everyone I've watched drop their addictions did not try
doomscrolling, vaping, porn, overworking, dating — they were surprised when their addictions stopped happening.
contrast this with “whack-a-mole”—
“four moles whacked, only one left…”
“one mole whacked, only one left…”
“one mole whacked, only eight left…”
an AI founder I worked with said he’d stopped vaping a month earlier.
this was cool— I forgot he vaped.
he said he’d tried to quit before, but it felt like a fight requiring lots of willpower. can you believe it didn’t last?
except the person above, none of them came for help with their addictions. they just felt something was off.
a researcher was doing 5 hours of chatgpt per day for validation. we worked on dating. the chatgpt petered off. he hadn’t even realized until I followed up a year later
“I used to watch all this mindless TV. Recently… I just got bored of it.”
neat. didn’t know you watched TV
if a sufficiently longstanding addiction could be unlearned through more willpower, it would’ve already been.
“I don’t have the urge at all anymore”