[HN Gopher] Most people with addiction simply grow out of it (2014)
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Most people with addiction simply grow out of it (2014)
Author : jseliger
Score : 77 points
Date : 2024-02-17 03:17 UTC (19 hours ago)
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(TXT) w3m dump (psmag.com)
| anonzzzies wrote:
| You can be addicted to mostly anything; 'healthy' (veg, sports
| etc) and unhealthy. I have seen many people 'grow out of it'
| which meant they replaced one addiction by another (or more than
| one), but the new ones are acceptable in society so now you are
| not an addict anymore (...). For instance, I know more than a few
| ex harddrug addicts who are now addicted to gaming, work, sports,
| alcohol (also a hard drug but somehow accepted and cheap), sex
| etc.
| ghuroo1 wrote:
| I would say almost everything is acceptable once you understand
| the balance and how it impacts you if you do/over do it.
|
| I agree there are a lot of normalised addictions, including the
| modern trend of counting every step, heart rate beat, times you
| go in the bathroom and even sleep analysis so you can compare
| to your friends.
| lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote:
| Can you show us a single example of someone who destroyed
| their life because they couldn't stop counting their steps?
|
| No? So maybe don't call it an "addiction" if you want words
| to have any meaning.
| d1sxeyes wrote:
| Addictions do not have to be life destroying. Plenty of
| people are addicted to various things but are fully
| functional and live fulfilled lives.
|
| It's a bit unfair to ask whether OP wants words to have any
| meaning when it seems you're a bit fuzzy on the definition
| of "addiction" yourself.
| andsoitis wrote:
| > Addictions do not have to be life destroying. Plenty of
| people are addicted to various things but are fully
| functional and live fulfilled lives. It's a bit unfair to
| ask whether OP wants words to have any meaning when it
| seems you're a bit fuzzy on the definition of "addiction"
| yourself.
|
| Wikipedia: Addiction is a neuropsychological disorder
| characterized by a persistent and intense urge to use a
| drug or engage in a behaviour that produces natural
| reward, despite substantial harm and other negative
| consequences.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction
| jjulius wrote:
| Wikipedia isn't really an authority on words,
| specifically, though. If one goes to Merriam-Webster, an
| actual dictionary, one sees:
|
| > a: exhibiting a compulsive, chronic, physiological or
| psychological need for a habit-forming substance,
| behavior, or activity
|
| > b: strongly inclined to do, use, or indulge in
| something repeatedly
|
| If one looks at the Oxford English Dictionary, one sees:
|
| > a state of dependence produced either by the habitual
| taking of drugs or by regularly engaging in certain
| behaviours (e.g. gambling).
|
| No specific requirement for negative consequences, just a
| habit.
| lkdfjlkdfjlg wrote:
| No, I'm not fuzzy on the definition of addiction. If a
| behavior has little negative effects, then it's not an
| addiction.
| rysertio wrote:
| Most mildly addictive drugs don't have that many negative
| effects.
| bluefirebrand wrote:
| It can be a negative effect like "I decided to skip work
| to do the drug instead and lost my job"
| jjulius wrote:
| I dunno how else to say that not having negative effects
| doesn't mean one isn't addicted to something. It simply
| isn't a requirement.
| jdietrich wrote:
| Counting your steps is unlikely to destroy your life, but a
| lot of people do suffer serious harms due to behaviours
| like compulsive exercise and orthorexia. Obsessive-
| compulsive behaviour around exercise often overlaps with
| anorexia nervosa, which has the highest risk of mortality
| of any mental disorder (~5% at 10 years). There is a
| surprisingly fine line between compulsive health tracking
| and a life-threatening eating disorder.
| throw18376 wrote:
| here's an interesting account of someone's advice that they
| devised after having and recovering from an eating
| disorder.
|
| i don't know enough to endorse all their medical claims,
| but you can get a sense of their experience.
|
| you can see that for them and others, an addiction-like
| compulsion to exercise (including literally counting steps)
| was a big part of it.
|
| https://sites.google.com/view/the-no-nonsense-guide/guide
| Riseed wrote:
| > Can you show us a single example of someone who destroyed
| their life because they couldn't stop counting their steps?
|
| 'I Am Obsessed With Taking 100,000 Steps A Day,' Woman Says
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkhD0Lo-fxk
| lebean wrote:
| It's true, when I started counting my steps, I just couldn't
| stop. Then I had to have data about my sleep and bowel
| movements, so that I could have data-driven insights about my
| body. My friends and family got annoyed at my compulsion to
| gather data about mundane activities. It got so bad, I
| started doing sexual favors to feed my habit, and I am
| ashamed to admit I was gathering data while I did it to
| improve my performance. Folks, be careful when you count
| steps! It's easy to get hooked and you may end up like me!
| khazhoux wrote:
| There is help available. PM me.
| BobaFloutist wrote:
| Not every form of disordered behavior is best understood as an
| addiction.
| jdietrich wrote:
| This is why harm reduction is absolutely crucial. A lot of people
| will recover on their own given time, but you can't recover if
| you're dead. A moralistic model based primarily or solely on
| abstinence-based recovery fails addicts, their families and
| society.
| Remnant44 wrote:
| I don't have a lot of personal experience dealing with addiction
| in either myself or others, but TFA lays out to me a pretty
| compelling claim that addiction is a developmental disorder. The
| current mainstream belief of addiction as disease has always
| seemed to me like it had a great number of holes; it's main
| purpose was to make people stop stigmatizing addicts for moral
| failing.
|
| The comparison to ADHD made in the article is an interesting one:
| although for sure many ADHD kids do age out of the diagnosis, I
| know many ADHD adults who still have it significantly impact
| their lives. What do we do with addiction if you've made it past
| your brain developmental point and you're still addicted?
| hn72774 wrote:
| I've heard the first-time heroin experience described as
| feeling like "being wrapped in a warm, wet blanket." What else
| feels like that?
|
| A lot of addiction is trying to get back to the comfort of the
| womb to escape from early childhood traumas and abuses.
|
| You get a taste of that with the use but never get close to it
| again after.
| curtisblaine wrote:
| > What else feels like that?
|
| Probably being wrapped in an actual warm, wet blanket.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| Even if after a few years you grow out of an addiction, it can
| destroy your health in the meanwhile. Or maybe you won't survive
| those years. How many do successfully grow out of the "crocodile"
| addiction?
|
| Perhaps the actual lesson should be that addition is not a yes-
| or-no thing, but rather a scale. For each addictive thing, it
| would be nice to know (1) the half-time of growing out of it, and
| (2) the distribution of health impacts during that half-time.
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Most People with Addiction Simply Grow Out of It. Why Is This
| Widely Denied?_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34167068 -
| Dec 2022 (7 comments)
|
| _Most People With Addiction Grow Out of It (2014)_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19013480 - Jan 2019 (125
| comments)
|
| _Most People with Addiction Simply Grow Out of It_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8396375 - Oct 2014 (156
| comments)
| iammjm wrote:
| I wonder about where habits end and addictions begin. I think
| once a ball is rolling it's not easy to stop it, as it kinda does
| it on itself
| baxtr wrote:
| The best definition I've read somewhere was along the lines:
| addiction is something you do repeatedly even though you know
| it's harmful for you.
| dylan604 wrote:
| This makes it sound like you trying to say addiction is a
| mental thing. When your body is physically addicted so that
| you are sick and in pain because you didn't dose, that's not
| mental. At that point, it could be more harmful to not fix
| regardless if you know it or not.
| rysertio wrote:
| This article confuses drug use with addiction. Addiction is a
| state where a patient wants to quit a drug, but can't. And that
| is when you want to intervene as a psychiatrist.
| frereubu wrote:
| Can you say where the article does this? It seems pretty
| explicit to me, with the key word being _diagnosable_ : "I quit
| at around the age when, according to large epidemiological
| studies, most people who have diagnosable addiction problems do
| so -- without treatment."
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Alternately, you just execute people for drug trafficking. A
| total win in terms of net human suffering.
| rpmisms wrote:
| El Salvador seems to be quite happy these days...
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| The murder rate of the USA is now almost 3 times higher than
| that of El Salvadors.
|
| New Zealand now has more murder than El Salvador.
| rpmisms wrote:
| Sometimes it's really amazing how simple, first-principles
| solutions are mind-bogglingly effective.
| nurumaik wrote:
| In terms of net human suffering we can execute everyone. No
| people -- no suffering
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| That would increase total suffering, as people condemned to
| be executed will under go a great deal of suffering.
| fons wrote:
| > ONLY A QUARTER OF PEOPLE WHO RECOVER HAVE EVER SOUGHT
| ASSISTANCE IN DOING SO (INCLUDING VIA 12-STEP PROGRAMS). THIS
| ACTUALLY MAKES ADDICTIONS THE PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER WITH THE
| HIGHEST ODDS OF RECOVERY.
|
| Confirmation bias at its best.
| marifjeren wrote:
| this is a lot more hopeful messaging than I'm used to hearing
| about addiction but I also think it's worth noting this
| limitation from the study:
|
| """ institutionalized individuals or those who experienced fatal
| or severe consequences due to their SUD may have not been sampled
| """
|
| And also.. the average remission times for these addictions are
| still very long, e.g. roughly 15 years for heroin or alcohol
| AtlasBarfed wrote:
| What was the followup to the "Vietnam vets addicted to heroin
| that stopped when they came back"? That was a hot internet topic
| about, what 5-10 years ago that was basically alleging addiction
| was strongly tied to surroundings/social graph?
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