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How did you stop?

lloeki 9y ago
The trick is to tackle the issue, not try and sidestep it. When you quit smoking, removing stuff like lighters from view and access is a good thing to do, but it's not the hiding that makes you stop craving. You have to be hellbent on cracking down on the behaviour, take some perspective and discover why you're indulging in this, without pretence. It's a fight, sure, but it's also a journey at knowing yourself better.
- jonnycomputer 9y ago
  I quite smoking just before Obama was elected. It was hard. I put up gruesome images of smoking-related diseases as my desktop backgrounds and screen-savers. It probably contributed some small amount to successfully kicking the habit. Guess you could post pictures of smart phone zombies
- tertius 9y ago
  A extreme minority of people are brave enough to do introspection and gather some self-awareness. But I do agree, this is a large part of the solution.
timthelion 9y ago
He's on HN. That's like asking your coke dealer how he got off drugs...
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  That's like telling someone that drinks once every month or two that they have a drinking problem - nevermind the fact that they used to drink daily. There is a difference between doing the behavior and obsessively doing it or doing it too often.
stinos 9y ago
I didn't really stop, in the sense that almost everyday I'll still visit a bunch of websites, possibly more than once, but I got rid of the obsessiveness: I don't check the same sites again and again every 30 minutes (or worse). I also won't turn on my pc just for it. I don't really know how I did it. Combination of recognizing my own behaviour, seeing it is total waste of time (it literally doesn't have any benefit whatsoever for me), figuring out it is actually a relatively simple addiction to break (especially compared to other addictions) and last but not least a saner state of mind in general in comparision with e.g. a couple of years ago. So one day I just told myself 'ok enough with this, from now on I'll just stop hitting F5 repeatedly, I'll visit HN and the others only a couple of times a day and never to escape hard to fix problems at work'. Am I still addicted? Possibly. Yes here I am posting on HN. But it's not an obsession anymore. Also there are never any signs of withdrawal when I don't visit the sites for days. Actually what typically happens is after some days without checking everything I come back, check everything, and am left with a 'yup, didn't miss a thing, same shit as usual' feeling.

How did you stop?

The trick is to tackle the issue, not try and sidestep it. When you quit smoking, removing stuff like lighters from view and access is a good thing to do, but it's not the hiding that makes you stop craving. You have to be hellbent on cracking down on the behaviour, take some perspective and discover why you're indulging in this, without pretence. It's a fight, sure, but it's also a journey at knowing yourself better.

jonnycomputer 9y ago
I quite smoking just before Obama was elected. It was hard. I put up gruesome images of smoking-related diseases as my desktop backgrounds and screen-savers. It probably contributed some small amount to successfully kicking the habit. Guess you could post pictures of smart phone zombies
tertius 9y ago
A extreme minority of people are brave enough to do introspection and gather some self-awareness. But I do agree, this is a large part of the solution.

timthelion 9y ago

He's on HN. That's like asking your coke dealer how he got off drugs...

Broken_Hippo 9y ago
That's like telling someone that drinks once every month or two that they have a drinking problem - nevermind the fact that they used to drink daily. There is a difference between doing the behavior and obsessively doing it or doing it too often.

stinos 9y ago

I didn't really stop, in the sense that almost everyday I'll still visit a bunch of websites, possibly more than once, but I got rid of the obsessiveness: I don't check the same sites again and again every 30 minutes (or worse). I also won't turn on my pc just for it. I don't really know how I did it. Combination of recognizing my own behaviour, seeing it is total waste of time (it literally doesn't have any benefit whatsoever for me), figuring out it is actually a relatively simple addiction to break (especially compared to other addictions) and last but not least a saner state of mind in general in comparision with e.g. a couple of years ago. So one day I just told myself 'ok enough with this, from now on I'll just stop hitting F5 repeatedly, I'll visit HN and the others only a couple of times a day and never to escape hard to fix problems at work'. Am I still addicted? Possibly. Yes here I am posting on HN. But it's not an obsession anymore. Also there are never any signs of withdrawal when I don't visit the sites for days. Actually what typically happens is after some days without checking everything I come back, check everything, and am left with a 'yup, didn't miss a thing, same shit as usual' feeling.