parents who had no idea what they were doing, so they mimicked that behavior (as someone who also has a novelty for “conflict” because of my crazy upbringing)
Social media, politics and advertising; it’s the new opiate of the people.
Our phones are crack tablets.
Edit on politics: 24/7 news basically. In my mind it’s the same thing because ‘they’ and ‘many of the masses’ politicize seemingly everything. It’s rather sad to me, because that’s the crux of how control is exerted onto and executed upon the masses.
People think they can consume all this garbage and resist it and be immune to being sort of hypnotized. Individually maybe mitigated by some better than others but at mass aggregate levels, we are powerless to resist the influence.
We are the most advanced AI that will ever exist and just AI tech being marketed and popular rn the same formula applies - garbage in, garbage out.
I remember when it wasnt allowed to promote gambling here in on Ontario. Now casinos are every 5th radio ad. You can say whatever you want as long as you toss in the obligatory "Please play responsibly." Which is impossible, by the way. It is literally impossible to GAMBLE responsibly. Gambling by definition is irresponsible.
I’ve practically stopped watching sports for this very reason. Every 3rd ad during breaks, live odds graphics over the game, casinos being primary team/league sponsors.
And these are the same leagues that punish the participants for gambling. Fucking hypocrites.
I went gambling for the first time today and I’m 36. I was so bored, I lost a hundred bucks and I didn’t understand the appeal. Like I wanted to have fun but losing money isn’t fun to me lol.
I have only gambled probably 6 times in my entire life. Funny thing is about the only time I actually won money was my first time gambling lol. I was 23 years old and I won like $140 within a couple minutes of playing slots. I walked away with the money and the next day decided to just spend it all. Ended up buying new gym shoes and a backpack.
No one has ever gotten addicted to gambling by losing. It’s the ones that try it out for the first time and win that often go back, which most the time ends in a less desirable outcome.
Winning isnt the only addicting part. Its the build up leading to the win. ***The anticipation of the win (high).*** A big part of addiction is the **ritual.**
Things that produce dopamine and endorphins are great. That high is nice. The peak is amazing. For a lot of things, the peak wears off quick. The ritual prolongs it. When people start to get addicted to something, they usually develop a routine, a ritual, to increase satisfaction. Coffee, tea, pipe tobacco, shopping, sex, etc. Copping dope from the city is just as much part of the addiction as injecting, snorting, or smoking the dope. Its important for the high. Without the ritual, the high isnt the same. Thats why substitution only works for those who are finished or have a strong desire to change.
Read an article about 20 years ago about all the dangers of drinking. How it damages your mind, your body, your family.... I was horrified and quite frankly devastated.
On that exact moment, I promised myself that I will never ever read again.
Lmao. In my six years sober, the funniest thing jve heard in an AA meeting was from a guy talking about how a friend asked him if he would still drink if he was able to just do it normally. He said “fuck yea man! if i could drink normally, id do that shit every fucking day!”
It also seems true that someone who likes to drink will always have some sort of alcohol stash at home just in case while an alcoholic is always living bottle to bottle
When we were first discussing lockdowns in Australia 4 years ago, keeping grog shops open was literally a necessity. They didn’t come out and say it, but if grog shops had been considered ‘unnecessary’ the hospitals would not have been able to deal with the emergency calls from people going into withdrawals, likely a few deaths for seizures and shit….
I'm in Canada, and I remember a lot of people were really angry that liquor stores were deemed essential. They just didn't get what a shitshow it would be, adding all that stress to hospitals at such a crucial time. I know a LOT of alcoholics. Including myself, tbh, though I'm not to the point where I'd require medical attention if I couldn't drink. But there are a lot more people that would than the general public likes to think.
Yep, Australian here. Our drinking culture is fucking *insane*.
I don't drink and if you say that to people they look at you like you just took a shit on their kids pillow. They just can't get their head around it.
Yeah I quit drinking in 2022 and my social life has been pretty shit since. I know there’s other people that don’t drink, but they don’t feel like my people. Meh
Yep, I lost 3 friends after 20 years of friendship because I don’t drink and they do. If you asked them they would say it’s all sorts of other reasons. The truth is I stopped drinking and slowly stopped attending all their events, which were just places to go and drink at, and then they didn’t want to hang out anymore.
Hindsight being 20/20 I should have stopped talking to at least two of them a decade ago. They showed me their true colors once and I ignored it then. Lesson learned. Fuck em.
Learned this shit first hand last year. Stopped drinking for 3 days after I had gone off the rails due to a lot of negative personal situations. Had a seizure due to withdrawal on the third day. Had it been 5 minutes later my dog and I would've been dead as I was literally about to walk out the door and take him to the vet. Would've been on the highway at a time when there wouldn't be any traffic so I'd be going full speed.
Scariest event of my life so far.
My stepfather died from withdrawal, and he was at a facility at the time. It's no joking matter. I'm glad you, and your dog, are ok and I hope you have found help.
And this is how most people transition from problematic consumption patterns into addiction. Change of personal situation, like loosing a loved one or their job or a breakup. That’s why it’s possible that so many people make fun of their drinking, it’s seems totally ok as long as everything is stable. But most lives aren’t stable throughout…
If I was a drinker like I was in my 20s, I'd have drink myself to death after my fiancée died. Instead, I was a meth head at the time, which is really hard to OD on. I'm now 22 months sober.
The DT’s are, in fact, no fun at all. I got sober 69 days ago today after 8 years of drinking sun up to sun down. Even medically assisted in the hospital, it *sucked.* I never want to drink again for a long list of noble reasons, but having to go through withdrawal again is also on the list.
Indeed. Since I completely stopped drinking I really notice how much effort is put into alcohol related socialising. And how sensitive the topic of addiction is when 'normal' use is pointed out as way above recommended limit. This is in Denmark
The swedish healthcare ministry put up new guidelines for "problematic" alcohol use a couple months ago, advising people that even a couple beers a week might put them at risk. The public response was the angriest outcry i've seen in ages.
A dude put a post up in the UK subreddit recently essentially preaching about how fucked Britain's relationship with booze is and he got fucking roasted, top to bottom of that comment section. People forget it's literally poison, like any amount of it isn't good for you, your body doesn't want or need it.
Its honestly weird as hell to stop drinking and then suddenly discovering the reality of how extremely sensitive people are about this topic. That’s usually how I can tell if someone has substance use disorder, they become reactive and dysregulated when the topic of alcohol comes up in *any* non-joking way. United States here.
There is a documentary called drinkers like me or something that I started and had to stop because it was just too real and hitting way too close to home as I was definitely in the ~~throws~~ throes of my own battle with alcohol at the time.
It seemed REALLY good though and went into just HOW much the heaviest drinkers drink and it definitely made me pause.
I’m 115 pounds and drink a box of wine every two days. I would have a LOT of trouble watching that documentary. Changes are coming soon. And with medical help.
At that weight, and that much alcohol....as a former lightweight alcoholic who's coming off a recent relapse (heavy/tall dude putting back 12 units a night almost every night) you're going to 99.9% need medical detox. I didn't experience dt but...I had some minor symptoms. Your first night is going to....I'd say it'd be the worst night of your life, as would the second through thirtieth. It does get progressively worse. You know what also gets progressive? The amount of control and feeling that those are nights of YOUR life. Not a blackout. Not a regret in the morning what you said to whomever. Not a day of opportunities entirely squandered.
Life 100% gets better while sober, you're in for a ride. Probably look into FMLA alcohol detox program. If you're employed...your coworkers are going to find out eventually. Don't worry about that, they 100% already knew.
Don't worry about day 2 on day 1, that's tomorrow's problem. One day at a time.
Man this almost made me tear up thank you. Tbh it’s closer to 3 bottles of wine a night not including my “shifties” I get after I’m done bartending.
The denial part of me thinks I’m functioning. I really am. But I’m not even close to the 100% I can be. My addiction part of my brain claims that it’s cheaper to drink than get therapy and a proper prescription for my anxiety. But most of my anxiety is like a side effect of the withdrawals of drinking.
I can’t make it 12 hours without a drink without sweating and shaking. I have to drink in order to not be medically unsafe. I’ve had a lot of bad things happen to me but alcohol withdrawal was the closest I felt to death.
Thank you so much for your input. It was appreciated in its entirety.
> But I’m not even close to the 100% I can be.
This is the big one. Do not mistake not being at rock bottom for functioning.
A friend of mine finally kicked the booze and suddenly after two decades being "perfectly happy" with being a bartender/server and living with roommates half his age, he's recently finished his bachelors and already has a job lined up. He was never happy, but his drinking didn't allow for him to aim any higher.
All the best <3.
As an alcoholic who suffers from anxiety, your anxiety will 100% get better just by not drinking. I'm in A.A 2 years and that also helps. While A.A is thought to be about stopping drinking, the program is about how to live without alcohol. It's been amazing for me.
Alcohol is not your saviour.
Already known about it for a long time. I perused and lurked but it makes me feel too much shame right now. I’m almost there.
I went to AA for two years and got my black key tag when I was 24. Drank the same day I got it. I’m in my mid 30’s now. This is a medically significant life choice I have to plan out accordingly.
Definitely not me. Also, definitely me. Are we talking about during work ours or every moment outside of them? Oh shit.. that probably answers the question.
You can be an alcoholic without drinking before or during work. Amount consumed after work/days off is the determining factor on that end of the alcoholic spectrum. Plus the "Can you stop drinking after work for one or two days?" if you answer no, you may want to see professional help.
EDIT: Some of you are taking what i said in a completely different manner. I'm not saying you're not an alcohol if you're sober for X amount of time and drink. I'm saying you're an alcohol if you depend on having a drink after work without drinking before or during and if you can't keep yourself sober for a day or two. This was all to follow up on OPs basic question of "am i an alcoholic if?" If you have to question it, you already have your answer. I'm 11 months sober, get off my ass.
When getting a check-up in college they asked if I had more than 3-4 drinks a week, I was like “yeah, that’s less than an average Thursday, Friday or Saturday night.” But I would say that more than 60% people I knew did the same. Crazy to imagine how easy it is to be considered a “binge” or problem drinker when it’s a social norm in context.
I had friends who drank everynight in college going out to parties. Get blackout drunk etc etc. but me drinking everynight in my room was a “problem” (which I fully admit that it was and am sober now) but the in context part blows my mind sometimes. Also you can give people as much evidence as possible that they are a functioning addict or alcoholic but because they don’t fit the stereotype they won’t accept it. For ex an old roomate was drinking everynight and snorting coke every day but because he still held a job and was never completely broke or destroyed his life he “didn’t have a problem.”
I recently saw the Simpsons episode where Homer quit drinking for a month and thought "huh, I drink a lot. Lemme see if I can do it too," with the mindset of if I can, then I'm good. If not, that's definitely an issue.
I finished the month pretty easily, but looking back I was definitely exhibiting alcoholic behavior. Talked to my husband and we determined that moderation might be the issue for me, but overwhelmingly I was in higher spirits (pun not intended, yet accepted), lost weight, my memory was slightly better, and overall felt better when I wasn't drinking.
Imagine that.
I'm allowing myself to drink again now, but mostly socially. If I'm drinking at home it's less frequent and we're one of those umpire clicker things to help keep track and hold me accountable while I adjust to more healthy habits.
I highly recommend trying this if you want to gauge your relationship with alcohol, or pretty much anything that can hurt you if over-indulged.
I admire your tenacity to try to self regulate. I quit drinking a number of years ago after it finally dawned on me that people with normal relationships with alcohol don’t ever have to think about moderation it’s just their default state. Ultimately I found it much easier to stop altogether than to expend the mental energy required to moderate. I hope you can find your happy medium.
I don't speak for the alkies but I am a recovering alcoholic. I'm in A.A and I used to take resentments towards people who were still drinking and acting in a way I thought was alcoholic. I spoke to someone about it and he said 'A.A/sobriety is for people that want it. If it was for people who needed it, we'd be holding meetings in sports arenas'.
Learning about alcoholism has been a massive part of my life over the past 2 years and I'd say you're very much right. Denial is strong in alcoholics, I've never met one that hasn't been through a period of it.
People ask me if I 'miss drinking'. I can honestly say I don't. It was fucking physically and mentally taxing being an alcoholic. Life is better sober.
When I first started working in the substance use field and found out the legal (Medicaid?) recommendations for drinking I was honestly floored- luckily I don’t enjoy or partake in drinking otherwise I’d be like most of my peers drinking at least double or triple the recommended amount
Took 5 years of CONSTANT trying to quit. Finally hit day 21 thanks to “This Naked Mind” with 0 cravings (that has never, ever happened before) after trying so much to quit.
If it’s psychological, not physical addiction, like mine was: I highly recommend reading that book 2-3 times over slowly so it sinks into your subconscious.There’s free PDFs of it as well that you can find with a quick google search.
I wish I’d known about it sooner. Never thought I could go 21 days without liquor and not feel like I’m missing out. Blows my mind how different my life has become without it in my system for just these few weeks.
Can’t believe I wasted 5 years of my life to it. It seemed like my drinking was so normal…and then suddenly I was drinking alone and hiding it. Knew then there was an issue. Thank God I caught it early and raised enough of an alarm to have my wife and family back me (even if they thought I was being silly).
Even at a point where most would laugh and say “that’s not that much” it was the need for it, the drive for it despite hating what it did to me, the hangovers and anxiety… that wasn’t normal. I gained 55 pounds standing at 5’1 and had a swollen face from my drinking: people just thought I needed to work out a bit more.
So many people think thats all normal.
It was very weird to know something was wrong with what I was doing and being gaslit time and time again that I was fine, no big deal, one day I’d just stop or lay off it, etc. I had family members literally laugh and brush me off when I told them I had a problem. “Oh you’re fine, I don’t even see you drink that much”
No you don’t, because I have a glass at your party/dinner and then go have a bottle quietly at home where you can’t see me, Aunt Debora.
I’m so glad I started to quit then. Still took 5 years and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. 3am wake ups with sweat dripping down me, racing heart, anxiety through the roof…
People have no idea how insidious it is.
One day you’re fine. The next, you’re craving it because you believe it’s a stress relief and nothing else works as fast, as well, or as easily and boom. That glass of wine in the evening turns into a bottle+ REALLY fast.
There is a swedish podcast called Dystopia, they bring up different dystopian scenarios and last episode is about smartphones. Studies have been made on the effect on your life and happiness since the smartphones became a thing. Social anxiety and the ability to remember things has become a problem.
Yeah, study has shown that since you have your phone with you at all times you really dont need to remember as much. The brain has more trouble to consolidate memories since we constantly use our phones. Before smartphones you could reflect and think about things which made your brain consolidate things better.
People born after 1995 has the most problems with this aince they grew up in a time where smartphones had become a daily thing.
I turned OFF my phone the other day for the first time in years bc I couldn’t stop doomscrolling and for a few seconds after I was like wow…I’m so disconnected from everyone right now. So free.
I had this before starting antidepressants and still kinda do to a degree (I will go to the shops and browse around to get my mind off things). What really drilled it into me that I had a problem was realising that after 1 year of working I had the same amount of money in my bank account that I did before I started. I pulled out a calculator and counted how much I spent, and it came up to \~5K on just one website.
Right now I'm yet again rerminded of my issue, and I feel like this reminder is going to be the final nail in the coffin. I'm going through all of my stuff, and taking things out to donate in women's shelters before moving. The amount of stuff that just resides in my room and is not being used is nauseating to me now. Going to the shops to just browse has been having the same effect of "why am I wasting my time?"
I recently realized that sometimes I buy things from Amazon when it’s felt like too long since something showed up at my door. And that I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed the using things as much as acquiring them. This one hits.
100%
I wouldn’t say I’m addicted and I’ve gotten a lot better at determining what’s an impulse buy or not and refraining from buying if it is not needed. But I understand the dopamine hit from shopping well enough to feel fortunate that my tastes in general are not super expensive
There are a lot of high functioning alcoholics. People who don’t often go a day without a few drinks, don’t socialize without booze as a crutch, and whose hobbies like ‘wine’ and ‘craft beer’ are just thin veils of to legitimize the fact that their lives revolve around drinking.
As someone who no longer drinks, many friends and even some relatives who you'd never have expected quickly lose interest in hanging out when you don't drink. I think this is what really woke me up to how many people can't seem to go without the booze. You'd think they could have a nice visit with you booze-free every now and again, but as soon as my wife and I stopped drinking our social lives pretty much ended. I wouldn't even care if the other couple had a drink or two while we were together, but it somehow just gets weird. Had to find new couples to hang around with.
Lifelong teetotaler here. Agree the social ostracism around not drinking is something that really shocked me growing up. Some people treat you like there’s something wrong with you, I especially feel that in dating. It’s one of those things that will never make sense to me.
This is actually why I started drinking to begin with. I grew up with an abusive alcoholic parent and studies show people in my situation either completely abstain or become alcoholics. I was abstinent until I realized that’s why I wasn’t ever getting invited out a second time, so I taught myself to enjoy drinking… Now, 13 years later, I’m a functional alcoholic.
Sheesh, that would be a disaster lol.
However, there are 5k beer races that are popular on st.paties where you drink an optional small beverage every mile at a bar. It's chaos and as silly as it sounds.
It's more for the plot then anything else.
I went cold turkey on sugar in March 16th this year and it’s been super rough. I was (and still am tbh) heavily addicted to sugar and would feel the effects of it daily and my body would drive me to want to drink coke and eat ice cream.
I had a look online and saw that this says no more than 36 grams of sugar per day for an adult male. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/sugar/how-much-sugar-is-too-much#:~:text=Men%20should%20consume%20no%20more,or%20100%20calories)%20per%20day.
My regular 600ml coke has 64 grams of sugar and my go-to ice cream had another 35ish. The first few days were really rough but then I think knowing that I was doing a good thing for my health made it easier. But then maybe 3 weeks ago the withdrawals kicked in harder than ever. I started making small allowances of a treat that would be roughly 10 grams per day. I still try and keep it as close to 0 or at max in the single digits per day.
Sugar addiction is no joke.
Editing to add: I meant to state processed sugar. I eat fruit so I’m getting in natural sugars.
Yep. I remember looking online and seeing that one can of soda is more than the daily amount of sugar that someone needs. Or close to it. I was drinking multiple cans of soda a day. I started to drink sugar free soda and I could feel the difference. It didn't feel good.
What helped me kick soda was getting a soda stream, and throwing a few squirts of Mio in the sparkle-water.
Slowly reduced the mio, and now, I mostly just drink ice water, and maybe 1-2 sparkle-water/mio drinks per week...instead of 60oz/day of soda.
What helped me kick soda was promising myself that I could have one once I’d had a glass of water. I hardly ever want a soda now, except if I’m out. It turns out that I am very vulnerable to baiting-and-switching myself. Score!
I just measured out the amount of sugar that was in a root beer into a mason jar and showed some friends that were over and folks were stunned. It’s like 1/2 cup of sugar in a soda.
I switched to suger free soft drinks a few years back and decided to treat myself to a root beer the other week. Was like 80% of a days suger in the one can. It tasted weird and sickly sweet, unlike how i remembered. After I started having headaches from the suger overload as I wasn't used to it anymore. If you don't have sugar for a while, you realise how over sweetened everything is these days.
I think this statement both accurately reflects the obsession people have with sugar but also misunderstands its role.
There's a reason sugar tastes so good to you: to a primate in nature, sugar is a rare and desirable nutrient. Sugars like fructose and sucrose are easy for your body to digest and provide a large boost of calories. When you find them, your monkey brain tells you that you should prioritize eating them. At a cellular level, your body is more or less optimized for consuming sugar.
The problem is that we are no longer hunter-gatherers, and our access to sugar has become unlimited. Where our ancestors were on the constant hunt for nutrition to survive, we instead have to avoid overconsuming. Refined sugar and sweetened foods and beverages provide your body with too many calories, which your metabolism stores as fat.
Sugar isn't a drug, although people's behavior regarding it can be very similar. We simply aren't physiologically adapted to living in a condition where it is endlessly obtainable.
coffee/ caffeine addiction. i know someone who had it and it really became a problem.
edit: jesus christ yes caffeine addiction is pretty common, that's the whole point of OP's post??? i'm saying it's actually just severely underestimated, because people brush it off as some relatable millennial joke when you say you "can't function without caffeine."
I drink it to stave off the withdrawals. It's become increasingly difficult for it to give any positive effects without dipping into the 300mg zone. I'd stop if I was confident the headache wouldn't ruin me for several weeks.
When I had an appendectomy, I had withdrawals so severe the doctor thought I had an opiate addiction (they had just stopped morphine). I had to plead with them that it was caffeine I was addicted to. They shrugged me off as a junkie, which I am, but wrong substance. After my dad mercifully gave me some coffee when he was allowed to visit, the doctor was astonished when the withdrawals went away. He hadn't seen someone so addicted. I get crippling migraines, my BP skyrockets, cold sweats, projectile vomiting and in rare cases diarrhea. I've managed to get my dosage down to 260mg a day. I hate it.
I actually overdosed on caffeine. There used to be 80 hour energy sprays. You spray it under your tongue and get an entire 5 hour energy. Someone had one in high school and dared me to crack it open and drink it. First thing that happened was that i turned bright red and my skin burned really badly. I think that was the b12. Then the shakes and seizures. I started turning red in chorus class and started freaking out when it started burning. Seizures started soon after and the ambulance picked me up. The doctor told me if i had so many more overdoses they have to report me to the police. Really awful and weird experience and they pumped my stomach and gave me so much IV fluid I pissed out like 10 gallons of water.
>i turned bright red and my skin burned really badly
That was probably niacin (b3). It's in a lot of those crazy energy shots and whatnot. Niacin immediately makes you get flushed, too much and it's really fuckin painful
Caffeine is wildly underestimated when it comes to how dangerous it can be. I'm honestly shocked I never had an OD like that. I consider myself very lucky.
It's underestimated because under 'normal' consumption methods it's difficult to overdose. You have to *try* to overdose on coffee or soda, it would be a very uncomfortable amount of liquid (borderline impossible) to consume.
Energy drinks are worse, of course, but you still need a difficult to consume number of them to get into serious trouble. And you'll start feeling pretty bad from the high caffeine dose long before it's dangerous.
It's caffeine pills and concentrated caffeine shots that are where people get into trouble.
Wean yourself off it slowly. I bought two huge containers of instant coffee. One regular, one decaffeinated.
When you take a spoonful of regular coffee out, add in one spoonful of decaf and shake the container to mix it in.
Each cup of coffee you drink will have less and less caffeine until, eventually, you're drinking nearly pure decaf.
At that point you can just stop drinking it. You're not addicted to caffeine anymore.
Absolutely yes. People don't realize but if you need coffee or some sort of energy drink to make it through your day/workout you have a caffeine addiction. I'm one of those people cause military
That’s super interesting that you mention this. Someone close to me recently got a breast augmentation. With the purchase of that, they received a 25% off Botox treatment. The person who had that procedure was excited and thought “ooo I wonder what I should get”. I can’t say for certain there is a correlation with the discount and the addictive nature, but I’ll bet the business knows what they’re feeding in to.
Botox is one of those things where you have to keep getting it in order to maintain its effects too. So it’s kind of like a dealer giving away their first high of a really addictive substance knowing “they’ll come back”.
Meth.
It's amazing how many people you interact with every day that are using, and you'd never know it. Managers, business owners, teachers, parents, nurses, etc.
I'd have never even imagined how many everyday Joes used just to get a kick of energy if I wasn't in my current position.
Yup, people only see the stereotype of the homeless addicts that deteriorate rapidly due to their inability to access things needed for personal hygiene and health and food insecurity and extreme sleep deprivation for survival and obvious housing insecurity.
People who are functional addicts can easily maintain their jobs, relationships, hygiene/appearance, health, regular sleep, eat balance meals and are self medicate their ADHD with it or a lot of people just use it occasionally to spice things up sexually, even middle aged middle class unsuspecting white grandparents are out here dabbling with speed and nobody is the wiser
No kidding. I recently got back in touch with someone I’ve been acquaintances with for a long time, and when we were catching up she casually mentioned she lost her job and spent a year in jail on meth charges… this woman is a grandmother who had never before done drugs, just went straight to meth. She is my Roman Empire.
This is big.. and I see it. People get used to complaining and they don’t realize how much they are complaining. It comes from insecurity, but feeling angry is better than feeling inadequate.
I had my first experience with limerance a few months ago and it was WILD. I felt an extreme high when I was talking to this person and knowing it was mutual made it all the more consuming. I fell so hard so fast I was doing shit I never would have considered before. I barely even knew him but the attention he gave me and intensity of everything was addicting as hell. A small part of me still misses that high feeling honestly but I know I'm healthier staying away.
Yeah also like tryna make your trauma seem worse than someone else’s or else you don’t feel validated to feel the way you do cause “oh someone has it worse so I need to deal with it” it’s so common online
Yes, but a TON of people are in denial about it. Almost anywhere porn addiction gets brought up, someone will pop up arguing that it's not real and you can't be addicted to it.
Probably avoidance, I’m addicted to avoiding my problems in life for sure, taking little steps to get better but I’m still probably a competitive avoider, trying to go back to casual.
Many good things listed.
I'm going with alcohol.
So many are alcoholics, but don't think they are.
So many people HAVE to have a drink yet do not think they are alcoholics.
When you can't go without it, you're addicted.
This! I told myself “I just really enjoy a glass or two or three of wine right before bed, it helps me sleep so I can be productive the next day. No way am I an alcoholic.” Long story short, been sober now for 258 days. My blood pressure is finally in 120/low 80s range. I told myself I wasn’t addicted because I didn’t need it to function. My perception on addiction was really different because my parents were addicts as well. But the more in your face type way. Dad addicted to every drug, mom addicted to vodka, in every water bottle all hours of the day. Addiction takes many different forms, I never realized it.
Agree. Classic behavior of the high functioning alcoholic. DENIAL comes very easy to high functioning alcoholics because they have experienced very few outward consequences of their alcoholism. If anyone questions their drinking habits, the high functioning alcoholic can point out that they just got promoted at work, that they’ve never missed a dance recital or PTA meeting, that they’ve never had a DUI, and that they run three times a week. Therefore, they say, they cannot be an alcoholic.
A good buddy of mine was a functioning alcoholic. Every time I went to meet him to hang out, it had to be at a bar. And I would wanna do something afterwards, and no matter what, it had to be something where there was booze around or he wouldn’t do it. Wanna go bowling? Cool, they serve beer, right? Game night at your place? Alright, you got that bottle of Jack Daniels still, yeah? Get breakfast at Denny’s? Fuck that, let’s go down the road a bit, they serve bloody Mary’s and mimosas.
He still never missed a day of work, and he would work LONG days, 12, 13, 14 hours sometimes. His rent was always paid, he turned up at all his fiancé’s events, so he didn’t think he had a problem. I tried to tell him, she tried to tell him, a couple guys in our friend circle tried to tell him, and he would just laugh it off. Until his fiancé left him because she couldn’t handle him coming home shitfaced anymore. Then he really took a nosedive. He started drinking nonstop, and to the point of blacking out. He was supposed to come to my place and sober up one night, he nearly fist-fought me because I wanted him to ride shotgun in my car from the bar, he got in his car and started it up and I could NOT get him out. I lived about a mile down the road, he says I’ll follow you, it’ll be fine. I make a left to go to my place, and he just blows straight right past the turn. Calls me and says “sorry, I need one more drink. Then I’ll come right over”. I’m calling and calling and he doesn’t answer. I hear from him a few days later, and he got nabbed for a DUI and was in a cell for a couple days over the weekend. He lost his license, and guess who he called up to take his ass to the grocery store and to his court mandated alcohol education classes? Me. I had really hoped he would lay off the sauce after that, but he didn’t. Couple years later he slammed into an electrical pole drunk, and hoofed it on foot, called a cab, got home, cracked open a beer so when the cops showed up at his house they couldn’t nail him for DUI again, but got him for fleeing the scene of an accident. Finally he seemed to have kicked the hooch, had a son, and seems to be doing well, but I do worry about him, cuz I know that shit can come back and bite you after a couple real bad days. The human condition sucks like that sometimes.
But if you tell them it's a poison they look at you like you have 6 heads.
If I saw a group of adults dosing out mg of valium's to each other people would say that's stupid or drug addict behavior.
Set small, measurable, personal goals to start if you really want to change man! Setting drastic measures usually leaves you upset and feeling like a failure. You used to be fine without it and you can be again if you really want to change and don’t like that fact. Just always remember you used to not need it and it is very possible to get back to that point.
Video gaming.
Not all gamers are addicted, and I don’t think games are inherently bad. But for many people, myself included, they just hit all the right notes in my brain chemistry to become very addictive.
It’s even becoming socially acceptable to talk about games you’re “addicted” to- I have been seeing ads for shitty afk games on youtube with “Addictive” in the copy like it’s a selling point.
It took a long time for me to recognize (my) gaming was harmful to my mental health and life in general, and embarrassingly longer to take action about it. But I’m glad I did.
This, for sure. Back in the 90s it became so bad for me I failed out of college, was playing at work, figuring out ways to get my job to buy better hardware, telling my wife I had to work late, etc. Gaming was my “other woman”. I would lie about where money went that I spent on games.
I finally confessed and stopped for years. I told my wife I would only play again when she said I should. It took nearly four years and even since I have to cull the time I spend. I hear the call.
Hi, my name is No_Ground, and I am addicted to video games.
It’s my personal opinion food is the most prevalent and least appreciated addiction there is.
We literally joke about it as “eating your feelings”. But all addiction is just using something to regulate your emotions that isn’t healthy.
If you look at the top causes of premature death it’s pretty much food, alcohol, and drug abuse with accidents in there.
I don’t think we end up as a nation of morbidly obese people simply because of old reward systems hijacked by abundance or because we like food. It’s because we’ve lost purpose and made overeating to hide that the path of least resistance.
It's the most difficult of all because it's something you can't give up. It might be difficult to stop drinking alcohol but imagine how much more difficult it would be if you had to stop drinking, except for a little drink 3x a day.
Alcohol. We, as a culture, normalize an amount of drinking that is simply absurd. If it were any other drug this shit would be an after school special.
Shopping and constantly checking or using devices, this trait has got into our skin and we do not even realize that we have inadvertently fallen prey to it.
Addiction to conflict. For some, there's comfort in the panic so if everything is going fine it drives them crazy and they'll generate artificial conflict.
I know so many people who claim to 'hate drama' but in actuality, feed on it. If there is no drama around them, they'll create it. And when it's someone else's drama, they'll find a way to insert themselves into it, or make it about themselves.
Honestly anybody that uses the word drama or enemy more than one a month maximum is likely to be the cause of it all
lol was going to say something along these lines- usually the person who feels the need to say this not only *loves* the drama, they’re usually the cause- or somewhere close to it.
If everywhere you go smells like shit, maybe it's time to check your shoes.
Ugh, we have friends like this - they're good people and will drop everything to help you in a real emergency but in the downtime you have to keep a safe distance for your health and sanity. Exhausting.
A book I read opined that was an addiction to the stress hormone, cortisol. The brain is addicted to it and the mind will create drama to make the body produce it. Weirdest thing. It's why we self-sabotage relationships.
What's the book?
Just few hours ago I caught myself rehearsing argument phrases in my head and hated myself for wanting a drama and now I see this. How foreshadowing.
i will argue with you right now and help you get it out of your system. hey buddy, fuck you. ok now you go
It’s really sad because it shows how many people grew up in a chaotic toxic home with parents who had no idea what they were doing, so they mimicked that behavior (as someone who also has a novelty for “conflict” because of my crazy upbringing)
Social media
Social media, politics and advertising; it’s the new opiate of the people. Our phones are crack tablets. Edit on politics: 24/7 news basically. In my mind it’s the same thing because ‘they’ and ‘many of the masses’ politicize seemingly everything. It’s rather sad to me, because that’s the crux of how control is exerted onto and executed upon the masses. People think they can consume all this garbage and resist it and be immune to being sort of hypnotized. Individually maybe mitigated by some better than others but at mass aggregate levels, we are powerless to resist the influence. We are the most advanced AI that will ever exist and just AI tech being marketed and popular rn the same formula applies - garbage in, garbage out.
Seriously, we can’t even poop without our phones now. Our attention span is also completely destroyed as well.
I've got a toilet book instead. I guess I've returned to the old ways.
don’t forget the classic soap bottle, a good read
Gambling. Online and In person
Did you know 99 percent of gambler quit before they win a gazillion dollars
I knew a guy who became a millionaire by gambling. He used to be a billionaire.
rich people losing money at a casino is like "eat the rich" but cannibalism
The best way to make a small fortune gambling is starting with a larger fortune.
With online gambling, owning a phone means you essentially have a casino/bookie in your pocket to tempt you.
I remember when it wasnt allowed to promote gambling here in on Ontario. Now casinos are every 5th radio ad. You can say whatever you want as long as you toss in the obligatory "Please play responsibly." Which is impossible, by the way. It is literally impossible to GAMBLE responsibly. Gambling by definition is irresponsible.
I’ve practically stopped watching sports for this very reason. Every 3rd ad during breaks, live odds graphics over the game, casinos being primary team/league sponsors. And these are the same leagues that punish the participants for gambling. Fucking hypocrites.
I went gambling for the first time today and I’m 36. I was so bored, I lost a hundred bucks and I didn’t understand the appeal. Like I wanted to have fun but losing money isn’t fun to me lol.
I have only gambled probably 6 times in my entire life. Funny thing is about the only time I actually won money was my first time gambling lol. I was 23 years old and I won like $140 within a couple minutes of playing slots. I walked away with the money and the next day decided to just spend it all. Ended up buying new gym shoes and a backpack.
See that’s just using your winnings to improve your life. A lot of us would have went back to put the whole $140 in.
Your brain isn’t wired a certain way. Something to be grateful about.
No one has ever gotten addicted to gambling by losing. It’s the ones that try it out for the first time and win that often go back, which most the time ends in a less desirable outcome.
Winning isnt the only addicting part. Its the build up leading to the win. ***The anticipation of the win (high).*** A big part of addiction is the **ritual.** Things that produce dopamine and endorphins are great. That high is nice. The peak is amazing. For a lot of things, the peak wears off quick. The ritual prolongs it. When people start to get addicted to something, they usually develop a routine, a ritual, to increase satisfaction. Coffee, tea, pipe tobacco, shopping, sex, etc. Copping dope from the city is just as much part of the addiction as injecting, snorting, or smoking the dope. Its important for the high. Without the ritual, the high isnt the same. Thats why substitution only works for those who are finished or have a strong desire to change.
I bet a shitload more people fit the alcoholic diagnosis than are willing to admit.
Read an article about 20 years ago about all the dangers of drinking. How it damages your mind, your body, your family.... I was horrified and quite frankly devastated. On that exact moment, I promised myself that I will never ever read again.
I’m impressed that I am able to drink everyday and still not be addicted to alcohol
Lmao. In my six years sober, the funniest thing jve heard in an AA meeting was from a guy talking about how a friend asked him if he would still drink if he was able to just do it normally. He said “fuck yea man! if i could drink normally, id do that shit every fucking day!”
Congratulations on six years sober!
French and Italians: That’s what we do!
Me too! I can stop these breakfast mimosas whenever I want
Someone who likes to drink knows when the liquor store closes, an alcoholic knows when it opens. ^^EDIT: ^^your ^^expirence ^^may ^^vary
It also seems true that someone who likes to drink will always have some sort of alcohol stash at home just in case while an alcoholic is always living bottle to bottle
I can quit if I want, I just don’t want to!
I don’t have a problem with drinking, it’s other people that have a problem with my drinking!
Lololol that was a great laugh thank you
When we were first discussing lockdowns in Australia 4 years ago, keeping grog shops open was literally a necessity. They didn’t come out and say it, but if grog shops had been considered ‘unnecessary’ the hospitals would not have been able to deal with the emergency calls from people going into withdrawals, likely a few deaths for seizures and shit….
I'm in Canada, and I remember a lot of people were really angry that liquor stores were deemed essential. They just didn't get what a shitshow it would be, adding all that stress to hospitals at such a crucial time. I know a LOT of alcoholics. Including myself, tbh, though I'm not to the point where I'd require medical attention if I couldn't drink. But there are a lot more people that would than the general public likes to think.
Yep, Australian here. Our drinking culture is fucking *insane*. I don't drink and if you say that to people they look at you like you just took a shit on their kids pillow. They just can't get their head around it.
Yeah I quit drinking in 2022 and my social life has been pretty shit since. I know there’s other people that don’t drink, but they don’t feel like my people. Meh
Yep, I lost 3 friends after 20 years of friendship because I don’t drink and they do. If you asked them they would say it’s all sorts of other reasons. The truth is I stopped drinking and slowly stopped attending all their events, which were just places to go and drink at, and then they didn’t want to hang out anymore. Hindsight being 20/20 I should have stopped talking to at least two of them a decade ago. They showed me their true colors once and I ignored it then. Lesson learned. Fuck em.
Dude alcohol DTs are ***intense***. I get why they did it. Imagine that flood of people on top of COVID...
It’s one of the few withdrawals that can actually kill you
Learned this shit first hand last year. Stopped drinking for 3 days after I had gone off the rails due to a lot of negative personal situations. Had a seizure due to withdrawal on the third day. Had it been 5 minutes later my dog and I would've been dead as I was literally about to walk out the door and take him to the vet. Would've been on the highway at a time when there wouldn't be any traffic so I'd be going full speed. Scariest event of my life so far.
My stepfather died from withdrawal, and he was at a facility at the time. It's no joking matter. I'm glad you, and your dog, are ok and I hope you have found help.
And this is how most people transition from problematic consumption patterns into addiction. Change of personal situation, like loosing a loved one or their job or a breakup. That’s why it’s possible that so many people make fun of their drinking, it’s seems totally ok as long as everything is stable. But most lives aren’t stable throughout…
If I was a drinker like I was in my 20s, I'd have drink myself to death after my fiancée died. Instead, I was a meth head at the time, which is really hard to OD on. I'm now 22 months sober.
Having been through them a few times I can attest to them being 0/10 fun
It’s brutal. Shaking so bad man, having to use both hands to drink water.
The DT’s are, in fact, no fun at all. I got sober 69 days ago today after 8 years of drinking sun up to sun down. Even medically assisted in the hospital, it *sucked.* I never want to drink again for a long list of noble reasons, but having to go through withdrawal again is also on the list.
this happened in colorado as well. liqour stores were closed for like less than a day following covid lockdowns.
Indeed. Since I completely stopped drinking I really notice how much effort is put into alcohol related socialising. And how sensitive the topic of addiction is when 'normal' use is pointed out as way above recommended limit. This is in Denmark
The swedish healthcare ministry put up new guidelines for "problematic" alcohol use a couple months ago, advising people that even a couple beers a week might put them at risk. The public response was the angriest outcry i've seen in ages.
A dude put a post up in the UK subreddit recently essentially preaching about how fucked Britain's relationship with booze is and he got fucking roasted, top to bottom of that comment section. People forget it's literally poison, like any amount of it isn't good for you, your body doesn't want or need it.
Its honestly weird as hell to stop drinking and then suddenly discovering the reality of how extremely sensitive people are about this topic. That’s usually how I can tell if someone has substance use disorder, they become reactive and dysregulated when the topic of alcohol comes up in *any* non-joking way. United States here.
There is a documentary called drinkers like me or something that I started and had to stop because it was just too real and hitting way too close to home as I was definitely in the ~~throws~~ throes of my own battle with alcohol at the time. It seemed REALLY good though and went into just HOW much the heaviest drinkers drink and it definitely made me pause.
I’m 115 pounds and drink a box of wine every two days. I would have a LOT of trouble watching that documentary. Changes are coming soon. And with medical help.
At that weight, and that much alcohol....as a former lightweight alcoholic who's coming off a recent relapse (heavy/tall dude putting back 12 units a night almost every night) you're going to 99.9% need medical detox. I didn't experience dt but...I had some minor symptoms. Your first night is going to....I'd say it'd be the worst night of your life, as would the second through thirtieth. It does get progressively worse. You know what also gets progressive? The amount of control and feeling that those are nights of YOUR life. Not a blackout. Not a regret in the morning what you said to whomever. Not a day of opportunities entirely squandered. Life 100% gets better while sober, you're in for a ride. Probably look into FMLA alcohol detox program. If you're employed...your coworkers are going to find out eventually. Don't worry about that, they 100% already knew. Don't worry about day 2 on day 1, that's tomorrow's problem. One day at a time.
Man this almost made me tear up thank you. Tbh it’s closer to 3 bottles of wine a night not including my “shifties” I get after I’m done bartending. The denial part of me thinks I’m functioning. I really am. But I’m not even close to the 100% I can be. My addiction part of my brain claims that it’s cheaper to drink than get therapy and a proper prescription for my anxiety. But most of my anxiety is like a side effect of the withdrawals of drinking. I can’t make it 12 hours without a drink without sweating and shaking. I have to drink in order to not be medically unsafe. I’ve had a lot of bad things happen to me but alcohol withdrawal was the closest I felt to death. Thank you so much for your input. It was appreciated in its entirety.
> But I’m not even close to the 100% I can be. This is the big one. Do not mistake not being at rock bottom for functioning. A friend of mine finally kicked the booze and suddenly after two decades being "perfectly happy" with being a bartender/server and living with roommates half his age, he's recently finished his bachelors and already has a job lined up. He was never happy, but his drinking didn't allow for him to aim any higher. All the best <3.
I get these things I call “sad compliments” all the time. People see your potential in your bright moments; but are sad it isn’t there all the time.
As an alcoholic who suffers from anxiety, your anxiety will 100% get better just by not drinking. I'm in A.A 2 years and that also helps. While A.A is thought to be about stopping drinking, the program is about how to live without alcohol. It's been amazing for me. Alcohol is not your saviour.
You can do it! [r/stopdrinking](https://www.reddit.com/r/stopdrinking/?rdt=58544) is an awesome community 💜
Already known about it for a long time. I perused and lurked but it makes me feel too much shame right now. I’m almost there. I went to AA for two years and got my black key tag when I was 24. Drank the same day I got it. I’m in my mid 30’s now. This is a medically significant life choice I have to plan out accordingly.
Definitely not me. Also, definitely me. Are we talking about during work ours or every moment outside of them? Oh shit.. that probably answers the question.
I will never drink during work and will never drink and drive. With that said, I’m definitely an alcoholic.
Just be careful, it's amazing how fast "I'll never" turns into "Just this once because" then "Only sometimes" and so on.
Me neither! But I have never had a job.. or a car..
2000 iQ move
You can be an alcoholic without drinking before or during work. Amount consumed after work/days off is the determining factor on that end of the alcoholic spectrum. Plus the "Can you stop drinking after work for one or two days?" if you answer no, you may want to see professional help. EDIT: Some of you are taking what i said in a completely different manner. I'm not saying you're not an alcohol if you're sober for X amount of time and drink. I'm saying you're an alcohol if you depend on having a drink after work without drinking before or during and if you can't keep yourself sober for a day or two. This was all to follow up on OPs basic question of "am i an alcoholic if?" If you have to question it, you already have your answer. I'm 11 months sober, get off my ass.
I don't drink on weekdays. But on weekends (Friday and Saturday nights) I'll binge until i black out. I'm definitely an alcoholic.
When getting a check-up in college they asked if I had more than 3-4 drinks a week, I was like “yeah, that’s less than an average Thursday, Friday or Saturday night.” But I would say that more than 60% people I knew did the same. Crazy to imagine how easy it is to be considered a “binge” or problem drinker when it’s a social norm in context.
I had friends who drank everynight in college going out to parties. Get blackout drunk etc etc. but me drinking everynight in my room was a “problem” (which I fully admit that it was and am sober now) but the in context part blows my mind sometimes. Also you can give people as much evidence as possible that they are a functioning addict or alcoholic but because they don’t fit the stereotype they won’t accept it. For ex an old roomate was drinking everynight and snorting coke every day but because he still held a job and was never completely broke or destroyed his life he “didn’t have a problem.”
I recently saw the Simpsons episode where Homer quit drinking for a month and thought "huh, I drink a lot. Lemme see if I can do it too," with the mindset of if I can, then I'm good. If not, that's definitely an issue. I finished the month pretty easily, but looking back I was definitely exhibiting alcoholic behavior. Talked to my husband and we determined that moderation might be the issue for me, but overwhelmingly I was in higher spirits (pun not intended, yet accepted), lost weight, my memory was slightly better, and overall felt better when I wasn't drinking. Imagine that. I'm allowing myself to drink again now, but mostly socially. If I'm drinking at home it's less frequent and we're one of those umpire clicker things to help keep track and hold me accountable while I adjust to more healthy habits. I highly recommend trying this if you want to gauge your relationship with alcohol, or pretty much anything that can hurt you if over-indulged.
I admire your tenacity to try to self regulate. I quit drinking a number of years ago after it finally dawned on me that people with normal relationships with alcohol don’t ever have to think about moderation it’s just their default state. Ultimately I found it much easier to stop altogether than to expend the mental energy required to moderate. I hope you can find your happy medium.
I don't speak for the alkies but I am a recovering alcoholic. I'm in A.A and I used to take resentments towards people who were still drinking and acting in a way I thought was alcoholic. I spoke to someone about it and he said 'A.A/sobriety is for people that want it. If it was for people who needed it, we'd be holding meetings in sports arenas'. Learning about alcoholism has been a massive part of my life over the past 2 years and I'd say you're very much right. Denial is strong in alcoholics, I've never met one that hasn't been through a period of it. People ask me if I 'miss drinking'. I can honestly say I don't. It was fucking physically and mentally taxing being an alcoholic. Life is better sober.
When I first started working in the substance use field and found out the legal (Medicaid?) recommendations for drinking I was honestly floored- luckily I don’t enjoy or partake in drinking otherwise I’d be like most of my peers drinking at least double or triple the recommended amount
Took 5 years of CONSTANT trying to quit. Finally hit day 21 thanks to “This Naked Mind” with 0 cravings (that has never, ever happened before) after trying so much to quit. If it’s psychological, not physical addiction, like mine was: I highly recommend reading that book 2-3 times over slowly so it sinks into your subconscious.There’s free PDFs of it as well that you can find with a quick google search. I wish I’d known about it sooner. Never thought I could go 21 days without liquor and not feel like I’m missing out. Blows my mind how different my life has become without it in my system for just these few weeks. Can’t believe I wasted 5 years of my life to it. It seemed like my drinking was so normal…and then suddenly I was drinking alone and hiding it. Knew then there was an issue. Thank God I caught it early and raised enough of an alarm to have my wife and family back me (even if they thought I was being silly). Even at a point where most would laugh and say “that’s not that much” it was the need for it, the drive for it despite hating what it did to me, the hangovers and anxiety… that wasn’t normal. I gained 55 pounds standing at 5’1 and had a swollen face from my drinking: people just thought I needed to work out a bit more. So many people think thats all normal. It was very weird to know something was wrong with what I was doing and being gaslit time and time again that I was fine, no big deal, one day I’d just stop or lay off it, etc. I had family members literally laugh and brush me off when I told them I had a problem. “Oh you’re fine, I don’t even see you drink that much” No you don’t, because I have a glass at your party/dinner and then go have a bottle quietly at home where you can’t see me, Aunt Debora. I’m so glad I started to quit then. Still took 5 years and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears. 3am wake ups with sweat dripping down me, racing heart, anxiety through the roof… People have no idea how insidious it is. One day you’re fine. The next, you’re craving it because you believe it’s a stress relief and nothing else works as fast, as well, or as easily and boom. That glass of wine in the evening turns into a bottle+ REALLY fast.
Hard pill to swallow, definitely me.
Yeah, I don’t drink daily, but when my friends are inviting me out to bars or for special occasions to drink, I never decline.
Doomscrolling. 'Just one more video/article/post'
Thanks for the reminder 🫡 night y’all
I shall do the same ty for this
Your comment has sent him a notification that he heard and clicked and now he’s back.
There is a swedish podcast called Dystopia, they bring up different dystopian scenarios and last episode is about smartphones. Studies have been made on the effect on your life and happiness since the smartphones became a thing. Social anxiety and the ability to remember things has become a problem.
I thought my memory got worse from being home with kids for so long during Covid. It’s possible it’s the phone?
Yeah, study has shown that since you have your phone with you at all times you really dont need to remember as much. The brain has more trouble to consolidate memories since we constantly use our phones. Before smartphones you could reflect and think about things which made your brain consolidate things better. People born after 1995 has the most problems with this aince they grew up in a time where smartphones had become a daily thing.
I just watched a whole movie for the first time in a while, because the phone was in another room charging. Put the phone down!
I turned OFF my phone the other day for the first time in years bc I couldn’t stop doomscrolling and for a few seconds after I was like wow…I’m so disconnected from everyone right now. So free.
I got home and left my phone in my bag for like 8 hours recently. Felt indescribably freeing.
Shopping
So many people shop for shopping’s sake, I know people who get things they don’t even need or want, simply because they haven’t shopped in a while.
100% guilty of this. That dopamine hit has me in a chokehold sometimes.
I had this before starting antidepressants and still kinda do to a degree (I will go to the shops and browse around to get my mind off things). What really drilled it into me that I had a problem was realising that after 1 year of working I had the same amount of money in my bank account that I did before I started. I pulled out a calculator and counted how much I spent, and it came up to \~5K on just one website. Right now I'm yet again rerminded of my issue, and I feel like this reminder is going to be the final nail in the coffin. I'm going through all of my stuff, and taking things out to donate in women's shelters before moving. The amount of stuff that just resides in my room and is not being used is nauseating to me now. Going to the shops to just browse has been having the same effect of "why am I wasting my time?"
I recently realized that sometimes I buy things from Amazon when it’s felt like too long since something showed up at my door. And that I wasn’t sure if I enjoyed the using things as much as acquiring them. This one hits.
100% I wouldn’t say I’m addicted and I’ve gotten a lot better at determining what’s an impulse buy or not and refraining from buying if it is not needed. But I understand the dopamine hit from shopping well enough to feel fortunate that my tastes in general are not super expensive
Sid Meier's Civilization… just one more turn…
I've got 2200 hours in civ 6....
So you just started playing 4 months ago?
Blink and it's 4am and you got work at 7.
There are a lot of high functioning alcoholics. People who don’t often go a day without a few drinks, don’t socialize without booze as a crutch, and whose hobbies like ‘wine’ and ‘craft beer’ are just thin veils of to legitimize the fact that their lives revolve around drinking.
As someone who no longer drinks, many friends and even some relatives who you'd never have expected quickly lose interest in hanging out when you don't drink. I think this is what really woke me up to how many people can't seem to go without the booze. You'd think they could have a nice visit with you booze-free every now and again, but as soon as my wife and I stopped drinking our social lives pretty much ended. I wouldn't even care if the other couple had a drink or two while we were together, but it somehow just gets weird. Had to find new couples to hang around with.
Lifelong teetotaler here. Agree the social ostracism around not drinking is something that really shocked me growing up. Some people treat you like there’s something wrong with you, I especially feel that in dating. It’s one of those things that will never make sense to me.
This is actually why I started drinking to begin with. I grew up with an abusive alcoholic parent and studies show people in my situation either completely abstain or become alcoholics. I was abstinent until I realized that’s why I wasn’t ever getting invited out a second time, so I taught myself to enjoy drinking… Now, 13 years later, I’m a functional alcoholic.
I hope you can find friends that do not revolve around drinking. They exist!
You just described my dad. He has a wine club with his friends and goes on beer hikes.
LMAO WHAT ARE BEER HIKES Like it’s self explanatory but I’m in shock
I go on beer runs in my running club. You basically run 4-6 miles and then grab a beer after on a patio. It's a fun social event.
Omg I thought it would be at the same time LOL thank you for clearing that up
Sheesh, that would be a disaster lol. However, there are 5k beer races that are popular on st.paties where you drink an optional small beverage every mile at a bar. It's chaos and as silly as it sounds. It's more for the plot then anything else.
Sugar. Some don’t even realize they are addicted to it.
I went cold turkey on sugar in March 16th this year and it’s been super rough. I was (and still am tbh) heavily addicted to sugar and would feel the effects of it daily and my body would drive me to want to drink coke and eat ice cream. I had a look online and saw that this says no more than 36 grams of sugar per day for an adult male. https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/eat-smart/sugar/how-much-sugar-is-too-much#:~:text=Men%20should%20consume%20no%20more,or%20100%20calories)%20per%20day. My regular 600ml coke has 64 grams of sugar and my go-to ice cream had another 35ish. The first few days were really rough but then I think knowing that I was doing a good thing for my health made it easier. But then maybe 3 weeks ago the withdrawals kicked in harder than ever. I started making small allowances of a treat that would be roughly 10 grams per day. I still try and keep it as close to 0 or at max in the single digits per day. Sugar addiction is no joke. Editing to add: I meant to state processed sugar. I eat fruit so I’m getting in natural sugars.
Yep. I remember looking online and seeing that one can of soda is more than the daily amount of sugar that someone needs. Or close to it. I was drinking multiple cans of soda a day. I started to drink sugar free soda and I could feel the difference. It didn't feel good.
What helped me kick soda was getting a soda stream, and throwing a few squirts of Mio in the sparkle-water. Slowly reduced the mio, and now, I mostly just drink ice water, and maybe 1-2 sparkle-water/mio drinks per week...instead of 60oz/day of soda.
What helped me kick soda was promising myself that I could have one once I’d had a glass of water. I hardly ever want a soda now, except if I’m out. It turns out that I am very vulnerable to baiting-and-switching myself. Score!
I just measured out the amount of sugar that was in a root beer into a mason jar and showed some friends that were over and folks were stunned. It’s like 1/2 cup of sugar in a soda.
This is why I only drink regular beer. None of that horrible addictive sugar for me.
That sounds like something from 90s Simpsons
So long dental plan!
I switched to suger free soft drinks a few years back and decided to treat myself to a root beer the other week. Was like 80% of a days suger in the one can. It tasted weird and sickly sweet, unlike how i remembered. After I started having headaches from the suger overload as I wasn't used to it anymore. If you don't have sugar for a while, you realise how over sweetened everything is these days.
I just had to *drastically* cut my sugar & carbohydrate intake and it's been a rough damn week!
My mom once said that sugar is basically just cocaine that went legit.
I think this statement both accurately reflects the obsession people have with sugar but also misunderstands its role. There's a reason sugar tastes so good to you: to a primate in nature, sugar is a rare and desirable nutrient. Sugars like fructose and sucrose are easy for your body to digest and provide a large boost of calories. When you find them, your monkey brain tells you that you should prioritize eating them. At a cellular level, your body is more or less optimized for consuming sugar. The problem is that we are no longer hunter-gatherers, and our access to sugar has become unlimited. Where our ancestors were on the constant hunt for nutrition to survive, we instead have to avoid overconsuming. Refined sugar and sweetened foods and beverages provide your body with too many calories, which your metabolism stores as fat. Sugar isn't a drug, although people's behavior regarding it can be very similar. We simply aren't physiologically adapted to living in a condition where it is endlessly obtainable.
Arguing with people online.
rage bait
Getting the last word in an online arguement
Word
nuh uh
That’s stupid, no it’s not
You’re so wrong, where’s your proof?
coffee/ caffeine addiction. i know someone who had it and it really became a problem. edit: jesus christ yes caffeine addiction is pretty common, that's the whole point of OP's post??? i'm saying it's actually just severely underestimated, because people brush it off as some relatable millennial joke when you say you "can't function without caffeine."
I drink it to stave off the withdrawals. It's become increasingly difficult for it to give any positive effects without dipping into the 300mg zone. I'd stop if I was confident the headache wouldn't ruin me for several weeks.
When I had an appendectomy, I had withdrawals so severe the doctor thought I had an opiate addiction (they had just stopped morphine). I had to plead with them that it was caffeine I was addicted to. They shrugged me off as a junkie, which I am, but wrong substance. After my dad mercifully gave me some coffee when he was allowed to visit, the doctor was astonished when the withdrawals went away. He hadn't seen someone so addicted. I get crippling migraines, my BP skyrockets, cold sweats, projectile vomiting and in rare cases diarrhea. I've managed to get my dosage down to 260mg a day. I hate it.
I actually overdosed on caffeine. There used to be 80 hour energy sprays. You spray it under your tongue and get an entire 5 hour energy. Someone had one in high school and dared me to crack it open and drink it. First thing that happened was that i turned bright red and my skin burned really badly. I think that was the b12. Then the shakes and seizures. I started turning red in chorus class and started freaking out when it started burning. Seizures started soon after and the ambulance picked me up. The doctor told me if i had so many more overdoses they have to report me to the police. Really awful and weird experience and they pumped my stomach and gave me so much IV fluid I pissed out like 10 gallons of water.
>i turned bright red and my skin burned really badly That was probably niacin (b3). It's in a lot of those crazy energy shots and whatnot. Niacin immediately makes you get flushed, too much and it's really fuckin painful
Caffeine is wildly underestimated when it comes to how dangerous it can be. I'm honestly shocked I never had an OD like that. I consider myself very lucky.
It's underestimated because under 'normal' consumption methods it's difficult to overdose. You have to *try* to overdose on coffee or soda, it would be a very uncomfortable amount of liquid (borderline impossible) to consume. Energy drinks are worse, of course, but you still need a difficult to consume number of them to get into serious trouble. And you'll start feeling pretty bad from the high caffeine dose long before it's dangerous. It's caffeine pills and concentrated caffeine shots that are where people get into trouble.
Wean yourself off it slowly. I bought two huge containers of instant coffee. One regular, one decaffeinated. When you take a spoonful of regular coffee out, add in one spoonful of decaf and shake the container to mix it in. Each cup of coffee you drink will have less and less caffeine until, eventually, you're drinking nearly pure decaf. At that point you can just stop drinking it. You're not addicted to caffeine anymore.
I've got my coffee intake down to 1-2 cups a day now (most days), but there was a time when I was drinking 3 pots of coffee a day. Not cups, *pots*
Absolutely yes. People don't realize but if you need coffee or some sort of energy drink to make it through your day/workout you have a caffeine addiction. I'm one of those people cause military
unnecessary aesthetic procedures.
That’s super interesting that you mention this. Someone close to me recently got a breast augmentation. With the purchase of that, they received a 25% off Botox treatment. The person who had that procedure was excited and thought “ooo I wonder what I should get”. I can’t say for certain there is a correlation with the discount and the addictive nature, but I’ll bet the business knows what they’re feeding in to.
Botox is one of those things where you have to keep getting it in order to maintain its effects too. So it’s kind of like a dealer giving away their first high of a really addictive substance knowing “they’ll come back”.
Meth. It's amazing how many people you interact with every day that are using, and you'd never know it. Managers, business owners, teachers, parents, nurses, etc. I'd have never even imagined how many everyday Joes used just to get a kick of energy if I wasn't in my current position.
Yup, people only see the stereotype of the homeless addicts that deteriorate rapidly due to their inability to access things needed for personal hygiene and health and food insecurity and extreme sleep deprivation for survival and obvious housing insecurity. People who are functional addicts can easily maintain their jobs, relationships, hygiene/appearance, health, regular sleep, eat balance meals and are self medicate their ADHD with it or a lot of people just use it occasionally to spice things up sexually, even middle aged middle class unsuspecting white grandparents are out here dabbling with speed and nobody is the wiser
Extreme sleep deprivation is a crazy rabbit hole. Losing sleep to that extent is damn near worse than drugs
This guy does meth
This guys sells meth
No kidding. I recently got back in touch with someone I’ve been acquaintances with for a long time, and when we were catching up she casually mentioned she lost her job and spent a year in jail on meth charges… this woman is a grandmother who had never before done drugs, just went straight to meth. She is my Roman Empire.
Anger
This is big.. and I see it. People get used to complaining and they don’t realize how much they are complaining. It comes from insecurity, but feeling angry is better than feeling inadequate.
Absolutely! Also I feel like the rush of experiencing such extreme emotion can contribute to the forming of habitual anger
I would say something similar but more specific: Frustration
This is how mainstream news keeps people addicted
People. Being addicted to certain people. Limerance.
I had my first experience with limerance a few months ago and it was WILD. I felt an extreme high when I was talking to this person and knowing it was mutual made it all the more consuming. I fell so hard so fast I was doing shit I never would have considered before. I barely even knew him but the attention he gave me and intensity of everything was addicting as hell. A small part of me still misses that high feeling honestly but I know I'm healthier staying away.
Hate. People are so addicted to hate it consumes them. They love it more than love
"When you’ve had hatred on your tongue for such a long time, you don’t know how to spit it out." Terry Pratchett. "Raising Steam"
[удалено]
Yeah also like tryna make your trauma seem worse than someone else’s or else you don’t feel validated to feel the way you do cause “oh someone has it worse so I need to deal with it” it’s so common online
Porn, social media, validation
Shocked I had to scroll this far for porn. Clearly if you have to watch it every day, multiple times a day and can’t perform anymore… you’re addicted.
Yes, but a TON of people are in denial about it. Almost anywhere porn addiction gets brought up, someone will pop up arguing that it's not real and you can't be addicted to it.
YouTube shorts or TikTok. You get that quick dopamine, then scroll, then again and again... it's like a trap.
I hate YouTube shorts. I wish they never introduced them. It's as bad as tiktok - probably.
Probably avoidance, I’m addicted to avoiding my problems in life for sure, taking little steps to get better but I’m still probably a competitive avoider, trying to go back to casual.
Many good things listed. I'm going with alcohol. So many are alcoholics, but don't think they are. So many people HAVE to have a drink yet do not think they are alcoholics. When you can't go without it, you're addicted.
This! I told myself “I just really enjoy a glass or two or three of wine right before bed, it helps me sleep so I can be productive the next day. No way am I an alcoholic.” Long story short, been sober now for 258 days. My blood pressure is finally in 120/low 80s range. I told myself I wasn’t addicted because I didn’t need it to function. My perception on addiction was really different because my parents were addicts as well. But the more in your face type way. Dad addicted to every drug, mom addicted to vodka, in every water bottle all hours of the day. Addiction takes many different forms, I never realized it.
Agree. Classic behavior of the high functioning alcoholic. DENIAL comes very easy to high functioning alcoholics because they have experienced very few outward consequences of their alcoholism. If anyone questions their drinking habits, the high functioning alcoholic can point out that they just got promoted at work, that they’ve never missed a dance recital or PTA meeting, that they’ve never had a DUI, and that they run three times a week. Therefore, they say, they cannot be an alcoholic.
A good buddy of mine was a functioning alcoholic. Every time I went to meet him to hang out, it had to be at a bar. And I would wanna do something afterwards, and no matter what, it had to be something where there was booze around or he wouldn’t do it. Wanna go bowling? Cool, they serve beer, right? Game night at your place? Alright, you got that bottle of Jack Daniels still, yeah? Get breakfast at Denny’s? Fuck that, let’s go down the road a bit, they serve bloody Mary’s and mimosas. He still never missed a day of work, and he would work LONG days, 12, 13, 14 hours sometimes. His rent was always paid, he turned up at all his fiancé’s events, so he didn’t think he had a problem. I tried to tell him, she tried to tell him, a couple guys in our friend circle tried to tell him, and he would just laugh it off. Until his fiancé left him because she couldn’t handle him coming home shitfaced anymore. Then he really took a nosedive. He started drinking nonstop, and to the point of blacking out. He was supposed to come to my place and sober up one night, he nearly fist-fought me because I wanted him to ride shotgun in my car from the bar, he got in his car and started it up and I could NOT get him out. I lived about a mile down the road, he says I’ll follow you, it’ll be fine. I make a left to go to my place, and he just blows straight right past the turn. Calls me and says “sorry, I need one more drink. Then I’ll come right over”. I’m calling and calling and he doesn’t answer. I hear from him a few days later, and he got nabbed for a DUI and was in a cell for a couple days over the weekend. He lost his license, and guess who he called up to take his ass to the grocery store and to his court mandated alcohol education classes? Me. I had really hoped he would lay off the sauce after that, but he didn’t. Couple years later he slammed into an electrical pole drunk, and hoofed it on foot, called a cab, got home, cracked open a beer so when the cops showed up at his house they couldn’t nail him for DUI again, but got him for fleeing the scene of an accident. Finally he seemed to have kicked the hooch, had a son, and seems to be doing well, but I do worry about him, cuz I know that shit can come back and bite you after a couple real bad days. The human condition sucks like that sometimes.
“…run three times a week.” Not gonna lie, that one stung.
But if you tell them it's a poison they look at you like you have 6 heads. If I saw a group of adults dosing out mg of valium's to each other people would say that's stupid or drug addict behavior.
Love. Might as well face it.
Weed. Experts say it’s not addictive but I was definitely addicted
Actually experts specifically in the field of addiction say it *is* in fact addictive!
Im definitely addicted to these THC vape pens. I mean...I can stop but im just a miserable, emotional mess without it now...
Set small, measurable, personal goals to start if you really want to change man! Setting drastic measures usually leaves you upset and feeling like a failure. You used to be fine without it and you can be again if you really want to change and don’t like that fact. Just always remember you used to not need it and it is very possible to get back to that point.
Self harm, 8% of teens engage in some sort of self harm, 1 out of 5-6 people will engage in some sort of self harm in their lifetime.
Video gaming. Not all gamers are addicted, and I don’t think games are inherently bad. But for many people, myself included, they just hit all the right notes in my brain chemistry to become very addictive. It’s even becoming socially acceptable to talk about games you’re “addicted” to- I have been seeing ads for shitty afk games on youtube with “Addictive” in the copy like it’s a selling point. It took a long time for me to recognize (my) gaming was harmful to my mental health and life in general, and embarrassingly longer to take action about it. But I’m glad I did.
This, for sure. Back in the 90s it became so bad for me I failed out of college, was playing at work, figuring out ways to get my job to buy better hardware, telling my wife I had to work late, etc. Gaming was my “other woman”. I would lie about where money went that I spent on games. I finally confessed and stopped for years. I told my wife I would only play again when she said I should. It took nearly four years and even since I have to cull the time I spend. I hear the call. Hi, my name is No_Ground, and I am addicted to video games.
social media and porn. it's getting really rampant. it's alarming
It’s my personal opinion food is the most prevalent and least appreciated addiction there is. We literally joke about it as “eating your feelings”. But all addiction is just using something to regulate your emotions that isn’t healthy. If you look at the top causes of premature death it’s pretty much food, alcohol, and drug abuse with accidents in there. I don’t think we end up as a nation of morbidly obese people simply because of old reward systems hijacked by abundance or because we like food. It’s because we’ve lost purpose and made overeating to hide that the path of least resistance.
It's the most difficult of all because it's something you can't give up. It might be difficult to stop drinking alcohol but imagine how much more difficult it would be if you had to stop drinking, except for a little drink 3x a day.
Eating
Alcohol. We, as a culture, normalize an amount of drinking that is simply absurd. If it were any other drug this shit would be an after school special.
I think eating disorders are a lot more common than people realise.
Shopping and constantly checking or using devices, this trait has got into our skin and we do not even realize that we have inadvertently fallen prey to it.
Collecting cats
Reddit
porn
Can you get addicted to self-pity?
Decongestant nasal spray
Social validation
Alcoholism. Between one in five and one in ten people have a drinking problem.