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Most people with addiction simply grow out of it (2014)
- anonzzzies 3y agoYou 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 3y agoI 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 3y agoCan 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.
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- d1sxeyes 3y agoAddictions 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 3y ago> 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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Addiction
- jjulius 3y agoWikipedia 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.
- andsoitis 3y ago> No specific requirement for negative consequences, just a habit. If addiction is not a psychological or physical dependency with harmful or destructive consequences, what should we call those that do? The American Psychiatric Association has this to say about addiction, which tells me they view addiction as something worth fixing and hence is harmful: https://www.psychiatry.org/getmedia/e25c07ae-7333-4466-9add-5fe75ffce45e/Addiction-Top-10-Public-FINAL.pdf https://www.psychiatry.org/getmedia/e25c07ae-7333-4466-9add-...
- lkdfjlkdfjlg 3y agoNo, I'm not fuzzy on the definition of addiction. If a behavior has little negative effects, then it's not an addiction.
- jdietrich 3y agoCounting 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 3y agohere’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 https://sites.google.com/view/the-no-nonsense-guide/guide
- Riseed 3y ago> 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 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OkhD0Lo-fxk
- lebean 3y agoIt'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 3y agoThere is help available. PM me.
- growfeather 3y agoI used to be just like you, then I found recovery. I started with 12 steps, then moved on to 13 steps, then…
- BobaFloutist 3y agoNot every form of disordered behavior is best understood as an addiction.
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- jdietrich 3y agoThis 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.
- vivekd 3y agoWithout the moralism, harm reduction is a vague term. Here in Canada the government has been pushing safe supply as a part of harm reduction. We still get the same number of overdoses but our cities are now filled with tent encampments and people with addiction issues. It doesn't seem to have helped with anything it's just made things worse I don't deny that there are some forms of harm reduction which are proven to be effective. But I also think it's a vague weasel word for just give them drugs or just make it all legal. Which is not a good policy as we have seen here. Ironically just using vague terms like harm reduction without putting forward a specific strategy is a sort of moralizing of its own
- klyrs 3y agoNo, some local governments have been doing safe injection sites. Safe supply is a political football that's scapegoated despite not being implemented anywhere in Canada. And neither is a solution to the homelessness, addictions, and mental health crises. Every time I hear a politician talking about safe supply, they say it's not a silver bullet. Which is weird because nobody claims it's a silver bullet. Know what else isn't a silver bullet? Criminalization. Or, everything else that's ever been tried. It's a hard problem, there isn't a silver bullet solution, get over it. What's harm reduction good for? Reducing harm. It isn't harm prevention, it isn't free housing, it isn't free addiction counseling, it doesn't fart roses. Safe injection sites keep users close to medical professionals so we can keep people from dying alone. Safe supply would ensure that users aren't going to accidentally OD on kerfentanyl thinking it's ordinary fentanyl. Needle exchanges keep users supplied with sterile equipment to reduce risk of injections such as HIV and hepatitis C. Each policy is an example of harm reduction. The general philosophy is to not let perfect be the enemy of good.
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- Remnant44 3y agoI 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 3y agoI'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 3y ago> What else feels like that? Probably being wrapped in an actual warm, wet blanket.
- thebigspacefuck 3y agoA hot tub sounds better
- notso411 3y agoA lot of addiction is trying to get back to the comfort of the womb to escape from early childhood traumas and abuses. Says who
- whythre 3y agoYeah this seems like pseudo-Freudian claptrap. People soothe their pain and trauma with all sorts of self-destructive behavior. Trying to numb the pain doesn’t mean they are trying to crawl back in the womb.
- Viliam1234 3y agoEven 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 3y agoRelated: Most People with Addiction Simply Grow Out of It. Why Is This Widely Denied? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34167068 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 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8396375 - Oct 2014 (156 comments)
- iammjm 3y agoI 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 3y agoThe 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 3y agoThis 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.
- Omin 3y agoThere are so many behaviors that fit that description that few would count as addiction. For example eating sweets or junk food, procrastinating, not drinking enough.
- c22 3y agoSo like driving a car?
- rysertio 3y agoThis 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 3y agoCan 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."
- alpaca128 3y agoAfaik addiction isn't defined based on what the person wants, but if their life is negatively affected by it. Sometimes I don't get why that's a necessary condition, but for addiction it makes sense.
- cmaggiulli 3y agoThere is nothing in the definition of addiction that requires the desire to quit
- rPlayer6554 3y agoNo addiction as I understand it is _even if they want to_ they cannot. Not all addicts want to quit.
- LAC-Tech 3y agoAlternately, you just execute people for drug trafficking. A total win in terms of net human suffering.
- rpmisms 3y agoEl Salvador seems to be quite happy these days...
- LAC-Tech 3y agoThe 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.
- nurumaik 3y agoIn terms of net human suffering we can execute everyone. No people -- no suffering
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- fons 3y ago> 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 3y agothis 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 3y agoWhat 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?
- thebigspacefuck 3y agoJohann Hari has carried that torch a bit, has some very interesting ideas
- matrix87 3y agothat's cool, do the harm reduction shit, just keep it confined to SF and Oakland so the rest of us don't need to deal with the aftermath
- binary132 3y agoEvery time this topic comes up on hackernews it gets brigaded.
- friend_and_foe 3y agoNow do cigarettes.
- jasfi 3y agoI believe that stress is one of the cornerstones of addiction. When people can't handle stress they turn to substances. When people "grow out" of addiction, they're really either finding another addiction, or learning to manage their stress and let go of substances used to cope. I'd love to see trials of what Ashwagandha can do for addiction, because it lowers cortisol nearly immediately and is a relatively safe herb.
- afarviral 3y agoStudies typically show reductions in cortisol levels after several weeks or months of regular ashwagandha supplementation
- jasfi 3y agoThose were likely long-term studies only. I can tell you I always feel a drop in stress within minutes. But I only take it when I feel stressed, and not daily. I think the effects could be too strong if taken daily.
- fdsfdsafdsafds 3y agoI was very curious about this statement by the article's author: > Moreover, if addiction were truly a progressive disease, the data should show that the odds of quitting get worse over time. In fact, they remain the same on an annual basis, which means that as people get older, a higher and higher percentage wind up in recovery. The first reference I clicked on was https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22985744/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22985744/, which states: > Remission from PDUD was greater for younger individuals. It seems this article is based too heavily on the personal experience and opinions of the author. FWIW, I think that societal solutions can work as well as medical ones. However, that has the implicit assumption that drug addiction, and the use of certain drugs, is bad. This is an opinion I have recently returned to, and also that reducing drug use and addiction to certain substances should begin with societal norms and limiting supply.
- celdon25 3y agoThose so-called societal solutions should be expanded in scope to include making society a less hostile place in general. Most people tolerate it (with effort), some think it is fine. But then there’s the poor souls who can’t cope with it. They may make futile attempts to grow a support network that ultimately ends up mocking them instead of supporting. Nobody wants to have their “vibes” ruined by witnessing someone going through a mental health crisis of any severity, though some may see it as an opportunity to win internet points. Understand that most places aren’t reasonably civil like HN or your local tech meetup group (maybe it is because they are addicts themselves in some capacity). In such a situation one might even make things worse for themselves by going through a phase of daring to fight back. They may expand their search radius with a Google search but find nothing but SEO ghost towns and dejected, sterile walled gardens; instead of the thriving, curious, decentralized communities they remembered from their youths. Until nostalgia gives way to nihilism and then there’s no turning back. That’s assuming they’ve even lasted this long, crutching on that dev experience or what have you. A lot of hazards (not just drugs) can end a person if they lack a viable support network. These are objective faults with society that should be addressed, because that’s where the disease actually is spreading from. I realize that’s an unrealistic goal, but we have been doing so poorly at it that any competent effort at scale would sow more optimism, and optimism is what they need most.
- ilaksh 3y agoI'm not sure I have seen this idea before. Interesting idea. I think you need to differentiate between different levels and types of addiction and different substances. It's not all quite the same thing. Also, not mentioned is the role of advertising and culture in alcohol addiction. Or poverty and circumstances like homelessness. Or the availability and social acceptance of substances in a group.
- footlose_3815 3y agoTook me until my later 30s to fall out of love with pot. It just takes me away from a clearer state of mind. When I’m on it, a few hours pass numbly. When I’m away from it, suddenly stuff matters much more.
- sfc32 3y agoThey don't call it Dope because it makes you smarter