4 ms·

Honest question: Why should we kill the fun? I mean addiction is a problem, but having a great time definitely isn't, right? Or do I miss something?

• hemloc_io 5y ago
  oh no reason, recreational drugs are fine for recreation imo. But when looking at therapies I don’t know if my grandpa with PTSD is looking to blast off on ketamine for therapy every week. (Although to each their own haha)
• ggm 5y ago
  It can feed the addictive behaviour. Sometimes, the coping mechanism between swings of mood isn't to push to the peak experience you want. The goal is to get to a more stable medium
  • k0k0r0 5y ago
    See my comment to a sibling.
• PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  Because the "fun" effect is immediately apparent, but the therapeutic effect may take some time to notice. This leads to situations where patients mistake the "fun" part for the therapeutic effect, which causes a lot of problems when tolerance builds to the fun. This happens with opioid users who chase the euphoric rush instead of pain management, stimulant users who try to get a mood boost and motivation out of their stimulants instead of attention-enhancing effects, and ketamine patients who chase the dissociation instead of the antidepressant effect. It's bad enough that you'll see addicts save up their medications so they can double-dose (or more) for more euphoria, then suffer in between doses when they go into mini-withdrawal. Terrible pattern and it would be a huge advancement if we could get past that.
  • hndamien 5y ago
    Sounds like trying to take play out of learning. you can do it, but it's probably suboptimal and may be partially necessary.
    • PragmaticPulp 5y ago
      Not really. If the patient learns to seek the side effects of the drug at the expense of the therapeutic effects, it’s disincentivizing proper use. The truth is that for properly-doses patients taking medication long-term, the “fun” part disappears naturally. People taking Adderall for a decade aren’t buzzing around like a college student popping their first pill during finals week. People with properly controlled chronic pain aren’t nodding off from their opioids. The euphoric effects aren’t just a bonus. They actively interfere with establishing successful treatment. Most diligent patients will overcome this, but a lot of people will abandon the therapeutic part and chase the “fun” part to their detriment. Or alternatively, they’ll abandon the therapy when the “fun” part wears off because it’s the only thing they were paying attention to.
      • hndamien 5y ago
        If the therapist/shaman is doing their job well then proper use should align incentives without actively trying to diminish enjoyable positive psychological affect. Thats all I'm saying. The potential you mention for missing the point is obviously present, but not worth actively minimising imho.
  • k0k0r0 5y ago
    Yeah, this didn't clearify my question. So the problem is addiction. Not the fun in itself.
    • k0k0r0 5y ago
      Actually I am a sorry for this dismissive answer. This was inappropriate. And after only a couple of seconds of thought, I noticed (at least) one of your points is not related to the danger of addiction and indeed very interesting. Even without danger of addiction patients might confuse short term and long term effects. On the other hand this doesn't seem to be the case with anectodal expieriences I read about the use of (hard) psychodelics, e.g. LSD, mushrooms, etc. Edit: Also as my dismissive answer already suggested, my question was not clear.