4 ms·

I think this is a valid point, and the reason I haven’t tried these drugs and don’t plan to. There are huge benefits to developing the mental strength and disci

by _yb2s 1y ago

I think this is a valid point, and the reason I haven’t tried these drugs and don’t plan to. There are huge benefits to developing the mental strength and discipline to lean into discomfort consistently and just do what needs to be done- and all types of addiction provide one of the hardest, and therefore most valuable and useful obstacles here. As Marcus Aurelius said “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” I’ve found that the general act of leaning into challenges and mild physical discomfort has a ripple effect on my mind, and all types of addiction and dopamine seeking behaviors become automatically less interesting- almost exactly like what people report on these drugs. If I take a cold shower or work out every morning even when I don’t feel like it- pretty soon I’m eating healthier and limiting my alcohol, caffeine, and screen time without even really trying to. That said, it only works if you manage to actually do it. It’s much better to get over addiction with a drug than to continue suffering from the addiction, and be unable to escape, especially something that causes as much damage as alcohol can. One idea I had was to set a deadline for overcoming an addiction, and to just use the drug if you reach the deadline and the mental approach is still unsuccessful.

ridgeguy 1y ago
If you're wired like Marcus Aurelius, maybe it'll work out ok. Peoples' neurochemistry differs enormously. One person's positive reinforcing experience is another's nociceptive hell. (source: Ph.D. neurophysiologist here) Arguments like yours presuppose humans have free will, that it's widely distributed, and if $whoever would just get on it, they'd progress. More and more, it appears what we have is the perception of free will, not the real thing - whatever that actually might be.
- _yb2s 1y ago
  Not doubting your expertise, but I am skeptical of the idea that this method of intentionally leaning into discomfort only works for some minuscule abnormal subset of people that are just wired differently. Instead, I suspect it's tapping into something deeper about how our reward system is structured, something extremely related to how these GLP-1 agonists work, which explains why they are both effective against a shockingly wide array of seemingly different situations. The basic idea seems to be at the core of both a lot of modern self help gurus advice that seems to actually work for a huge fraction of the people that really commit to them (David Goggins, Wim Hof, etc.) as well as modern psychotherapy systems like CBT and ACT that are proven clinically effective. How many people are really trying this approach, and it not working for them? More often, I see people saying it sounds like it royally sucks (which is true and basically the entire point), and never trying it- which is valid, but doesn't really demonstrate that it wouldn't work for them. It absolutely is a "nociceptive hell" at first for everyone that tries it, but when you connect that with intention, purpose, and meaning it eventually transforms into something almost enjoyable. Becoming strong enough to meet discomfort or pain feels amazing, especially for someone that usually experiences the opposite of that. I also have ADHD, which is explained in part as a developmental disability of executive control, but I find this approach to be extremely effective for regaining executive control, even to levels that people without ADHD lack. Basically, I suspect ADHD isn't a loss of executive control at all, but the executive control is being blocked by something like the feeling of pain or drug withdrawal, and that once you are okay with just having that bad feeling all of the time, you get your executive control back. I'm curious if GLP-1 drugs also help with ADHD? My prediction is that they would.
  - ineedasername 1y ago
    “I am skeptical of the idea that this method of intentionally leaning into discomfort only works for some minuscule abnormal subset of people that are just wired differently” That may be the aspect of this line of thinking that’s not clear then: it doesn’t work for anyone. At least, in so far as the free will is illusory, it is a hallucination that such people have that they made such decisions, and stuck to them. It’s the demon hand syndrome, the person hallucinating a rationale for its motion.
    - _yb2s 1y ago
      The free will question seems to be a red herring- philosophers and physicists can argue all they want about if something like free will is physically possible or not, but for all intents and purposes, even without free will, the path of someone overcoming, e.g. alcoholism after using these methods requires using them in a way that is challenging, and if you decide on the nihilistic stance that there is no free will so there is no point in ever trying to do anything, then you are guaranteed an undesirable outcome. Perhaps beforehand it was somehow "pre-determined" which of these attitudes and paths you would take, but that is completely irrelevant for the individual just living life, they have no way to know that one way or another, or any reason to actually care, as they still need to act exactly like they have free will and made the right choice to actually play out a future as the type of person pre-determined to have a desirable outcome. It doesn't actually feel any easier or less painful to accomplish something difficult, even if free will is some sort of illusion when looked at from the outside perspective. You still experience, e.g. trying and failing over and over and never giving up until you succeed. I can buy that, for example perhaps there is something outside our control that decides if you are capable of never giving up, but you still cannot know until you decide to never give up and try it- so it literally does not matter except as a philosophical curiosity. I think a more interesting biological (and philosophical) question is why and how exactly do these GLP-1 drugs work, and why exactly are they so shockingly effective? Maybe they do somehow act on the brain to offer exactly the same psychological benefits as the stoic approach I am talking about, by the same or related underlying mechanism, and they're essentially interchangeable but work more often?
  - 1y ago
pton_xd 1y ago
Anecdotally I've experienced something similar. After I started committing, really committing to consistently working out, a lot of other things fell into place more or less automatically. I stopped drinking, started eating very cleanly (I became ravenously hungry; junk food and sweets aren't appealing anymore), and stopped spending as much time on gaming. I know your broader point is about leaning into discomfort, but specifically leaning into exercise seems to bring extra benefits. Exercise is medicine, as they say.
- _yb2s 1y ago
  I think for this to work psychologically, it just needs to be something difficult or uncomfortable that you can do an awful lot of in a way that is sustainable, and doesn't actively harm you... all the better if you actually benefit directly from it, like with exercising, but cold showers work just as well, simply because they're uncomfortable and take much less time than working out- I personally do both.
delis-thumbs-7e 1y ago
I wonder if you have more ”grit” than Sugar Ray Leonard, one of the greatest boxers of all time. His fight with Roberto Duran are legendary. As so many boxers (and many athletes for that matter) he was addicted to drugs and alcohol for many years. Probably sexual abuse he suffered as a kid had something to do with it. He was able to quit, but I think cold shower and a run in the morning was not quite enough to do it. Nobody just starts abusing their body with chemicals. It is not difficult to quit, you can stay off your Jones for months, but if you do nothing to the demons that made you enter the 36th chamber in the first place, you are going to slip sooner or later. It takes more than a splash of cold water on the face. Marcus Aurelius was literally a god and the emperor of the world. He prob had little bit more resources to help gim other than stoism. Similarly if you have loving family and friends, a good therapist and some sort of medication,you canmaybe wim the fight with the devil that gets you to use. Training and getting used to being uncomfortable surely helps, but you won’t kick anything for long only with them. Therefore these drugs won’t be a solution either. Are you going to use them rest of your life? Whatever it is that makes you want to drink, smoke, shoot, gamble or whatever is still going to be there. Bit used together with therapy and loving environment might help. Of course, most addicts have no access to any of these resources.
- _yb2s 1y ago
  I agree with all of what you said, and I'd argue that the stoics including Aurelius probably would have as well. Leaning into discomfort is just a step that can help you actually do things like get therapy and be present and engaged in a loving environment. At least for me that's the case- I have seemed to need all of those things together as a system to really thrive in life, not just one or the other. CBT and ACT are modern therapy methods based on stoic methods, very widely used, and very effective for regular people that aren't emperors.
  - delis-thumbs-7e 1y ago
    They are most often effective if you can afford them was my point. I have ADHD as well and boxing (waking up before work to run in cold November morning, 9 rounds with a heavyweight who had nobody his size to spar, thousand ab movements afterwords and hey it’s only Tuesday) helped me tremendously with focus, staying of the booze and so on, but if I had not done years of therapy and had meds as well as found more varing environment, I prob would no be hete. And I was lucky to have a god job to pay for all that. I do think you need tremendous mental effort, or grit, even to fight serious addiction. But it is only a start.
chiefalchemist 1y ago
The issue with addiction is, it’s very often a symptom of other underlying issues. Relapse are common because too often the underlying problem isn’t treated. Overcoming the addiction is hard because it means facing the thing the addiction allows you to avoid. Addiction is also common(ism) amongst those who suffer from NDP. In this case, is it truly addiction, or simply another tool in their NPD cache of weapons. I don’t disagree with you. But it’s also important to be aware of some of the nuances and finer points. I also recommend reading “The Courage to be Disliked”. Not that it / Adler speak to addiction but it’s a thought provoking alternative to the Freudian paradigm.
kiba 1y ago
Getting rid of an addiction also counts as strengthening your mind in itself. A healthier mind will be in a better position to strengthen and fortify itself.
baq 1y ago
> There are huge benefits to developing the mental strength and discipline to lean into discomfort consistently and just do what needs to be done Don't fall into 'I can do it, therefore everyone should be able to do it' trap.
- _yb2s 1y ago
  Why would you say I am falling into that trap? My comment specifically addressed the issue that it might not work, and included a specific strategy for how to not get stuck too long on the idea of working if it does not.

by _yb2s 1y ago

ridgeguy 1y ago

If you're wired like Marcus Aurelius, maybe it'll work out ok. Peoples' neurochemistry differs enormously. One person's positive reinforcing experience is another's nociceptive hell. (source: Ph.D. neurophysiologist here) Arguments like yours presuppose humans have free will, that it's widely distributed, and if $whoever would just get on it, they'd progress. More and more, it appears what we have is the perception of free will, not the real thing - whatever that actually might be.

_yb2s 1y ago
Not doubting your expertise, but I am skeptical of the idea that this method of intentionally leaning into discomfort only works for some minuscule abnormal subset of people that are just wired differently. Instead, I suspect it's tapping into something deeper about how our reward system is structured, something extremely related to how these GLP-1 agonists work, which explains why they are both effective against a shockingly wide array of seemingly different situations. The basic idea seems to be at the core of both a lot of modern self help gurus advice that seems to actually work for a huge fraction of the people that really commit to them (David Goggins, Wim Hof, etc.) as well as modern psychotherapy systems like CBT and ACT that are proven clinically effective. How many people are really trying this approach, and it not working for them? More often, I see people saying it sounds like it royally sucks (which is true and basically the entire point), and never trying it- which is valid, but doesn't really demonstrate that it wouldn't work for them. It absolutely is a "nociceptive hell" at first for everyone that tries it, but when you connect that with intention, purpose, and meaning it eventually transforms into something almost enjoyable. Becoming strong enough to meet discomfort or pain feels amazing, especially for someone that usually experiences the opposite of that. I also have ADHD, which is explained in part as a developmental disability of executive control, but I find this approach to be extremely effective for regaining executive control, even to levels that people without ADHD lack. Basically, I suspect ADHD isn't a loss of executive control at all, but the executive control is being blocked by something like the feeling of pain or drug withdrawal, and that once you are okay with just having that bad feeling all of the time, you get your executive control back. I'm curious if GLP-1 drugs also help with ADHD? My prediction is that they would.
- ineedasername 1y ago
  “I am skeptical of the idea that this method of intentionally leaning into discomfort only works for some minuscule abnormal subset of people that are just wired differently” That may be the aspect of this line of thinking that’s not clear then: it doesn’t work for anyone. At least, in so far as the free will is illusory, it is a hallucination that such people have that they made such decisions, and stuck to them. It’s the demon hand syndrome, the person hallucinating a rationale for its motion.
  - _yb2s 1y ago
    The free will question seems to be a red herring- philosophers and physicists can argue all they want about if something like free will is physically possible or not, but for all intents and purposes, even without free will, the path of someone overcoming, e.g. alcoholism after using these methods requires using them in a way that is challenging, and if you decide on the nihilistic stance that there is no free will so there is no point in ever trying to do anything, then you are guaranteed an undesirable outcome. Perhaps beforehand it was somehow "pre-determined" which of these attitudes and paths you would take, but that is completely irrelevant for the individual just living life, they have no way to know that one way or another, or any reason to actually care, as they still need to act exactly like they have free will and made the right choice to actually play out a future as the type of person pre-determined to have a desirable outcome. It doesn't actually feel any easier or less painful to accomplish something difficult, even if free will is some sort of illusion when looked at from the outside perspective. You still experience, e.g. trying and failing over and over and never giving up until you succeed. I can buy that, for example perhaps there is something outside our control that decides if you are capable of never giving up, but you still cannot know until you decide to never give up and try it- so it literally does not matter except as a philosophical curiosity. I think a more interesting biological (and philosophical) question is why and how exactly do these GLP-1 drugs work, and why exactly are they so shockingly effective? Maybe they do somehow act on the brain to offer exactly the same psychological benefits as the stoic approach I am talking about, by the same or related underlying mechanism, and they're essentially interchangeable but work more often?
- 1y ago

pton_xd 1y ago

Anecdotally I've experienced something similar. After I started committing, really committing to consistently working out, a lot of other things fell into place more or less automatically. I stopped drinking, started eating very cleanly (I became ravenously hungry; junk food and sweets aren't appealing anymore), and stopped spending as much time on gaming. I know your broader point is about leaning into discomfort, but specifically leaning into exercise seems to bring extra benefits. Exercise is medicine, as they say.

_yb2s 1y ago
I think for this to work psychologically, it just needs to be something difficult or uncomfortable that you can do an awful lot of in a way that is sustainable, and doesn't actively harm you... all the better if you actually benefit directly from it, like with exercising, but cold showers work just as well, simply because they're uncomfortable and take much less time than working out- I personally do both.

delis-thumbs-7e 1y ago

I wonder if you have more ”grit” than Sugar Ray Leonard, one of the greatest boxers of all time. His fight with Roberto Duran are legendary. As so many boxers (and many athletes for that matter) he was addicted to drugs and alcohol for many years. Probably sexual abuse he suffered as a kid had something to do with it. He was able to quit, but I think cold shower and a run in the morning was not quite enough to do it. Nobody just starts abusing their body with chemicals. It is not difficult to quit, you can stay off your Jones for months, but if you do nothing to the demons that made you enter the 36th chamber in the first place, you are going to slip sooner or later. It takes more than a splash of cold water on the face. Marcus Aurelius was literally a god and the emperor of the world. He prob had little bit more resources to help gim other than stoism. Similarly if you have loving family and friends, a good therapist and some sort of medication,you canmaybe wim the fight with the devil that gets you to use. Training and getting used to being uncomfortable surely helps, but you won’t kick anything for long only with them. Therefore these drugs won’t be a solution either. Are you going to use them rest of your life? Whatever it is that makes you want to drink, smoke, shoot, gamble or whatever is still going to be there. Bit used together with therapy and loving environment might help. Of course, most addicts have no access to any of these resources.

_yb2s 1y ago
I agree with all of what you said, and I'd argue that the stoics including Aurelius probably would have as well. Leaning into discomfort is just a step that can help you actually do things like get therapy and be present and engaged in a loving environment. At least for me that's the case- I have seemed to need all of those things together as a system to really thrive in life, not just one or the other. CBT and ACT are modern therapy methods based on stoic methods, very widely used, and very effective for regular people that aren't emperors.
- delis-thumbs-7e 1y ago
  They are most often effective if you can afford them was my point. I have ADHD as well and boxing (waking up before work to run in cold November morning, 9 rounds with a heavyweight who had nobody his size to spar, thousand ab movements afterwords and hey it’s only Tuesday) helped me tremendously with focus, staying of the booze and so on, but if I had not done years of therapy and had meds as well as found more varing environment, I prob would no be hete. And I was lucky to have a god job to pay for all that. I do think you need tremendous mental effort, or grit, even to fight serious addiction. But it is only a start.

chiefalchemist 1y ago

The issue with addiction is, it’s very often a symptom of other underlying issues. Relapse are common because too often the underlying problem isn’t treated. Overcoming the addiction is hard because it means facing the thing the addiction allows you to avoid. Addiction is also common(ism) amongst those who suffer from NDP. In this case, is it truly addiction, or simply another tool in their NPD cache of weapons. I don’t disagree with you. But it’s also important to be aware of some of the nuances and finer points. I also recommend reading “The Courage to be Disliked”. Not that it / Adler speak to addiction but it’s a thought provoking alternative to the Freudian paradigm.

kiba 1y ago

Getting rid of an addiction also counts as strengthening your mind in itself. A healthier mind will be in a better position to strengthen and fortify itself.

baq 1y ago

> There are huge benefits to developing the mental strength and discipline to lean into discomfort consistently and just do what needs to be done Don't fall into 'I can do it, therefore everyone should be able to do it' trap.

_yb2s 1y ago
Why would you say I am falling into that trap? My comment specifically addressed the issue that it might not work, and included a specific strategy for how to not get stuck too long on the idea of working if it does not.