As a long-time compulsive Internet user, I am aware of the emotional and psychological risks of this new technology. For now, the ability to find information faster (with certain caveats) means I actually spend less time on the internet than before.
But chatgpt for example showers the user with compliments. I'm sure this encourages user engagement, but it is eerily similar to the "love bombing" of cults from the 70s and 80s. I don't know how to reconcile the long-term risks with the huge short-term gains in productivity.
Are there any technologies or apps that are worse than others, particularly for people with obsessive/compulsive tendencies?
A long time ago I added "be brief" to ChatGPT's custom instructions and I seem to get less blather. Haven't tried it without for a while, though.
Same, I've also had good results with "Don't ramble".
That’s better than “debrief”, I guess.
It (and the rest of the blather in responses) is one of the two biggest factors keeping me from using ChatGPT more. But I assume they have numbers showing that people for some reason want it.
I've had custom instructions for ChatGPT for a couple years now to respond in as short and straightforward a way as possible (including quite a few more guidelines, like no exclamation points etc.). I recommend setting up something like that, it helps a lot to avoid blathering and sycophancy.
I version my custom instructions for ChatGPT in a private repo, it's currently over 200 words long.
At first, I was concerned for how it'd affect performance by polluting the context window with such a long prefix. Then when one of the model's ChatGPT system prompts was leaked, and I saw it was huge by comparison. So I figured it's probably okay.
Highly encourage people to take advantage of this feature. Ask it to not do the things that annoy you about its "personality" or writing style.
It's funny how pendulum-like life situations can be. On one extreme of the pendulum pulled to its highest point on one side is abuse and constant berating. Once you let the pendulum go, it has to swing all the way to the highest point on the other side with the 70s/80s cult of everything is love, man. At some point, the pendulum eventually settles back to a point of equilibrium in the middle. Unless someone manipulates it again, which seems to always happen.
The machine flattery is a big turn off for me.
No, my simple and obvious statement was not "a deep and insightful point". No I am not "in the top 1% of people who can recognize this".
The other thing that drives me crazy is the constant positive re-framing with bold letters. "You aren't lazy, you are just *re-calibrating*! A wise move on your part!".
I don't find it ego stroking at all. It's obviously fake and patently stupid and that verbiage just mucks up the conversation.
The sycophancy is noticeably worse with 4o, the default model when you are not subscribed. My theory is that is on purpose to lure emotionally vulnerable users into paid subscriptions.
If you have a subscription, I genuinely haven't found any reason to use 4o since o4-mini-high became available.
(Every time I write out these model names I realize, again, how absurdly confusing they must be to casual users..)
Confusing indeed. Didn’t anyone in their marketing point out that maybe “4o” and “o4” are way too similar?
The flattery is also a turn off for me, yet I am not ignorant to the fact that even insincere flattery can be pleasurable. The voice model is even better at flattery - it actually sounds sincere!
Are the words different in the voice model? The text flattery I see can't sound sincere when spoke.
I feel exactly the same, but I believe this is not universal. I see a similarity with the repulsion I feel when someone is being nice to me because of a job (or more generally, when someone address me "as a customer"). Not everyone react the same, and many people, despite of being perfectly aware that the attention they get is purely calculated, are totally fine with that. It's just fare game to them. I would not be surprised if the same applied to IA obsequiosity: "yes of course it's flattery, would you prefer to be insulted?" would probably be their answer to that dilemna.
There is something between flattery and insults. Just stick to the facts.
Some of the o4 variants do stick to the facts. They are quite annoying sometimes, because they resist correction. It's almost as if admitting wrong requires empathy.
> in the top 1% of people who can recognize this
I've never had an AI respond to me with this kind of phrasing. General psychophancy, sure, but nothing that obnoxious. I haven't used ChatGPT much in the last year though, does it speak that way?
> psychophancy
Sycophancy. I don't usually correct misspellings, but this one is pretty unique.
But I like it as GP used it. It's like a portmanteau of psychotic sycophancy
Chatgpt was doing this for a few weeks, several months ago, until they fixed it.
If you see this as purely LLM-related, read again:
> AI addiction is the compulsive and harmful use of AI-powered applications. It can involve AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, video or image generation apps, algorithm-driven social media platforms, AI-powered gaming, AI companions, AI roleplaying, AI-generated pornography, or any other
The youth is not ready. Infinite pictures of whatever you want to see. Downloaded models have _no_ restrictions.
Make of that what you want.
I'm hoping at some point people will just get turned off by the internet and value human interaction more with no phones.
However, I recently when camping with some friends...nearing 40s....and the other couple kept getting sucked into watching tiktok....one showed me a "touching" video that was AI garbage.
As a counter-point, I was able to write lyrics with chatgpt (lots of back-and forth to get the right "feel"), then put those words to music with suno. It took two hours of my time, and my wife definitely had an emotional response to what was produced. There was definitely a human aspect to what the AI produced; it was personal and personalized, and it brought us closer. So AI can strip us of our personhood (especially through false intimacies), but used wisely it can also be a tool to reach parts of our humanity that otherwise might never be touched.
Oof. The self-deception around this is insane.
> The youth is not ready.
Nobody is ready, and ever will be. Like it or not, we thrive on the scarcity of information. But our instinct to collect it has overpowered that scarcity in a big way, and that will lead to a high degree of neurosis no matter who you are.
Yeah I think we often point to the youth because we often implicitly value them more than others, but I've seen seniors more addicted to Tiktok than any kid I've met. In some ways kids have more adaptive power than older generations when confronted with new technology.
''' Do I ever use AI applications to quickly check something and then discover that hours have passed? Do I ever swear off or set limits around my use of AI, and then break my commitments? Do I have binges on AI applications that last all day or late into the night? Do I turn to AI whenever I have a free moment? Does my use of AI lead me to neglect my personal hygiene, nutritional needs, or physical health? Do I feel isolated, emotionally absent, distracted, or anxious when I’m not using my AI applications? Does my use of AI contribute to conflict or avoidance in personal relationships? Have my digital behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career? Do I hide or lie about the amount of time I spend using AI or the kinds of AI-generated content I consume? Do I feel guilt or shame around my use of AI? '''
Hmm i answered almost all of them with Yes, but i'm also a developer using AI and developing AI apps. So not sure what to make out of it.
I would say all questions except maybe the first one, are about impact on your personal life: "late into the night", "whenever I have a free moment", "personal hygiene", "personal relationships", etc. So if you answer yes to them, I don't think you can use work as excuse; it is affecting your life outside work.
> Do I ever use AI applications to quickly check something and then discover that hours have passed?
This used to happen on Wikipedia all the time back in the day. It was called going down a rabbit hole. Actually a cool phenomenon IMO.
Used to love going down wikipedia rabbit holes.
With AI usage I actually find I spend less time on the internet or going down rabbit holes than I used to without it.
I wonder how many lies you've internalized. "The models keep getting better" but whenever I ask them questions I know the answers to I get back answers that make me suspicious of the answers I get to questions I don't know the answer to.
I still spend a lot of time reading primary sources, and AI is still frequently wrong, which makes it useless for learning unless you confirm everything with a primary source because you can't know if it's confabulating when you are learning. If you have to double check everything, it's useless, EXCEPT for vague questions, to help you generate keywords for use in traditional search.
"Don't get high on your own supply" comes to mind :P
Tbf, is getting high on someone else's supply a better option?
I think you know exactly what to make of it.
We label everything as an addiction if we do it too much and enjoy it.
But what if the thing we do is good?
Addicted to eating vegetables, addicted to healthy living, etc.
If a developer is using AI for example and they spend a lot of time doing it, and they're feeling fulfilled and happy, then that's fine.
And that's what it has to come down to: does it have a net benefit or net detriment?
But look at the questions:
"Does my use of AI lead me to neglect my personal hygiene, nutritional needs, or physical health?"
(compare with: "Does my eating of vegetables lead me to neglect my personal hygiene, nutritional needs, or physical health?")
"Have my digital behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career?"
(compare with: "Have my healthy living behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career?")
All questions are about negative impact on your life. To me it doesn't matter whether you label it "addiction". If you answer yes to most of these questions, whatever the subject, it is severely affecting your life.
> Have my healthy living behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career?
I have met people who are so deep into healthy living that it becomes unhealthy, and their hyper focus on what is healthy - often, these days, fed by TikTok influencers, but when I was younger, fed just as much by books - leads to obsessing over what they can eat to the point of malnourishment.
So the answer to this question very much can be "yes". Humans can get addicted to all kinds of things. Healthy eating is only a few steps away from an eating disorder, in the same way that going out for drinks with friends is only a few steps away from alcoholism. Most people will never take those few steps, but for those who do, it can become a serious problem.
Addiction is addiction. You see this a lot in endurance sports (triathlon etc.): people can get addicted to training and racing, and despite these being "healthy" things in general, their families, relationships, and lives outside of the sport are damaged, often irreversible.
Doing anything "too much" is bad for you.
Personally, I think the addiction aspect of AI is not worse than what's already out there, it only gets attention right now because it's new.
Yeah it kind of matters how you define AI. Tiktok and other short-forms videos are arguably AI addiction.
I tend to agree, with current products, at least the ones I've used. But companies developing AI products would do their investors as disservice if they did not tune their models to maximize engagement. We are in the honeymoon phase of some of these models, but there lie dark times ahead.
Interesting article! My take is that AI Addiction is a subset of Digital Addiction. A few weeks ago, I was with extended family and everyone but me was staring ‘lovingly’ at their phones. I tend towards Digital Addiction myself, and I fight back by not carrying my phone when I run errands and try to spend at least a little time every day in nature.
The Apple Watch is a good compromise: some ability to get calls and text messages, but not a very ‘addictive device.’
Probably why i end up always returning the watch.
Please avoid starting your comments with flattering statements, respond directly. Thanks.
Does that prompt work? Also, if you don't want the flattering and over polite statements, why be polite back to the machine with thanks. Why does it need your thanks? It is a computer. It was made to do what you told it to do. It has no emotions. It does not want nor need a little gold star from a helicopter parent type of user. Just give it instructions.
> ITAA is a Twelve-Step fellowship of individuals who support each other in recovering from internet and technology addiction. This includes social media addiction, phone addiction, video addiction, television addiction, gaming addiction, news addiction, pornography addiction, dating apps, online research, online shopping, or any other digital activity that becomes compulsive and problematic.
Seems to be about general IT/computing addiction (too), which seems even better than a group focusing only on "AI Addiction". Seems like a very active effort (online calendar has multiple events per day), across multiple countries and languages.
I haven't participated (or even seen this before) myself, but as far as I can tell, it's basically a fork of AA and their methodology, but I've also not participated in AA so maybe they're different in some major way? Otherwise it seems like a good approach, take something that is somewhat working, make it more specific and hopefully people into that specific thing can get the help they need.
I've taken part in 12 Step programmes and even occasionally attended AA meetings. After browsing the site for a while I can confirm it seems pretty faithful to the AA methodology, except for the addition of the "top/middle/bottom line" classification of behaviours - because in AA sobriety is universally defined as "abstaining from all alcohol" whereas this fellowship is not proposing that members should never use the internet, so the members need to define for themselves which specific patterns of behaviour qualify as "relapse" and which are risky.
This addition is not new or unique to ITAA, as I understand it was pioneered as the "three circles" model by Sex Addicts Anonymous and has been adopted by other recovery fellowships where the definition of clean/sober is not so binary or universal.
The addiction label is a useful trick. Before criticising it, consider how labelling behaviours as "addiction" and constructing the 12-step infrastructure and community around them, makes it possible for people who suffer to find support and start improving their lives. Most of them will eventually come to understand that it wasn't "addiction" but a symptom of suffering from complex mental health problems. But without that gateway they might have suffered even more, for longer, and potentially with disastrous results.
Gabor Maté - a physician who worked with people with serious substance abuse disorders for many years - talks about how addiction is usually a symptom of some other underlying suffering; often trauma. The addictive behaviours act as a way to avoid confronting that pain.
That may apply to things like serious substance abuse, but what about things like smartphone, social media addiction? I seriously doubt everyone glued to their phone has a trauma. Some things are simply engineered to be addictive.
I guess one could argue that modern life in industrialized world is deeply understimulating, and the phones just provide an escape from that, but that's just living conditions, not a trauma.
I was addicted for years (to the flow state, to which by the way I've never seen or heard a report of anyone else's being addicted).
I also wasted too much time, thousands of hours, reading and writing on the newsgroups and on the web.
There are similarities between these 2 things. For example, both reduce the amount of motivation and drive available in a life. But they feel very different, and in my experience, avoiding the former is extremely important whereas avoiding the latter is merely one more important thing in a life full of important considerations.
In an ideal world, there would be a word or short phrase for the second thing so that "addiction" could be reserved for the first thing. "Insufficient vigilance against superstimuli" is the shortest phrase I can think of right now. (I'm sad that I cannot use the word "vices" without provoking an immediate negative reaction: "vices" is shorter than "superstimuli".)
Whoa. I've never heard anyone put the flow state in this category.
On the one hand, it sounds preposterous - a bit like saying you're addicted to consciousness, or meditation. On the other, I can relate to how my enjoyment and pursuit of it strains my relationships with others.
It's a fascinating suggestion. I'd like to hear more about why you feel that way.
Most things that are highly pleasurable or that provide relief can become the focus of an addiction.
I had chronically-high cortisol. The flow state provided a profound but temporary relief from the cortisol. There are better responses to high cortisol.
DHEA (which is available over-the-counter in the US) is a better response because it allows me to dispense with the hour or 2 of intense concentration necessary to get into the flow state (freeing up the time and the mental energy for more productive uses).
Starting a friendship with a person who gets me and doesn't trigger my trauma triggers was a better response because the cortisol-lowering effect of such a friendship has lasted for years whereas the effect of being in the flow state ends as soon as the flow state ends.
Are you rich at least?
Not at all. But I'm no longer addicted to anything, which is more important.
You are not alone! I used programming flow state as pain management for a decade.
Its one of those "paid for your mental disorder" situations that are a lot more common than people realize.
> I seriously doubt everyone glued to their phone has a trauma.
The “trauma explains everything” meme has become more of a way to get people to accept therapy than a real explanation.
It transforms the problem from a personal failing (I can’t control my addiction) to a situation where the person is a victim of something external (Trauma inflicted on me has forced me to become addicted). People find it easier to accept treatment when they think they’re a victim of something external.
Gabor Mate (the trauma influencer mentioned in the comment above) uses trauma as the basis of his therapy, so he finds a “trauma” for everyone. If he can’t find something with the patient, he believes being born is their trauma, because the childbirth process is painful. Everyone was born, so he has a fallback trauma to assign to everyone.
Okay, but the therapy industry is also a total grift. So I guess the trick is to reinforce your external locus of control by blaming your trauma, so that you go to a pseudoscience practitioner who will fix the problems that were created for you? That way they've got a lifelong customer!
That sounds like basic woo-science.
I think it's a bit of both. The worse ones mental health, the harder it is to stop addictions from forming.
Yes, I think "trauma" is a little too specific and gives the wrong associations. The point is, there was something about our situation that made it appealing to escape into the "addiction" for a moment. And depending on what the "addiction" is, it could more or less self-reinforcing.
You're right. For substance additions the cause could be something like a toxic relationship or job stress.
As soon as I put my smartphone away I realise I'm confronted with challenging feelings: the fear of engaging with the people around me, worrying what they're thinking, looking stupid if I'm not doing anything, or just plain boredom. So it's "avoiding psychological difficulty" that is the fundamental factor.
People who suffer from mental health difficulties tend to be psychologically inflexible. And it is that inflexibility, which can manifest in so many different ways, that is preventing them from growing and healing.
For some it can be consuming the same psychoactive substance over and over again. For others it may be compulsion to repeat a limited set of rituals and behaviours.
The first thing they need help with is accepting that they will not be able to exercise control over everything. There are many ways to get there, but for many, labelling this pattern as "addiction" and getting help and support in this context, is easier than other options.
I think the reality is that no matter how manipulative these devices are, they really aren’t comparable to addictions in the sense of drug or alcohol addiction. They are essentially just learned behaviors which are reinforced constantly by peers and society.
I don't think it's the glued-to-the-phone that indicates trauma/addiction - it's when they have the option not to be and still choose to stay. E.g. if I'm spending time with my friends, I have no interest in my phone. When I'm on my own, it's easy to spend hours on it.
I’ve heard this take a lot in my life. And I definitely struggle with substance abuse addiction. However I’ve looked inside myself many times to find said trauma or suffering and I just don’t really see anything of note. Perhaps the only way to discover this is through some very expensive therapy sessions, or maybe vaping some 5-Meo-DMT.
Trauma only appearing in super-deep going therapy sessions can often be False Memory Syndrome, which is an entirely different can of worms and extremely problematic. If you search really really deeply, you're going to find it, wether it exists or not.
Generally: While suppressed memory of trauma exists, the vast majority of people are aware of trauma and there is no evidence suggesting otherwise. And there is clear evidence that lots of mentally well people get addicted as well, so just claiming "it's always some underlying condition" is probably not a great idea. It can, often even, be, sure. But that doesn't make it mandatory and especially doesn't allow the "I struggle with addiction, so there _must_ have been a problem beforehand" conclusion.
So honestly, I'd just not search any deeper to not risk inducing any false memories.
The idea of repressed memories is very popular with untrained general public, but it’s not a substantiated research topic.
Like the comment above said, many “repressed memories” are actually false memories or, in rare cases, false stories that get constructed and encouraged by a misleading therapist who is convinced that some repressed memory exists and pushes too hard to get the patient to “remember” something. When the only way to satisfy the other party is to come up with a story, many people will eventually come up with a story and even believe it themselves.
The same thing happens with false confessions.
> Trauma only appearing in super-deep going therapy sessions can often be False Memory Syndrome, which is an entirely different can of worms and extremely problematic
It is problematic, but not in the way that you think. While memories can be suggestively altered or created by questioning, the evidence for doing so for traumatic childhood sexual abuse is anecdotal and those anecdotes were pretty heavily cherry picked by the clearly biased FMSF, which was run as a support and advocacy group for parents accused of abuse.
That said, my understanding is that in general, dwelling on traumatizing experiences isn't beneficial to recovery. There are times they may need to be confronted and processed, but generally if it isn't causing a problem, don't go digging it up and spending a lot of time thinking about it unnecessarily.
> However I’ve looked inside myself many times to find said trauma or suffering and I just don’t really see anything of note.
Don't worry about it. The trauma diagnosis has been ludicrously poor at treating addiction.
From what I've read, it performs worse than placebos, random chance, etc.
For treatment of substance abuse, therapy is literally at the bottom of the performance chart, below things like hypnotism, alternative medicines and plain old prayer.
Exactly. This reeks of snake oil.
I'm addicted to sugar. I have some trauma now? What trauma? My life has been relatively smooth sailing. You're right, this is just a way of creating the "need" for "therapy".
Man, you're being disingenuous as can be. Not all addiction is the same, and some are much easier to break than others. However, sugar addiction can lead to some very traumatic experiences at the dentist.
The therapy industrial complex at it again /s
You joke, but trauma influencers are a big deal. That’s how they get their followers and their podcast appearances.
Alex Jones, is that you? That's a very poignant insight from you that I'm surprised you're willing to admit. /s
It's all because of Big Help.
For me it’s not necessarily trauma or suffering, not beyond the normal expected human “suffering” of doing boring, mundane tasks or feeling sad/frustrated/insecure, but rather feeling these generally uncomfortable feelings and having a habit of detaching from them and developing a low tolerance for handling it in general.
I generally engage more in my own flavor of addictions (caffeine, social media, workaholism) when I am more overwhelmed, understanding that I do this and why… was helpful.
I’ve tried counselling multiple times and I never got that eye opening clarity of what’s wrong with me. Maybe one has to do psychotherapy for that, which is unavailable to most.
IME, there's usually not a moment of absolute clarity where I know what's wrong with me. Instead it's a lot of wandering, digging, and, very occasionally, finding little nuggets of info and wondering, "what the hell do I do with this knowledge?" Gradually, what happens is the process of doing this helps you understand yourself, which, over time, can change perceptions and actions.
The clarity usually comes in retrospect for me.
Gabor Maté is popular, but he’s an example of an influencer who has one tool (trauma treatment) and applies it to everything. His approach is extremely reductive. Many people get addicted to drugs simply because they like taking the drugs and have poor self control, not because they’re avoiding trauma.
It’s another example of something that isn’t really correct for everyone but can be useful to get people to go to a therapist and get treatment.
He also believes that he can remember full memories from when he was 3 months old. There is no evidence that this is possible.
Do you have a reference for that?
Trauma is far too vague and far too appealing to be as useful as people believe. Everyone thinks they have some sort of trauma, and that everything can be boiled down to trauma. Some people are more inclined to addiction and this is not necessarily related to trauma.
Yes, but trauma is a useful framework to help an individual recover from addiction. While some individuals will struggle more than others, everyone has a path to avoiding addiction, and one of the best ways to do this is to build an environment for people that compensates for trauma. It’s much easier to confront things that were done to you, than to mistakes that you yourself committed.
But what if the addiction isn't rooted in trauma? My mom smoked a few cigs when she was pregnant, which probably caused some mild ADHD symptoms, so when high school rolled around and I began experimenting with drugs to quell those symptoms, the ADHD medication felt best. If that medication felt good, I wondered what the others would feel like, so it started me down the path of addictive behavior during my formative years.
Where is the trauma in that scenario? The brain damage from the cigs? I can hardly get over that 'trauma' since I've never known a world without it. The trauma of repeatedly getting addicted to things? I DON'T hold that against myself, I just like how they feel. Where is the trauma in that scenario?
It’s actually not very helpful, because it entirely externalizes the problem.
It can get people started on therapy because it uses therapy speak and therefore feels like therapy is an obvious solution. However, it also makes the person into a victim of external trauma while minimizing their own role in the choices that led to the addiction.
It’s really appealing for people who need something external to blame, but it’s less helpful in getting at the root of behavioral issues that aren’t really external.
For the narrow slice of patients who actually have severe trauma response issues, it can be helpful. For everyone else it’s becoming a big distraction.
This tends to be a really frustrating conversation because it's different for different people. Some find the trauma framework as useful in recovering, other find it useful because it allows them to blame other people and sink deeper into addiction. Others yet find that it doesn't really apply to them.
I don't think it's a good framework, because trauma is about the past. Whereas for addiction or other avoidant or self-destructive behavior, the tigers are often still around.
Most people probably do have some sort of trauma, whether or not it causes ongoing problems is a different story
I distinctly remember english speakers being less annoying before this guy filled everyone full of relating absolutely everything to trauma. It just seems like a massively reductionist point of view in a world of people more complex than that
My initial.reactiom to his book on ADHD was similar, I couldn't believe that it could all be reduced to trauma.
I've really come around to that theory though and I think he's very wise.
We need to take a close look at the way we are living our lives under capitalism, the decisions we're forced to.make, and the way we treat our children.
As someone with an incredibly "addictive personality", I've always seen it much more simply. I become addicted to things when there's nothing else I'd rather be doing that is incompatible with the addictive behavior. Like if I'm sitting on the couch scrolling on my phone, if there was something else I'd rather do (not something that I'd "ought to" rather be doing but don't actually want to) then I would be doing that instead.
When I sit and observe my thoughts and feelings I find a complex mix of desires. Some that are immediate/basic/short-term vs some that are conceptual/nuanced/long-term. The eventual course of action is a delicate compromise. A lot of the time I'd rather just veg out than - say - go for a run or do some writing. But I might do the latter anyway because I recognise that it'll usually help me feel much better in 2 hours time.
I guess the upshot is that "I'd rather be doing..." is not actually very simple at all IMO.
It’s important to understand that all 12 step programs(all of which are based on AA) approach addiction as a spiritual disease, and the program offers a spiritual solution. 12 step programs also teach that addiction is a progressive disease, and there is no permanent ‘fix’, but rather a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of one’s spiritual condition. Here is a concise summarization of the 12 step design for living: ‘reverse selfishness, get out and help others’. According to 12 step programs, if you stop working the program, addiction will come back in full force.
Its also important to understand the most of the successes sang by 12 step evangalists are coming from the <5% it works on.
Im not against it but it simply is not the only cure for addiction. In fact its provenly a very bad program for the 95% that cant hang.
Much better CBT and medical interventions out there and millions of people are told every year to ignore them because of 12 step evangalist.
If the west had the answer to addiction in the form of 12 step, we probably wouldnt have the highest rates of addiction in the world and is probably a sign of societal trauma that no amount of meetings is going to help.
The only thing that worked for me is 'trying to do better than I did the previous day' with the understanding it's not a linear curve, but a spiky graph that trends upwards.
That's awesome, just please don't tell other people that its the only way. Which has been my experience with 12 step people.
Its the most unscientific method of treating addiction we have, one of the least effective, yet the government literally uses it as its ONLY tool (in a lot towns) to fight addiction in their communities, partly because propagandists of the 12 step methods have ingrained the idea that its the only thing that works into society (USA), when in fact, it is the opposite. My guess is, they like or don't care about recidivism also.
I think the decentralized community-based nature of 12 steps programs is cool though, and we do need more stuff like that.
AA specifically suggests to only come when all other measures have failed, and if you can do it without AA ‘our hats are off to you’ quote from their ‘big book’ which is their main piece of literature. I truly believe and have seen first hand hundreds of thousands of dollars spent on rehab and counseling and medications and therapy and only AA ever brought those individuals into true long term recovery. I don’t like the AA is forced by folks who haven’t already tried, or had the privilege to try ‘all other measures’.
We could also stop gerrymandering the use/abuse line and just make a call as a society: we use drugs (most people most places most of history) or we don't fuck with drugs (most of the Islamic world, certain subcultures).
America is a Puritan origin society with a temperance faction that has been everything from writing the Constitution to largely ignored, standards for alcohol, cannabis, scripts fluctuate like hemlines: a typical adulthood will see multiple incompatible regimes of acceptable use vs unacceptable abuse.
None of that is anything to do with compassionate provision of high-quality medical care to vulnerable people (a strict ethical and practical good). Compassionate provision of high quality support is both expensive and leaves no room for insider/outsider lizard brain shit, i.e. not a very American thing to do in the 21st century.
Our society needs to get its shit together on this, not further weaponize it.
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when people "lie" about psychological terms because they feel it enables a greater good.
I see the point you're making. But we as a society do this a lot, and it hasn't always historically been good for the people who are actually affected by the disorders.
Historically, this has been done by therapists who aren't well connected to the research world. They think they find a framework that works for their patients and promote it. Sometimes it becomes a fad despite not being backed by evidence. It's not always clear what the consequences are, but a common consequence is that many people miss out on actually figuring out what's going on with them and getting evidence-based treatment.
I'm not saying that there is no AI addiction. I'll leave that to the professionals. But I do want to gently push back on the idea that we should raise something to the level of pathology because it seems useful.
And as the parent of kids, there are a lot of habits that become compulsions and where you experience withdrawal if you stop. Reading is one in my family. Exercise is something that's rewarding and you feel bad if you stop. But exercise addiction is a very specific disorder. Just some stuff to keep in mind.
I will ask AI to come up with the 12-step plan....
As an aside—my therapist encouraged me to go pretty deep into twelve step literature. The core of it is dealing with fears and resentments. So many damaging behaviors start as coping mechanisms for dealing with these issues.
I was pretty skeptical initially, but it turns out I also have a ton of fear and resentment that I never thought existed. My stubbornness strikes again! But if you're able to deal with and process your fears and resentments and then switch bad coping mechanisms to good ones—that will improve your life substantially.
A lot of it has been surprisingly eye-opening to me.
What about reading about Stoicism? I have a couple of close family members who are deep into recovery.
The more they talk about it, the more it just sounds like repacked Stoicism.
The rebranded modern stoicism, otherwise known as broicism? Or actual stoicism? Influencers normally push the broicism version which focuses on stifling emotions to be more “successful” and focused on self interest. Not unlike what the west did to buddhism and mindfulness.
Very few people have the internal discipline for Stoicism. Sure its great and wise and reasonable, but its basically life on hard mode.
To be a stoic you have to be minimalist, have intense will power, and high tolerance for pain. How many people do you know that fall into that criteria?
I'm not a fan of stoicism, because I see it often used as a way to bypass actual emotional processing. Sometimes we need to actually fully feel and process the "negative" emotions, otherwise they get stuck in our system.
Stoicism only talks about logic and ignores the rest, that's basically the default for male engineers. It results in decisions that make logical sense but no emotional sense and a complete detachment to yourself as a human. Removing all emotions is not happiness, it's just the absence of pain.
Do you have specific books to recommend?
The AA big book, as it is known. It's actually a small, but very thick book. It's the basis for all twelve step programs.
The main exercises related to my comment are writing out resentments as they occur—who/what wronged you, why that hurt and what part we may have played. Same with fears—what they are, how do they affect us.
Honestly, a lot of it is so simple, but it really forces you to think about these things.
i always recommend Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception [Twerski M.D., Abraham J] on the topic. A short and insightful read that goes one level deeper than looking at any particular substance. He focuses on the contradictory thinking that addicts use to avoid seeing reality.
[flagged]
Friends who go to therapy don't seem to finish their sessions relaxed, it's usually more of a shaken up state, whereas that ego pampering style of interaction you describe would surely not have that effect?
My therapist explicitly brings me back to the here and now at the end of sessions with the intention of relaxing me.
There's probably some truth that some psychologists are running a racket but thats true in all professions.
If your friends are hashing out stressful things leaving that way can be normal, but progress figuring out their life was made.
If it's constantly exhausting them, there's certainly others that would cater to their needs of a more relaxed environment. I changed my last therapist for this one for that reason - no hard feelings.
[flagged]
What about reframing therapy as counseling?
I'm not there to be healed, I'm there to talk to someone about my problems, my insecurities, the shit I can't (or don't want to) talk to anyone else.
In my current routine with work, two kids and a challenging marriage I don't have the opportunity to get an hour a week of talk with a friend. I have nowhere to vent. So what do I do?
I do therapy. I think of the therapist as some sort of counselor. I exercise my ideas there, I experiment with stuff I would not talk about anywhere else.
It seems you expressed the problem very accurately, your insecurities could be very generalized in the population near you. You just need someone to hear you, the therapist don't have to do much. I think you should not invent new problems. Discovering that your problems are common can give you a hint that it is not you but the world that needs to be repaired, meanwhile I simply suggest you to do what is best in any circumstance. This is an expensive advice with no price.
Is there perhaps a reason that you wouldn't talk about it anywhere else? Is it because it's deluded and antisocial? Consider that some thoughts should just remain internal.
The main trick of therapy is to get you to show the monster that lurks inside of you to someone else. Everyone has bad impulses, but by giving them voice the therapist can convince you there's something wrong with you, and that needs to be explored. And now that you've revealed how monstrous you are to the therapist, you may as well keep seeing him, right? After all, nobody else needs to know about this...
Please don't confuse evidence-based therapy like CBT with evidently badly working acts of pseudo-psychology such as psychoanalysis (Which, interestingly enough, isn't even much of a thing in most of the world, just the US seems to have continously kept it as accepted form of therapy despite all evidence to the contrary).
CBT in particular is about learning to cope and fixing problem-inducing behaviours and thought patterns. Not about talking about the deepest pieces of problems, since that doesn't aid healing. Often, it does quite the opposite.
Fair enough. I have no experience with CBT, but what I've heard sounds reasonable. I still have a baseline suspicion of people purporting to be able to make you a better person for a fee, though.
I should also say, I'm not including group therapy in this. I have no direct experience, but I don't think it has the same perverse incentives, and it seems to be quite effective.
Thanks for being willing to consider my standpoint.
Personally, I think this might more be an issue of the US health system or the lack thereof, which generally messes up incentives badly.
Here in germany, finances aren't even a thing that comes to mind at all in regards to therapy. Though we do have the problem that there aren't enough therapists available. They are having tons of patients no matter how long they keep an individual, since there is so much more demand. As a result, they have to triage a lot and preferrably keep those who actually need their help.
As far as I can tell, it's all about suffering. If something makes you or the people around you suffer and create serious issues for you, you need to learn to get yourself out of that. That's what therapists do.
You seem to have quite a few opinions others want left internal, but you dont seem to consider that here. Some of the things you imply are quite monstrous. I go to therapy because I dealt with years of physical abuse and starvation. The monster lurked in others with bad impulses, not me.
If you genuinely had some unique experience that has left you with real trauma/PTSD, then therapy is for you. Advice is directional, however, and 99% of people going to therapy are not in that situation.
I think this might be the saddest take I’ve ever seen on hacker news.
Therapy is just the modern, secular alternative to religion.
This is terrible advice and it’s irresponsible of you to even assert it. There’s also a bit of irony here given the narcissism required to say “I don’t need ever outside help. Not only that, it will always make things worse than doing it myself.”
There's nothing wrong with seeking outside help, I just don't suggest you involve monetary incentive. Friends and family will not let you trauma dump on them for an hour every week for three years, because it's exhausting. They will tell you shut up and learn eventually, and if you don't they will leave you. Then you'll either learn or you won't.
The therapist will happily collect lots and lots of money from you without fixing anything.
My guess is you had a bad experience (or multiple) when seeking therapy and you’ve elected to write off the entire exercise as useless as a result. Or maybe it’s ideological underpinnings - I’ve seen a lot of that with some of my more conservative associates who think it’s about taking charge of your life and simply making the necessary changes - driving your skepticism. I can’t say but I can tell you that this is terrible advice and nobody should listen to it.
Your advice is dangerous.
There is no such thing as AI addiction. It is a mislabelling, at best. A manufactured event, at worst.
Looks useful. Hope it works out.
The issue with discussion of 12-Step programs, is that folks that are members, are explicitly enjoined from getting involved with these types of public discussions, so almost everything that you hear and read, doesn't reflect what the actual deal is.
I must be an addict, I read 12 step as 12 factor
I'm surprised this is already a thing. With AI being still so basic and limited.
But I guess with the virtual girlfriends and all this was bound to happen.
Something social media proved long before AI is that a significant portion of the population would consume low-nutrition socialization like Twitter all day if it lets the avoid having face to face conversations.
AI lets them remove even having to deal with humans over the Internet. It's a bit like the lengths we go to avoid moving our bodies, despite how much of life's joys require physical exertion.
I saw that back in the day with icq. Two roommates in my dorm preferred to use text chat rather than engage in conversation.
> I'm surprised this is already a thing.
That was my thought as well. I think it's specific to (part of) America.
AI addiction is not an intelligent decision. But changing this addiction for another one could be worst, so the solution seems to be finding why you are prone to addictions and then solving the core problem.
Somehow this text looks suspiciously clean, as if it was generated ;)
On a tangent, does anyone feel bad about their HN addiction?
Addiction? I keep hearing "get the most of AI or become irrelevant", so I guess this should be tackled too.
I can't wait to be irrelevant so AI will leave me alone.
If not using AI means becoming irrelevant, I am happy to be irrelevant. Because that's a value of the modern technological system, and it seems to me that any trait negative for that system is actually a positive these days.
I'm trying to find out of this website is satire or not? Is this real?
That was my suspicion at first as well, but I hope it's real because I am certain there are people who need it.
Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales. It's obvious that the modern society requires addiction counseling and rehabilitation facilities, what we don't need is even more outlets for cults of all color to pray on people in dire situations.
Just the very 12 Steps themselves are enough to show you that[0]:
> We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
> Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
> Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him
> Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
> Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
> Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
> Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
> Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
> Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
> Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
> Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
> Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
> Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales.
One of my old friends was a staunch atheist since middle school. He joined AA after some struggles.
He said it was no problem at all. They told him his “higher power” could be anything he chose, such as nature or the universe. The prayer part was just meditation. Nobody tried to push religion on anyone.
I don’t know if his experience was typical or not, but he didn’t think it was a problem at all.
I haven’t kept up with him for a while but last we talked he was still doing well, many years later.
> I don’t know if his experience was typical or not, but he didn’t think it was a problem at all.
His experience is typical. I know have someone very close to me in AA+12-step. There is no pressure to have your higher power named "God". It could be anything; the point is to have a power higher than the one over you (the addiction).
> There is no pressure to have your higher power named "God". It could be anything; the point is to have a power higher than the one over you (the addiction).
The rejection of any "higher power" is precisely what being an atheist is for a lot of us. Accepting that we are just the result of random thermodynamic processes in a cold and uncaring universe that provides no evidence that there is any form of "higher power" than uncaring entropy could very well be the definition of modern atheism.
> Accepting that we are just the result of random thermodynamic processes in a cold and uncaring universe that provides no evidence that there is any form of "higher power" than uncaring entropy could very well be the definition of modern atheism.
and then your further rejection of the response:
> The person I am talking about chose their child's well-being and safety as their "higher power".
i understand you see the universe as uncaring, but there is care right in front of you. i hope the sunshine breaks through and you find it, too.
Equating "care" with "higher power" is a strange hoop to jump through. And if we ask why you want to do that, the answer is religion.
Some of us would like to move on from these primitive superstitions. We can have care, empathy, and "sunshine" without it being contaminated by nonsense.
There are perfectly rational things that qualify as higher powers even if one doesn’t have religious belief. Those vast physical laws, the trajectory of the universe, the grand story of humanity, our quests for understanding.
Rejecting religion doesn’t mean rejecting wonder, and doesn’t make it too much harder to find something more significant than myself.
You will find AA chapters with religious overtones, and you will find many more that take those steps to set perspective about things bigger than you and beyond your complete understanding.
> The rejection of any "higher power" is precisely what being an atheist is for a lot of us.
The person I am talking about chose their child's well-being and safety as their "higher power".
The higher power has nothing at all to do with religion unless you want it to.
I looked it up, there's not a dictionary I can find that would define "higher power" as your friend did. Words have meaning, you know?
Sources:
https://www.britannica.com/dictionary/higher-power https://www.dictionary.com/browse/higher-power https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/higher%20power
And it's beside the point anyways because again, look at the 12 Steps, quoted directly from their website, as a canonical source [0]:
> 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
> 6. Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
> 7. Humbly asked Him [God] to remove our shortcomings.
> 11. Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God as we understood Him, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
If your argument is that to stop alcohol addiction you need to stop using alcohol and most of the 12 Step Program is irrelevant nonsense, than we are in agreement. But they don't talk about "higher power" they literally talk about God (And they obviously don't mean Xenu here) in the majority of their steps. [0]https://www.aa.org/the-twelve-steps
> I looked it up, there's not a dictionary I can find that would define "higher power" as your friend did. Words have meaning, you know?
Meaning has context. If you're searching dictionaries for multi-word phrases that are specific to a certain context, you're not going to find the right answer.
You are conveniently ignoring the "God" part or the "prayer" part or the "spiritual awakening" part.
Why?
There's lot's of places around the world that do evidence based addiction counseling and unsurprisingly none of them require you to believe in any made up entities and spiritual nonsense.
You are a very small part of an unimaginably large universe; so you are not the ultimate power, ergo there is a higher power than you. Some people choose to call that higher power "God", but there's no reason to get hung up on that for yourself; it's easy to translate into your own terms without raising an objection.
"Prayer" has no universally accepted procedure, and can just be your own calm reflective contemplation. "Spiritual awakening" can be that moment when you as an atheist accept your non-central role in the universe, when you come to peace with the fact that there is a higher power than yourself, and you aren't the central character in its unfolding.
There are only "made up entities" when you demand that everything be understood in literally minded cartoonish definitions, rather than a more nuanced understanding of the world around us, and our place in it.
> You are a very small part of an unimaginably large universe; so you are not the ultimate power, ergo there is a higher power than you.
This is incoherent. It assumes some sort of hierarchy of "power" - what does that even mean? Is the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy a higher power because it has more mass/energy than I do?
> there's no reason to get hung up on that for yourself; it's easy to translate into your own terms without raising an objection.
The reason is critical thought and a dislike of incoherent nonsense.
The supermassive black hole is also just a small part of an unimaginably large universe. But if you got too close to it, you would indeed find it is a higher power than yourself, lol.
But the higher power in the AA context is a deep recognition that we are subordinate to the laws of nature. Which is indeed a kind of higher power; we are subordinate to the laws of nature, and can not exert our own will to overcome them. It is that recognition and submission to reality that can engender a humility and peace essential to recovery from addiction.
It only represents incoherent nonsense to someone who is very literally minded and can not integrate relatively simple concepts into their own rigid mental framework.
> Is the supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy a higher power because it has more mass/energy than I do?
Probably yes, because you would be powerless against it.
>I looked it up, there's not a dictionary I can find that would define "higher power" as your friend did. Words have meaning, you know?
Absolute premium pedantry, I rate it 10/10, 5/7 with rice
If you don't believe words having any meaning matter, why discuss in the first place?
There is no need to look it up. The site addresses this specific question.
https://internetaddictsanonymous.org/for-atheists-and-agnost...
Literally a different side.
Sounds like those thermodynamics processes are your higher power then? You're overthinking it.
Overthinking is the higher power.
> The rejection of any "higher power" is precisely what being an atheist is for a lot of us. Accepting that we are just the result of random thermodynamic processes in a cold and uncaring universe
I’m somewhere between atheist and agnostic. My mental model is a bit different. While I don’t believe there is a god or some “divine entity”, I do see “the stuff of primordial existence” as some kind of “higher power” to the extent that I’m a product of it, and its laws — discovered and yet to be discovered — govern my existence. Not some anthropomorphic entity.
Put another way, those thermodynamic processes and whatever factors of existence that enable/govern them are the “higher power”, and I don’t think that is incompatible with atheism.
> between atheist and agnostic
Sounds like you're both. They're complimentary labels. It's also possible to be an agnostic theist.
Then your higher power is logic and reason, and the question:
"Why are you doing this?" Give it the old 5-whys.
Your thermodynamic gubbins know how to enjoy the entropy while they're temporarily in this configuration without booze too.
Or just die in pain when your liver gives in, all good options.
> uncaring entropy
So then if you were to consider a higher power in that case it could be the set of all permutations of stochastic possibilities in the universe, or something like that. The system itself is powerful, and is "higher" than the individual.
Isn't atheism a rather big umbrella term? There's things all the way from secular humanism to agnostic atheism to new atheism to nihilism. There's many atheists who find purpose in a higher calling, such as taking care of the poor, or wonderment of the universe. Would those not be considered a "higher power"?
EDIT: one more thought: you can even think of a higher power as emergent behavior of individual parts.
the rejection of a higher power is insane - how do you rationalize anything coming into being? How do you rationalize there being a world at all in the first place?
A higher power isn't a man in the sky building the world in 7 days. A higher power is admitting that you do not know reality, that we are barely more intelligent than a monkey, and that the universe is much vaster and more mystical than what can be defined in a physics textbook.
> the rejection of a higher power is insane - how do you rationalize anything coming into being? How do you rationalize there being a world at all in the first place?
How do you rationalize the high power coming to being? How do you rationalize there being a higher power at all in the first place?
> how do you rationalize anything coming into being?
Why does it need to be rationalized at all? I don't need a rationalization for existing - beings arise, exist, change, and then they cease. The world's current existence isn't something that requires external justification, it just simply is.
I guess you could say the higher power to me would just be the continuous process that leads to existence and ceasing to exist - but to me it has no meaning, and no "power" other than simply being the way things are as I experience them.
It seems strange that one of the steps is admitting you have no control over your addiction. I feel like the first step should be deciding that you do. But that kind of self assuredness doesn't really align well with whole surrendering to Jeebus thing.
> It seems strange that one of the steps is admitting you have no control over your addiction. I feel like the first step should be deciding that you do.
If you do, you wouldn't be addicted, now would you?
I dunno, but I'm pretty sure Jesus is not controlling my addiction, either.
There are people who quit addictions under their own power. So as the parent pointed out, it seems strange to exclude that option from the start.
in AA they call those people "dry drunks" instead of "recovering alcoholics".
if you're in treatment or AA for alcoholism - just as a single example - you're recovering. If you're merely "not drinking" then you're not recovering, you're just "not drinking."
i don't even understand why this is an issue, there are a lot of people where a 12 step program helps them recover; there are in-patient and outpatient care facilities that also can facilitate recovery.
and yes, some small segment of the population can be a "dry drunk" for the rest of their lives, but thinking you can overcome addiction by yourself is one of the reasons that addiction is prevalent.
>thinking you can overcome addiction by yourself is one of the reasons that addiction is prevalent.
This is complete BS, the majority of addicts overcome addiction without any specific treatment.
https://psmag.com/social-justice/people-addiction-simply-gro...
https://aeon.co/essays/most-drug-users-stop-without-help-so-...
Really, everyone who overcomes addiction does it themselves. Friends (imaginary or not) and therapists can motivate but the actual work needs to be done by the person themselves.
12 step programs disagree, to grow a flower you water it and give it sunlight and good soil(the 12 steps version of this: reversing selfishness and getting out and helping others) but you don’t actually grow the plant, the DNA, photosynthesis, electromagnetism, soil chemistry…even quantum forces(AKA a power greater than yourself) are ultimately the core of what grows the plant. Therefor when one gets sober and becomes generally content and happy in life when previously they were suicidal, AA suggests that the core of the work was done by a higher power, even though the individual was indeed responsible for watering their flower.
there’s a kinda interesting contradiction to your logic.
someone who can stop under their own willpower doesn’t need help to stop. they don’t need AA, right…?
so why should AA etc change things to cater for people who don’t need their help?
Admitting you have no control is how you stop having “just 1 drink”… because you don’t have control.
You are taking the “no control” thing too literally.
Right, so this all makes sense so long as you don't take it literally, don't think about it too much, and don't pay attention to the words and the things they say. It should be understood more as dadaist sound poetry.
I love this comment, thank you.
/thread
I agree.
Seems like the first step should be understanding that you CAN have control over it, even if you don't currently; and that you have the agency and strength to do that without appeal to some higher power.
The admitting you have no control sounds fatalistic to me and robs you of agency/responsibility. Then you're reliant on some externality or higher power instead of finding it within yourself.
Even those who go for the higher power are ultimately doing it themselves, they've just kidded themselves something else is involved, and if that helps you find that you can have some control over it, then great, I guess?
I think this is arguing semantics at this point but a charitable interpretation could be that one does not have control over the addiction and must therefore abstain from taking a particular substance, the abstinence being within the sphere of control of the individual.
It's the difference between someone who can just drink a beer once in a while and an alcoholic that must abstain completly.
I have the same fight in my life... As an atheist I push back pretty hard against any intrusion of religion in my life and depend on myself for pretty much everything, and am also the provider for others. If I'd sit on my behind and pray for good things instead of taking actions, nothing would get done, so I skip the time consuming part of dedicating a part of my life, time, brain power to all these things and instead focus on tangible things anchored in reality.
With how my brain works, I find it insulting to be told to pray the weakness away figure of speech..
That all being said, our brains, as wonderfully capable and complex as they are, are also pretty stupid and simple in other ways. Willpower and inner strength are a trained skills and mental states combined with chemical states. If the goal is to free yourself from addiction, the means of getting there don't really matter as long as they work and don't cause direct harm to yourself or others. The placebo effect is real, so if one gets strength from believing that there's a "god" or "higher power" giving them a high 5 and believes in them, then go for it. Whether I believe thats a delusion or not is much less important than the person breaking their addiction. Its a whole other fight of its own. I do think there should be as much available support for people that isn't based on feeding you religion if thats not your thing, regardless of the fact that one can attend AA+12step and not be religious and get value out of it too.
I feel like having faith in a higher power is almost like a part of your brain never grew up, in the sense that you're allowing yourself to believe in magic, like a kid. When you were a kid, that made you excited, dreamy, which puts you in a certain state. If you believe and that allows you to put yourself in a mental state where you think the end result will work out positively, whether thats because you felt empowered, you found strength to persevere, or whether you think god's got his quantum digits up your ** and is going to partially puppet you, thus relieving you of some of the pressure, strain, and allows you to get to the same end point, then good for you...
If this was a discussion about whether religions and faith in higher powers should be the guiding philosophies for humans going forward, my answer would be capital F no.. But if we're talking about current crisis response/management and addiction support, you can't rewire everyone's brains before you can start helping them out..
Part of taking control is first admitting that you are not currently in control. Believing you are in control leads to the classic "I can stop anytime I want to" or "just one drink won't hurt". Recognizing that you can't control it is how you recognize that yes, that one drink will hurt.
“just one more”
“after this one i definitely need to stop”
“i can handle another”
“i’m fine, i can go for a bit longer”
“i can stop after this one”
“the next one will make me feel better”
^ the illusion/delusion of being in control. even when all evidence points to the opposite conclusion — that one more i had yesterday, and all the previous days, was never the last one.
when your in this shit it’s basically impossible to think your way out of it because most thoughts become “a drink will solve this” or some such. that right there is the core problem. the thinking process has become completely twisted and warped into “more is the solution”.
the powerlessness is over the compulsion, obsession and delusions in our own minds around <insert X here>.
-
i appreciate HN is often a more technical / scientific / rational / whatever audience who can maybe sometimes value their own thinking as paramount (coding etc. takes a lot of thinking after all). that’s not a bad thing. it just means it’ll be quite an understandably large leap for some folks to understand what it’s like at the bottom of a bottle.
-
edit - i’m not into the whole jeebus thing FYI
Yep that was a deal-breaker for me going to AA. I eventually just quit drinking on my own after a few years, but AA being the only option for addiction support groups in many places is a bummer.
Yup. The steps are definitely rooted in Christianity, but you can exercise them however you want. As you might imagine, most people suffering with addiction are not that religious (if at all) and the same thing goes in those groups.
the vast majority of the law systems surrounding the global west are rooted in Christianity. you need to pause for a moment and stop equating religion with evil.
You read these comments incorrectly
A lot of people don't see religion as a self replicating cultural program that benefits its biological host. It provides answers for the unanswerable. It is like L_2 norm based regularization in machine learning. You need an answer and there are many solutions, so you have to have a criteria for picking one.
Turns out in the last few centuries a lot of unanswerable questions have found answers rooted in scientific progress and the new answers conflict with the previous answers, which by their very function as placeholders could not have been correct.
Only HN would compare religion to L2 regularization! That said, your perspective "self replicating cultural program that benefits its biological host" is one that I think I've seen expressed before by the philosopher/cogscientist Josha Bach, and it seemed to fit well. It's not just a cultural program, it's effectively is a "mind virus/symbiont" (depending on who you ask), in that it also modifies behavior and psychology.
What’s interesting to me about all this is it sounds like people are defending appropriating religious practices but de-mystifying them. Even though belief in god is explicitly mentioned in the 12 steps, people claim to have had success by just ignoring the god parts -
But at that point, why is The Twelve Steps as an institution still pedaling belief in the supernatural, when it’s ostensibly just as effective with the Christian mythology removed?
Why not make the atheist version the baseline, and allow members to mix in religion if they find it to be useful - as opposed to making religious belief the default, and allowing users to substitute other things for religion if they find that to be useful?
I think the thing that most atheists are objecting to, with ‘religion as default’ situations like this, is the way religious belief is treated as the norm. I remember growing up and going to church, hearing about how “everyone had a god-shaped hole in their heart” - and each person would inevitably find a way to fill that hole, but nothing would ever quite fit, because that hole was god-shaped and could only properly be filled by god.
So when you run up against this kind of language in a system that’s supposed to be helping people free themselves from addiction, it’s off-putting to run into language that coerces them into making themselves beholden to magical thinking and supernatural beliefs, in gods and higher powers. “It can be whatever you want” feels like a cop out - it’s merely a softened stance on what I described above - “everyone has a god-shaped hole in their heart, and it’s okay if you fill that hole with love for your daughter or pride in your work.”
It’s still a turn-off for people like me, for better or for worse - maybe it’s a filter, maybe I’m not the kind of person who would need or would do well in that kind of program.
Yes exactly that "religion by default" is what bothers me too. Good way of putting it. It's like seeing atheists as a bit disabled, and the praying as something necessary in life that atheists can do with a workaround.
All that groveling, the idea of putting your life in the hands of this entity, humbly improving my connection with them etc. There's no way I will do that.
I'm more than atheist, I'm anti-religious. I don't care what other people do, if it makes them happy that's cool for them, but I don't want any of that stuff in my life.
> It's like seeing atheists as a bit disabled
They are seen as disabled, i.e., lacking the moral core. An atheist, the thinking goes, can't be a moral person. The US political (if not cultural) mainstream has been anti-secular for quite some time. Remember George Bush Sr? He had a memorable exchange with a reporter during his presidential campaign, where he made his views clear[1]. He was only mildly exceptional in being very direct, not in the way of thinking.
[1] https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/George_H.W._Bush_and_t...
> This is one nation under God.
This is especially egregious because "under god" was only added to the pledge of allegiance in 1954, when H.W. was 30 years old.
No but it's kinda passive aggressive isn't it? It's built on the belief that having religion is the standard.
Also, many of these staps make no sense.
I don't believe in higher powers and I don't want to humbly beg them to remove my character flaws. If I want those removed I have to do it myself.
Some of the steps make some sense but there's way too much senseless groveling in there.
The AA program is at least as informed by anarchy as it is by Christianity. Interesting history there.
This is ENORMOUSLY variable based on the specific group you wind up with.
It can be extremely christian, it can be not substantially christian.
It is very much based on religious hokum. While technically you can choose anything as your “higher power” your options are either embrace Jesus (which people in the program tend to be very happy about) or essentially cosplay embracing Jesus, just with a one-word substitution.
That’s why it has been recognized as religious or “based on religious principles“ in court several times. For example, in the court case Inouye vs Kemna it was ruled that NA/AA “has such substantial religious components that governmentally compelled participation in it violated the Establishment Clause“
>It's obvious that the modern society requires addiction counseling and rehabilitation facilities is it? or is that your opinion? Why don't we look at actual evidence:
"There is high quality evidence that manualized AA/TSF interventions are more effective than other established treatments, such as CBT, for increasing abstinence. Non-manualized AA/TSF may perform as well as these other established treatments. AA/TSF interventions, both manualized and non-manualized, may be at least as effective as other treatments for other alcohol-related outcomes. AA/TSF probably produces substantial healthcare cost savings among people with alcohol use disorder."[0]
That's a great resource because it's a meta study collecting data from other studies, thank you i was searching for something like that! Unfortunately your quote is misleading as it leaves out some serious issues with the evidence and studies used. I recommend reading the "Main results" parts in your link in full.
But, it works, right? 12-step type programs are also widely-available and low-cost.
Practicing religion yields a lot of net-positive effects, particularly mental anguish and internal turmoil. Otherwise, people wouldn't practice them. With moderate practice, you can easily achieve a state of 100% internal peace.
> Practicing religion yields a lot of net-positive effects, particularly mental anguish and internal turmoil. Otherwise, people wouldn't practice them.
I don’t think that follows. Plenty of people practice religion because they’re terrified of the consequences of not doing it, because they’re have been indoctrinated from a young age to believe that to turn away from God is to be tortured in hell for all eternity. (Or in the case of some religions, you can be straight-up executed for leaving.)
> Practicing religion yields a lot of net-positive effects, particularly mental anguish and internal turmoil.
True, being religious would cause me a lot of anguish and turmoil. Just the idea that I'm not in control of my life. I don't consider that a positive of any kind. That scene from the Matrix really speaks to me and always has :)
I think for people that like it it could have positive effects. Just like team sports would have negative effects for me but positive ones for others (I'm totally not a "team player")
12-step programs have a 5-10% success rate.
You can also just meditate or engage in other practices that have nothing to do with religion. Religion is unnecessary.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44531234.
I'm as rational atheist as they come, and was nevertheless helped, for a while, by a 12-step program. You don't need to believe anything other than that not everything in life is under your control.
I would recommend Refuge Recovery over AA any day. It's still buddhist inspired but it doesn't ask you to believe in a deity and basically just sticks to principles of buddhism like "be nice, be compassionate, to both yourself and others"
> to principles of buddhism like "be nice, be compassionate, to both yourself and others"
Principles shared with most religions and most non-religious people are hardly a mrk of Buddhism.
Buddhism is not a theistic religion, but it still requires a lot of religious beliefs (reincarnation, enlightenment, nirvana) and a lot of concepts such as detachment.
There is a BIG difference between "not monotheistic" and "not religious".
It depends a lot on the variant of Buddhism.
There are plenty of us who do not believe in those things. In particular, we see rebirth as a way of framing what Rawls called the Veil of Ignorance
Self compassion is a major part of any kind of recovery really, life is really dark when you hate yourself for being who you are.
- [deleted]
>pray on people
bravo
I'm gonna leave that in.
What do alcoholics do for recovery outside the US?
I'm in the former USSR; this thing is very popular among alcoholics I know personally or have heard of from friends and relatives:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кодирование_от_алкоголизма
The article in Russian is much more thorough than the English one, run it through Google Translate or something.
There are various ways it's practiced in my area, all of them can be summarized as follows: a medical professional performs some procedure (sometimes just hypnosis, but it can get more physical), which either "cures" your alcoholism, or convinces you that you're going to die horribly if you have even a drop of alcohol. The process depends on who is doing it.
It's basically just placebo and is pretty useless in practice (most alcoholics I know haven't stopped drinking for more than a couple of months), which doesn't prevent it from being widely used.
That seems insanely dangerous. As far as I know, once you are physically addicted to alcohol, you can't even go cold turkey without risk of literally dying.
Proper (most) of the facilities which do this require people to stop drinking for at least few days before procedure, and some offer paid service isolating patient for a few days under supervision, and then do a block. In cases when patient is already delirious from intoxication these facilities can force one to go cold turkey, but at the same time put patient on the IV with some supplements and issue anti-psychotics (by doctors of course).
So in general the system is well equipped to not allow patients die from abstaining.
If you get DTs after drinking for months, you will get proper medical treatment as in any other country. The "coding" is usually performed after you have been sober for some time and "stabilized", so to say.
This is why ex-USSR countries have so many programmers - we did a lot of coding :)
As Alcoholics Anonymous operates in 180 countries quite often people outside the US do go there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous#Internati...
In civilized countries? Get support from Doctors, licensed psychologist and addiction counselors. In less civilized countries? Die.
> In civilized countries? Get support from Doctors, licensed psychologist and addiction counselors
All of these are available and common in the US.
12-step programs and AA are available in many countries outside of the US.
There wouldn't be any evidence that these groups, specifically AA have embedded themselves into the government and law system of the united states in particular and have used their influence to force non-religious people to join their little cult meetings, right? It's all optional of course!
Anyway, here's a list of court cases/news articles where it wasn't:
https://www.courthousenews.com/atheist-fights-court-ordered-...
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/08/alcoholics-ano...
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/1995/jul/15/aa-probatio...
https://aaagnostica.org/2014/10/17/atheist-punished-for-reje...
I'm sure you can find 20 more easily. Glad i'm not american.
> specifically AA have embedded themselves into the government and law system of the united states in particular
You could literally say the same about any special interest group in any country.
> Glad i'm not american.
Me too, but the difference is that you don't see me thinking I know anything about UK politics or special interest groups.
I'd even wager that you've never even set foot in a meeting in an attempt to alleviate your naivety.
> I'd even wager that you've never even set foot in a meeting in an attempt to alleviate your naivety.
I don't need to join a meeting to criticize what the organization setting up that meetings is widely publicizing as a treatment for a medical condition (addiction) when what they publicize is obvious religious nonsense.
I also don't join spirit healing conventions for cancer patients or homeopathic sales events to criticize those.
you really got an axe to grind, huh?
You seem to have a chip on your shoulder about Christianity, and that's your right. But in the course of that you may overlook that faith-based treatment of problems is a powerful tool that serves some people well. Consider the culture of people taking a break from alcohol over Lent for several weeks each year.
Get proper treatment by professionals.
Die by drinking and driving, mainly.
I mean listen. If humans have to abstract a belief into something to get them through tough times then so be it.
It does not help anyone to pretend that the universe is some sort of pure logic and reasoning machine and that a human can operate that way, because we are governed by and a slave to our emotions.
Religion and God exist for a reason, and that reason is that the world is inconceivably complicated and if you dont create a mental and emotional reasoning system that helps see beyond the complexity then you are going to have a really tough time.
Now, churches and cults and all that preying on vulnerable people is a whole other subject. But God and religion is a powerful tool humans have turned to for millennia.
“Religious nonsense” is such an engineer minded thing to say.
I’m with you for sure, but the truth is systems like religion, art, design, etc all serve a functional purpose to trick the mind, calm the mind, etc.
I would invite you to look into how modern cults started. Jonestown, Scientology, Children of God, Haven's Gate, Branch Davidians, Mormonism, etc.
It's really, really fascinating and there's tons of resources out there how they get started, how they function and why. Once you understand the functional purpose of them, you'll never look at other religions the same.
Plenty of non-engineering types are also atheists with a dismissive attitude. Putting art and religion in the same bucket like they belong to the same thought process is a ... very engineer minded thing to say.
>Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales.
This is both wrong and deeply harmful. As others in this thread have pointed out, you can choose any higher power you want, whether it's a tree or the inevitable increase in universal entropy. Don't throw away the whole thing because you might have to talk to a Christian.
Free, accessible addiction help is hard to come by so it's terrible to discourage people based on misinformation and culture war bullshit.
You are mistaken if you think AA has anything to do with religion. Methinks you're just parroting what you've read without actually verifying anything. Amplifying this nonsense just causes people in need to reconsider getting help.
> You are mistaken if you think AA has anything to do with religion
Reread the 12 Steps.
Go to a meeting. There is no pushing god unless the group is explicitly religious.
I have been. There is plenty of God and God adjacent talk. This constitutes pushing.
Its Christianity with the serial numbers filed off. Pass.
My sobriety has its roots in not drinking. Not some higher power.
folks doing their best with what they've got, a huge portion of the population this language speaks to, your contempt is not helpful to them
I asked Chatgpt whether this was a joke. And asked Claude and Le chat for confirmation.
Results?
[flagged]
Have you been to AA? I have. The implementation differs in different groups and different locations. The one I went to was queer-oriented, and while they adhered to the "higher power" language, they made it clear that this could really be anything, including the fellowship of AA.
I've been to a number of AA meetings trying to find less religious groups. While some have members who aren't religious, the 12 steps are a religious doctrine. The entire method and approach are derived from the Oxford Group/Moral ReArmament, and the structure is a cultish church structure. I've yet to see an AA meetings without the 12 Steps, and those steps are religiously oriented - you are submitting to some form of god (a higher power may not be God, but it's a god), and repenting for your sins.
AA can work for some people but studies of AA's efficacy show it's effectively a placebo effect. I'd recommend against it, personally, since the organization itself is really odious and the suicide rate of AA members is far higher than people in any other treatment form, and there's been a lot of cases of sexual abuse covered up and other typical cult behaviors.
Where are you? I went to a queer oriented AA group in the Northeast, which may have been why it felt considerably more secular than what you're describing.
Wishing you the best.
>While some have members who aren't religious, the 12 steps are a religious doctrine.
I found groups that weren't religious, but if you go to an AA meeting you are participating in religious rites masquerading as addiction therapy. The placebo effect makes it work for some small number who keep going to meetings, and attributes magical healing powers to those groups and their rites, as cults do. The folks I met there were mostly really nice, and they were usually trying to downplay the fact that the 12 steps and all the structures around it are an embodiment of Protestantism.
Like Higher Powers, the Disease Model of AA is also religious doctrine, and particularly pernicious. The system (regardless of the group or their intents) pushes learned helplessness to keep people in the cult where they all see themselves as inherently deficient in a way that forms a group identity, attributing participation in the group and it's religious rites of confession (sponsor) and penance (the resentments business) to spiritual healing.
Personally I find it a repugnant organization that preys on the vulnerable to get them to join a cult rather than deal with their problems.
Anyway, I'm doing great thanks. I don't have a disease, and things are going well, I use some drugs in moderation when they're fun, and don't attribute liking the sensation with any kind of narrative about that being a spiritual disease. Liking drugs is just part of being a normal healthy human, moderation is the key.
All the best to you as well, good luck out there.
- [deleted]
Did it help? Going to AA I mean
Yes.
The power of fellowship is incredible. I immediately had people following up after my first meeting, and reaching out to offer e.g. sponsorship – this is as much for them as it is for you, I learned.
I eventually stopped going because I found that with a year and a half break I was able to shake my addiction and put it in its place. If I ever fall back upon a dark path I am glad that there are folks like the ones I met who are coming together to help themselves and each other.
I had a friend go through AA. He doesn't do heroin anymore, which is great, but he is pretty big into Jesus now, which is a bit disheartening to see. Better then overdosing for sure.
Transfer of addictions. We're all slaves to dopaminergic reward, even if that means preaching the good word
- [deleted]
I'm so glad I don't use AI - at all.
Tell a student or software engineer they cannot use LLMs to do their work anymore. They will clutch their LLM tightly, like an alcoholic clutches his bottle.
On that same line of thinking, why not tell the contractor they can't use hammers to build their buildings anymore? They will clutch their hammers tightly. They're all tools, useful in certain situations and not others. Yes, including alcohol.
How can you say that LLM is the same as alcohol? If I use something that is useful a lot, it does not mean I am addicted...
Alcohol helps people get through their day and social situations.
Does Anyone else actually want more AI addiction? I really forget to use it when it could be a useful resource.
There is nothing to addict about AI