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Dude. I quit sugar and it was literally a non issue, I barely noticed. Since then I've gone on and off at various times and it has never taken any willpower to

Dude. I quit sugar and it was literally a non issue, I barely noticed. Since then I've gone on and off at various times and it has never taken any willpower to speak of. Smoking, otoh? A horrible, personality deforming withdrawal. Drinking? A pernicious little voice in my head that pops up at the worst moments. I've been reading all your comments on this thread and I think you are really on to something, and I think you are right that the way people talk about the steps required for change is flawed. I do think though, that if you want to spread your insight to as many people as possible, an effective element would be to deliver your message with the explicit acknowledgement and context that the subjective experience of all of these things varies dramatically from individual to individual. This might hone down the relevant ideas to just the ones that apply to many other people. If you can distinguish your unique experience from the universal aspects you can craft a message that might help a large population. But no, not everybody finds sugar more addictive than cocaine.

RobertRoberts 9y ago
>But no, not everybody finds sugar more addictive than cocaine. Not everyone finds cigarettes addictive either. I smoked quite a bit when I was younger, off and on, and never felt the need to smoke ever. Doesn't this same logic apply universally then? That every chemical reaction affects everyone differently? But no matter what, there are some chemicals that are addictive to the majority of people? >...explicit acknowledgement and context that the subjective experience of all of these things varies dramatically from individual to individual. I agree, that especially in this area, depression, life change, etc... that it would be best to couch everything with the "doesn't work for everyone" kind of phrase, but isn't this redundant? What solution for any problem works for everyone? I think that in this case, everyone in the world has something they don't like about their life, and have a hard time facing it. Because it simply hurts to face your problems. How do you suggest to people that if they want their pain to go away, they should do something to that adds more pain to their life? The easy answer I found was to not worry about it, people who will see the value see it, and those that don't are not in the mind set to see it no matter how it is written. Maybe I am wrong, but in other comments here it seems that people get quite upset about saying you can change yourself. Do you really think it's possible to get through to everyone? Or would just changing how things are written would help people that would otherwise ignore it?

RobertRoberts 9y ago

>But no, not everybody finds sugar more addictive than cocaine. Not everyone finds cigarettes addictive either. I smoked quite a bit when I was younger, off and on, and never felt the need to smoke ever. Doesn't this same logic apply universally then? That every chemical reaction affects everyone differently? But no matter what, there are some chemicals that are addictive to the majority of people? >...explicit acknowledgement and context that the subjective experience of all of these things varies dramatically from individual to individual. I agree, that especially in this area, depression, life change, etc... that it would be best to couch everything with the "doesn't work for everyone" kind of phrase, but isn't this redundant? What solution for any problem works for everyone? I think that in this case, everyone in the world has something they don't like about their life, and have a hard time facing it. Because it simply hurts to face your problems. How do you suggest to people that if they want their pain to go away, they should do something to that adds more pain to their life? The easy answer I found was to not worry about it, people who will see the value see it, and those that don't are not in the mind set to see it no matter how it is written. Maybe I am wrong, but in other comments here it seems that people get quite upset about saying you can change yourself. Do you really think it's possible to get through to everyone? Or would just changing how things are written would help people that would otherwise ignore it?