How does it feel to be addicted?

[Keif' Richards]

Hey guys. I'm not really sure this has a lot of direct-to-user Harm Reduction value. I'm not saying it has no value, but it probably doesn't belong in the Harm Reduction forums. My opinion on this matter is pretty simple.

I think every living person has good habits and bad habits. I think nearly every human being has experienced doing something too much and suffering the consequences. For some people it's food, it's sex, it's pornography, it's gambling, it's cartoons, it's posting on Facebook, it's murder mysteries, reading quietly....

If you've ever known your full and shouldn't eat any more french fries, but you do anyway. If you are being stalked by a deranged woman, but you can't resist having sex with her "every once in a while". This is a really basic feeling. You know you're doing something that is not good for you and your life, but you do it anyway.

This is what addiction is. Drugs are just the logical end of this spectrum if you will. One day, perhaps we will get high by lasers shooting good feelings directly into our brains, but right now, the quickest means of directly changing how we feel, which is a chemical reaction, is through the use of drugs.

While food can be addictive, sex can be addictive and pornography can be addictive, none of these are nearly as addictive in such an across-the-board predictability as something like say, Crack Cocaine. To get someone addicted to McDonalds is likely the result of years of low-level increases in intake. I can't just hand someone a Big Mac and assume they will do anything to get more. Crack, you can indeed to that. You an create a Crack Addict after a single puff. More realistially, you're probably not truly addicted until you're 2nd or 3rd time smoking it, but by then, you're probably out of control.

I just want to point out that there is nothing magical, special or esoteric about drug addiction. We know that the drugs that we enjoy mimic the effects of other positive experiences. Drugs are just a faster, more potent, more direct means of hijacking someone's reward system.

I'm thinking about moving this to Recovery, but I'd like some feedback from you guys if you feel differently.

 

[Pissed_and_messed]

"recovery", this conversation is more on somewhat abstract level

 

[Keif' Richards]

"recovery", this conversation is more on somewhat abstract level

Yea, I felt the same way. Any suggestions?

I'll add an addendum here.

In school when we were kids, one thing that DARE taught us was that these drugs would take everything from you and leave you as a zombie.

Perhaps not a zombie, but this is one thing DARE didn't lie about. We all have always known what addiction is like, as we've all been taught and likely have seen ourselves from a young age what addiction is like. Even if you don't live with an addict, television and radio is loaded with tropes of loveable Alcoholics who neglect their families, are shit at doing their work and are also hilarious. I digress though.

We all have always known that addiction can take everything. We learn it as kids. I tihnk the novelty in the question is that we learn this basic information as children. We grow up and it's painful to see what "taking everything" actually looks like in "real-life". Just like anything else we imagine as children, in adulthood, these things often look much different, even if they follow the same basic concept.

I think that's where this question comes from. Addiction is a serious of miniscule, barely perceptible compromises, over the course of time, until you're left with nothing.

Not one, not a single fucking person out there in the Winter Cold right now huddled under their tarp smoking Meth ever thought they were going to end up living underneath a tarp. Not one. But, they all are. That should about sum it up.

 

[Byzek]

Hey guys. I'm not really sure this has a lot of direct-to-user Harm Reduction value. I'm not saying it has no value, but it probably doesn't belong in the Harm Reduction forums. My opinion on this matter is pretty simple.

I think every living person has good habits and bad habits. I think nearly every human being has experienced doing something too much and suffering the consequences. For some people it's food, it's sex, it's pornography, it's gambling, it's cartoons, it's posting on Facebook, it's murder mysteries, reading quietly....

If you've ever known your full and shouldn't eat any more french fries, but you do anyway. If you are being stalked by a deranged woman, but you can't resist having sex with her "every once in a while". This is a really basic feeling. You know you're doing something that is not good for you and your life, but you do it anyway.

This is what addiction is. Drugs are just the logical end of this spectrum if you will. One day, perhaps we will get high by lasers shooting good feelings directly into our brains, but right now, the quickest means of directly changing how we feel, which is a chemical reaction, is through the use of drugs.

While food can be addictive, sex can be addictive and pornography can be addictive, none of these are nearly as addictive in such an across-the-board predictability as something like say, Crack Cocaine. To get someone addicted to McDonalds is likely the result of years of low-level increases in intake. I can't just hand someone a Big Mac and assume they will do anything to get more. Crack, you can indeed to that. You an create a Crack Addict after a single puff. More realistially, you're probably not truly addicted until you're 2nd or 3rd time smoking it, but by then, you're probably out of control.

I just want to point out that there is nothing magical, special or esoteric about drug addiction. We know that the drugs that we enjoy mimic the effects of other positive experiences. Drugs are just a faster, more potent, more direct means of hijacking someone's reward system.

I'm thinking about moving this to Recovery, but I'd like some feedback from you guys if you feel differently.

for me my phone is more addicitve than cocaine.

 

[Pissed_and_messed]

It all comes together as the most infernal act of obsessive-compulsivity when you track your drug package on the screen.
F5F5F5F5F5F5
dumb postal workers of course don't even know how to do the tracking

 

[Xorkoth]

I think this is more suited for Drug Culture, Keif, you can move it if you've like.

 

[jasperkent]

I've experienced addictions to several drugs and drug combinations. When I'm in the deepest depths of an addiction my substance of choice is like oxygen. If you were to suggest that I simply quit, I'm sure my response would be "Sure. And you just abstain from air. How long can you hold your breath?"

 

[Keif' Richards]

for me my phone is more addicitve than cocaine.

And some people will never get the same rush from Cocaine that they get from binge eating.

The point is that humans can become destructively-addicted to almost anything that feels good.

Nature and nurture both play roles in this. Maybe your evil stepmother used to give you a Teaspoon of sugar every week when she would let you out of your closet prison. That experience and behavior shape what gives a person that same release.

Im 31 so I grew up with a phone myself, but the younger generation are definitely raised with their phones as a sort of "safe space" for them. It is their entertainment, their comfort, their own private (as much as they want).

I was getting pizza on my break the other night and there were 30 college kids in there, supposedly out to meet people or get laid. They're all, men and women staring straight down at their phones. They were all clearly terrified of talking to each other.

It's like they all look fown at their phones for that safety and then they get stuck there. It's a weird energy.

 

[brokedownpalace10]

I wonder if Einstein was addicted to figuring shit out.

 

[Joey]

Having an addiction has been extremely dynamic in how it’s been both completely ruinous for me at a few points. They have also been empowering.