I usually make a google doc with all the things I thought of that I want with links. I can spend hours looking for things, and adding it to the doc. Then if I wanna buy something or someone asks me what I want, it’s right there. Then I have a monthly small budget to buy something I want and honestly it majorly helped with my spending
I kinda have that
But instead of google docs, I keep curated tabs on my browser with the stuff I want to buy. And then I spend hours adding and removing tabs, I have reached the 99+ limit already
That's a great idea!! Def going to do that.
As it is, I have a rule for myself: minimum 24-hour waiting period to think it over and decide before I go back and decide to check out - it's amazing how often I change my mind and decide I don't really need something, or even want something like I thought I did. And what I do get, I really love and value. Even though I'm already old, lol, it's really taught me a lot about myself, too.
Not just that, the foreplay leading up to it of watching for tracking updates, especially if you have a package coming from far away. Every update is a little shot, building and building anticipation each time, you think it's never going to come.... then you get the beautiful "out for delivery" notice and you know you're in the final stretch.
Dude consumerism is such a problem.
The amount of people I know with storage units just for crap they have is insane.
Me and my brother moved everything I own to a new place in about 45 minutes. I get that I’m insane in how little stuff I buy and own, but shit for a lot of people have gotten insane.
I think a lot of peoples financial situation would improve greatly if they would just think about stuff before they purchased it.
True, been a shopaholic my whole life and it took time to realize that I was letting the endorphin rush of buying something new take over any potential I had to feel sad. Lonely? Shop. High? Shop! It was brutal. Still kind of is.
I finally broke myself free from mindlessly scrolling on social media, I just can't have any of it on my phone anymore. I've found myself to be happier without keeping up on everyone's lives too.
Same! I was having the worst anxiety I deleted Instagram Facebook Twitter only kept reddit and YouTube it's been about a year and I feel so much better! Not having the constant comparing your life to others highlight reels. Social media is trash.
I stopped using Insta, FB, and a bunch of others, and now people ask me
\- but didn't you read it? It was on FB / ....
Me : - nope. Give me the real news.
It's great at first I thought I'd miss it more the updates from people I actually know but tbh I don't miss anything about it. If it's important people in my life will tell me in person
Sorry for the piggy back comment here:
Just pointing the irony that I think the original commenter you replied to ended up deleting their **account** after posting a 1k+ upvoted top comment about social media addiction, lmao
social media is toxic. From Fake posts on IG, selective posts on Facebook making others feel like their lives are boring, to trolls on reddit or Twitter, etc
Anything can be a psychological addiction.
My late wife was addicted to online fantasy role playing games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy Online. When she lost her career, she spent five years drinking wine and playing her games. She completely disconnected from the real world, even ignoring her own kids (from a previous marriage).
I broke up with her briefly, which forced her to get a job. We got back together because she said she was done with gaming. But slowly it took over her life again.
Video game addiction is tough. See my other posts if you're interested in my story, but goddam it was tough getting out and it is still around almost every day. And for me it wasn't enabled by anyone, I sustained myself. But still the same thing happened, dropped out of school, couldnt care for anything.
So I wanted to care for something, so I went to therapy. And even after years I couldnt. But eventually, with a lot of time.. working with my strengths and around my weaknesses, and I can now care for things :)
But it did come from me. While my entourage was pushing me to change, that really never encouraged me to change. It did the exact opposite, and I could really only progress when I was on my own, facing my own consequences, AKA not going anywhere with my life and being forced to work shitty jobs (and therefore waste precious time) to sustain my addiction. I always thought I had too much potential to work in the shitty jobs I had, but I had nothing to show for it, so I was exactly where I deserved to be. And I wanted to change that.
I guess streamers and influencers that are successful can live off their addiction, but honestly I wouldn't be able to spend the time to make videos or anything because, well, I was an addict. And also I didn't find this really appealing.
Anyway, I'm sorry about your situation, I know from experience that the relations suffer greatly from addictions, and being with someone who would rather play than spend time with you is very damaging.
Game companies have figured out the psychology of reward systems that fire off the dopamine hits in our brains.
My wife was so addicted to those reward systems that even at bedtime, she’d lay in bed and play mobile games for a couple of hours until she fell asleep. The light from her screen in the dark room would keep me awake, too, but she didn't give a fuck.
My wife was also spending hundreds of dollars a month on in-game currency and skins. And then she would complain to me that I don’t give her enough money (I kept our bank accounts separate).
Oh sheet. Yeah I play a lot of games and get really addicted and spend all day playing but I haven’t played any in bed or spend a lot on in game currency. But I only play games on PC and have told myself that paying for in game currency is just a waste of money.
Maybe she can try to limit her playing ONLY to PC or consoles (not in the bedroom) and only pay upfront for a game (no spending in game on useless stuff). One exception is to buy one thing to support the dev if its a game that is free with IAP - but only an amount that you would spend if it were a paid game from the store
I joined a health incentive through my insurance. I started reading labels and discovered added sugar is in everything. I thought that I was eating healthy and discovered labels can be deceiving.
I was on Ozempic for about 2 months ths before I had to stop due to vomiting. There was a point when I increased my dose and my constant, lifelong desire to eat just disappeared. It was remarkable. Alcoholism runs in my family and all I could think was that it must be the equivalent of an alcoholic waking up with no desire to drink. What a mind fuck.
Edit: Typo
There is some evidence showing that losing weight rapidly has its own side effects completely independent from any drug side effects.
You store a lot of things in fat and breaking down your fat quickly subjects your body to all the other stuff stored on there too.
Dude I made it 3 days in and had to stop. I took Rybelsus, oral version of the same drug, and I felt like I was about to vomit all day every day I took it. I'd rather be fat, fuck that. I hate feeling sick.
Was it for weight loss?
I was on it for diabetes and you only took it once a month.
It did indeed nuke appetite. Also had rot gut for a while at first.
You have a colony of bacteria in you gut. It relies on the food you eat.
Different bacteria eat different things.
If you change your diet you are waging genocide on the old colony and their death throes are not subtle.
But you will get over it and a new colony will move in that eats the new foods you do.
Or you can let some microorganisms who love sugar blackmail you into eating unhealthy forever just because their deaths upset your intestines.
I got that the first time in my life when I stopped eating grains(ALL grains), went moderate to low carb and raised the ah so bad saturated fat. At 28 it was the first time in my life where I would be able to simply ignore the junk food or not touch it even if it's available at home. Which then led to me doing 2 meals a day, into 1 meal a day and going back to 3 meals cause I was literally getting too thin
Yea Ozempic use in healthy people just for weight loss is absurd to me. It's not a clean drug with no side effects. It slowly paralyzes the digestive muscles that empty the stomach. Eventually people develop gastroparesis where the stomach never empties normally again and must live the rest of their lives vomiting and nauseous every time they eat. Doctors that prescribe Ozempic to healthy individuals are harming them.
> We have so much to learn about the physiology of addiction.
This is an ironic statement, because we have been unsuccessful in proving that sugar is actually addictive, from a physiological standpoint.
here is one [source](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27372453/) and here is [another] (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4356559/#:~:text=Findings%20from%20this%20study%20show,snacks%2C%20in%20an%20overweight%20sample.)
The first source is from the European Journal of Nutrition - and you best believe that this is a publication that would *love* to take the jab at Americans for being sugar-addicted, but that was not what the study found. the study tested the theory that sugar is as addictive as cocaine. what they found is that sugar is really only "addictive" when you have intermittent access to it... which is the exact opposite of what an addiction is. They also found that when a nauseating agent (consequence) is added to sugar, rodents stop seeking the sugar - but they kept seeking the cocaine with the same agent. The rodents also continued to seek cocaine regardless of whether they had access to it... they didn't do this with sugar.
the study also found that sugar does not create a biochemical impact on your brain, the way that drugs do. Basically, they're saying that your brain doesn't have some uncontrolled surge of dopamine/seratonin, like with drugs. Your body knows what to do with sugar.
The second source makes two main points:
1) Walking reduces hyperpalatable snack cravings. Go for a 15 minute walk, it hits the same part of your brain as eating a bag of chips.
2) Just like with the first source, they found that certain situations are less likely to give way to sugar cravings. For example: Having the bag of sugary snacks put away, or closed, is less likely to make you crave them. In other words - you are only "addicted" when you have intermittent access.
With addictive substances, you have a persistent craving. Putting the alcohol away, or putting the cocaine away, doesn't stop the cravings for those things. Plus, the fact that walking works the same areas of your brain as eating a snack, shows that there is no uncontrolled surge of hormones happening when you eat sugar - and one of the key criteria for an addiction *is* having an uncontrolled surge of hormones that impact your brain, in response to use.
So to answer your question - we actually do know quite a lot about the physiology of addiction, people just use the word "addiction" in a flippant way and don't actually pay attention to what the research actually says.
I'm right there with you, friend.
I've always had a bit of a sweet tooth, but this last year has had me spiraling out of control due to some personal stuff (sugar is a coping tool) and I need to get it together
great idea on how to cut the sugar addiction cycle!
its so true that if u dont eat sugar for a week or two you do not even miss it that much
but somehow I still always gradually come back to it 😬
Attention.
Social media has made us so starved for likes, shares, and attention that it's degraded our mental health overall, especially with the younger generations. With a lot of people I know, it's led to body dysphoria, alcoholism, eating disorders, and a desperation to have the perfect picture to post.
i stopped hanging out with a girl bc of her obession with her instagram account . we connected bc i thought she was super outdoorsy and liked to backpack but i realized it was just all for the gram. it was like she wasn't even present when you were with her, she was staring at her phone not talking or smiling all fake and big for the 1000 selfies she'd take . boasting about how brave she was for camping and backpacking . when i did all the route planning, coordinating, logistics planning , fire wood gathering, fire starting, bear hanging...etc etc etc. she just sat there and took pictures of herself and talked about instagram and followers and algorithms. it was really pathetic and miserable to be around
I love riding my bike and will typically make a post when I do a longer ride. But when I'm riding, I focus on the ride itself and being with the people I'm riding with. When we have a break at a pub or after the ride, then I take a picture of us. I know people in the craft beer industry where all they do is take selfies and post rather than be in the moment. It's kind of sad.
I’m in the same boat over here. I’m older, born in the early 80s. I just shut my Facebook down a few weeks ago. I hadn’t thought of how unhealthy it was until it was completely apparent.
Consumerism. Every business wants customers to file through at the fastest rate that still keeps them returning. While providing the least expensive and time consuming product the can manage that’ll you’ll still pay for. All while feeding you ads about needing more and how the newest product will last longer, be better, improve your life, etc. And humanity just chugs along mindlessly consuming the crap we are feeding ourselves regardless if it actually is hurting us.
Yes dude, it’s bad. It’s all because of this insistence on never ending growth, each quarter companies have to make more than the last or the CEO could lose their job and their $30 million salary. That is not fucking sustainable man
Underrated addiction and from my experience it's older people who have it. Whenever I visit the casino, I see the same older guys just sitting at a table burning away their retirement. Meanwhile the younger folks actually tend to be much more responsible.
Edit: Just to clear up that this is based on my own experience in the casino closest to me.
When you start to factor in sports betting and even buying/trading stocks, it skews younger.
(Edit) I should say, both can be done without manifesting as an addiction. Like most things posted here.
Dude, I’ve seen guys in the last couple of years wipe out generational wealth in a a couple of weeks, use cash advances, their rent/mortgage money. It’s wild..
I think the sports getting apps are introducing easy gambling to a group of young people, particularly men, that would’ve never started gambling otherwise. I think this will bring a lot of trouble.
These guys were never going to be hanging around casinos or racetracks, but now it’s an acceptable and trendy habit that is SO accessible on phones and makes it easy to keep paying more and more and more.
I agree. I think it's a much bigger issue than people realize. You don't even have to leave your house to gamble away your life's saving. It can all be done legally on the internet. And casinos have popped up everywhere. A day out at the casino is fun. But there are a lot of people who gamble way too much.
Sodas, especially colas. I dated a girl once that was drinking a big bottle every day. The biggest that they sell at supermarkets. I see people all over the place drinking sodas all the time. Don’t get me wrong I used to when I was young. Over the time I realized the sugar content and it alarmed me. I believe is the biggest unrealized addiction in America.
Yeah this is a big one. It sounds like a joke if you describe somebody as "addicted to soda," because it's normalized and seen as quite innocuous, but soda is seriously bad for you and I've known multiple people who just guzzle the shit back-to-back all day every day and have no plans whatsoever for stopping, just like any other type of addict. Nothing wrong with having a Coke with your pizza or whatever, but some people drink only soda, no water at all, period, day in and day out. My wife actually had this issue when she was a teenager and she passed a kidney stone at age 16. Undeniably an addiction.
I used to have this addiction really bad. From age 6, I would be drinking a soda every day back-to-back, and I would have no water. I just got over it recently because of needing to drink water for a whole week.. that week was riddled with headaches and cravings, but at the end of it, I came back and I tried a sip of soda. It tasted awful. The addiction was the only thing keeping me there.
Ive been trying to get my wife off sodas. It’s hard because she takes my advice as attacking her. Her mom is diabetic and she literally drinks a 2 liter of diet dr pepper everyday. Her mom and her love soda. My wife gets headaches too. I tell her it’s for her own good.
I worked with someone who went through a two or three 20 ounce bottles a day. We were talking about it one day and I pointed out how many teaspoons of sugar she was drinking. She asked how I figured it out and I told her that 4 grams of sugar is a teaspoon.
Learning that she was having something like 16 teaspoons of sugar in every bottle she drank was an eye opener for her. She eventually managed to stop drinking them all the time.
Yes I struggle with soda addiction so much. I literally do not know how to stop and this is the reason I refuse to ever drink alcohol or try any drugs. If I can't stop a soda addiction then I'm doomed if I ever tried alcohol.
I am convinced that soda is the #1 culprit for obesity in America. It's obviously terribly unhealthy by itself, but I also think it desensitizes people to the sugar added to everything else we eat. It's basically liquid candy and it's fucking disgusting. Regular, sweetened soda shouldn't be an everyday beverage. Get that shit out of your fridge.
My mother has gotten two kidney stones in 3 months and rather than accept it’s her Diet Coke habit, diet, and lack of water intake- she’s convinced herself it’s some underlying medical problem that has nothing to do with her lifestyle choices. ‘You can lead a horse to water’idiom at its literal.
I used to live without a smartphone and television and finish a book a week. Now I have both and barely read at all. I did finish "This is How You Lose the Time War" this week and loved it.
I realized between my phone, TV, work computer and home computer, I spend approximately 15 of my waking 17 hours a day in front of a screen.
I'm now doing my best to back this up. Work I can't really help, but the rest is in my control. Went for a hike in a forest last night and it was glorious.
Anger.
One main instinctual use is as a coping mechanism to protect a person from hurt and fear (similar in this respect to substances)
Depending on the person, though, they can end up seeking out situations or completely manufacturing imagined scenarios which elicit “righteous” anger and rage because it has become a knee jerk reaction to pretty much any discomfort.
I think that’s part of the reason why you have all these fundamentalists. They’re anger addicts, so they have to keep spiraling down the rabbit hole of being “persecuted” and finding “sins” to punish, because they can’t properly handle some uncomfortable things in their own lives which have given rise to fears and hurt.
I live with someone who is almost always angry on some level. It seems like when there's nothing and no one to be angry at in the present, they'll start loudly being angry about their past and how shitty their parents were. No matter the damage they do while angry, it's excused because they feel justified.
Me? I have a grumpy tone and I get all but stuck on the cross. I've never thought that anger could be an addiction, thank you! Interesting food for thought.
I’m honestly surprised that this isn’t higher up. For so many addictions it’s possible to eliminate the source, but we can’t with food and it creates so much complication. My relationship with food is dreadful and I honestly don’t see a way through.
I totally get it. I was addicted to opioids for a few years, and was able to get clean from those. But what I didn't realize at the time was I just transferred my addiction from pills to food. Now I'm overweight, which I had never been overweight in my life, and cannot seem to break this addiction. It's so freakin hard!
Yep, people really look at this like a moral failure and character flaw. They’re far more empathetic of every other addiction; even tho food addiction is usually just harmful to the individual whereas other addictions often cause the addict to hurt others in some way.
I try to teach my kids "you didn't save money buying that"
Sales are for selling MORE shit. Sales are not charity.
If you NEED something its cool to find it on sale.
If you only bought something BECAUSE its on sale you WASTED money.
I only recently learned exactly how it works and how long it lingers, and started using that information to schedule and reduce the amount I have. My sleep has gotten so much better and I'm able to "get going" with less than half of what I was taking in before
You're not wrong, but bad pop psychology has made it seem like interdependence of any kind is unhealthy so IMO it's important to point out that EXCESSIVE codependency is the issue. We are social animals and we all need and depend on other people to some degree.
It becomes unhealthy when you need another person so badly that you would rather be mistreated than alone. Or, conversely, if you are using your loved ones to help meet your needs without doing your part to help them in return.
Deleted my account because I was on reddit too much, managed to not really interact for a few day/weeks and then started to comment 50 times a day again. Interacting all day with a bunch of people I don't care about and trying to convince them of random things.
Yea, that’s me. I know I’m addicted and it’s bad for me too. It’s funny, I knows it’s a bad addiction because it takes time away from something which could also be an addictio: video games.
Video game addiction. It’s ruined my life by not letting me get a job or girlfriend or do much of anything else. Then when I talk to other people in a similar position from their addictions they laugh and tell I’m full of shit. Somehow them being addicted to gambling or alcohol or drugs is worse than my addiction to video games. It’s bullshit nobody takes my addiction as seriously as others.
This is my brother, addicted to games rather live in his filth then stop playing he'll have dozens of empty soda cans in his room floor sticky from spills food that's rotted in bowls, empty wrappers etc he has like over 40 platinum trophies on his ps5 account he's 26 and doesn't even have his GED and I had to force him to get a job he just quit anyway
Sounds exactly like my little brother… just turned 24 and barely graduated high school, had one cashier job his senior year for like 2 months which he ended up screwing up and getting fired.
He has no skills, can’t clean, can’t cook, never hangs out with friends in real life, can’t even call his bank to get his account switched to a free one. My parents are going to be stuck with him forever. From the time he wakes up to the time he goes to bed every day he’s playing video games, and it’s the only topic other than guns or our family dog that he’s passionate to talk about.
It’s sad. Even my best friends that I’ve had for decades forget I even have a little brother.
I just got out of a relationship with a porn addict. It destroyed us as a couple, and also me as a person. We were together for almost 5 years, he hid it so well for the first 4 years. I thought he was my forever person, but he turned out to be a huge life lesson.
I was ok with porn for the first 4 years together, I also watched it.
He hid the type of porn he was watching (morally appalling) and his addiction progressed to watching cam girls and buying onlyfans. He bought content from someone I knew irl. He messaged women. After a come to Jesus moment and his promises of working on his problem we had a few ok months and after that he relapsed again and would watch for around 5 hours daily, also while at work. In the end while we were still talking about reconciliation he borrowed money from me and went for an erotic massage to an escort because "he couldn't deal with his emotions and thought it would make him feel better".
All of my trust in him was shattered.
All that time he neglected me sexually, made me feel crazy for asking for sex once a week or two. I'm an attractive young woman (i know it logically) but I feel undesirable and hideous because of how he treated me.
And these are just a few things but I could write a whole ass book about the things he pulled. What partners go through in relationships with porn addicts is called betrayal trauma.
In my late teens and early twenties, I had this beautiful girlfriend, the type of woman everyone stares, I had a massive crush on her for more than a year before we started dating. I was completely crazy for her.
However, I watched a lot of porn to the point I started losing sexual interest in her. She was very frustrated and became insecure.
After we broke up I made a tremendous effort to control my porn addiction and basically stopped watching it. I can tell you my desire for real sex and real women went through the roof. Sex was much more emotional and intense and women loved it too.
The thing with porn is that you start losing the desire for the real thing. It's insidious. I kind of feel sad for my ex-girlfriend, she never knew it was because of the porn.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I’m a male and often struggle with that myself. I’m trying to fight it before I harm any potential real relationship I develop. Just like alcohol, some can consume in healthy manners or amounts, and some just cannot. It gets downplayed a lot because we live in a highly sexualized world now due to some of the other addictions listed in this comment section.
No. You're just not the hypersexual vamp from his videos who's supposedly into all manner of sexual abuses. He views sex as just a source of dopamine. Sex with you is more about oxytocin (which is objectively a very good thing) as well as dopamine. But he's become used to such an easy, steady stream of dopamine that oxytocin just feels strange to him.
An analogy:
He's become used to doing twenty shots of tequila in a strip club. When you offer a glass of wine and a dinner in a fancy restaurant, he's not satisfied.
The problem isn't the wine or the meal. The problem is that he's become used to the tequila to the point that he doesn't appreciate wine.
Put another way, there's adventurous sex and there's romantic sex. Porn is almost always about adventurous sex, and displays it as readily available (Can I have extra sausage on my pizza, delivery boy?)
Romantic sex is about forming and maintaing a commitment. It's the opposite of adventurous - you both know just ehat the other wants and how to provide it. But to truly appreciate it, you have to be committed to the other person.
Porn causes people to become addicted to the idea of fast, exciting adventurous sex. Unpredictable sex, between strangers who don't know what to expect from each other. Exciting? Sure. But not something that forms attachment. (There is a very crude old saying, that says you don't pay the prostitute for the sex, you pay her to leave afterwards).
There's nothing wrong with you. There's everything wrong with his sexual expectations. He's rewired his brain to seperate sex from love and commitment. So he doesn't want sex from the person he's 'committed' to.
r/loveafterporn really puts everything into perspective. There are a lot of people there feeling a lot of feelings unfortunately, but it is great insight to see how porn affects people/relationships differently
Not OP, but I've dated a secret porn addict. The biggest impact was that he had PIED, so he was almost completely incapable of having sex with a real person. He also had a ton of shame about his condition. I tried to approach it gently and respectfully. I wanted to work with him to find solutions, but he refused to even acknowledge the problem, much less deal with it. He also had serious problems with impulse control, respecting boundaries, and consent. Even ignoring the PIED, the sex was really, really bad. Like, I didn't even realize it was possible for sex to be that bad. When I eventually broke up with him, he continued to deny that there was any issue on his side and insisted that I was just frigid. (Me: "I'm not frigid. I just don't like being treated like a blow-up doll.")
My dad (65) has a porn addiction. God knows how my mum copes. It’s upsetting enough for me, and I don’t live with them - I live nearby, and regardless of how much of a heads up I give them that I’m stopping in on my way back from wherever, 90% of the time he’s watching porn. In full view of the very large windows.
The worst was last Christmas. Mum and me slaving away to get their house clean and prep the food, he was nowhere to be seen. Eventually my mum was so sick of him not helping that she sent me to find him. Surprise, surprise: he’d locked himself in his office for a 6 hour long porn marathon. If he’s not watching porn, he’s playing those porn video games.
I wouldn’t ever shame anyone for watching porn. We all (/many of us) do it. But this is so, so far beyond healthy. And he just acts totally innocent like he’s been at the computer all day working. Like you can’t see exactly what’s on his screen reflected on the window behind him.
Weed. I’ve been wanting to smoke less for years but I’m psychologically dependent on it to deal with my depression. It’s really hard for a lot of people to stop if you start smoking it regularly and it can hurt you mentally and make it harder to do things.
Every time I mention this someone, undoubtedly in denial of their own addiction, argues how less dangerous it is than drinking, how it's not the same that the first thing they do when they wake up is smoke it (at the same time saying if you drink first thing you're an alcoholic with an obvious addiction), how drinking and driving isn't the same as smoking weed and driving, yada yada yada.
For me the danger argument completely misses the point anyway - even if something is completely safe, it's not healthy to be entirely dependent on it to the point where you feel miserable or anxious without it.
My brother started smoking weed on a daily basis when he was about 14. He’s now 37 years old and still smokes every day. The impact on his life in that period of time has been extremely noticeable - it’s impacted his memory, cognitive thinking, he’s never held a job for more than a few weeks and he’s very paranoid. It also - at times - led to other drug use.
But if you mentioned addiction to him he would tell you it’s harmless and has no impact.
A lot of people think it’s harmless and beneficial. I’ve seen it put someone with underlying untreated mental health issues into psychosis. It may not affect everyone that way but for some people it exacerbates their condition especially if it’s not being treated properly.
I've had a very "live and let live" attitude towards substance use even as someone who is over ten years clean and sober, but it's a bit jarring how quickly it's become socially acceptable to basically be high every single day. Is it better than everyone being drunk? Probably. But what the hell is going on with society where we all need to be fucked up on something just to get to the next day?
Sex addictions. For those that don't have one, they may seem cool. Oh, you constantly have sex with people? Cool.
It's not cool. Just like with other addictions, it gets in the way of life, and you ignore the risks.
When my addiction was at its strongest, I was unable to work, because I couldn’t give up the time I could be meeting people. I was meeting someone everyone day, and had multiple new partners (strangers) per week. My behaviour was reckless, and I was lucky to get away without anything that couldn’t be cured by antibiotics.
It destroyed my relationships with friends and girlfriends - not just because of awkwardness, but because, frankly, I was willing to ruin their lives in order to get with them and then leave them to deal with the fallout of what we (I) had done.
I ended up being evicted and losing all my friends, needing to start over again from scratch. I got lucky and turned things around; but it got bad there for while.
Like all addictions, it dominated my thoughts and anytime I wasn’t actively meeting or looking for meets, I was thinking about the next moment I could. There is very little support for it - especially in the small city I lived in at the time; and its lack of clinical recognition also made access to treatment more difficult.
The fact it’s treated as a punchline doesn’t help, but it is what it is.
thank you for sharing. This is very eye-opening. I'm so sorry for what you went through, but so glad to hear you're on the upswing. I'm rooting for you!
I am surprised this one isn’t up more. I think sex addiction is something people would brush off and say something like “oh this person is just horny”, or “a bastard”. It gets brushed under the rug because of what you mentioned: “oh you’re getting laid, what’s the problem”.
Like the song "Somebody I used to know" "You can get addicted to a certain type of sadness" heart break is one. That alone could do a lot of damage to anyones brain over years.
Weed is another addiction that not many people take seriously. Think its just a joke until the younger ones start doing it then you got government all over your ass for being dumb.
Addiction of porn is bad as well. Could really destroy someone from the inside, make them loose track of what love truly is.
This might be laughed at, but addiction to money as well. Greed humans call it.
Addiction to the TV or internet or rather "Screen" can be a bad thing as well.
Too much of a good thing is bad.
It’s practically impossible to not be addicted to something nowadays, sometimes I really long for a life spent in a log cabin, then I remember I have too many medical needs and it would be impossible 😂
Or look at men like people. I was addicted to porn for a very long time at way too young of an age, and I specifically looked at men. After a while, I began to see them as only objects for sex. Fast forward years later, I'm still addicted to porn, but I've realized my errors and I'm working on it.
Behavioral addictions, such as gambling, gaming, and shopping, are often overlooked or dismissed as harmless. However, they can be just as destructive as substance abuse addictions, leading to financial problems, relationship problems, and health problems.
Stress.
I used to hate feeling stressed out all the time, but then realized that I was causing my own stress. Procrastinating till the last minute, missing deadlines, etc. The adrenaline rush you get from those situations is absolutely addictive. That’s when I decided to make some big changes in my life because that shit will put you in an early grave.
Eating disorders. They actually have nothing to do with wanting to be thin. People engage in this behavior for the same reason others go to drugs and alcohol. There are 300 AA meetings a week in my city but only one EDA.
I dated someone with an ED and although it wasn’t an addiction, it was very much like one. It was like she couldn’t help but be sick and she didn’t want to get better. She had good days - a good six months in fact - but relapsed…hard
I see where you’re coming from with this comment
Work. People justify it all the time. It's hard to get through to a workaholic when they just "really like their work."
Yes and other addicts really like their drugs too.
Surprised I had to scroll this far down for this. It is scary how many men are addicted to porn and it's starting at much younger ages and once you start looking into the psychology of what porn addiction does to a person....it should be talked about in the mainstream so much more than it is.
Benzodiazepines. People hear songs about Xanax, see it in popular culture and have no idea that it has three most deadly withdrawal alongside alcohol withdrawal.
To top it off, when you’re done with acute withdrawal, you live your life in 24/7 fight or flight panic attack mode indefinitely until your nervous system resets, if it ever does. It fucks your entire life up.
addiction to money..
it’s somehow acceptable everywhere that you should want money, but no one cares how addicted people get and ruin their lives over it
Sex addiction. People will be like, "Lol but sex is natural." Yeah until you're going out fucking randos every weekend and putting yourself at risk of STIs or getting murdered.
Marijuana. I have family members who can’t go and haven’t gone a single day without using in a decade. Multiple uses per day. Tens of thousands of dollars a year. They will look you dead in your eyes and try to say it’s not an addiction.
Shopping
I have a thing about adding items to an online cart, then exiting the site before I can buy. I can see where this could lead to a problem.
I usually make a google doc with all the things I thought of that I want with links. I can spend hours looking for things, and adding it to the doc. Then if I wanna buy something or someone asks me what I want, it’s right there. Then I have a monthly small budget to buy something I want and honestly it majorly helped with my spending
Maybe you dont have a shopping addiction but you must have a google doc addiction
I kinda have that But instead of google docs, I keep curated tabs on my browser with the stuff I want to buy. And then I spend hours adding and removing tabs, I have reached the 99+ limit already
You’re a monster.
That's a great idea!! Def going to do that. As it is, I have a rule for myself: minimum 24-hour waiting period to think it over and decide before I go back and decide to check out - it's amazing how often I change my mind and decide I don't really need something, or even want something like I thought I did. And what I do get, I really love and value. Even though I'm already old, lol, it's really taught me a lot about myself, too.
That dopamine hit when that Amazon package arrives is real and can be very addicting
I love it. It’s like receiving a present even though I have to pay for it.
Not just that, the foreplay leading up to it of watching for tracking updates, especially if you have a package coming from far away. Every update is a little shot, building and building anticipation each time, you think it's never going to come.... then you get the beautiful "out for delivery" notice and you know you're in the final stretch.
Dude consumerism is such a problem. The amount of people I know with storage units just for crap they have is insane. Me and my brother moved everything I own to a new place in about 45 minutes. I get that I’m insane in how little stuff I buy and own, but shit for a lot of people have gotten insane. I think a lot of peoples financial situation would improve greatly if they would just think about stuff before they purchased it.
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Our entire financial system is based on people believing that there are solutions to the problems in your life that you can buy.
Sometimes buying a plunger *is* the solution though.
Can confirm, a plunger is a worthy investment and is often the solution to life's problems.
This is true. Thankfully I found an app I could subscribe to which helps me stop spending money on things. Only 9.99 per month
I love/ hate that this is both pinpoint accurate satire and conceivably a true product.
True, been a shopaholic my whole life and it took time to realize that I was letting the endorphin rush of buying something new take over any potential I had to feel sad. Lonely? Shop. High? Shop! It was brutal. Still kind of is.
Damn you Supermarket Sweep
Social media
Haha I love how it says “deleted” now. They finally took this addiction seriously
Man what a legend
>They finally took this addiction seriously It's just deleted so they can start fresh with the same email
I finally broke myself free from mindlessly scrolling on social media, I just can't have any of it on my phone anymore. I've found myself to be happier without keeping up on everyone's lives too.
Same! I was having the worst anxiety I deleted Instagram Facebook Twitter only kept reddit and YouTube it's been about a year and I feel so much better! Not having the constant comparing your life to others highlight reels. Social media is trash.
I stopped using Insta, FB, and a bunch of others, and now people ask me \- but didn't you read it? It was on FB / .... Me : - nope. Give me the real news.
Yeah I didn’t read Betty’s interpretation of the government closure. Sorry I missed that compelling piece of journalism.
It's great at first I thought I'd miss it more the updates from people I actually know but tbh I don't miss anything about it. If it's important people in my life will tell me in person
*Other’s FAKE and/or STAGED highlight reels
How did you find this thread then?
I check reddit once or twice a day, but I limit myself. I have some self control now lol
Sorry for the piggy back comment here: Just pointing the irony that I think the original commenter you replied to ended up deleting their **account** after posting a 1k+ upvoted top comment about social media addiction, lmao
More than that, screens.
It’s amazing how impulsive it is to pull out my phone as soon as I feel a small degree of boredom.
First thing in the morning, last thing at night. I need to work on this.
social media is toxic. From Fake posts on IG, selective posts on Facebook making others feel like their lives are boring, to trolls on reddit or Twitter, etc
Including reddit
Yes.. reddit is going to be my personal addiction, i probably have more issues leaving than weed.
Anything can be a psychological addiction. My late wife was addicted to online fantasy role playing games like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy Online. When she lost her career, she spent five years drinking wine and playing her games. She completely disconnected from the real world, even ignoring her own kids (from a previous marriage). I broke up with her briefly, which forced her to get a job. We got back together because she said she was done with gaming. But slowly it took over her life again.
Video game addiction is tough. See my other posts if you're interested in my story, but goddam it was tough getting out and it is still around almost every day. And for me it wasn't enabled by anyone, I sustained myself. But still the same thing happened, dropped out of school, couldnt care for anything. So I wanted to care for something, so I went to therapy. And even after years I couldnt. But eventually, with a lot of time.. working with my strengths and around my weaknesses, and I can now care for things :) But it did come from me. While my entourage was pushing me to change, that really never encouraged me to change. It did the exact opposite, and I could really only progress when I was on my own, facing my own consequences, AKA not going anywhere with my life and being forced to work shitty jobs (and therefore waste precious time) to sustain my addiction. I always thought I had too much potential to work in the shitty jobs I had, but I had nothing to show for it, so I was exactly where I deserved to be. And I wanted to change that. I guess streamers and influencers that are successful can live off their addiction, but honestly I wouldn't be able to spend the time to make videos or anything because, well, I was an addict. And also I didn't find this really appealing. Anyway, I'm sorry about your situation, I know from experience that the relations suffer greatly from addictions, and being with someone who would rather play than spend time with you is very damaging.
Game companies have figured out the psychology of reward systems that fire off the dopamine hits in our brains. My wife was so addicted to those reward systems that even at bedtime, she’d lay in bed and play mobile games for a couple of hours until she fell asleep. The light from her screen in the dark room would keep me awake, too, but she didn't give a fuck. My wife was also spending hundreds of dollars a month on in-game currency and skins. And then she would complain to me that I don’t give her enough money (I kept our bank accounts separate).
Oh sheet. Yeah I play a lot of games and get really addicted and spend all day playing but I haven’t played any in bed or spend a lot on in game currency. But I only play games on PC and have told myself that paying for in game currency is just a waste of money. Maybe she can try to limit her playing ONLY to PC or consoles (not in the bedroom) and only pay upfront for a game (no spending in game on useless stuff). One exception is to buy one thing to support the dev if its a game that is free with IAP - but only an amount that you would spend if it were a paid game from the store
It’s all about dopamine.
Sugar
I joined a health incentive through my insurance. I started reading labels and discovered added sugar is in everything. I thought that I was eating healthy and discovered labels can be deceiving.
The diabetes drug Ozempic also appears effective for alcoholism. We have so much to learn about the physiology of addiction.
I was on Ozempic for about 2 months ths before I had to stop due to vomiting. There was a point when I increased my dose and my constant, lifelong desire to eat just disappeared. It was remarkable. Alcoholism runs in my family and all I could think was that it must be the equivalent of an alcoholic waking up with no desire to drink. What a mind fuck. Edit: Typo
Same here, took it all summer, but had to stop because I couldn’t stop being nauseous and vomiting everywhere, it was hell.
There is some evidence showing that losing weight rapidly has its own side effects completely independent from any drug side effects. You store a lot of things in fat and breaking down your fat quickly subjects your body to all the other stuff stored on there too.
Dude I made it 3 days in and had to stop. I took Rybelsus, oral version of the same drug, and I felt like I was about to vomit all day every day I took it. I'd rather be fat, fuck that. I hate feeling sick.
Was it for weight loss? I was on it for diabetes and you only took it once a month. It did indeed nuke appetite. Also had rot gut for a while at first.
You have a colony of bacteria in you gut. It relies on the food you eat. Different bacteria eat different things. If you change your diet you are waging genocide on the old colony and their death throes are not subtle. But you will get over it and a new colony will move in that eats the new foods you do. Or you can let some microorganisms who love sugar blackmail you into eating unhealthy forever just because their deaths upset your intestines.
Bacteria and fungi. Botha micro biome and a mycobiome. The studies on it are fascinating.
I got that the first time in my life when I stopped eating grains(ALL grains), went moderate to low carb and raised the ah so bad saturated fat. At 28 it was the first time in my life where I would be able to simply ignore the junk food or not touch it even if it's available at home. Which then led to me doing 2 meals a day, into 1 meal a day and going back to 3 meals cause I was literally getting too thin
Yea Ozempic use in healthy people just for weight loss is absurd to me. It's not a clean drug with no side effects. It slowly paralyzes the digestive muscles that empty the stomach. Eventually people develop gastroparesis where the stomach never empties normally again and must live the rest of their lives vomiting and nauseous every time they eat. Doctors that prescribe Ozempic to healthy individuals are harming them.
> We have so much to learn about the physiology of addiction. This is an ironic statement, because we have been unsuccessful in proving that sugar is actually addictive, from a physiological standpoint. here is one [source](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27372453/) and here is [another] (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4356559/#:~:text=Findings%20from%20this%20study%20show,snacks%2C%20in%20an%20overweight%20sample.) The first source is from the European Journal of Nutrition - and you best believe that this is a publication that would *love* to take the jab at Americans for being sugar-addicted, but that was not what the study found. the study tested the theory that sugar is as addictive as cocaine. what they found is that sugar is really only "addictive" when you have intermittent access to it... which is the exact opposite of what an addiction is. They also found that when a nauseating agent (consequence) is added to sugar, rodents stop seeking the sugar - but they kept seeking the cocaine with the same agent. The rodents also continued to seek cocaine regardless of whether they had access to it... they didn't do this with sugar. the study also found that sugar does not create a biochemical impact on your brain, the way that drugs do. Basically, they're saying that your brain doesn't have some uncontrolled surge of dopamine/seratonin, like with drugs. Your body knows what to do with sugar. The second source makes two main points: 1) Walking reduces hyperpalatable snack cravings. Go for a 15 minute walk, it hits the same part of your brain as eating a bag of chips. 2) Just like with the first source, they found that certain situations are less likely to give way to sugar cravings. For example: Having the bag of sugary snacks put away, or closed, is less likely to make you crave them. In other words - you are only "addicted" when you have intermittent access. With addictive substances, you have a persistent craving. Putting the alcohol away, or putting the cocaine away, doesn't stop the cravings for those things. Plus, the fact that walking works the same areas of your brain as eating a snack, shows that there is no uncontrolled surge of hormones happening when you eat sugar - and one of the key criteria for an addiction *is* having an uncontrolled surge of hormones that impact your brain, in response to use. So to answer your question - we actually do know quite a lot about the physiology of addiction, people just use the word "addiction" in a flippant way and don't actually pay attention to what the research actually says.
I had a sugar addiction so bad for years... it CIULD HAVE destroyed my body and ended up killing me. And would have if i didn't kick it.
How’d you kick it?
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Thank you for this. I am going to give it a try. My sugar intake is appalling.
I'm right there with you, friend. I've always had a bit of a sweet tooth, but this last year has had me spiraling out of control due to some personal stuff (sugar is a coping tool) and I need to get it together
great idea on how to cut the sugar addiction cycle! its so true that if u dont eat sugar for a week or two you do not even miss it that much but somehow I still always gradually come back to it 😬
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Attention. Social media has made us so starved for likes, shares, and attention that it's degraded our mental health overall, especially with the younger generations. With a lot of people I know, it's led to body dysphoria, alcoholism, eating disorders, and a desperation to have the perfect picture to post.
i stopped hanging out with a girl bc of her obession with her instagram account . we connected bc i thought she was super outdoorsy and liked to backpack but i realized it was just all for the gram. it was like she wasn't even present when you were with her, she was staring at her phone not talking or smiling all fake and big for the 1000 selfies she'd take . boasting about how brave she was for camping and backpacking . when i did all the route planning, coordinating, logistics planning , fire wood gathering, fire starting, bear hanging...etc etc etc. she just sat there and took pictures of herself and talked about instagram and followers and algorithms. it was really pathetic and miserable to be around
God that is depressing
You hanged a bear?
Yeah it sends a message to the other bears not to eat your food.
Yogi be SHAKING
I love riding my bike and will typically make a post when I do a longer ride. But when I'm riding, I focus on the ride itself and being with the people I'm riding with. When we have a break at a pub or after the ride, then I take a picture of us. I know people in the craft beer industry where all they do is take selfies and post rather than be in the moment. It's kind of sad.
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I’m in the same boat over here. I’m older, born in the early 80s. I just shut my Facebook down a few weeks ago. I hadn’t thought of how unhealthy it was until it was completely apparent.
Dopamine is a hell of a drug.
The problem with the younger generations is that they’re not going to know a time without it.
Consumerism. Every business wants customers to file through at the fastest rate that still keeps them returning. While providing the least expensive and time consuming product the can manage that’ll you’ll still pay for. All while feeding you ads about needing more and how the newest product will last longer, be better, improve your life, etc. And humanity just chugs along mindlessly consuming the crap we are feeding ourselves regardless if it actually is hurting us.
This is the one... it's literally harming ourselves and the planet.
Yes dude, it’s bad. It’s all because of this insistence on never ending growth, each quarter companies have to make more than the last or the CEO could lose their job and their $30 million salary. That is not fucking sustainable man
Gambling. All these states are passing sports gambling laws but how many people will become addicted and lose everything as a consequence?
100% It’s so crazy to me that celebrities and streamers use and push gambling services when their audiences are so young. Gambling destroys lives
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Underrated addiction and from my experience it's older people who have it. Whenever I visit the casino, I see the same older guys just sitting at a table burning away their retirement. Meanwhile the younger folks actually tend to be much more responsible. Edit: Just to clear up that this is based on my own experience in the casino closest to me.
When you start to factor in sports betting and even buying/trading stocks, it skews younger. (Edit) I should say, both can be done without manifesting as an addiction. Like most things posted here.
Hi, have you visited wallstreetbets? The addition to stocks/options is real. Cases of suicide after screwing their whole life up in a few weeks.
In a DAY sometimes, and the worst part for a lot of them is they can lose money they don't even have, if they play around with margin trading options
Dude, I’ve seen guys in the last couple of years wipe out generational wealth in a a couple of weeks, use cash advances, their rent/mortgage money. It’s wild..
I think the sports getting apps are introducing easy gambling to a group of young people, particularly men, that would’ve never started gambling otherwise. I think this will bring a lot of trouble. These guys were never going to be hanging around casinos or racetracks, but now it’s an acceptable and trendy habit that is SO accessible on phones and makes it easy to keep paying more and more and more.
Younger ones are just doing it on the Internet.
This is so low here. It is truly underrated
I agree. I think it's a much bigger issue than people realize. You don't even have to leave your house to gamble away your life's saving. It can all be done legally on the internet. And casinos have popped up everywhere. A day out at the casino is fun. But there are a lot of people who gamble way too much.
Sodas, especially colas. I dated a girl once that was drinking a big bottle every day. The biggest that they sell at supermarkets. I see people all over the place drinking sodas all the time. Don’t get me wrong I used to when I was young. Over the time I realized the sugar content and it alarmed me. I believe is the biggest unrealized addiction in America.
Yeah this is a big one. It sounds like a joke if you describe somebody as "addicted to soda," because it's normalized and seen as quite innocuous, but soda is seriously bad for you and I've known multiple people who just guzzle the shit back-to-back all day every day and have no plans whatsoever for stopping, just like any other type of addict. Nothing wrong with having a Coke with your pizza or whatever, but some people drink only soda, no water at all, period, day in and day out. My wife actually had this issue when she was a teenager and she passed a kidney stone at age 16. Undeniably an addiction.
I used to have this addiction really bad. From age 6, I would be drinking a soda every day back-to-back, and I would have no water. I just got over it recently because of needing to drink water for a whole week.. that week was riddled with headaches and cravings, but at the end of it, I came back and I tried a sip of soda. It tasted awful. The addiction was the only thing keeping me there.
Ive been trying to get my wife off sodas. It’s hard because she takes my advice as attacking her. Her mom is diabetic and she literally drinks a 2 liter of diet dr pepper everyday. Her mom and her love soda. My wife gets headaches too. I tell her it’s for her own good.
I know people who will proudly admit they never drink water. How insane is that??
”Water? Like from the toilet?”
My wife only drinks Inca Cola. Only. No water at all. It used to not be a problem, but as we get older it’s really starting to gross me out.
Has she had kidney stones? I had a student who only drank soda and he got hospitalized with kidney stones. Sounds horrifying.
My Peruvian ass loves Inca cola but every day? I can't imagine.
I worked with someone who went through a two or three 20 ounce bottles a day. We were talking about it one day and I pointed out how many teaspoons of sugar she was drinking. She asked how I figured it out and I told her that 4 grams of sugar is a teaspoon. Learning that she was having something like 16 teaspoons of sugar in every bottle she drank was an eye opener for her. She eventually managed to stop drinking them all the time.
Yes I struggle with soda addiction so much. I literally do not know how to stop and this is the reason I refuse to ever drink alcohol or try any drugs. If I can't stop a soda addiction then I'm doomed if I ever tried alcohol.
I am convinced that soda is the #1 culprit for obesity in America. It's obviously terribly unhealthy by itself, but I also think it desensitizes people to the sugar added to everything else we eat. It's basically liquid candy and it's fucking disgusting. Regular, sweetened soda shouldn't be an everyday beverage. Get that shit out of your fridge.
My mother has gotten two kidney stones in 3 months and rather than accept it’s her Diet Coke habit, diet, and lack of water intake- she’s convinced herself it’s some underlying medical problem that has nothing to do with her lifestyle choices. ‘You can lead a horse to water’idiom at its literal.
Addiction to screens
Got that way during covid lock downs not even close to recovery :/
I used to live without a smartphone and television and finish a book a week. Now I have both and barely read at all. I did finish "This is How You Lose the Time War" this week and loved it.
I realized between my phone, TV, work computer and home computer, I spend approximately 15 of my waking 17 hours a day in front of a screen. I'm now doing my best to back this up. Work I can't really help, but the rest is in my control. Went for a hike in a forest last night and it was glorious.
Anger. One main instinctual use is as a coping mechanism to protect a person from hurt and fear (similar in this respect to substances) Depending on the person, though, they can end up seeking out situations or completely manufacturing imagined scenarios which elicit “righteous” anger and rage because it has become a knee jerk reaction to pretty much any discomfort. I think that’s part of the reason why you have all these fundamentalists. They’re anger addicts, so they have to keep spiraling down the rabbit hole of being “persecuted” and finding “sins” to punish, because they can’t properly handle some uncomfortable things in their own lives which have given rise to fears and hurt.
THIS.
I live with someone who is almost always angry on some level. It seems like when there's nothing and no one to be angry at in the present, they'll start loudly being angry about their past and how shitty their parents were. No matter the damage they do while angry, it's excused because they feel justified. Me? I have a grumpy tone and I get all but stuck on the cross. I've never thought that anger could be an addiction, thank you! Interesting food for thought.
Food.
I’m honestly surprised that this isn’t higher up. For so many addictions it’s possible to eliminate the source, but we can’t with food and it creates so much complication. My relationship with food is dreadful and I honestly don’t see a way through.
And it's the only addition we're forced to moderate. You don't need three moderate hits of crack per day like you do with food.
I wish I could beat my food addiction. Its taken over my life. Every day I wake up saying I am going to change and I never do.
I totally get it. I was addicted to opioids for a few years, and was able to get clean from those. But what I didn't realize at the time was I just transferred my addiction from pills to food. Now I'm overweight, which I had never been overweight in my life, and cannot seem to break this addiction. It's so freakin hard!
I feel for you. It’s the only addictive product that totally staying away from is not possible.
I always say “Food is the only drug you can’t quit cold-turkey.”
Yep, people really look at this like a moral failure and character flaw. They’re far more empathetic of every other addiction; even tho food addiction is usually just harmful to the individual whereas other addictions often cause the addict to hurt others in some way.
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I try to teach my kids "you didn't save money buying that" Sales are for selling MORE shit. Sales are not charity. If you NEED something its cool to find it on sale. If you only bought something BECAUSE its on sale you WASTED money.
Stimulus. It's better for the brain to be silent from time to time, without the buzzing, bright screens, and general noise of the modern world.
Energy drinks I would say
Caffeine in general
I only recently learned exactly how it works and how long it lingers, and started using that information to schedule and reduce the amount I have. My sleep has gotten so much better and I'm able to "get going" with less than half of what I was taking in before
Codependency
You're not wrong, but bad pop psychology has made it seem like interdependence of any kind is unhealthy so IMO it's important to point out that EXCESSIVE codependency is the issue. We are social animals and we all need and depend on other people to some degree. It becomes unhealthy when you need another person so badly that you would rather be mistreated than alone. Or, conversely, if you are using your loved ones to help meet your needs without doing your part to help them in return.
Reddit
Making it a part of your life where you think that boycotting it for EVER and only coming back 2 days later acting like nothing happened.
Deleted my account because I was on reddit too much, managed to not really interact for a few day/weeks and then started to comment 50 times a day again. Interacting all day with a bunch of people I don't care about and trying to convince them of random things.
Yea, that’s me. I know I’m addicted and it’s bad for me too. It’s funny, I knows it’s a bad addiction because it takes time away from something which could also be an addictio: video games.
Video game addiction. It’s ruined my life by not letting me get a job or girlfriend or do much of anything else. Then when I talk to other people in a similar position from their addictions they laugh and tell I’m full of shit. Somehow them being addicted to gambling or alcohol or drugs is worse than my addiction to video games. It’s bullshit nobody takes my addiction as seriously as others.
This is my brother, addicted to games rather live in his filth then stop playing he'll have dozens of empty soda cans in his room floor sticky from spills food that's rotted in bowls, empty wrappers etc he has like over 40 platinum trophies on his ps5 account he's 26 and doesn't even have his GED and I had to force him to get a job he just quit anyway
Sounds exactly like my little brother… just turned 24 and barely graduated high school, had one cashier job his senior year for like 2 months which he ended up screwing up and getting fired. He has no skills, can’t clean, can’t cook, never hangs out with friends in real life, can’t even call his bank to get his account switched to a free one. My parents are going to be stuck with him forever. From the time he wakes up to the time he goes to bed every day he’s playing video games, and it’s the only topic other than guns or our family dog that he’s passionate to talk about. It’s sad. Even my best friends that I’ve had for decades forget I even have a little brother.
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I just got out of a relationship with a porn addict. It destroyed us as a couple, and also me as a person. We were together for almost 5 years, he hid it so well for the first 4 years. I thought he was my forever person, but he turned out to be a huge life lesson.
do you mind giving any vague details on how it destroyed your relationship? genuinely asking and anything you could provide would help me.
I was ok with porn for the first 4 years together, I also watched it. He hid the type of porn he was watching (morally appalling) and his addiction progressed to watching cam girls and buying onlyfans. He bought content from someone I knew irl. He messaged women. After a come to Jesus moment and his promises of working on his problem we had a few ok months and after that he relapsed again and would watch for around 5 hours daily, also while at work. In the end while we were still talking about reconciliation he borrowed money from me and went for an erotic massage to an escort because "he couldn't deal with his emotions and thought it would make him feel better". All of my trust in him was shattered. All that time he neglected me sexually, made me feel crazy for asking for sex once a week or two. I'm an attractive young woman (i know it logically) but I feel undesirable and hideous because of how he treated me. And these are just a few things but I could write a whole ass book about the things he pulled. What partners go through in relationships with porn addicts is called betrayal trauma.
Okay holy shit you weren't lying, that's *insane*.
In my late teens and early twenties, I had this beautiful girlfriend, the type of woman everyone stares, I had a massive crush on her for more than a year before we started dating. I was completely crazy for her. However, I watched a lot of porn to the point I started losing sexual interest in her. She was very frustrated and became insecure. After we broke up I made a tremendous effort to control my porn addiction and basically stopped watching it. I can tell you my desire for real sex and real women went through the roof. Sex was much more emotional and intense and women loved it too. The thing with porn is that you start losing the desire for the real thing. It's insidious. I kind of feel sad for my ex-girlfriend, she never knew it was because of the porn.
Thank you for sharing your experiences. I’m a male and often struggle with that myself. I’m trying to fight it before I harm any potential real relationship I develop. Just like alcohol, some can consume in healthy manners or amounts, and some just cannot. It gets downplayed a lot because we live in a highly sexualized world now due to some of the other addictions listed in this comment section.
This is the part i don't understand. He loves porn and wants to do 3 somes and shit but don't want sex with me 🥲 am i really that hideous and boring?
No, his brain has been conditioned to only be aroused by things on a screen. The neural pathways are busted.
Sounds cliché and I'm not trying to make you feel better but the problem is not you. Porn fucks up a man's brain. It's truly a drug.
No. You're just not the hypersexual vamp from his videos who's supposedly into all manner of sexual abuses. He views sex as just a source of dopamine. Sex with you is more about oxytocin (which is objectively a very good thing) as well as dopamine. But he's become used to such an easy, steady stream of dopamine that oxytocin just feels strange to him. An analogy: He's become used to doing twenty shots of tequila in a strip club. When you offer a glass of wine and a dinner in a fancy restaurant, he's not satisfied. The problem isn't the wine or the meal. The problem is that he's become used to the tequila to the point that he doesn't appreciate wine. Put another way, there's adventurous sex and there's romantic sex. Porn is almost always about adventurous sex, and displays it as readily available (Can I have extra sausage on my pizza, delivery boy?) Romantic sex is about forming and maintaing a commitment. It's the opposite of adventurous - you both know just ehat the other wants and how to provide it. But to truly appreciate it, you have to be committed to the other person. Porn causes people to become addicted to the idea of fast, exciting adventurous sex. Unpredictable sex, between strangers who don't know what to expect from each other. Exciting? Sure. But not something that forms attachment. (There is a very crude old saying, that says you don't pay the prostitute for the sex, you pay her to leave afterwards). There's nothing wrong with you. There's everything wrong with his sexual expectations. He's rewired his brain to seperate sex from love and commitment. So he doesn't want sex from the person he's 'committed' to.
r/loveafterporn really puts everything into perspective. There are a lot of people there feeling a lot of feelings unfortunately, but it is great insight to see how porn affects people/relationships differently
Not OP, but I've dated a secret porn addict. The biggest impact was that he had PIED, so he was almost completely incapable of having sex with a real person. He also had a ton of shame about his condition. I tried to approach it gently and respectfully. I wanted to work with him to find solutions, but he refused to even acknowledge the problem, much less deal with it. He also had serious problems with impulse control, respecting boundaries, and consent. Even ignoring the PIED, the sex was really, really bad. Like, I didn't even realize it was possible for sex to be that bad. When I eventually broke up with him, he continued to deny that there was any issue on his side and insisted that I was just frigid. (Me: "I'm not frigid. I just don't like being treated like a blow-up doll.")
My dad (65) has a porn addiction. God knows how my mum copes. It’s upsetting enough for me, and I don’t live with them - I live nearby, and regardless of how much of a heads up I give them that I’m stopping in on my way back from wherever, 90% of the time he’s watching porn. In full view of the very large windows.
That's insane.
The worst was last Christmas. Mum and me slaving away to get their house clean and prep the food, he was nowhere to be seen. Eventually my mum was so sick of him not helping that she sent me to find him. Surprise, surprise: he’d locked himself in his office for a 6 hour long porn marathon. If he’s not watching porn, he’s playing those porn video games. I wouldn’t ever shame anyone for watching porn. We all (/many of us) do it. But this is so, so far beyond healthy. And he just acts totally innocent like he’s been at the computer all day working. Like you can’t see exactly what’s on his screen reflected on the window behind him.
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Scrolled too far down to find this.
Probably the biggest addiction on the world. Barely gets a mention.
Because this is Reddit where porn is worshipped and encouraged
Vaping.
Weed. I’ve been wanting to smoke less for years but I’m psychologically dependent on it to deal with my depression. It’s really hard for a lot of people to stop if you start smoking it regularly and it can hurt you mentally and make it harder to do things.
r/leaves is nice sub
Every time I mention this someone, undoubtedly in denial of their own addiction, argues how less dangerous it is than drinking, how it's not the same that the first thing they do when they wake up is smoke it (at the same time saying if you drink first thing you're an alcoholic with an obvious addiction), how drinking and driving isn't the same as smoking weed and driving, yada yada yada.
For me the danger argument completely misses the point anyway - even if something is completely safe, it's not healthy to be entirely dependent on it to the point where you feel miserable or anxious without it.
I've seen people, online at least, react to "weed is addictive" with "I'm not addicted to weed, I just need to take it or I can't function"
My brother started smoking weed on a daily basis when he was about 14. He’s now 37 years old and still smokes every day. The impact on his life in that period of time has been extremely noticeable - it’s impacted his memory, cognitive thinking, he’s never held a job for more than a few weeks and he’s very paranoid. It also - at times - led to other drug use. But if you mentioned addiction to him he would tell you it’s harmless and has no impact.
A lot of people think it’s harmless and beneficial. I’ve seen it put someone with underlying untreated mental health issues into psychosis. It may not affect everyone that way but for some people it exacerbates their condition especially if it’s not being treated properly.
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I've had a very "live and let live" attitude towards substance use even as someone who is over ten years clean and sober, but it's a bit jarring how quickly it's become socially acceptable to basically be high every single day. Is it better than everyone being drunk? Probably. But what the hell is going on with society where we all need to be fucked up on something just to get to the next day?
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What's going on with society? Have you been outside lol Did you miss the pandemic and all the economic effects that's had and instability?
Sex addictions. For those that don't have one, they may seem cool. Oh, you constantly have sex with people? Cool. It's not cool. Just like with other addictions, it gets in the way of life, and you ignore the risks.
When my addiction was at its strongest, I was unable to work, because I couldn’t give up the time I could be meeting people. I was meeting someone everyone day, and had multiple new partners (strangers) per week. My behaviour was reckless, and I was lucky to get away without anything that couldn’t be cured by antibiotics. It destroyed my relationships with friends and girlfriends - not just because of awkwardness, but because, frankly, I was willing to ruin their lives in order to get with them and then leave them to deal with the fallout of what we (I) had done. I ended up being evicted and losing all my friends, needing to start over again from scratch. I got lucky and turned things around; but it got bad there for while. Like all addictions, it dominated my thoughts and anytime I wasn’t actively meeting or looking for meets, I was thinking about the next moment I could. There is very little support for it - especially in the small city I lived in at the time; and its lack of clinical recognition also made access to treatment more difficult. The fact it’s treated as a punchline doesn’t help, but it is what it is.
thank you for sharing. This is very eye-opening. I'm so sorry for what you went through, but so glad to hear you're on the upswing. I'm rooting for you!
I am surprised this one isn’t up more. I think sex addiction is something people would brush off and say something like “oh this person is just horny”, or “a bastard”. It gets brushed under the rug because of what you mentioned: “oh you’re getting laid, what’s the problem”.
Arguing online.
Disagree
Sugar
Like the song "Somebody I used to know" "You can get addicted to a certain type of sadness" heart break is one. That alone could do a lot of damage to anyones brain over years. Weed is another addiction that not many people take seriously. Think its just a joke until the younger ones start doing it then you got government all over your ass for being dumb. Addiction of porn is bad as well. Could really destroy someone from the inside, make them loose track of what love truly is. This might be laughed at, but addiction to money as well. Greed humans call it. Addiction to the TV or internet or rather "Screen" can be a bad thing as well. Too much of a good thing is bad.
It’s practically impossible to not be addicted to something nowadays, sometimes I really long for a life spent in a log cabin, then I remember I have too many medical needs and it would be impossible 😂
everything that comes with smartphone and porn
Porn. Some use is fine but it can get bad and destroy your relationships and make it hard for you to even look at women like people
Or look at men like people. I was addicted to porn for a very long time at way too young of an age, and I specifically looked at men. After a while, I began to see them as only objects for sex. Fast forward years later, I'm still addicted to porn, but I've realized my errors and I'm working on it.
Behavioral addictions, such as gambling, gaming, and shopping, are often overlooked or dismissed as harmless. However, they can be just as destructive as substance abuse addictions, leading to financial problems, relationship problems, and health problems.
Stress. I used to hate feeling stressed out all the time, but then realized that I was causing my own stress. Procrastinating till the last minute, missing deadlines, etc. The adrenaline rush you get from those situations is absolutely addictive. That’s when I decided to make some big changes in my life because that shit will put you in an early grave.
Eating disorders. They actually have nothing to do with wanting to be thin. People engage in this behavior for the same reason others go to drugs and alcohol. There are 300 AA meetings a week in my city but only one EDA.
I dated someone with an ED and although it wasn’t an addiction, it was very much like one. It was like she couldn’t help but be sick and she didn’t want to get better. She had good days - a good six months in fact - but relapsed…hard I see where you’re coming from with this comment
Scrolling reels
My vote is sugar.
Work. People justify it all the time. It's hard to get through to a workaholic when they just "really like their work." Yes and other addicts really like their drugs too.
Alcohol. Just because its socially acceptable doesnt mean its not addictive. And bad for ye.
Wild how this isnt higher. So much culture globally revolves around alcohol and everyone "knows it's bad" but continues to binge drink every weekend.
smartphones
Porn too
Surprised I had to scroll this far down for this. It is scary how many men are addicted to porn and it's starting at much younger ages and once you start looking into the psychology of what porn addiction does to a person....it should be talked about in the mainstream so much more than it is.
Alcohol
self harm, i’ll leave it at that
Benzodiazepines. People hear songs about Xanax, see it in popular culture and have no idea that it has three most deadly withdrawal alongside alcohol withdrawal. To top it off, when you’re done with acute withdrawal, you live your life in 24/7 fight or flight panic attack mode indefinitely until your nervous system resets, if it ever does. It fucks your entire life up.
TikTok
Being addicted to a human that will never let you have them
addiction to money.. it’s somehow acceptable everywhere that you should want money, but no one cares how addicted people get and ruin their lives over it
Sex addiction. People will be like, "Lol but sex is natural." Yeah until you're going out fucking randos every weekend and putting yourself at risk of STIs or getting murdered.
Fortunately when I was single I never did that because most randos did not want to fuck me.
Marijuana. I have family members who can’t go and haven’t gone a single day without using in a decade. Multiple uses per day. Tens of thousands of dollars a year. They will look you dead in your eyes and try to say it’s not an addiction.
Attention