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This isn't a real addiction. And it trivializes what addicts actually go through. This is demonstrated being that it was possible for the author to replace the

This isn't a real addiction. And it trivializes what addicts actually go through. This is demonstrated being that it was possible for the author to replace the "higher power" of the 12 steps with someone to unplug the Internet router. If you're actually addicted to something, you feel so trapped and subservient to your addiction that you concoct the idea of a higher power simply because you have no power left within yourself to fight. Addiction is so bleak and hopeless that death seems like a decent alternative to living without your addiction.

jfim 11y ago
> This isn't a real addiction. And it trivializes what addicts actually go through. This is demonstrated being that it was possible for the author to replace the "higher power" of the 12 steps with someone to unplug the Internet router. Just like it is possible to fix alcoholism by having someone remove alcohol from the house and gambling by having someone prevent the gambler from walking into a casino. If using the internet in a harmful way (eg. spending six hours a day reloading 9gag, FB, slashdot or whatever up to the point where it hinders your normal activities), how is it different from alcoholism or gambling?
- thrwy111 11y ago
  I don't think you can fix gambling or alcohol addiction like that. I'm not saying someone can't be addicted to the Internet. I'm just saying this author's story is not a story of addiction. There is such a mental block with addiction. It's like trying to fix an airplane engine while piloting it. And you're trapped in an infinite loop. It's exhausting. If all it takes is someone to unplug your router, or dump out the alcohol, you are not addicted.
- codemac 11y ago
  > Just like it is possible to fix alcoholism by having someone remove alcohol from the house It's different because alcohol withdrawal can kill you. It can give people seizures and hospitalize them for weeks. Telling someone to "remove alcohol from the house" as a cure is so left field for me it feels like you're missing the very real medical struggle long-term alcoholics go through. I'm livid but I know this should be a civil conversation. I haven't seen someone's facebook+9gag habits tear a community, family, or person apart. Maybe that's my ignorance.
  - jfim 11y ago
    None of the "solutions" I mentioned are actually serious solutions and were intended to show that the parent's reasoning didn't work (ie. you're not going to cure internet addiction by unplugging the router just as removing alcohol from the house won't prevent an alcoholic from seeking and obtaining alcohol). Someone who's really addicted to something will seek the object of their addiction and think about it constantly. As you mention, there are also physical components to some addictions, such as alcohol addiction.
    - codemac 11y ago
      Wow - ok, I totally missed your point then. Thank you for your reply with explanation, much more sensible than I was interpreting.
c3534l 11y ago
I kind of agree with this, but having recovered myself, I've found that addiction is more than just your drug of choice, it manifests itself in all sorts of little things. People find they quit drinking and then realize they've been compulsively shopping or eating. The same basic mechanism is the same and I think the author nails what it is: a cognitive-behavioral loop one has difficulty getting out of primarily because your brain is overvaluing the short-term over the long term for just long enough to engage in the cycle and strengthen the compulsion. Of course there's physical addiction, but not everyone likes that distinction. That is certainly powerful, but it's powerful to the extent that it makes the psychological addiction that much stronger, by having these very immediate responses with a clear behavioral solution (use your drug of choice). There are people with really severe addictions, sure. In rehab there was no shortage of people who had to be monitored 24/7 and medicated because suddenly stopping their drug could actually kill them. There were others who were not as desperate. But I think it really is the same underlying phenomenon: substance abuse as well as gambling or some people who overeat or whatever else people typically need to go to rehab for - those addictions simply are greater and tend to have worse impact on a person's life. I was in rehab for alcohol having already quit every other drug at that point (causing my precariously balanced array of simultaneous addictions to cause one of them to dive head-first into the ground) and I wouldn't say that my addiction was the same as the heroin or cocaine addicts' problems. It simply was not in the same class, so I think there's already a recognition that everyone's addiction is different and unique to them. Also, fuck, I'm clearly addicted to internet distraction. I'm writing this post instead of finishing my research paper.
kristofferR 11y ago
Why do you think addiction is real only if it's extreme?
- DanBC 11y ago
  Because "you continue to use it, even though you know it's doing you harm" is part of the modern definition of dependence.
  - kristofferR 11y ago
    > "You continue to use it, even though you know it's doing you harm". Well, sure. I'm wasting time all the time on the internet, even though I know I shouldn't. Sometimes it have real negative effects on my life, it's certainly a real addiction by that definition. I've actually experimented a bit with chemical addiction to caffeine and nicotine (consuming a lot of caffeine/nicotine for a few weeks then stopping completely), and it was way easier to break than my internet addiction. Are you claiming that chemical addiction/dependence isn't really addiction/dependence if you can "override" it? To claim that my addiction to procrastination isn't really an addiction because I recognize it and doesn't feel so powerless than I would want to kill myself is absurd.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - DanBC 11y ago
      I said "part" of the modern definition of dependence. By snipping that you distort the meaning of what I said. > Are you claiming that chemical addiction/dependence isn't really addiction/dependence if you can "override" it? No, and you can't read that from my comment. > To claim that my addiction to procrastination isn't really an addiction because I recognize it and doesn't feel so powerless than I would want to kill myself is absurd. I didn't claim that, and to think I did form what I wrote is absurd.
      - kristofferR 11y ago
Disruptive_Dave 11y ago
I disagree. Addiction is defined as: "a strong and harmful need to regularly have something (such as a drug) or do something (such as gamble)." Do you not put phone/internet usage into that category? In a 2-hour drive this morning I had three near-accidents all because of the drivers on their phones. Ask the average American 30-year-old to avoid their phone for 24 hours straight and that will be a significantly difficult task, one that actually causes physical reactions not too dissimilar from drug withdrawals. Not all addiction results in hopes of death.
- thrwy111 11y ago
  Then we need a new definition for what I know as addiction. I think your quoted definition may actually get in the way of helping addicts. There's no way that if society imagines addiction as merely a "strong and harmful need" that they'll ever be able to sympathize with people who have addictions as I know them. "Oh, you're trying to quit smoking? I quit Farmville once."
  - nugga 11y ago
    I'm sure you know this but addiction isn't just the physical dependence where your body requires the stuff to feel normal or 'well' during withdrawal. Even then the strength of dependence varies rather than exists as a binary thing. You might feel anxious without your daily doses of caffeine or sleep worse and get the sweats after discontinuing weed. In the worst cases, with alcohol especially, you might even die during abrupt withdrawal. But there is also the psychological component (habituation, compulsion, behaviour). For example you might still be left with the strong compulsion to smoke even if you satisfy nicotine addiction through other means or feel empty or distressed if your computer dies and you can't get online.
    - sophacles 11y ago
      People make a very odd distinction between "physical" addiction and "psychological" addiction. I don't understand why, but I suspect it has something to do with "morals" and "strength". When its "just psychological" you'll see a lot of people who treat it as a personal failing, rather than an actual, difficult thing. Much like people treat depression and other mental illness.
id 11y ago
>This is demonstrated being that it was possible for the author to replace the "higher power" of the 12 steps with someone to unplug the Internet router. And an alcoholic could just stop buying booze. Not so easy, right? (Of course alcoholism is in a different league, physical dependence and alcohol withdrawal syndrome are no walk in the park.)
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]

jfim 11y ago

> This isn't a real addiction. And it trivializes what addicts actually go through. This is demonstrated being that it was possible for the author to replace the "higher power" of the 12 steps with someone to unplug the Internet router. Just like it is possible to fix alcoholism by having someone remove alcohol from the house and gambling by having someone prevent the gambler from walking into a casino. If using the internet in a harmful way (eg. spending six hours a day reloading 9gag, FB, slashdot or whatever up to the point where it hinders your normal activities), how is it different from alcoholism or gambling?

thrwy111 11y ago
I don't think you can fix gambling or alcohol addiction like that. I'm not saying someone can't be addicted to the Internet. I'm just saying this author's story is not a story of addiction. There is such a mental block with addiction. It's like trying to fix an airplane engine while piloting it. And you're trapped in an infinite loop. It's exhausting. If all it takes is someone to unplug your router, or dump out the alcohol, you are not addicted.
codemac 11y ago
> Just like it is possible to fix alcoholism by having someone remove alcohol from the house It's different because alcohol withdrawal can kill you. It can give people seizures and hospitalize them for weeks. Telling someone to "remove alcohol from the house" as a cure is so left field for me it feels like you're missing the very real medical struggle long-term alcoholics go through. I'm livid but I know this should be a civil conversation. I haven't seen someone's facebook+9gag habits tear a community, family, or person apart. Maybe that's my ignorance.
- jfim 11y ago
  None of the "solutions" I mentioned are actually serious solutions and were intended to show that the parent's reasoning didn't work (ie. you're not going to cure internet addiction by unplugging the router just as removing alcohol from the house won't prevent an alcoholic from seeking and obtaining alcohol). Someone who's really addicted to something will seek the object of their addiction and think about it constantly. As you mention, there are also physical components to some addictions, such as alcohol addiction.
  - codemac 11y ago
    Wow - ok, I totally missed your point then. Thank you for your reply with explanation, much more sensible than I was interpreting.

c3534l 11y ago

I kind of agree with this, but having recovered myself, I've found that addiction is more than just your drug of choice, it manifests itself in all sorts of little things. People find they quit drinking and then realize they've been compulsively shopping or eating. The same basic mechanism is the same and I think the author nails what it is: a cognitive-behavioral loop one has difficulty getting out of primarily because your brain is overvaluing the short-term over the long term for just long enough to engage in the cycle and strengthen the compulsion. Of course there's physical addiction, but not everyone likes that distinction. That is certainly powerful, but it's powerful to the extent that it makes the psychological addiction that much stronger, by having these very immediate responses with a clear behavioral solution (use your drug of choice). There are people with really severe addictions, sure. In rehab there was no shortage of people who had to be monitored 24/7 and medicated because suddenly stopping their drug could actually kill them. There were others who were not as desperate. But I think it really is the same underlying phenomenon: substance abuse as well as gambling or some people who overeat or whatever else people typically need to go to rehab for - those addictions simply are greater and tend to have worse impact on a person's life. I was in rehab for alcohol having already quit every other drug at that point (causing my precariously balanced array of simultaneous addictions to cause one of them to dive head-first into the ground) and I wouldn't say that my addiction was the same as the heroin or cocaine addicts' problems. It simply was not in the same class, so I think there's already a recognition that everyone's addiction is different and unique to them. Also, fuck, I'm clearly addicted to internet distraction. I'm writing this post instead of finishing my research paper.

kristofferR 11y ago

Why do you think addiction is real only if it's extreme?

DanBC 11y ago
Because "you continue to use it, even though you know it's doing you harm" is part of the modern definition of dependence.
- kristofferR 11y ago
  > "You continue to use it, even though you know it's doing you harm". Well, sure. I'm wasting time all the time on the internet, even though I know I shouldn't. Sometimes it have real negative effects on my life, it's certainly a real addiction by that definition. I've actually experimented a bit with chemical addiction to caffeine and nicotine (consuming a lot of caffeine/nicotine for a few weeks then stopping completely), and it was way easier to break than my internet addiction. Are you claiming that chemical addiction/dependence isn't really addiction/dependence if you can "override" it? To claim that my addiction to procrastination isn't really an addiction because I recognize it and doesn't feel so powerless than I would want to kill myself is absurd.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - DanBC 11y ago
    I said "part" of the modern definition of dependence. By snipping that you distort the meaning of what I said. > Are you claiming that chemical addiction/dependence isn't really addiction/dependence if you can "override" it? No, and you can't read that from my comment. > To claim that my addiction to procrastination isn't really an addiction because I recognize it and doesn't feel so powerless than I would want to kill myself is absurd. I didn't claim that, and to think I did form what I wrote is absurd.
    - kristofferR 11y ago

Disruptive_Dave 11y ago

I disagree. Addiction is defined as: "a strong and harmful need to regularly have something (such as a drug) or do something (such as gamble)." Do you not put phone/internet usage into that category? In a 2-hour drive this morning I had three near-accidents all because of the drivers on their phones. Ask the average American 30-year-old to avoid their phone for 24 hours straight and that will be a significantly difficult task, one that actually causes physical reactions not too dissimilar from drug withdrawals. Not all addiction results in hopes of death.

thrwy111 11y ago
Then we need a new definition for what I know as addiction. I think your quoted definition may actually get in the way of helping addicts. There's no way that if society imagines addiction as merely a "strong and harmful need" that they'll ever be able to sympathize with people who have addictions as I know them. "Oh, you're trying to quit smoking? I quit Farmville once."
- nugga 11y ago
  I'm sure you know this but addiction isn't just the physical dependence where your body requires the stuff to feel normal or 'well' during withdrawal. Even then the strength of dependence varies rather than exists as a binary thing. You might feel anxious without your daily doses of caffeine or sleep worse and get the sweats after discontinuing weed. In the worst cases, with alcohol especially, you might even die during abrupt withdrawal. But there is also the psychological component (habituation, compulsion, behaviour). For example you might still be left with the strong compulsion to smoke even if you satisfy nicotine addiction through other means or feel empty or distressed if your computer dies and you can't get online.
  - sophacles 11y ago
    People make a very odd distinction between "physical" addiction and "psychological" addiction. I don't understand why, but I suspect it has something to do with "morals" and "strength". When its "just psychological" you'll see a lot of people who treat it as a personal failing, rather than an actual, difficult thing. Much like people treat depression and other mental illness.

id 11y ago

>This is demonstrated being that it was possible for the author to replace the "higher power" of the 12 steps with someone to unplug the Internet router. And an alcoholic could just stop buying booze. Not so easy, right? (Of course alcoholism is in a different league, physical dependence and alcohol withdrawal syndrome are no walk in the park.)

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]