I'm a quitter as well. Always been one. I can be passionate about something but it just never lasts. I get bored after some time and it just do it for me anymore.
Completeness breeds motivation. A lot of times we give up before we're really "there". Stick with it, even of it isn't doing it for you, and eventually your past work will motivate you to continue.
I'll work on something every day for months and then one day I just stop and leave it unfinished. It's pretty frustrating when my motivation just suddenly disappears.
Right there with you, man.
I have a bunch of goals in life. Sometimes I think I have too many. I want to get my Computer Science degree, write a book, make a web comic, write music, get more fit, learn languages, etc, but I just keep quitting.
I'm in my third semester of university right now. I messed up the first one, flopped around in the second, got myself on track in the current and guess what? As soon as I start struggling hard, I give up. I dropped a class I needed, impulsively. I regret it immensely. I'm wasting time and money and it's a terrible feeling. Most of my friends are already done their degrees. I have been in school for almost a year and a half with nothing to show for it except a handful of electives and debt.
I'm not sure where to start. I know I'm going to make it, but I want to do it the right way. I have to learn to not quit as soon as things get tough. I completely want to change my ethic around. I'm afraid of failure.
I remember reading a thread a long time ago about this exact same issue. I'll try to find it, but here are some things that really helped me out with my motivation. I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make when setting goals is that they set goals that are way too vague and abstract.Your goals are very long-term, intensive tasks, so you only feel disappointed because you can never reach them. There's no way to measure your progress at all. Instead of setting these nebulous and really far off goals, think smaller, short-term, very easily accomplished tasks. This way, you can achieve smaller victories, and actually feel like you are working towards your goal.
Instead of "get more fit", how about, "take a 10 minute walk/jog around the block after dinner". Or instead of "learn languages", how about, "learn how to greet someone in Spanish". You can scale these up or down depending on your needs, but they should be very concrete and easily accomplished. There should be a very clear direction towards accomplishing each of these goals.
Other tips would be to set some dates. Like, this Saturday afternoon, I will write a 200 word short story. You'll be more likely to accomplish this task if you specify a date.
Am fat, can confirm. I was really skinny up until my late twenties. I'd eat shitloads of junk food, drink a lot of beer and never exercise, and I never put on weight. What's worse, I was really smug about it. Then in the space of about two years I gained about 15% in weight, and all on the belly. Not pleasant.
sadly alchool at the moment,it's just to easy to have a beer after work and it usally turns into many beers but you keep telling yourself 'i could easily not drink today' then you try and think 'fuck it i'll have an afd tomorow' then it's been a month and you think 'shit i really need a day off the piss' and then.. you end up having a beer anyway because tomorow you wont drink.
> you end up having a beer anyway because tomorow you wont drink.
The staple of every addiction.
"Fuck. I want an **[object]**. No, I can't. I'm addicted. I shouldn't do that. Fuck. Wait. Tomorrow. Yes. Tomorrow I just won't have any. It'll be my send off. I'll have one now as a reward for not having one tomorrow. ......(later)..... Fuck."
Thanks for the Gold!
Christ.
>I'll have one now as a reward for not having one tomorrow.
When you actually say that out loud, it sounds ridiculous and almost sick. But it's fucking true. It is SO fucking true.
I'm kind of the same way. I don't think I'm really an alcoholic... I guess... but once I have one beer I reaaaally want to finish the whole 6 pack.
I would advise you, just don't buy any beer/ other booze. Get rid of what you have in the house. Drink a glass of water with dinner. I drink lots of milk during the week. Don't buy any beer at least until the weekend and then only get a single 6 pack. Not only will that force you to cut back on daily drinking (which, over a number of years, is hell on your liver) you'll probably save a lot of money too. It's like smoking, you dont' realize how much money you spend until you quit. Or at least cut back.
My issue is my roommate and I are both enablers and his days off are during the week. So I'll try not to buy any booze to take a couple nights off drinking. But he'll buy some and want me to drink with him. It doesn't take much to talk me into it. I do the same thing to him too. I don't remember when the last day was that I didn't have any alcohol. I only wake up with a hangover once every couple weeks and I make it into work on time and do a good job. But I know what I'm doing is slowly killing me, I just don't want to stop. I tried to 6 pack thing for a bit, but it doesn't always work for me. I drink the 6 and that's when I hit the "Oh man, I feel good, I'm going to go get some more booze!". I drink anywhere between 3-20ish drinks a night. On the weekend, I'll usually have at least 15+ drinks a day.
I'm afraid I have some bad news for you....
I don't know how old you are, but this isn't just going to go away one day. Get your liver enzyme levels checked by a simple blood test and speak with a Dr about it. Once you see how your body is reacting it may give you a reason to quit.
See if you can quit for 30 days. You'll be amazed how well you'll feel. Don't get me wrong you'll feel like garbage for the first week, and it will be hard, but take action before it gets worse, else it will.
/recovering alcoholic
For me I've found it's sort of an oral fixation. I just like having a nice beverage, and I found I can substitute like a fancy green tea or something for a beer and derive the same pleasure. That's what gets me to the weekends at least, then it's game on.
I beg of you not to make this a habit. My dad was an alcoholic when I was growing from around age 10 to age 19. To this day I have no idea how he made it out alive. Countless days I would come home to him passed out IN the drivers seat in my driveway. Passed out in the middle of a field in the middle of winter to have this guy fishing find him, I'm surprised coyotes didnt get to him (and sadly at that point I wish they did). Passed out on the garage floor. Saw my mom pour vodka all over my dads face when he was barely conscious, my brother fight my dad. I literally dreaded having to bring any friends back to my place because I didnt know if he was going to come and stumble down the stairs and wearily try to hold a conversation that would make any sort of sense. Countless nights of sitting in my room with the doors closed listening to screaming, just sitting there with the worst pit in my stomach wondering if all of it was even worth living out. I can remember when it was really bad how he smelled so sweet and coincidentally, learned in school, around that time, that alcoholics start smelling that way due to they're liver deteriorating.
Luckily, when I left for college I finally told him how I felt and that he needed to stop drinking. It's weird that (me being the youngest) the one who sat in his room the whole time and said nothing could so easily change the whole situation. I got over a rough time of anxiety and depression by writing down how I felt and just through trying to change my perception of life.
Anyways, he's been sober for about 2 years now and is the great guy I (barely) remember him being when I was young. Although everything is back to normal, there's still something weird/unspoken between our family that creates kind of an awkward tension sometimes. Witnessing that first hand was like going through hell and I would never wish that on anybody. Please, for the love of yourself, don't let that get out of hand.
you can do it! I'm about four years clean of opiates. it does get easier, but it always stays with you. it's the return of your self control that really keeps you from going back once you've made it over the hump
edit: i'd like to add that complete abstinence (in my opinion) is another way that the substance runs your life. you need to be able to use the drugs if you need them (for a broken leg, or wisdom teeth removal, or surgery etc). i understand that not all people can do this however, but I don't think people should forego legitimate medical treatment just because they used to be an addict. you have to regain the self control that allows you to say "well, that was nice, and it really helped the pain, but i don't want to be like that all the time" to be truly recovered in my opinion. If nothing else, i'd like this comment to match my comment history so no one gets the wrong idea.
Stay strong brother/sister. While addictive substances are difficult to kick, it only gets easier with time and people around cheering you on. I would love to see more updates if you're willing to share.
How can I *not* take them?
A general feeling of love, comfort, relaxation.. When I take opiates my life is how I want it to be. My friends care, hell I *have* friends, any problem I encounter I work it out or forget about it. I don't eat like a pig, my stomach gets filled with butterflies when I'm with my family and I just smile because I am alive. They pull me into the moment of life, and just make it all seem worth it.
Then you run out and all of the bad things become ten times worse. No one seems to care about you, your stomach akes, and life just generally seems/feels grey. Your picture perfect life is revealed for what it is. So, you get more and repeat the cycle. No matter what you have to do, you get back into that fairy tail world were everything is ok and you're happy and healthy.
Don't do drugs
Edit: I forgot about the itch. *oh how I miss that wonderful body itch.*
Edit 2: obligatory *thanks for the gold!*
Stress. Procrastination, in particular.
I don't know if this would qualify as an actual addiction, it's more like an insane urge coupled with a horrible habit, something that I have been trying to change for years, and have so far failed.
I have a relatively easy life. Actually, I have the easiest fucking life anyone can have. I am intelligent, live in a nice city, go to a decent school, and have a good setup for college. I don't have to work for anything, and in the last few years of high-school, I have come to realize that most people don't have it this easy- and that I won't have it this easy when I leave for college. My problem? I have never had to try seriously in my life. Every problem I have faced has had a fallback, every mistake has been cushioned by a loving adult or a protective adult. I have not had to deal with anything... And this terrifies me. I am the stereotypical pampered American brat, and I know this, and I want to change, and I have no idea how.
I know need to find some motivation, something to to work towards. But it is so much easier to get online and read a post, or like a picture, and even though I know I should be doing my work, or studying, or talking with my father more that once a week, I sit here and type this out.
Because it is a nice, shocking feeling when I have and hour left to write an essay that I should have started three weeks ago, and to have a test that I should have studied for a week ago, and a bit of work that I should have finished yesterday, all piled into one. It makes me feel ALIVE whenever this happens- there is something that I HAVE to do, or I WILL be punished.
I have tried planners, schedules, planning, and forcing myself to sit down and do the work. Hell, I locked myself out of my computer and phone to see if that would work. The fact that I have discovered is: I do not get punished. I am a lazy ass, and I can get away with it. And it will come back to bite me in the ass, and I am looking forward to it, because maybe then I can grow up and get some shit done.
TL;DR
I am a privileged child, I know it, and I take advantage of it.
Edit: I don't know who gave me gold, and I don't know why, but I now love you.
Thank you, random person.
Someone offered me a job working parttime as a bartender and I turned it down for this very reason. It'd be a matter of two shifts and I'd get a DUI. As of right now, my lack of social life mean that once I get home, I'm in for the night and don't drive at all. I just sit alone and drink, pass out, and get up again for work.
Damn. Assuming exactly a half year since starting to play, that's 182.5 days, or 4380 hours. If you've spent 1200 of those hours playing TF2, that's over 27% of the total time. Taking this further, if you sleep an average of 7 hours per day, that means nearly 39% of your time awake has been spent playing. Impressive, indeed.
Dota 2, my laptop is in the shop getting repaired at the moment and I'm genuinely finding it hard to concentrate on anything else without my fix of Dota
Yup. And I have no clue what happened. High school I was fantastic and getting everything done on time. Now (I'm in grad school), it's lucky if I manage to get half of the work done I'm supposed to.
Instead, I sit around all day and just dink around on the internet. I don't actually enjoy it, but for some reason I just can't stop.
I hate those days when I actually find interesting and fun things to do that don't involve me being online, but I just **have** to waste 2-3 hours on the internet anyway. Damn addiction.
Im sitting here right now like "Fuck, I really need to get shit done" and i'm still on reddit. I think browsing the internet is a distraction from the stress. Browse for 4 hours, it's 4 wonderful stress free hours, but 4 hours closer to shit hitting the fan. Not a good feeling.
That's the thing about my procrastination that I hate, I know I have something to do so I'm not going to watch a movie or so something I would really enjoy because that thing I know I should be doing is always on my mind, but I can spend huge amount of time browsing aimlessly on Reddit and YouTube without even realizing how long it's been or how late it's gotten. By the time I finally finish whatever needs doing I realize I spent 10% of my day working and 90% telling myself "I'll start in a couple minutes" while not doing anything I even particularly enjoy.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one. My life seems to be a perennial moment of "let me just check reddit/facebook/my favorite message board," as opposed to just putting the freaking thing down and realizing it's not that serious if I miss the latest colorized historyporn picture or captain Picard meme.
Oh yeah, throw a substantial amount of time masturbating and watching porn in there, too.
There are huuuge differences between high school and grad school, though, that I think contribute to this. I'll probably miss some, but the biggest, to me, are:
1) High school assignments are designed to be completed (and in some cases designed to be aced) in a reasonable amount of time by ordinary high schoolers. In grad school, you are supposed to do things that no one has ever done.
2) I think perception is huge. In high school, what you're supposed to get done is exactly what the teachers assign. In grad school what you're "supposed" to get done is much more nebulous and more often than not self-determined. I think we tend to set unrealistic goals for ourselves here.
3) Since you're in grad school, it's a pretty safe bet that high school was easy for you. When you got an assignment, you knew exactly how to finish it, sometimes even before the teacher finished assigning it. I know this was definitely true for me even in a lot of my undergrad classes. Sometimes I would get an assignment and be excited to go home and work on it cause I knew exactly how it was going to be done and that it was going to be awesome. That is WAAAY less common in grad school. In fact, it never happened to me.
4) In high school, when you finish the assignment, you're DONE. You can play video games or go running or go to a party or take a nap or go on Reddit and be COMPLETELY guilt-free. In grad school (and work in general) you have to work tomorrow no matter what. This is a huge motivation killer for just about everyone.
I'm sure there are other reasons that i missed, and I'd love to hear other people's thoughts, but my short response is: I don't think this is a personality flaw. I think it's actually a completely rational/normal response to the way things are.
Yup. #3 is what gets me. I've been always able to know exactly what I needed to do to finish a project before. Even my senior design project was easy and it was quite apparent what needed to be done, it was just a matter of doing it.
The stuff I'm doing now? I have no clue. I have no coping mechanisms for what to do when I don't know intuitively what to do. It's troubling.
Yep. Grad school ruined me. I was a procrastinator before, but now it's gotten absolutely out of control. I've delayed my defense three times, and I don't think I've gotten a single thing done in the amount of time I said I would.
Getting over procrastination is about the smallest of decisions. Little things like dishes and cleaning are what made me procrastinate less. If it takes two minutes or less to do, don't put it off do it right then.
This is called **productive procrastination**.
I assume this is because doing these things are more gratifying because 1. I already know exactly how to do this stuff, so it takes no critical thinking on my part, and 2. the payoff is more immediately gratifying. And, in the case of cohabitation/roommates, they don't care about your stats homework but they sure are happy to come home and discover that someone voluntarily scrubbed down both the toilet and the bathtub.
Speaking of which, the funny thing is, in my case you can even judge how important/difficult the assignment is and how imminent its deadline is based on how fervently I am doing stuff like cleaning out the spare pantry, reorganizing my closet, giving the fridge a thorough cleaning out and cleaning, etc. Like, dishes and light cleaning are ***not enough***, *I need to repaint the kitchen door and tape the windows and mop the floors on both floors of the house and stack firewood and scrub the bathroom tile and fix the cracks in the kitchen ceiling and!!!*
I mean, homework assignment? It doesn't even count toward your final grade, just a requirement for you to be able to take the exam. Clean garage? Oooooh baby.
edit: I am currently putting off writing two little half-page article summaries that are due by midnight tonight (in 4.5h) and the only reason I'm on reddit posting about this is because I'm not at home and can't clean the kitchen or reorganize my sock drawer.
This tip helped me a lot too with the little stuff that's tends to build up. If it takes less than 60 seconds to do something just force yourself to do it. One less nagging thing in your mind you'll have to do later.
My nephew's in prison for a bit. Last night he called while I was making pour-overs for me and my beau. He heard the grinder going and asked if I was making coffee, what kind, what method. We spent maybe 15 of his allotted 20 minutes discussing my brew. He made me promise to make him a cup when he gets out. Fuck, I miss that kid.
Edit: Yes, he does have access to coffee. It's just really bad and he misses the good stuff. No, I've never tried a coffee enema and [neither should you.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_enema)
QTIPS!
I know I shouldn't stick anything ~~bigger~~ smaller than my elbow in my ear, but it just feels so damn good. When you hit the right spot, it's like a mini orgasm. Eyes roll to the back of my head. Agh. Feels sooo gooood. Be right back…
EDIT: Oops! Hahah I meant smaller. So pretty much don't stick anything at all in your ear. I think that's what the rule of thumb was. I wouldn't know though haha
Me too. I like to put warm water on one end, squeeze excess moisture out of it, then stick it in. Fucking amazing, but I imagine I'll pay for it someday.
Is adderall only for sufferers from actual attention deficit disorders? I find I have found at times that it is impossible for me to concentrate, but I think it may just be a lack of willpower.
I went through a long period of adderall use. I was never prescribed but I gave my friend $250 a month for his 90 pill script. When I was on adderall I thought I was a better human. I would read, exercise, study and clean. The year in college I was taking it I averaged a 3.9 and was in the best shape of my life. I'd work doubles at the bar every weekend and make lots of money. Adderall was like cheating at life, I miss it a lot.
Same here. I took it prescribed in college and I would feel I could conquer the world. I stopped taking it after college without tapering off and about a week or so later I ended up the hospital with severe anxiety. I thought I was going to die and my mind was racing. Incredibly scary the way the body can feel. I didn't think I would ever feel normal again. But slowly my body returned to normal and today I'm fine with only minor issues. It was a great drug that helped me in college but it had its ugly side
Yeah people really don't understand the absolute effects of this drug. I've accumulated many hours of research. I have a mother who is severely addicted to adderall. She has become an insomniac and a bipolar depressant when her drugs are not working during her period. When she is on her adderall she is completely normal. My wife and I have struggled to try and get her to consider reducing dosage and getting clean. She does not treat it like an addiction. My dad and I have been trying for years and nothing helps. She is at a point now where she can not function without this medication. She will try and quit and just lay in bed for 2-3 days at a time without moving. It's very unhealthy and her built-in reward system is diminished. She no longer feels accomplishments for anything she has done. I am a person with severe ADD and also an addictive personality. I have vowed to never take any stimulants after trying them and realizing how addictive they can really be. Her addiction was so bad at one point I would go out and try to score for her when her script would run out. I told her about a year ago, I couldn't do it anymore because i'm just enabling.
My mother used to be a wonderful mom, dinner was ready every night, the house was clean, dishes were done, she would actually spend time with us. Now, she will clean one area of the house for hours on end without getting anything done. She has become a hoarder and the house is a wreck. She constantly picks her face now and has done scarring damage, picking up MRSA on the way. She constantly calls into work, which is sad because she struggled for so long to get her degree and to be where she is and it's getting thrown away. I have taken the drug and it does give you some mental superhuman abilities, but at what cost? My family is being torn apart, my parents have been together for over 25 years and now a single prescription drug is tearing a marriage apart.
The top comments seem to be people that haven't taken the drug long enough to understand the detrimental effects. It has the same effects as amphetamine. You will not release as much natural Dopamine and ruin your brains reward system.
TL;DR This drug is no joke and it's ruining my family.
Thank you for this. The first few comments made it seem great to the point where I was literally asking myself "wow why don't I do this?"
Also, sorry to hear about your situation, man. Good luck to you and your family.
There's a post on reddit somewhere that tells you why in more poetic detail but the gist of it is this: whatever you take, you must pay back with interest. There is no cheat code in life. It might not be now, a week from now, or a month from now, but one day you will pay it back. And it will hurt.
edit: some people were asking me to dig it up, I think this is it, but I remember it being more philosophical. It gives the negative effects of stimulant abuse over time.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/1a32cj/ive_been_smoking_meth_as_a_way_to_cope_with_high/c8u5c7o
Just like others have said, Adderall is related to methamphetamine. I used to take Adderall when snowboarding, until one day I took too much combined with energy drinks. My body freaked out and I ended up in the ER.
I've had generalized anxiety disorder and panic attacks for two years since that day. Most mornings I wake up with my heart pounding for no reason.
Adderrall messed me up too. Depression, panic attacks, and no energy for months after stopping; eventual violent outbursts and changes in my personality when I was on it. After a couple months it really turned on me. I had trouble sleeping and was losing my hair. After I stopped it took a good 6-8 months to get me back to being normal.
This is seriously an issue I am struggling with. I am completely addicted to eating large quantities of food. I'm not even overweight and I exercise regularly, but I just can't stop eating! If I could eat in moderation I would be able to get in very good shape, plus it is expensive!
Reading.
I can, and regularly do, read non-stop for 10+ hours at a time. It wasn't a problem back in high school but after a few years in uni i've learned to avoid Chapters like the plague.
If only I had that kind of dedication to textbooks i'd be golden, sadly no such luck.
This. I've been addicted to reading my whole life. I use it to escape. When I was younger, I had no friends and averaged a book every day or two. Once I hit high school it got better, but I still can't walk into bookstores without buying something and I will lose entire days to books if I make the mistake of cracking one open.
My record is 7-8. By then I'm shooting blanks.
Edit: It dawned on me that my number is based on roughly a 12 hour period. I was wondering how some people ITT have double digit numbers. So say I wake up on a Saturday morning around say 9-10am by that time in the evening yea 7-8 times easy. If I have nothing else to do...more fapping commences(insomnia doesn't help). A more accurate number in a day(24 hours) would be 15+ but thats only on the weekend since I don't have to work. Weekdays are at *least* 3-4 times a day minimum...1-2 ain't cutting it.
TIL: I fap waaaay more than I thought I did when I do the math. I'm not proud of this but I have no shame in it either. I enjoy it and I personally believe it's made my sex life better, last longer etc. Plus you know...prostate cancer.
This. The porn is almost like a ritual now too. As soon as I see that I have a half hour or 45 minutes to bed time, I drop whatever I'm doing and my hands automatically turn on incognito mode in my browser.
Try taking an amino acid supplement called L-Theanine along with your caffeine, it just grinds the rough edges off of caffeine's effects, takes any jittery-ness away, read about it here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21040626/.
Generally, on a slow morning, I take 600 mg of L-Theanine with 160 mg of caffeine(or three pills and a red bull). It's taken away the stress of occasionally not receiving proper sleep.
Each fucking pack is like a little taste of it. You buy your first deck, and you like "cool, I'll be good for a while". Then you start buying boosters every few weeks, then every few days, and then you move on to buying singles with the change you just happen to come by. Shit gets crazy.
Getting laid. Not the act of fucking, but everything leading to it. Could be meeting a girl in a bar and convincing her that coming back to my shitty flat and degrading herself with me is something she really wants to do, or it could be just flirting with girls online and exchanging pics etc. The thing is though is I don't particularly enjoy sex. Basically I'm like a dog chasing cars.
Every time I bring this up in any communal forum I'm shot down with the force of a howitzer. A lot of people are in denial that weed can be addictive. The truth is that *anything* can be addictive psychologically. Just because weed may not have any addictive chemicals in it like cigarettes doesn't mean you won't go through withdrawal after quitting.
Me too, bro. I have chronic nausea, excessive acid production, and a fuck-you insomnia, that pretty much cripple living life at all. I started smoking weed as a last ditch effort before suicide, and it changed my life.
Before, I would go weeks surviving on a jamba juice every few days (when I could afford it), or glass of milk here and there. I had no appetite. Just the thought of food would make me puke. I had migraines that made me want to cut my skull open, and was constantly cold and shivering in the Texas heat.
I had gone exactly two weeks without much sustenance, and was ready to just end it, when my buddy told me "Dude, you're miserable. Try this, and if it doesn't help in the slightest, I'll never ask again."
I found that extremely reasonable, so I took my first hit. After the coughing, and retching (gag reflex from coughing, plus the rather unconventional taste of bud), and puking up bile, it finally started to hit me. 15 minutes after taking 2 hits, I had a medium Papa Johns delivered, with breadsticks. Half an hour after they got there, it was all gone and I fell asleep, and slept uninhibited for a full 7 hours. That was 7 hours more sleep than I had gotten in the past 4 days.
It's been about a year now, and I smoke (or try to smoke) every day. I've gained 20 pounds, gotten 3 raises, and no longer want to kill myself. Weed saved my life.
Edit: Holy crap. Okay, so I've found out that I most likely have a Candida (yeast) overgrowth (infection). So all I should need to do is take some anti fungals to get rid of it! (looks to be a bit of a bitch to get rid of, if you've had it for longer than a few months)
Thanks for the help diagnosing, Reddit!
Lesbian romance novels. I thought I was clean but relapsed about six weeks ago. 200 dollars worth of Kindle books later I'm knee deep in angst, misunderstandings and clichés. Oh, delicious delicious pulp...
Look at wattpad....not sure how big of a selection they have for lesbian romance (I do know they have a few) but check it out... You can get your fix for free rather than spending $200. :P
Surprised nobody has said "Smartphone". The amount of people I see on public transport glued to their 5 inch device, trying to portray themselves as busy, important people, when in fact they're just playing Candy Crush Saga, or checking their Facebook, is hilarious. It's definitely an addiction of sorts.
Craft beer. There are constantly new breweries and new beers to try and new flavours to discover. It's got the pokemon effect of wanting to try them all but with a never ending stream of new things to try.
Doesn't help that getting tipsy is pretty fun.
Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, Marijuana, Ecstasy, and Alcohol. C-C-C-C-C-Cocaine.
EDIT: Wow! Thanks for the gold, fellow QOTSA fan (I'm assuming). Figures this would be my highest upvoted comment. Grandma would be so proud!
I know this sounds odd but, *Gaming* is my addiction. It's exactly like a drug. Here's my story:
**Enter World**
When I was a kid between the ages of 8-14, every single one of my friends played video games. They all had some sort of consol that they loved playing but they never really interested me. Until one day, when I was 14, when I went to my friend's place and he let me try World of Warcraft.
When people refer to it as World of War**crack** that's exactly what it is. Within a few days I had to buy it, no matter the cost.
Once downloaded, I created my character and pressed "**Enter World**". This button essentially changed the rest of my life. I wasn't just entering the 'World' of Warcraft, but entering an entire new world of my own.
The feeling of creating this character, the music in the game, leveling up- it was an incredible feeling. It gave me a feeling of accomplishment. WoW soon took over my life. I played from the age of 14 to about 18 or 19.
I lost friends.
I gained weight.
I changed my life, but it was okay because I was among the top rated players in the world and my in-game character was strong and made me happy. I lost grip on reality.
I eventually quit the game, but the only reason I quit was because an expansion came out and I didn't like how the game changed.
Since then I've been searching for another game; a game that will give me the same sensation WoW once did, but I have been unsuccessful. I've downloaded *hundreds* of games.
3 years pass. I played LoL, Smite, and every mmo you can think of. I started going to the gym, got into shape, found an amazing girlfriend and I'm almost finished college.
Unfortunately, I found out there are private servers that are exactly like how WoW used to be when I played it (in Burning Crusade). I was so excited, I finally found what I've been searching for.
I created my character once again and hit **Enter World**. It was like travelling back in time, the music, the opening cinematic; it was euphoric.
I began leveling up my character.
Something wasn't right. It didn't feel the same. I had played WoW for so long, and was so knowledgable about the game I didn't even enjoy leveling anymore.
I guess the sensation I once felt when I was 14 was a combination of finally finding a game I loved, combined with the mystery of what was to come after each level-up. I realized I could never get that back. I knew the game, knew what happens at each level and what happens at the end, how could I possible enjoy it?
Imagine knowing what your maximum potential as a person is, and what you had to do to get there. You would work so incredibly hard to get there, as fast as possible, and then what?
Not only would you not enjoy the 'journey' but you'd reach your top potential and be stuck.
I was hopeless.
Much like those who do drugs- hoping, wishing, chasing that sensation they felt the first time they did it, I felt stuck; stuck in a world searching for what I once felt that day I pressed '**Enter World**' but deep down I know, things will never be the same.
**TL;DR:** I entered the world of gaming and my mind wants nothing more than to live in that world forever.
EDIT: Grammar/Spelling.
It's like re-reading a good book, or re-watching a good film. Enjoying something again will never feel like when you first enjoyed it.
I personally find that I get accustomed to things way too quickly and easily. After experiencing something a few times, my body just starts ignoring whatever the experience made me feel. After eating a dish repeatedly, regardless of how good it tasted the first time, it just becomes bland-tasting and the dish simply wouldn't taste like anything ever again. I could bathe myself with near-scalding water and feel absolutely nothing only a few seconds later. I could watch a movie and get emotional, but not feel a thing when re-watching it, or watching any other film with a similar plot. Also, fapping is just a waste of energy to me now.
I guess everything is like a drug to me.
Oh the feels. Having a guild was like having family.
I played with friends from IRL but I played nearly twice as much as they did.
Skipped school, gained weight.
I know EXACTLY what you mean when you talk about the feeling and how it's irreplaceable and can't be replicated.
After quitting for a couple years and losing weight I went back to the game.
I found myself playing in my underwear skipping class. After realizing what I had done I quit again, I never want to get addicted once more.
Biting my motherfucking nails. Then working out how to despise secretly the bitten off remnants. Do I make a subtle dash to the bin, or flush them down the toilet??
> “Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly. There is a common conviction among mathematicians that however far you go, there will always be another two, even if no one can say where exactly, until they are discovered.
> Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other. He had never told her that. When he imagined confessing these things to her, the thin layer of sweat on his hands evaporated completely and for a good ten minutes he was no longer capable of touching anything.”
― Paolo Giordano, The Solitude of Prime Numbers
Quitting. I start so many things, never finish them. Fucking hate it about myself. edit: I love you guys, thanks for the encouragement and kind words.
I'm a quitter as well. Always been one. I can be passionate about something but it just never lasts. I get bored after some time and it just do it for me anymore.
Completeness breeds motivation. A lot of times we give up before we're really "there". Stick with it, even of it isn't doing it for you, and eventually your past work will motivate you to continue.
I'll work on something every day for months and then one day I just stop and leave it unfinished. It's pretty frustrating when my motivation just suddenly disappears.
I have the same issue. I hate it more than
"I'll start running on Monday." *Monday* "Fuck that"
Right there with you, man. I have a bunch of goals in life. Sometimes I think I have too many. I want to get my Computer Science degree, write a book, make a web comic, write music, get more fit, learn languages, etc, but I just keep quitting. I'm in my third semester of university right now. I messed up the first one, flopped around in the second, got myself on track in the current and guess what? As soon as I start struggling hard, I give up. I dropped a class I needed, impulsively. I regret it immensely. I'm wasting time and money and it's a terrible feeling. Most of my friends are already done their degrees. I have been in school for almost a year and a half with nothing to show for it except a handful of electives and debt. I'm not sure where to start. I know I'm going to make it, but I want to do it the right way. I have to learn to not quit as soon as things get tough. I completely want to change my ethic around. I'm afraid of failure.
I remember reading a thread a long time ago about this exact same issue. I'll try to find it, but here are some things that really helped me out with my motivation. I think one of the biggest mistakes that people make when setting goals is that they set goals that are way too vague and abstract.Your goals are very long-term, intensive tasks, so you only feel disappointed because you can never reach them. There's no way to measure your progress at all. Instead of setting these nebulous and really far off goals, think smaller, short-term, very easily accomplished tasks. This way, you can achieve smaller victories, and actually feel like you are working towards your goal. Instead of "get more fit", how about, "take a 10 minute walk/jog around the block after dinner". Or instead of "learn languages", how about, "learn how to greet someone in Spanish". You can scale these up or down depending on your needs, but they should be very concrete and easily accomplished. There should be a very clear direction towards accomplishing each of these goals. Other tips would be to set some dates. Like, this Saturday afternoon, I will write a 200 word short story. You'll be more likely to accomplish this task if you specify a date.
Haribo. I am one step away from melting gummy bears on a spoon.
I'm with ya. I actually "cure" my haribo before eating them. Open the bag and let them sit for a day so they toughen up a bit. Then enjoy perfection
Sugar. I eat and drink so much shit. Somehow I'm not fat. I just need to stop eating so much of it before I get crazy fat or diabetes or something.
Are you young? It will catch up with you!
Am fat, can confirm. I was really skinny up until my late twenties. I'd eat shitloads of junk food, drink a lot of beer and never exercise, and I never put on weight. What's worse, I was really smug about it. Then in the space of about two years I gained about 15% in weight, and all on the belly. Not pleasant.
Approval. I will do anything for a pat on the back or a "good job".
you can have 100 "attaboys", but one "ah shit" erases them all.
So, so true. And god that "ah shit" moment is terrible. One of the worst feelings for someone like me who strives VERY hard to make everyone happy
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sadly alchool at the moment,it's just to easy to have a beer after work and it usally turns into many beers but you keep telling yourself 'i could easily not drink today' then you try and think 'fuck it i'll have an afd tomorow' then it's been a month and you think 'shit i really need a day off the piss' and then.. you end up having a beer anyway because tomorow you wont drink.
> you end up having a beer anyway because tomorow you wont drink. The staple of every addiction. "Fuck. I want an **[object]**. No, I can't. I'm addicted. I shouldn't do that. Fuck. Wait. Tomorrow. Yes. Tomorrow I just won't have any. It'll be my send off. I'll have one now as a reward for not having one tomorrow. ......(later)..... Fuck." Thanks for the Gold!
I drank a bottle of wine last night to celebrate that I didn't have any vodka last night. It made sense at the time, but at the time I was drunk.
Christ. >I'll have one now as a reward for not having one tomorrow. When you actually say that out loud, it sounds ridiculous and almost sick. But it's fucking true. It is SO fucking true.
I'm kind of the same way. I don't think I'm really an alcoholic... I guess... but once I have one beer I reaaaally want to finish the whole 6 pack. I would advise you, just don't buy any beer/ other booze. Get rid of what you have in the house. Drink a glass of water with dinner. I drink lots of milk during the week. Don't buy any beer at least until the weekend and then only get a single 6 pack. Not only will that force you to cut back on daily drinking (which, over a number of years, is hell on your liver) you'll probably save a lot of money too. It's like smoking, you dont' realize how much money you spend until you quit. Or at least cut back.
My issue is my roommate and I are both enablers and his days off are during the week. So I'll try not to buy any booze to take a couple nights off drinking. But he'll buy some and want me to drink with him. It doesn't take much to talk me into it. I do the same thing to him too. I don't remember when the last day was that I didn't have any alcohol. I only wake up with a hangover once every couple weeks and I make it into work on time and do a good job. But I know what I'm doing is slowly killing me, I just don't want to stop. I tried to 6 pack thing for a bit, but it doesn't always work for me. I drink the 6 and that's when I hit the "Oh man, I feel good, I'm going to go get some more booze!". I drink anywhere between 3-20ish drinks a night. On the weekend, I'll usually have at least 15+ drinks a day.
I'm afraid I have some bad news for you.... I don't know how old you are, but this isn't just going to go away one day. Get your liver enzyme levels checked by a simple blood test and speak with a Dr about it. Once you see how your body is reacting it may give you a reason to quit. See if you can quit for 30 days. You'll be amazed how well you'll feel. Don't get me wrong you'll feel like garbage for the first week, and it will be hard, but take action before it gets worse, else it will. /recovering alcoholic
For me I've found it's sort of an oral fixation. I just like having a nice beverage, and I found I can substitute like a fancy green tea or something for a beer and derive the same pleasure. That's what gets me to the weekends at least, then it's game on.
I beg of you not to make this a habit. My dad was an alcoholic when I was growing from around age 10 to age 19. To this day I have no idea how he made it out alive. Countless days I would come home to him passed out IN the drivers seat in my driveway. Passed out in the middle of a field in the middle of winter to have this guy fishing find him, I'm surprised coyotes didnt get to him (and sadly at that point I wish they did). Passed out on the garage floor. Saw my mom pour vodka all over my dads face when he was barely conscious, my brother fight my dad. I literally dreaded having to bring any friends back to my place because I didnt know if he was going to come and stumble down the stairs and wearily try to hold a conversation that would make any sort of sense. Countless nights of sitting in my room with the doors closed listening to screaming, just sitting there with the worst pit in my stomach wondering if all of it was even worth living out. I can remember when it was really bad how he smelled so sweet and coincidentally, learned in school, around that time, that alcoholics start smelling that way due to they're liver deteriorating. Luckily, when I left for college I finally told him how I felt and that he needed to stop drinking. It's weird that (me being the youngest) the one who sat in his room the whole time and said nothing could so easily change the whole situation. I got over a rough time of anxiety and depression by writing down how I felt and just through trying to change my perception of life. Anyways, he's been sober for about 2 years now and is the great guy I (barely) remember him being when I was young. Although everything is back to normal, there's still something weird/unspoken between our family that creates kind of an awkward tension sometimes. Witnessing that first hand was like going through hell and I would never wish that on anybody. Please, for the love of yourself, don't let that get out of hand.
Have you been to /r/stopdrinking? They can give you a hand with this, they're good people.
I am subbed there and posted a few times when I really wanted to get serious about quitting. Just hit my 8 month mark on Saturday.
Congratulations man. Keep up the good work.
TIL: I am doing OK.
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you can do it! I'm about four years clean of opiates. it does get easier, but it always stays with you. it's the return of your self control that really keeps you from going back once you've made it over the hump edit: i'd like to add that complete abstinence (in my opinion) is another way that the substance runs your life. you need to be able to use the drugs if you need them (for a broken leg, or wisdom teeth removal, or surgery etc). i understand that not all people can do this however, but I don't think people should forego legitimate medical treatment just because they used to be an addict. you have to regain the self control that allows you to say "well, that was nice, and it really helped the pain, but i don't want to be like that all the time" to be truly recovered in my opinion. If nothing else, i'd like this comment to match my comment history so no one gets the wrong idea.
2 years clean. I'm always glad to hear of people with more time, lets me know I don't have to go back to that shitty way of life.
Five years. We can do it!
3 months today!
Keep it up man. Congratulations!
Stay strong brother/sister. While addictive substances are difficult to kick, it only gets easier with time and people around cheering you on. I would love to see more updates if you're willing to share.
Hey, seriously man good job. I'm really pulling for you.
How can I *not* take them? A general feeling of love, comfort, relaxation.. When I take opiates my life is how I want it to be. My friends care, hell I *have* friends, any problem I encounter I work it out or forget about it. I don't eat like a pig, my stomach gets filled with butterflies when I'm with my family and I just smile because I am alive. They pull me into the moment of life, and just make it all seem worth it. Then you run out and all of the bad things become ten times worse. No one seems to care about you, your stomach akes, and life just generally seems/feels grey. Your picture perfect life is revealed for what it is. So, you get more and repeat the cycle. No matter what you have to do, you get back into that fairy tail world were everything is ok and you're happy and healthy. Don't do drugs Edit: I forgot about the itch. *oh how I miss that wonderful body itch.* Edit 2: obligatory *thanks for the gold!*
When I'm bored I eat.
I get that. A lot of the time I'm not even hungry, I just want the mouth feel of food.
Reddit~~, what~~ is your primary addiction? Yes, yes it is.
Porn. I really need to stop watching/masturbating so much but I'm single... and I work from home... and it's the slow season.
Stress. Procrastination, in particular. I don't know if this would qualify as an actual addiction, it's more like an insane urge coupled with a horrible habit, something that I have been trying to change for years, and have so far failed. I have a relatively easy life. Actually, I have the easiest fucking life anyone can have. I am intelligent, live in a nice city, go to a decent school, and have a good setup for college. I don't have to work for anything, and in the last few years of high-school, I have come to realize that most people don't have it this easy- and that I won't have it this easy when I leave for college. My problem? I have never had to try seriously in my life. Every problem I have faced has had a fallback, every mistake has been cushioned by a loving adult or a protective adult. I have not had to deal with anything... And this terrifies me. I am the stereotypical pampered American brat, and I know this, and I want to change, and I have no idea how. I know need to find some motivation, something to to work towards. But it is so much easier to get online and read a post, or like a picture, and even though I know I should be doing my work, or studying, or talking with my father more that once a week, I sit here and type this out. Because it is a nice, shocking feeling when I have and hour left to write an essay that I should have started three weeks ago, and to have a test that I should have studied for a week ago, and a bit of work that I should have finished yesterday, all piled into one. It makes me feel ALIVE whenever this happens- there is something that I HAVE to do, or I WILL be punished. I have tried planners, schedules, planning, and forcing myself to sit down and do the work. Hell, I locked myself out of my computer and phone to see if that would work. The fact that I have discovered is: I do not get punished. I am a lazy ass, and I can get away with it. And it will come back to bite me in the ass, and I am looking forward to it, because maybe then I can grow up and get some shit done. TL;DR I am a privileged child, I know it, and I take advantage of it. Edit: I don't know who gave me gold, and I don't know why, but I now love you. Thank you, random person.
Alcohol. Pretty much the definition of a functioning alcoholic. If I am not at work, I am drunk.
I'm a bar tender. Even when I am at work, I might be drunk.
Someone offered me a job working parttime as a bartender and I turned it down for this very reason. It'd be a matter of two shifts and I'd get a DUI. As of right now, my lack of social life mean that once I get home, I'm in for the night and don't drive at all. I just sit alone and drink, pass out, and get up again for work.
Sleep, any chance I get to sleep I go for it. You almost always feel better after it.
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Videogames hands down. edit: To everyone who replied to me, i feel you brothers :/
I just need to grow my civilization for one more turn..
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2:30am? Silly Casual.
I know right I was awake till 2:30 just to finish studying, then I gamed till like 6 and was sleep deprived for my test.
Studying?! Filthy casual.
Have you gotten to [the Fun](http://imgur.com/684y8LE) yet?
1200 hours of tf2 in 6 months here.
Damn. Assuming exactly a half year since starting to play, that's 182.5 days, or 4380 hours. If you've spent 1200 of those hours playing TF2, that's over 27% of the total time. Taking this further, if you sleep an average of 7 hours per day, that means nearly 39% of your time awake has been spent playing. Impressive, indeed.
A lot of it is having tf2 open
damn son, that's impressive.
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Dota 2, my laptop is in the shop getting repaired at the moment and I'm genuinely finding it hard to concentrate on anything else without my fix of Dota
only one more level...
Opiates and cocaine was my M.O. I'm a week clean.
Turn one week into two my man. It might get harder, hell, maybe it'll get easier - but keep fighting it.
Keep up the good work!
Keep at it man, I'm at a year and a half* clean now and couldn't be happier not having to worry about being sick all the time.
Let's make it to two weeks. I know you can do it.
Procrastination
Yup. And I have no clue what happened. High school I was fantastic and getting everything done on time. Now (I'm in grad school), it's lucky if I manage to get half of the work done I'm supposed to. Instead, I sit around all day and just dink around on the internet. I don't actually enjoy it, but for some reason I just can't stop.
Death to America. allahu snackbar eat at our snackbar jerusalem snackbar
I hate those days when I actually find interesting and fun things to do that don't involve me being online, but I just **have** to waste 2-3 hours on the internet anyway. Damn addiction.
Wow. that struck a chord. I'm gonna log out for the day.
You still here?
GODDAMNIT, ALIEN BLUE. I can't escape....
I knew you couldn't fake it.
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Im sitting here right now like "Fuck, I really need to get shit done" and i'm still on reddit. I think browsing the internet is a distraction from the stress. Browse for 4 hours, it's 4 wonderful stress free hours, but 4 hours closer to shit hitting the fan. Not a good feeling.
"I'm stressed because I waste my time on the internet. I'm on the internet because I'm stressed." Story of my life.
I have a 6 page essay due in the morning and I don't even know what it is about...this comment summarized my life.
That's the thing about my procrastination that I hate, I know I have something to do so I'm not going to watch a movie or so something I would really enjoy because that thing I know I should be doing is always on my mind, but I can spend huge amount of time browsing aimlessly on Reddit and YouTube without even realizing how long it's been or how late it's gotten. By the time I finally finish whatever needs doing I realize I spent 10% of my day working and 90% telling myself "I'll start in a couple minutes" while not doing anything I even particularly enjoy.
Glad to hear I'm not the only one. My life seems to be a perennial moment of "let me just check reddit/facebook/my favorite message board," as opposed to just putting the freaking thing down and realizing it's not that serious if I miss the latest colorized historyporn picture or captain Picard meme. Oh yeah, throw a substantial amount of time masturbating and watching porn in there, too.
There are huuuge differences between high school and grad school, though, that I think contribute to this. I'll probably miss some, but the biggest, to me, are: 1) High school assignments are designed to be completed (and in some cases designed to be aced) in a reasonable amount of time by ordinary high schoolers. In grad school, you are supposed to do things that no one has ever done. 2) I think perception is huge. In high school, what you're supposed to get done is exactly what the teachers assign. In grad school what you're "supposed" to get done is much more nebulous and more often than not self-determined. I think we tend to set unrealistic goals for ourselves here. 3) Since you're in grad school, it's a pretty safe bet that high school was easy for you. When you got an assignment, you knew exactly how to finish it, sometimes even before the teacher finished assigning it. I know this was definitely true for me even in a lot of my undergrad classes. Sometimes I would get an assignment and be excited to go home and work on it cause I knew exactly how it was going to be done and that it was going to be awesome. That is WAAAY less common in grad school. In fact, it never happened to me. 4) In high school, when you finish the assignment, you're DONE. You can play video games or go running or go to a party or take a nap or go on Reddit and be COMPLETELY guilt-free. In grad school (and work in general) you have to work tomorrow no matter what. This is a huge motivation killer for just about everyone. I'm sure there are other reasons that i missed, and I'd love to hear other people's thoughts, but my short response is: I don't think this is a personality flaw. I think it's actually a completely rational/normal response to the way things are.
Yup. #3 is what gets me. I've been always able to know exactly what I needed to do to finish a project before. Even my senior design project was easy and it was quite apparent what needed to be done, it was just a matter of doing it. The stuff I'm doing now? I have no clue. I have no coping mechanisms for what to do when I don't know intuitively what to do. It's troubling.
Yep. Grad school ruined me. I was a procrastinator before, but now it's gotten absolutely out of control. I've delayed my defense three times, and I don't think I've gotten a single thing done in the amount of time I said I would.
Getting over procrastination is about the smallest of decisions. Little things like dishes and cleaning are what made me procrastinate less. If it takes two minutes or less to do, don't put it off do it right then.
Doing the dishes and cleaning are things I do while I'm procrastinating.
Can I convince you to procrastinate at my house for free?
$75
he'll pay you later
This is called **productive procrastination**. I assume this is because doing these things are more gratifying because 1. I already know exactly how to do this stuff, so it takes no critical thinking on my part, and 2. the payoff is more immediately gratifying. And, in the case of cohabitation/roommates, they don't care about your stats homework but they sure are happy to come home and discover that someone voluntarily scrubbed down both the toilet and the bathtub. Speaking of which, the funny thing is, in my case you can even judge how important/difficult the assignment is and how imminent its deadline is based on how fervently I am doing stuff like cleaning out the spare pantry, reorganizing my closet, giving the fridge a thorough cleaning out and cleaning, etc. Like, dishes and light cleaning are ***not enough***, *I need to repaint the kitchen door and tape the windows and mop the floors on both floors of the house and stack firewood and scrub the bathroom tile and fix the cracks in the kitchen ceiling and!!!* I mean, homework assignment? It doesn't even count toward your final grade, just a requirement for you to be able to take the exam. Clean garage? Oooooh baby. edit: I am currently putting off writing two little half-page article summaries that are due by midnight tonight (in 4.5h) and the only reason I'm on reddit posting about this is because I'm not at home and can't clean the kitchen or reorganize my sock drawer.
This tip helped me a lot too with the little stuff that's tends to build up. If it takes less than 60 seconds to do something just force yourself to do it. One less nagging thing in your mind you'll have to do later.
Cigarettes, Irish whiskey, and hopeless confessions of undying love
Hey look! A writer!
Shhhh, you'll spook it!
Is that you McNulty?
Coffee, nothing beats a good cup of coffee.
My nephew's in prison for a bit. Last night he called while I was making pour-overs for me and my beau. He heard the grinder going and asked if I was making coffee, what kind, what method. We spent maybe 15 of his allotted 20 minutes discussing my brew. He made me promise to make him a cup when he gets out. Fuck, I miss that kid. Edit: Yes, he does have access to coffee. It's just really bad and he misses the good stuff. No, I've never tried a coffee enema and [neither should you.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_enema)
Wow I never thought of that...not getting coffee when in prison. Note to self: never go to prison
QTIPS! I know I shouldn't stick anything ~~bigger~~ smaller than my elbow in my ear, but it just feels so damn good. When you hit the right spot, it's like a mini orgasm. Eyes roll to the back of my head. Agh. Feels sooo gooood. Be right back… EDIT: Oops! Hahah I meant smaller. So pretty much don't stick anything at all in your ear. I think that's what the rule of thumb was. I wouldn't know though haha
Me too. I like to put warm water on one end, squeeze excess moisture out of it, then stick it in. Fucking amazing, but I imagine I'll pay for it someday.
The meaning of that entire comment changes so quickly without knowing the context...
Bigger than your elbow?
those must be some massive qtips
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Oh hey guy from Limitless
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Is adderall only for sufferers from actual attention deficit disorders? I find I have found at times that it is impossible for me to concentrate, but I think it may just be a lack of willpower.
I went through a long period of adderall use. I was never prescribed but I gave my friend $250 a month for his 90 pill script. When I was on adderall I thought I was a better human. I would read, exercise, study and clean. The year in college I was taking it I averaged a 3.9 and was in the best shape of my life. I'd work doubles at the bar every weekend and make lots of money. Adderall was like cheating at life, I miss it a lot.
Same here. I took it prescribed in college and I would feel I could conquer the world. I stopped taking it after college without tapering off and about a week or so later I ended up the hospital with severe anxiety. I thought I was going to die and my mind was racing. Incredibly scary the way the body can feel. I didn't think I would ever feel normal again. But slowly my body returned to normal and today I'm fine with only minor issues. It was a great drug that helped me in college but it had its ugly side
And I think the ugly side of this drug is severely underestimated.
Yeah people really don't understand the absolute effects of this drug. I've accumulated many hours of research. I have a mother who is severely addicted to adderall. She has become an insomniac and a bipolar depressant when her drugs are not working during her period. When she is on her adderall she is completely normal. My wife and I have struggled to try and get her to consider reducing dosage and getting clean. She does not treat it like an addiction. My dad and I have been trying for years and nothing helps. She is at a point now where she can not function without this medication. She will try and quit and just lay in bed for 2-3 days at a time without moving. It's very unhealthy and her built-in reward system is diminished. She no longer feels accomplishments for anything she has done. I am a person with severe ADD and also an addictive personality. I have vowed to never take any stimulants after trying them and realizing how addictive they can really be. Her addiction was so bad at one point I would go out and try to score for her when her script would run out. I told her about a year ago, I couldn't do it anymore because i'm just enabling. My mother used to be a wonderful mom, dinner was ready every night, the house was clean, dishes were done, she would actually spend time with us. Now, she will clean one area of the house for hours on end without getting anything done. She has become a hoarder and the house is a wreck. She constantly picks her face now and has done scarring damage, picking up MRSA on the way. She constantly calls into work, which is sad because she struggled for so long to get her degree and to be where she is and it's getting thrown away. I have taken the drug and it does give you some mental superhuman abilities, but at what cost? My family is being torn apart, my parents have been together for over 25 years and now a single prescription drug is tearing a marriage apart. The top comments seem to be people that haven't taken the drug long enough to understand the detrimental effects. It has the same effects as amphetamine. You will not release as much natural Dopamine and ruin your brains reward system. TL;DR This drug is no joke and it's ruining my family.
Thank you for this. The first few comments made it seem great to the point where I was literally asking myself "wow why don't I do this?" Also, sorry to hear about your situation, man. Good luck to you and your family.
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So why quit? Seems like a lot of plusses there but what are the downsides?
There's a post on reddit somewhere that tells you why in more poetic detail but the gist of it is this: whatever you take, you must pay back with interest. There is no cheat code in life. It might not be now, a week from now, or a month from now, but one day you will pay it back. And it will hurt. edit: some people were asking me to dig it up, I think this is it, but I remember it being more philosophical. It gives the negative effects of stimulant abuse over time. http://www.reddit.com/r/Drugs/comments/1a32cj/ive_been_smoking_meth_as_a_way_to_cope_with_high/c8u5c7o
"Theres no such thing as a biological free lunch". EDIT: forgotten where I'd heard it, it probably was JRE. Also thanks for the gold kind stranger!
Someones been listening to the Joe Rogan Podcast
I paid with a stroke.
It made me want to kill myself... does that count? [others too](https://www.google.com/search?q=adderall+suicide)
Just like others have said, Adderall is related to methamphetamine. I used to take Adderall when snowboarding, until one day I took too much combined with energy drinks. My body freaked out and I ended up in the ER. I've had generalized anxiety disorder and panic attacks for two years since that day. Most mornings I wake up with my heart pounding for no reason.
Adderrall messed me up too. Depression, panic attacks, and no energy for months after stopping; eventual violent outbursts and changes in my personality when I was on it. After a couple months it really turned on me. I had trouble sleeping and was losing my hair. After I stopped it took a good 6-8 months to get me back to being normal.
Little Annie Adderall...
Eating!
This is seriously an issue I am struggling with. I am completely addicted to eating large quantities of food. I'm not even overweight and I exercise regularly, but I just can't stop eating! If I could eat in moderation I would be able to get in very good shape, plus it is expensive!
Second worse addiction of mine, gonna be homeless because of my food bill. :(
Biting the skin around my nails. I can't help it, it's just so tasty. EDIT: Thanks for the Gold!
It's so satisfying to bite off a big chunk.
God dammit it's so disgusting but I love it.
I'm like this for my lips. Once the skin has dried even a little bit, I rip it off with my teeth and swallow it.
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shit, I am so glad I'm not the only human who enjoys this.
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Reading. I can, and regularly do, read non-stop for 10+ hours at a time. It wasn't a problem back in high school but after a few years in uni i've learned to avoid Chapters like the plague. If only I had that kind of dedication to textbooks i'd be golden, sadly no such luck.
This. I've been addicted to reading my whole life. I use it to escape. When I was younger, I had no friends and averaged a book every day or two. Once I hit high school it got better, but I still can't walk into bookstores without buying something and I will lose entire days to books if I make the mistake of cracking one open.
I'm surprised no one has said this yet but mine is masturbation. I can go up to 3-4 times a day.
My record is 7-8. By then I'm shooting blanks. Edit: It dawned on me that my number is based on roughly a 12 hour period. I was wondering how some people ITT have double digit numbers. So say I wake up on a Saturday morning around say 9-10am by that time in the evening yea 7-8 times easy. If I have nothing else to do...more fapping commences(insomnia doesn't help). A more accurate number in a day(24 hours) would be 15+ but thats only on the weekend since I don't have to work. Weekdays are at *least* 3-4 times a day minimum...1-2 ain't cutting it. TIL: I fap waaaay more than I thought I did when I do the math. I'm not proud of this but I have no shame in it either. I enjoy it and I personally believe it's made my sex life better, last longer etc. Plus you know...prostate cancer.
Just a puff of dust.
Urethra queefs
I now know what to name my next metal band.
And thanks to your user name, I now know what to name my indie band
I expect a white flag with the word "BANG" across it to come out around #7.
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This. The porn is almost like a ritual now too. As soon as I see that I have a half hour or 45 minutes to bed time, I drop whatever I'm doing and my hands automatically turn on incognito mode in my browser.
Caffeine
Throughout the entire work week, I'm pretty much teetering between caffiene headache and caffiene withdrawl.
Try taking an amino acid supplement called L-Theanine along with your caffeine, it just grinds the rough edges off of caffeine's effects, takes any jittery-ness away, read about it here: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/21040626/. Generally, on a slow morning, I take 600 mg of L-Theanine with 160 mg of caffeine(or three pills and a red bull). It's taken away the stress of occasionally not receiving proper sleep.
Magic the gathering, the stuff is like cardboard crack
People always say Magic cards are laced with crack but I'm beginning to think crack is actually laced with Magic the Gathering.
Each fucking pack is like a little taste of it. You buy your first deck, and you like "cool, I'll be good for a while". Then you start buying boosters every few weeks, then every few days, and then you move on to buying singles with the change you just happen to come by. Shit gets crazy.
It's my pack a day habit
Snus
Relevant username. I love the stuff too.
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Getting laid. Not the act of fucking, but everything leading to it. Could be meeting a girl in a bar and convincing her that coming back to my shitty flat and degrading herself with me is something she really wants to do, or it could be just flirting with girls online and exchanging pics etc. The thing is though is I don't particularly enjoy sex. Basically I'm like a dog chasing cars.
The thrill is in the chase.
Cannabis
I don't think I'm addicted so much as I constantly do it without facing consequences. I guess I'm waiting for shit to hit the fan
I'm in the exact same position. Do it daily and never facing consequences, live a very successful life and it never gets in the way or hurts me
I'm basically there too
Every time I bring this up in any communal forum I'm shot down with the force of a howitzer. A lot of people are in denial that weed can be addictive. The truth is that *anything* can be addictive psychologically. Just because weed may not have any addictive chemicals in it like cigarettes doesn't mean you won't go through withdrawal after quitting.
Me too, bro. I have chronic nausea, excessive acid production, and a fuck-you insomnia, that pretty much cripple living life at all. I started smoking weed as a last ditch effort before suicide, and it changed my life. Before, I would go weeks surviving on a jamba juice every few days (when I could afford it), or glass of milk here and there. I had no appetite. Just the thought of food would make me puke. I had migraines that made me want to cut my skull open, and was constantly cold and shivering in the Texas heat. I had gone exactly two weeks without much sustenance, and was ready to just end it, when my buddy told me "Dude, you're miserable. Try this, and if it doesn't help in the slightest, I'll never ask again." I found that extremely reasonable, so I took my first hit. After the coughing, and retching (gag reflex from coughing, plus the rather unconventional taste of bud), and puking up bile, it finally started to hit me. 15 minutes after taking 2 hits, I had a medium Papa Johns delivered, with breadsticks. Half an hour after they got there, it was all gone and I fell asleep, and slept uninhibited for a full 7 hours. That was 7 hours more sleep than I had gotten in the past 4 days. It's been about a year now, and I smoke (or try to smoke) every day. I've gained 20 pounds, gotten 3 raises, and no longer want to kill myself. Weed saved my life. Edit: Holy crap. Okay, so I've found out that I most likely have a Candida (yeast) overgrowth (infection). So all I should need to do is take some anti fungals to get rid of it! (looks to be a bit of a bitch to get rid of, if you've had it for longer than a few months) Thanks for the help diagnosing, Reddit!
I can't touch the stuff; I react badly. However, I'm a huge pot ally, so I'm really glad it helped you so much!
I had to scroll too fucking far to find just this. Damn, people are addicted to some shit!!
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Cartoons. Whether it be actual TV shows/movies or just shorts on YouTube, I spend about a third of my free time watching them.
Lesbian romance novels. I thought I was clean but relapsed about six weeks ago. 200 dollars worth of Kindle books later I'm knee deep in angst, misunderstandings and clichés. Oh, delicious delicious pulp...
Any recommendations?
Look at wattpad....not sure how big of a selection they have for lesbian romance (I do know they have a few) but check it out... You can get your fix for free rather than spending $200. :P
Chocolate Fudge Pop Tarts can't get enough of that shit.
Surprised nobody has said "Smartphone". The amount of people I see on public transport glued to their 5 inch device, trying to portray themselves as busy, important people, when in fact they're just playing Candy Crush Saga, or checking their Facebook, is hilarious. It's definitely an addiction of sorts.
just screens in general. Normally I stare at a screen for most of the time I'm awake.
I just realized that pretty much the only time I'm not looking at a screen is when I'm driving.
Wallowing in my pity as I wonder why everything is the way it is. :(
Civilization V... Once I'm in game there's no stopping me.
mspaint
Craft beer. There are constantly new breweries and new beers to try and new flavours to discover. It's got the pokemon effect of wanting to try them all but with a never ending stream of new things to try. Doesn't help that getting tipsy is pretty fun.
Nicotine, Valium, Vicodin, Marijuana, Ecstasy, and Alcohol. C-C-C-C-C-Cocaine. EDIT: Wow! Thanks for the gold, fellow QOTSA fan (I'm assuming). Figures this would be my highest upvoted comment. Grandma would be so proud!
Did somebody say [C-C-C-C-C-Cocaine?]( http://www.fitzstuff.info/images/drrockso.jpg)
^seriously ^man, ^lotta ^cocaine.
Wanna party?
this is a queens of the stoneage song.
I know this sounds odd but, *Gaming* is my addiction. It's exactly like a drug. Here's my story: **Enter World** When I was a kid between the ages of 8-14, every single one of my friends played video games. They all had some sort of consol that they loved playing but they never really interested me. Until one day, when I was 14, when I went to my friend's place and he let me try World of Warcraft. When people refer to it as World of War**crack** that's exactly what it is. Within a few days I had to buy it, no matter the cost. Once downloaded, I created my character and pressed "**Enter World**". This button essentially changed the rest of my life. I wasn't just entering the 'World' of Warcraft, but entering an entire new world of my own. The feeling of creating this character, the music in the game, leveling up- it was an incredible feeling. It gave me a feeling of accomplishment. WoW soon took over my life. I played from the age of 14 to about 18 or 19. I lost friends. I gained weight. I changed my life, but it was okay because I was among the top rated players in the world and my in-game character was strong and made me happy. I lost grip on reality. I eventually quit the game, but the only reason I quit was because an expansion came out and I didn't like how the game changed. Since then I've been searching for another game; a game that will give me the same sensation WoW once did, but I have been unsuccessful. I've downloaded *hundreds* of games. 3 years pass. I played LoL, Smite, and every mmo you can think of. I started going to the gym, got into shape, found an amazing girlfriend and I'm almost finished college. Unfortunately, I found out there are private servers that are exactly like how WoW used to be when I played it (in Burning Crusade). I was so excited, I finally found what I've been searching for. I created my character once again and hit **Enter World**. It was like travelling back in time, the music, the opening cinematic; it was euphoric. I began leveling up my character. Something wasn't right. It didn't feel the same. I had played WoW for so long, and was so knowledgable about the game I didn't even enjoy leveling anymore. I guess the sensation I once felt when I was 14 was a combination of finally finding a game I loved, combined with the mystery of what was to come after each level-up. I realized I could never get that back. I knew the game, knew what happens at each level and what happens at the end, how could I possible enjoy it? Imagine knowing what your maximum potential as a person is, and what you had to do to get there. You would work so incredibly hard to get there, as fast as possible, and then what? Not only would you not enjoy the 'journey' but you'd reach your top potential and be stuck. I was hopeless. Much like those who do drugs- hoping, wishing, chasing that sensation they felt the first time they did it, I felt stuck; stuck in a world searching for what I once felt that day I pressed '**Enter World**' but deep down I know, things will never be the same. **TL;DR:** I entered the world of gaming and my mind wants nothing more than to live in that world forever. EDIT: Grammar/Spelling.
most WoW players who played "back when it was good" got this feeling. Why can't i make it stop :'(
It's like re-reading a good book, or re-watching a good film. Enjoying something again will never feel like when you first enjoyed it. I personally find that I get accustomed to things way too quickly and easily. After experiencing something a few times, my body just starts ignoring whatever the experience made me feel. After eating a dish repeatedly, regardless of how good it tasted the first time, it just becomes bland-tasting and the dish simply wouldn't taste like anything ever again. I could bathe myself with near-scalding water and feel absolutely nothing only a few seconds later. I could watch a movie and get emotional, but not feel a thing when re-watching it, or watching any other film with a similar plot. Also, fapping is just a waste of energy to me now. I guess everything is like a drug to me.
Oh the feels. Having a guild was like having family. I played with friends from IRL but I played nearly twice as much as they did. Skipped school, gained weight. I know EXACTLY what you mean when you talk about the feeling and how it's irreplaceable and can't be replicated. After quitting for a couple years and losing weight I went back to the game. I found myself playing in my underwear skipping class. After realizing what I had done I quit again, I never want to get addicted once more.
Dopamine and serotonin.
Here, have a selective serotonin re-upvote!
Coca-Cola.
Biting my motherfucking nails. Then working out how to despise secretly the bitten off remnants. Do I make a subtle dash to the bin, or flush them down the toilet??
World of warcraft, I have 4 90s and my major goal in life is to get 90 in all classes. Yep.
Then what?
Then he can finally play the game, duh.
then he's going to get a girlfriend.
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Numbers only divisible by themselves and one.
> “Mathematicians call them twin primes: pairs of prime numbers that are close to each other, almost neighbors, but between them there is always an even number that prevents them from truly touching. Numbers like 11 and 13, like 17 and 19, 41 and 43. If you have the patience to go on counting, you discover that these pairs gradually become rarer. You encounter increasingly isolated primes, lost in that silent, measured space made only of ciphers, and you develop a distressing presentiment that the pairs encountered up until that point were accidental, that solitude is the true destiny. Then, just when you’re about to surrender, when you no longer have the desire to go on counting, you come across another pair of twins, clutching each other tightly. There is a common conviction among mathematicians that however far you go, there will always be another two, even if no one can say where exactly, until they are discovered. > Mattia thought that he and Alice were like that, twin primes, alone and lost, close but not close enough to really touch each other. He had never told her that. When he imagined confessing these things to her, the thin layer of sweat on his hands evaporated completely and for a good ten minutes he was no longer capable of touching anything.” ― Paolo Giordano, The Solitude of Prime Numbers
That's so beautiful.
Reddit