Many people I respect misunderstand addictions: they believe they’re addicted “to” scrolling, vaping, overworking, etc.—instead of recognizing addictions as strategies.
Great article! I never thought addictions in this way. But, some questions remains to be answered. How to find what are exactly the "deeper pains" that we feel? And how to find the causes to these pains? And what we should do to reduce suffering without appealing to addictions?
And one more thought that I have while reading you text. If addictions are mechanism that we use to deal with suffering, this implies that some (not all of them) are actually good for the pearson? Maybe this habit, that is considered a addiction, is just the way that the pearson find to deal with their problems. What you think about it?
Curious as to how you understand the relationship between addictions and procrastination or a general failure to summon the will to accomplish things? Certainly the two go hand in hand but I do think they're distinct... one can imagine someone who's banished their addictions and is perfectly content, but as such has little will or desire to do much. And suffering seems to drive a lot of the world's most productive people, too. What's the difference between suffering that produces addiction and the suffering that produces a furious drive to succeed?
I had unmedicated ADHD and bad anxiety for a decade and used alcohol to cope. I finally quit drinking but started smoking weed instead because I still can't tolerate modern life completely sober. The only thing that has ever actually helped me with this is magic mushrooms, but the positive effects are unfortunately temporary and I can't just be high on them every day. At no point in my various drug uses was I ever under any delusion that I was doing anything but numbing my emotions because often moving through the world was agony for me. The alcohol shut my brain and all those anxious thoughts off for a while which gave me peace. It doesn't matter what your vice of choice is, almost everyone has some kind of addiction that they use to numb the pain of being alive. The only long term solution is to love and accept yourself regardless of your external circumstances. But this is extremely difficult to do in a hyper capitalist society that treats you like garbage if you aren't rich or famous, so pretty much everyone feels they are lacking and filling that perceived void with other harmful behaviors. The West has an addiction crisis way worse than anybody wants to actually admit. Opioid deaths are just the tip of the iceberg. I know very few people who are genuinely sober and happy. If you somehow forced the American population to be 100% sober for a year I guarantee you the suicide rate would skyrocket. Our culture is deeply sick and I have no idea how we even fix it at this point.
Admittedly, there's no real solution offered here, but a lot of people really do consider their addictions to be nothing but moral failings. I think this insight is pretty useful
I dont know if removing suffering is realistic for a living being. You are literally in a fight for your life at every moment, with every pump of the heart, breath, or hum of digestion. The happiest most community oriented people Ive ever spent time with still skew heavily towards the needing legal Dr type medications or church to take the very harsh edge off life. None of us escape the pain. I wonder often if animals had access to drugs or a smattering of copes like people do, would they also behave like addicts? I think probably so. We all desire to be free from the pressures and cravings of the body, to shut up the mind. But as long as we are here, we have to make the best of things, and using self control to regulate, setting habits, commitments etc seems to be the only balanced way to go about things. Listening to what our bodies actually want requires a bit of peace and quiet, which is so hard to come by in this noisy modern world. So making some spaces throughout our days to just tune in and listen is a good place to start. We need to get addicted to the practice of not doing as a cope.
This is a great article! This is going to sound crazy, but I have found that my impulse towards my least favourite addictive behaviours has significantly eased since I took up crochet. I have been making a conscious effort to sit with my crochet, in silence, when I get home from work, which is the impulse is the strongest and most difficult to resist. I feel like the crochet allows me to feel that "suffering" in a way that is somewhat muted by the distraction my hands have with the crochet, which has allowed me to gently a tollerance to that anxious hum of suffering that drives a lot of my least desirable behaviours. I am by no means cured, and maybe I am now just addicted to crochet, but at least I get gorgeous crafts out of it now and not just more shame and compounded anxiety.
the title put me down on my knees. this is incredible and resonates soooo deeply for my social media addiction 😵💫 i recently deleted the apps minus substack and ever since, a lottttt of buried feelings have been rising up 😅
this resonates. i do notice that when i'm feeling more connected and integrated, i don't feel as much of a need for the anesthesia. still though i'll find myself coming back to it, but then it feels like more of a decision rather than a compulsion.
this is bullshit
This is great. As a therapist my shorthand has always been “medicating something”, but anesthesia has tighter implications. Well done.
Yup man
Great article! I never thought addictions in this way. But, some questions remains to be answered. How to find what are exactly the "deeper pains" that we feel? And how to find the causes to these pains? And what we should do to reduce suffering without appealing to addictions?
And one more thought that I have while reading you text. If addictions are mechanism that we use to deal with suffering, this implies that some (not all of them) are actually good for the pearson? Maybe this habit, that is considered a addiction, is just the way that the pearson find to deal with their problems. What you think about it?
Curious as to how you understand the relationship between addictions and procrastination or a general failure to summon the will to accomplish things? Certainly the two go hand in hand but I do think they're distinct... one can imagine someone who's banished their addictions and is perfectly content, but as such has little will or desire to do much. And suffering seems to drive a lot of the world's most productive people, too. What's the difference between suffering that produces addiction and the suffering that produces a furious drive to succeed?
I had unmedicated ADHD and bad anxiety for a decade and used alcohol to cope. I finally quit drinking but started smoking weed instead because I still can't tolerate modern life completely sober. The only thing that has ever actually helped me with this is magic mushrooms, but the positive effects are unfortunately temporary and I can't just be high on them every day. At no point in my various drug uses was I ever under any delusion that I was doing anything but numbing my emotions because often moving through the world was agony for me. The alcohol shut my brain and all those anxious thoughts off for a while which gave me peace. It doesn't matter what your vice of choice is, almost everyone has some kind of addiction that they use to numb the pain of being alive. The only long term solution is to love and accept yourself regardless of your external circumstances. But this is extremely difficult to do in a hyper capitalist society that treats you like garbage if you aren't rich or famous, so pretty much everyone feels they are lacking and filling that perceived void with other harmful behaviors. The West has an addiction crisis way worse than anybody wants to actually admit. Opioid deaths are just the tip of the iceberg. I know very few people who are genuinely sober and happy. If you somehow forced the American population to be 100% sober for a year I guarantee you the suicide rate would skyrocket. Our culture is deeply sick and I have no idea how we even fix it at this point.
So you gave an obvious observation and an extremely vague solution packaged up nicely???
Admittedly, there's no real solution offered here, but a lot of people really do consider their addictions to be nothing but moral failings. I think this insight is pretty useful
I dont know if removing suffering is realistic for a living being. You are literally in a fight for your life at every moment, with every pump of the heart, breath, or hum of digestion. The happiest most community oriented people Ive ever spent time with still skew heavily towards the needing legal Dr type medications or church to take the very harsh edge off life. None of us escape the pain. I wonder often if animals had access to drugs or a smattering of copes like people do, would they also behave like addicts? I think probably so. We all desire to be free from the pressures and cravings of the body, to shut up the mind. But as long as we are here, we have to make the best of things, and using self control to regulate, setting habits, commitments etc seems to be the only balanced way to go about things. Listening to what our bodies actually want requires a bit of peace and quiet, which is so hard to come by in this noisy modern world. So making some spaces throughout our days to just tune in and listen is a good place to start. We need to get addicted to the practice of not doing as a cope.
This is a great article! This is going to sound crazy, but I have found that my impulse towards my least favourite addictive behaviours has significantly eased since I took up crochet. I have been making a conscious effort to sit with my crochet, in silence, when I get home from work, which is the impulse is the strongest and most difficult to resist. I feel like the crochet allows me to feel that "suffering" in a way that is somewhat muted by the distraction my hands have with the crochet, which has allowed me to gently a tollerance to that anxious hum of suffering that drives a lot of my least desirable behaviours. I am by no means cured, and maybe I am now just addicted to crochet, but at least I get gorgeous crafts out of it now and not just more shame and compounded anxiety.
the title put me down on my knees. this is incredible and resonates soooo deeply for my social media addiction 😵💫 i recently deleted the apps minus substack and ever since, a lottttt of buried feelings have been rising up 😅
this resonates. i do notice that when i'm feeling more connected and integrated, i don't feel as much of a need for the anesthesia. still though i'll find myself coming back to it, but then it feels like more of a decision rather than a compulsion.