Whats been the toughest addiction to beat for you?
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I have quit sugar, caffeine, nicotine, weed, and am trying to get my alcohol consumption under control.
Sugar was almost automatic. I just don't have much of a sweet tooth, so consciously avoiding sugar was really easy. I can't say I've noticed much of a difference since, although overly sugary things like Coke now taste disgusting, and I can immediately tell when something has been sweetened with sugar, even if it's really subtle. It's like a 6th sense. You'll be surprised at the stupid shit people put sugar into. Pickles, mustard, tomato sauce... these things do not need sugar!
Caffeine had the most intense withdrawal effects. The caffeine headache is unlike any other headache I've ever had, and I'm a migraine sufferer. The brainfog was horrible too. Coming out the other side is great though. Plus having a coffee from that point on is a fucking glorious experience.
Nicotine took me years, and I wouldn't have accomplished it without switching to vaping first. I've written about this before but that makes it sound easier than it was. There were many many many failed attempts before I put down the vape for good. This one has had the best benefits though. You don't realise how good breathing is until you're fully quit for a while.
Weed was really not my choice. I really really overdid it, and I now can't touch the stuff. I've tried, and it's always a terrible time. I just withdraw inwards and become an anxious, paranoid mess. What's worse is it takes me days to recover as well. Doesn't matter how little I have or how "no really this weed is super mellow dude" it is, I consistently have a bad time now. I miss this one the most. I used to really enjoy what it was like in the beginning.
Alcohol is my fucking kryptonite. I cannot get it under control. I think my only option at this point is really to go teetotal. it's not really bad enough for me to what to be so drastic with it though. I'm not an angry drunk, I don't spend more than I can afford on it, it's not really negatively affecting my life... I just drink too much and too often, and I worry for my health.
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best wishes to you! you got this.
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I’m slightly younger (born in 86) but went through a similar thought process a couple of years back. I remembered being an avid reader as a kid but could barely make it through a book or two a year, and struggled to maintain any form of attention span. I forced myself to read more for about the first month, then I got addicted to it again and ended up reading 42 books that year. I’m very conscious now about pretty much always having my devices in some form of focus mode/app time limits and prioritizing focus/reading time. I feel much better.
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What is a pen tester?
I'm sorry to hear your problems and hope you get better soon -
Isolation.
God.... apparently it's "healthy" for me to go out and socialize and talk to people.
I don't want to. I have no desire to maintain relationships. It'd be nice, but I'm too flaky. I want to be left alone.
I have no desire to talk to anyone irl. Don't want to. Want to be by myself and do whatever I want.
God..... I don't want to.....
It's a... strange addiction.
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New things. I simply can't stay with anything. Makes it basically impossible to have any decent job, because people want and expect you to be an expert at what you do.
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I do red team cybersecurity. Basically I try and break in to systems. Putting blockers up in my place is always a challenge as I break through the, by sheer skill.
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I know it doesn't help you, but weed really helped me curb my alcohol use. I'm in the same boat. I self medicate and drink too much. I'm worried about my liver, but I don't drink and drive and only drink beer.
I stupidly have given myself a nicotine addiction with sachets recently that I need to fucking stop. I noticed nicotine makes me grumpy, which is a drastic change for me.
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I’ve been starting to think that it’s something us older millennials can actually do for our younger friends … remind, demo and teach what a less tech ruled life can look like, how tech can be treated as more humane and not a necessity.
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I can beat the addiction of playing around on my phone very often throughout the day.
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I quit a $240 dollar/day opioid habit, but they ain't takin' my damn nicotine
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Feeding my dog from the table.
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Gonna have to go with alcohol and benzodiazepine abuse for this one, basically because it's the only one that I have beaten (citation needed). Only one relapse in the past 10-ish years or so! Though it took a few relationships with it, and I've gone through multiple hospitalizations (some even voluntarily), and because of that combo and all the other shit that was going on in my head (not to mention the cocktail of SSRIs and eventual SNRIs like Effexor at max dosage combined with stuff like Seroquel at max dosage for literal years, of which Effexor is still the bane of my existence; and stuff like ECT) there's like this hazy quality in my own past for me. As if I'm talking about someone else. I can't even remember most of my life from around 2013-2018 or so.
I'd say the worst part about abusing benzos with alcohol is how good it feels. I still have the cravings. Like even now I'd be up for it. That combined with the fact that it only brings out the worst in me, every narcissistic and sosiopathic tendency is not only brought forth but amplified also. And it's unhealthy in general.
So if you don't happen to die in your sleep; once you wake up and realize just how many people you've hurt, when the full weight of your own actions and the coming consequences descend upon you, you just might hope that you did. Vice, thy name is me
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Sitting down too much. It took four lumbagos in three years to finally get the point.
I don't write as much anymore unfortunately, but the huge upside is that, after two decades of not being able to do so, I can finally squat again with heels planted without tipping over. It has improved my foundational skateboarding skills significantly. And I simply feel more youthful too.
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Caffeine or Zoloft.
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$240/day?! How much were you taking?
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I'm currently trying to quit that too. It's harder than I expected. I'm not severly addicted or anything but I've recently learned a lot about why porn is bad and why we should stop consuming it. The two aspects to it are basically the exploitation of the industry and the effects that watching it has on the viewer. If anyone's interested, I can also go into more detail on that. For the first reason it would be enough to watch porn that's not made using real people, like hentai but the second reason is why we should stop it entirely. It's just that I grew up with phones and the internet, so I've jacked off to porn since I was 11 and it's kinda hard to jack off without it because that's where my mind goes automatically. I should be able to just do it without having to watch anything but I end up just not doing it at all. I don't know if there's any advice or something that could help me there.
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Porn and weed.
I've no doubt there are people that can use it moderately, but my brain just keeps wanting more. I quit cigarettes with no issues. I went from drinking a 6-pack a night to barely drinking at all. But those two really are hard to escape. Every time I kick weed I always have a night where I'm relaxing and I go and get a preroll - then end up getting more and smoking for the next few days before I realize what I'm doing. Same thing with porn. I can smoke a hell of a lot of porn.
But seriously, it's hard to quit. And I think that part of the reason is due to my inability to label either of those things as "real addictions" in my head. Neither of those things are demonstrably decreasing my quality of life, at least not the way cigarettes and alcohol did, so I'm having trouble contextualizing them as harmful. Porn is easier for me in that regard, since it definitely subconsciously affects my views on the human body, and noticing that more is helping me shake the habit.
For the record, I do think weed is a lot less harmful than booze. But there's a right way and a wrong way to use it, and I've been using it the wrong way for so long that I don't think I can use it the right way.
To quote one of the great philosophers of our times:
"Well, Stan, the truth is marijuana probably isn't gonna make you kill people, and it most likely isn't gonna fund terrorism, but, well son, pot makes you feel fine with being bored, and it's when you're bored that you should be learning some new skill or discovering some new science or being creative. If you smoke pot you may grow up to find out that you aren't good at anything."
Now, I don't necessarily think all of that is true. Plenty of people are creative and innovative and also smoke pot, but it does make you content with doing nothing. Very relaxing in the moment, until you realize, after a few years of daily smoking, that all your friends have been learning new things and growing and you've been sitting on the couch watching TV the whole time. It's totally fine to use every now and then, and by no means should be illegal, but we do need to start being realistic about how daily cannabis use quells that burning desire to be active and improve ourselves.
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Since covid, there's been a lot of food in the house. Something about not being able to get it when we wanted made us buy more, more often and stockpile. Of course, food expires and throwing it away means that it was a bad decision to buy so much, so eating it is the only financially responsible thing to do, right?
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Quit drinking and you will crave sugar like crazy. When I was in the navy, I'd start craving sugar about a day and a half after getting underway. Then we'd pull in somewhere, I'd get hella drunk and not crave sugar, go underway, rinse/repeat.
