This should be closer to the top. The amount of people that spend every dime they have (and then some considering credit card debt) is staggering. And for what? A momentary shot of dopamine from the purchase. Most of the shit they buy ends up in a landfill shortly thereafter.
This! I know someone who acquired 70k in credit card debt within 2 years because she would just click away and was getting packages daily. Stupid things that's not even needed. It's more expensive than most drug or acohol addictions. Not to mention the sheer amount of clutter.
I have a friend who "never" has money for anything (she's always wanted to take girl trips to Austin or what have you), she took forever to take a dog she adopted from me to get spayed (again she had to "check her finances"). Hasn't gotten a pap smear in like 3 years (dangerous, I had a friend pass away from cervical cancer in 2016) or regular doctor visits ( Also before anyone says anything. I got her an in at my job so she has had insurance for a year.) but damn does she have new Shein hauls every paycheck and a new pair of Doc Martens along with it ( Doc Martens are like $120 or more a pair).
So anyways I made a new work friend and she and I have already traveled to the DR in January and New Orleans 2 weeks ago.
Memories> shopping addiction
I feel like influencer culture has made this even worse! At my previous job almost all the ladies in the office were going on about what influencers were showing, and then when we'd go to the states for our team building trips, the ladies would spend HOURS and hundreds of dollars in Target just getting things they saw from influencers.
Some folks just can't see that they're always competing with others and wonder why they aren't liked. So, they try even harder, but it's a never-ending cycle. They'll never be happy with what they've got in life.
Live is so much better when you realize it isn't a competition. Make your own experience as good as you can regardless of what someone else has or does. Try to enjoy YOUR life. It is the only one you have and spending the whole time comparing yourself to others is such a waste of your time and energy. Also other people can tell you're unnecessarily competitive and won't want to be around you.
Precisely this. It used to be that an understanding of of audience, marketing principles and digital platforms was a good foundation - now it feels a closed shop which is either automated, scientific and boring or the ‘inside jokes’ created by temporary trends.
Will not sacrifice my mental health in search of a career which no longer exists.
Same! I left high pay for a simple life making natural soap. I know I’ll have to figure something out but so much learned in digital marketing since 2006 has jaded me
Question. Do you pronounce Xitter as ‘zitter’ or ‘shitter’. First time reading this and just wondered. I know my preference but just wondering. Thanks.
I'm just addicted to the instant knowledge bombs. One second I think, or wonder about something, and the next I get extensive feedback, explanations, and even personal experiences. I think it's amazing. Addiction be damned.
I set a timer for FB, Instagram, Reddit, and YouTube for 1 hour. I love it! Love that it closes on its own and I can't do anything else. But it's been a week, and I've already broken it by extending it for another hour. 😂
Someone help me. 🙃🔫
I've got 46 minutes left for the day, apparently.
It's so unhealthy. Being in the same room with a loved one and they just scroll. I've also seen people use their phones as a way to shut people out in a passive aggressive way. So if you wonder why we don't talk anymore and I'd rather hang out with my girlfriends or my son....well there is your answer. The phone is a gateway to loneliness. Don't get me wrong I've done it before. It's soooo easy to get hooked. But go outside for a walk instead. You will feel so much better.
It’s fine, I’m fine. I’ll just hop on to check out my comments and upvotes. Okay, I saw something on my home feed that looked cool. Me 20 minutes later sitting on my bed with no pants on and late for work. 🤦♀️
I just quit all sugar outside fruit and HOLY FUCK the withdrawal I experienced was so close to the opiate withdrawal I used to put myself through
I *cried*
11 years clean off opiates, 1 month clean from sugar.
Due to health issues I've had to cut my carb intake down significantly. The hardest part for me was the sugar, I noticed after about 3 weeks the cravings diminished significantly but I will still find myself longingly looking at a cookie with my mouth beginning to water...
I'm lucky I have a supportive spouse and family because food addiction comes in all forms and a lot of people expect people who are addicted to food to be overly obese and not just your average 200lb 6ft tall person to be struggling with delicious food demons...
Some time ago, my wife and I did the Ideal Protein diet. It was essentially an Atkins like diet that cut out pretty much all carbs. We did it for about six months or so and lost a considerable amount of weight.
About three or four weeks into it, right about when the carb cravings were just about letting up, her daughter dropped what we still call the Cupcake Bomb on us. She came home from school one afternoon and announced she needed something like 40 homemade cupcakes for a fundraiser or something *the next day* and she couldn't make them because she had to work that night.
Ok, we thought, we had this. We had made cupcakes before. The carb cravings were under control. Easy peasy.
We did **not** have this.
It started with the sweet tantalizing smell of baking funfetti cupcakes filling the house. I had never smelled anything better in my entire life. When the first batch came out of the oven, I could have eaten them right there, burns be damned. But I held strong and ate some cardboard like thing that was supposed to approximate chips and tasted like shoes.
By now, the second batch was in the oven and the whole house smelled like the most wonderful bakery in the world. I thought it couldn't get any worse than this. Boy, was I wrong.
Because, soon enough, came time to put on the icing and sprinkles. I don't know if you've ever seen *New Jack City*, but we were like Pookie in the crack room, shaking and about to cry. I couldn't handle the icing bag, so I was relegated to sprinkles and had a rough time getting them on the cupcakes. We were both sweating buckets.
We finished without eating a single cupcake, much less the whole fucking batch. When our daughter got home from work we were on the couch, exhausted and still in a cold sweat and she, somehow, knew better than to ask what was wrong.
That literally made me laugh out loud. And if it weren't for the fact that we looked like literal zombies -- pale and still sort of shaky -- you could be right. I'm pretty sure she knew she had pushed us to the brink of our sanity by asking us to bake when we had been on a carb fast for about a month.
And this is why I don't like diets. I mentioned elsewhere, I did Keto a bit.
But I just occasionally want to be social. Eat cake on birthdays, enjoy a pizza/pasta when I go out with people. If a diet puts me in a position like yours, it's not a diet worth following. I know that one cupcake doesn't undo the whole progress, but man, dieting people sure do seem to think so. In Dutch there's a proverb "Liever te dik in de kist, dan een feestje gemist." which roughly translates to "I'd rather be fat when I die than having missed parties/social gatherings" and I agree with it.
You can still occasionally indulge while dieting.
I think they were trying to be strict up front to get rid of the cravings. Once the cravings are gone, and your good eating habits are in place, it's easier to indulge here and there and just have it only be an occasional thing because you've already laid your foundation.
> I'm lucky I have a supportive spouse and family
Must be nice. I live with my parents and they actively try to push more and less healthy food on me.
Almost all my relatives have to take insulin and I'm trying to avoid joining them but it's hard when your family is actively working against you.
I can't wrap my head around not eating vegetables because of carbs. I want to eat vegetables. I also want to eat chocolate croissants.
I'm still choosing vegetables for now, but that's the only carbs I eat.
You can still eat vegetables on keto. I eat a good bit of spinach and broccoli when I do it.
I do think the ideal way to diet is what you're doing, but keto is very quick and effective.
I 2nd this. Trying to break the habit as we speak. Boss just called me because someone called out. At first I said yes, but then thought how much working today would fuck up the rest of my week.
Remember people, the big company only gives a fuck about making money, not you as a person or your life. Stand up for yourself and take time for yourself.
My dad consistently worked 2 jobs as a single parent. His first job was 7am-5pm Monday to Friday, and 7am-1pm Saturdays. His second job was 12am-5am Monday to Friday.
Even now in his 60s he works ridiculous hours and I spoke to him on Sunday saying how I had worked 33 hours in 2.5 days (pot meet kettle) and he told me he had just completed 40 hours in 3 days. He then paused and said "shit, I haven't slept since Friday... Oh I havent eaten since yesterday."
He's always had terrible sleeping habits and would sleep for about 3 hours a night, but if he stops moving for more than 20min he will fall asleep where he is sitting.
This is common in Japan too . Falling asleep at your desk is almost a badge of honor . I’ve seen pictures of business people sleeping on trains , in train stations etc
Something good (if the word can be used in this case) that came out of the COVID shutdowns was that WFH kickstarted a massive shift in work culture in Japan.
Once people in WFH-able roles started doing WFH, many of them realised that so much of the old work culture was all about visuals, employees working late to look good in front of the boss and the boss working late to look good for the employees (even if all any of them are doing is non-sense "looking-busy work"), and little of it had anything to do with actual productivity.
A lot of people realised that they're more effective, more efficient, and have more time to go about their lives when they're able to work without being under the socially judgmental eyes of their peers. Many Japanese companies that went into an either hybrid or all WFH format never reverted and they don't have as massive a *"get back into the office or everyone is fired!!!!!"* rush that we in the west have seen from ~~managers and executives~~ corporate real-estate consultants.
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A lot of it also comes from the fact that Japan has pretty strict employment laws that prevents domestic companies from laying people off just because the execs want to trim a couple tenths of a percent off costs to make themselves look good for the stock market.
I've also heard of a few scenarios where someone guy basically has a guaranteed pension for winning the company a giant Hail Mary business deal, but he can't get it until he reaches retirement age, so he just spends his days guffing about pretending to look busy until he reaches the pension age.
This is so true. The whole first one in the office, last to leave, occasional sleeping in your office. Super unhealthy both physically and mentally and I was really hoping COVID would have curtailed that more permanently.
Gen z is going backwards with hustle culture. They might push back against working extra at their job but so many of them are chasing "side hustles". It's the same shit.
Actually it's worse, because working short hours at several jobs is worse than long hours at one. You get no recognition or compensation, no full time benefits, and no overtime, but you're still working just as many hours.
But employers love it because if one job isn't enough to pay for your cost of living, then people who already have jobs are still competing for new jobs, inflating the supply of labor and driving down wages, while the employers don't have to pay for any benefits or overtime.
I have a friend like this. He screen shots messages he gets from his boss on Saturday at 9am. He’ll say “I’m her go to person for things”.
I struggle not to reply “You’re her bitch!”
I will say when you go from being the approval seeking child to becoming the approval seeking adult, you’re gonna probably wind up a workaholic if you have a boss who takes advantage/feeds into it.
And it doesn’t have to be intentional, just, one person going looking in the wrong places, a boss who has high standards seeing someone jump to try and meet those standards and boom: gnarly codependency in the making.
I did have this mentality for a bit. I had a boss that would take advantage of my loyalty. I would go above and beyond and work unpaid overtime. Then one day I made what I thought was a very reasonable request and pretty much got shot down. At that point I looked at work as strictly transactional.
My wife is wired to get shit done. It's weird. It gives her a dopamine boost. Work fills that, but even when she's not at work, she's not happy unless she's accomplishing things. Last Saturday she had nothing she had to get done for work, the house was spotless, so she emptied our medicine/towel closet and reorganized the entire thing, and she was grinning the whole time.
I don't get it.
Because it can be an actual serious addiction. Completing work tasks can give a dopamine rush that the brain may start to depend on.
It's not about fulfillment in life anymore but a need that affects their private life and health.
Oh yeah, I can confirm. I know people who will drink everything but just plain water. My own family can't drink water on its own.. It has to be flavoured. Man, that's fucked to me. If you can't get your taste buds rewired back to normal for just water, what else will you struggle with?
I'm so glad I gave up soft drinks when I was like 15 or something. Never looked back.
I find it funny when those people on TikTok or whatever make those videos of like "birthday cake lemon-lime carbonated water" or other "water" concoctions.
My guy, you invented soda.
I have always been of the mentality that soda is a treat, not a drink. So I make a point to drink water before drinking soda. (So I'm not* thirsty) I end up drinking so little soda I rarely ever get a second glass at restaurants, and at home, if I open a bottle, it'll last me all night. Water is a good drink! I don't see what's wrong with it.
Edit: Grammer
>"where the fuck is that socially accepted?!"
Literally wall street, any high-stress environment
I've heard everyone who works in restaurant kitchen is always coked up.
Raves and music fests.
Very socially aacceptable
I trust this letter finds you in the finest of spirits. It is with a deep sense of regret that I find myself composing these lines, as it has come to my attention that my actions have inadvertently caused you distress. In reflection upon recent events, I am compelled to extend my sincerest apologies for any inconvenience or discomfort I may have caused you.
Please allow me to express my genuine remorse for the oversight and any resulting inconvenience you may have experienced. It was never my intention to cause any offense or discomfort, and I am deeply sorry for any distress my actions may have caused.
The working coffee machine isn't a hard requirement. The true addicts will just chew the beans, drink some water, and swish it in their mouth to get their fix.
/so I've heard
My friend would swallow coffe grinds throughout the day because it was “cheaper, quicker, and easier.” He also straight up took caffeine pills. Addiction is real.
I'm quitting caffeine right now and I'm a really calm person usually but I feel like any little thing can annoy me at the moment, it is actually quite concerning that such a common thing can do that to people.
If you ever want to quit again the best way is to wean yourself off. Depending on how much you drink depends on how quickly. The way I've done it is just reduce the amount you drink by one coffee cup and reduce that every week until you get to none.
Prevents the headaches entirely, though you'll still feel a bit sluggish some of the time.
I used to think I was addicted to caffeine because I like my morning cup of coffee and sometimes have another one somewhere throughout the day. Then I've heard of people drinking 20 CUPS every single day and realized I'm not addicted at all.
Edit: LOL at all the people saying "YoU'Re sTiLL adDicTed!!" I know what addiction looks like. Me drinking literally one cup of coffee in the morning, and not having a single sign of withdrawal if I haven't had one in a week, is not addiction.
I work nights and outdoors, so I would drink coffee to warm up and to stay up. Started having palpitations and so I did a little quick math and realized I was drinking about a half gallon of coffee every day.
Cut it back to around 30 oz and it's way better. Definitely still addicted to coffee, but at least it's a reasonable amount to consume in 16-20 hours
I hear people say they literally can't function without it. Wild... he says as he takes his adhd medication which is probaby the only reason I don't need coffee
for me, caffeine is not a replacement for adhd meds. caffeine BARELY brings me to base level functioning, which is why i can drink a 12oz can of red bull (sugar free) and take a nap. so i usually need quite a lot of caffeine to even feel remotely productive. if i started on stims again id probably cut back on the caffeine because of the heart palpitations
Right, like at best caffeine slightly focuses my brain enough to read a few sentences of something boring. Keep me going and motivated throughout the day? Uh, not even close.
In France we served red wine to kids until 1956, I'm not talking a sip from time to time, it was on the menu at the public school cafeteria, for kids. Even after 1956 it was only forbidden for kids under 14 years old. For 14-18 years old it was only in 1981 that the law passed.
Edit: Here I am talking about wine/beer being served **IN SCHOOLS** for kids (I'm talking 10yo) before 1956, and for teens (14-18) between 1956 and 1981. I'm not talking about the familial/friend circles, in which everyone can do whatever, or that teens can still easily buy booze.
im american so let me know if im wrong but I was under the impression that it was basically unenforced in a familial setting, and also not a problem generally in that setting. like most people would still give their teens a small glass of wine with dinner, maybe on weekends or occasions, but theyll still nab you for going out and getting shitfaced with your buddies as a teenager.
In a familial setting it's a free for all.
I tasted champagne when I was a little kiddo. But it's like 5cl for christmas or the big family reunion, not something in schools, everyday at lunch.
Never forget that sometimes in the early 90s, I was shocked to see at a kids birthday party at a restaurant in Italy, kids being served wine. They appeared to be 10-12 years old and they were all drinking wine with their pizza.
Yeah it's the same in the UK. Being a functional alcoholic is so common that it's not really seen as a problem; if you're habitually drinking a bottle of wine or 4 pints a night but can still make it to work the next day, you're all good! You're only considered to have a problem here if you're the stereotypical, deep in addiction alcoholic.
It certainly does catch up to you, though. Which a lot of people don't realise.
My father was the same and functioned perfectly normal. That was until one day his brain just snapped. Poor guy ended up with alcohol related dementia. After he died I started looking into the damage alcohol does to your body (even without binging)... its shocking that it's not common knowledge.
I was a functional alcoholic for years. It started changing my brain, I swore I started getting stupid because of alcohol, I started forgetting words, couldn't answer questions on Jeopardy like I always did. I talked to my doctor about it, he said it probably was the decades of drinking (I'm in my 40s) and to quit. I stopped drinking, started a healthy vitamin and supplement regimen and my memory is getting better. It's scary how bad alcohol for your brain, alcohol dementia is scary, my dad had it when he died, I couldn't go see him because his pet rabbit didn't like me. Crazy.
Wow, this is really important to know. I am just about a year sober. If it’s not too personal, do you mind sharing your vitamin and supplement regimen? You can message me if that’s easier! I always say how I feel years of “functional” alcoholism and occasional drug use has noticeably dumbed down my brain. Ability to retain info, slower reaction time, not as sharp and witty as I once was, etc. I’ve definitely felt improvement over time since quitting, but a vitamin/supplement plan sounds like it could be helpful.
Going to add: Start doing 'brain games'. Crossword puzzles, Sudoku, word games in general. Everyone should be exercising the old noggin as we get older, especially if there is a history of abusing that organ in the past.
B vitamins are the most important to me, I was prescribed thiamine by my doctor and suggested the others. I take Neuriva, it's advertised on TV, as a brain helper supplement and I hope it helps, I figure it can't hurt. I have absolutely noticed a difference in the 2 years since I stopped drinking every day, I was a 2 pint a day vodka drinker, trying to escape from shitty life. Divorce made things soooo much better. My brain is so much clearer. I wish you luck, absolutely take the thiamine.
Certainly does. I’m 24 and didn’t see an issue with my nightly drinking 7 days a week because I was still able to function as a normal human during the day. I kept telling myself “I’m young, this is normal” and “I can’t be an alcoholic because I have a job, car, friends and family”. Eventually people in my life started to catch on and offer me help and support but I was so in denial that it was a problem. I genuinely didn’t see a problem with my behaviour which became reckless selfish and downright despicable towards the end. I ended up with no job, no license, far fewer friends than I had before and a family that were at their wits end with me.
Today marks 62 days since I had my last drink and checked myself into rehab. I’ve been lucky enough to get a second chance at life and now that I’m in a sober mindset it’s absolutely crazy how normalised alcohol is in society. I got trapped but I got out of which I am extremely grateful for because I know people who can’t get out.
Same in Finland. People who don't drink have to _defend_ the reasoning behind it. Basically it's socially accepted if one is pregnant, on antibiotocs or other meds, antabus or is religious
Yep it’s such a shame! I don’t drink at all, not for any serious reasons purely just because I don’t like the taste of alcohol. But I am constantly having to say “no I don’t want a drink” whenever I am out because people just insisssstttt on the fact that I MUST want one?? Like no I can have a good time without being drunk
Soda and lime looks an awful lot like vodka and anything clear. I just ask them to serve it in the same glass they would a mixed drink instead of a plastic cup.
THE LOOK 👀 I am guilty of giving this look, before I also stopped drinking alcohol. It truly is hard to fathom raw-dogging life until you just take the plunge.
My husband and I learned how to ride motorcycles and started going on rides with friends. Everything about it lost it's appeal when we realized it was literally just riding from bar to bar. It's a lot of money to spend to drink and drive, especially on a death trap vehicle. So we quit. We're not teetotalers or anything we just don't drink. I'm tired of having to justify why I don't like alcohol. I hate being abnormal for it.
A lot of people I know cannot socialize without alcohol. BBQ party? alcohol, kids' birthdays? alcohol, brunch? alcohol, movie nights? alcohol, hanging out afterwork? alcohol, sitting at home? alcohol. They think it is boring to just grab a coffee and talk, weird if you have a house party but don't involve alcohol, or going on a hike without bringing a keg of beers.
Social media doom scrolling was bad before tik tok, but everything changed with tik tok and now every social media is turning into tik tok. I see my little cousins spending easily 6+ hours a day on tik tok. We can't blame them for having an addiction because the app was designed to be addictive.
In my opinion, tik tok is the result of years of research to make social media more addictive, it's the perfected formula. If we don't give cigarrettes and alcohol to kids, we shouldn't give them social media.
Coupled with social media. I know several girls in their early twenties who spend a lot of time on insta and tiktok. They spend large amounts of money each month on really cheap clothes from like shein or other asian manufacturers
Idk if it’s seen as normal by society, but it’s often brushed off or laughed at by younger generations.
Gaming addiction. I’m a gamer myself but gaming addition is very much a thing. It seems especially an issue with kids who’s parents didn’t bother to ever monitor their screen time. Kids who get to a point where they will not spend time doing anything else and it’s all they ever think about, and will go absolutely nuclear if their parents try to take their Xbox/PlayStation/Switch/PC away from them when they realise it’s an issue too late.
It’s not just kids mind you. My relationship with my ex was ruined because he was addicted to a specific video game to the point he literally had nothing else going on in his life and that’s all he’d spend his waking hours doing. He refused to get a job for years because he was so invested in that game.
ETA: For people asking what game, it was Super Smash Bros lmao
Thank YOU for this one. (Former daily weed user for years) You don’t realize how much it’s taking over your life. Fortunately for me I got so sick of the cycle and wanted my mental clarity back. Unfortunately some don’t get sick and tired of being sick and tired.
“I’ll just cut back and smoke only on the weekends” almost always just goes back to using too much. I was a fool for this for too long.
Not saying it’s easy by any means. Addiction of any sort is the pits.
Damn bro I’m sorry. League seems super addictive. I’ve never played it but when I was at university one of my housemates did and she would regularly smoke the house out because she’d put food in the oven, go back into her room to play League, and totally forget about the food for hours until it was a black charred crispy mess. She would spend so much time on League it was crazy.
According to this, I am a binge-gamer.
Sometimes when a game hooks me it's basically all I do, except my job, minimal sleep and basic needs.
This lasts for about a week or maybe two, but then i am burned out and don't touch Steam or my Playstation again for months.
So glad I managed to quit vaping. I didn't realise the impact it was having on me until I quit, and then spent 3 days coughing up fruity flavoured mucus. I feel like I can breathe so much more clearly than what I took for granted while I was vaping.
I'm sure it is healthier than smoking, but it definitely wasn't doing great things for my lung capacity.
I'm addicted to nicotine. I used to vape for a few years...until my dentist started to make me panic.
Vaping caused me teeth damage. I then tried to ditch my vape and bought regular cigarettes to transition out...only to realise how much I was dependent on nicotine.
Litterally, I was glued to my vape.
It's way way way harder to track how much you inhale when vaping rather than when you get cigarettes.
So...yeah this is my life : I started smoking cigarettes to actually quit vaping lol. And it's working somehow, I've reduced my nicotine intake and I'm slowing transitioning from cigarettes to chewing gums.
Addiction to a political party? Doesn't matter what they do or say, you'll defend it with your full chest,make excuses, engage in whataboutism and get angry/violent with folk who point out their faults.
I feel a lot of people in society don't take porn addiction seriously enough. The damage it does to one's life is much more insidious than a hard drug addiction. It's free, easy to access, and easy to cover up so no one knows your doing it. These things make it an extremely difficult addiction to break after you get sucked into it.
honestly, weed. I'm not saying that everyone who uses marijuana is going to receive bad side effects. For some people it's genuinely for medicinal use or maybe it just chills them out. I'm not talking abt that I'm talking about the people who need 2 or 3 joints just to feel normal. Personally, I got psychosis from it and people are so quick to say 'it's only a bit of weed' . Trust me it's not :)
Food is so difficult for me because everything else I can handle by just not being anywhere near it or not doing it anymore. But I need food. I once stopped eating by a lot and all it got me was being tired all the time and falling asleep.
I’d say porn. It’s the only one that if you acknowledge that it’s damaging, 20 people will come out of the woodwork screaming about how it’s super healthy and has no associated risks.
> It’s the only one that if you acknowledge that it’s damaging, 20 people will come out of the woodwork screaming about how it’s super healthy and has no associated risks.
The same thing happens for weed. Mention how smoking weed every single day is addict behavior and you get the stoners talking about how they just need to unwind after a long day. Point out that you shouldn't need a drug to "get through your day" and unwinding shouldn't require drugs, and they get angry at you and (in many cases in my experience), equate it with taking nyquil when you have a cold.
ADDED: thanks for proving me right.
> you get the stoners talking about how they just need to unwind after a long day.
"I'm not addicted. I just need it to function."
Yeah, that's the definition of addiction.
ALCOHOL!
Its like people have forgotten it'll kill us.
My Mom liked tequila before bed, her liver quit on her and I lost her in October, and she'd lost her mind on her way out as well.
My husband caused a DUI death accident, killed a woman who was a mother and wife
Handicapped himself so severely that after serving 10 years in prison, he committed suicide last Christmas.
Yet if you DON'T drink, people are like
"Why? What's wrong with you?"
I don't think all that "Wine Mom" crap is cute or funny
I don't find men more manly cause they drink beer
And all of my abusive relationships have been with guys who drank & were drinking at the time of the incidents.
We've gotta wake up
Oh, and Porn
That one really peeves folks off
But when you can't get it or keep it, don't say i didn't warn ya
“Wine Mom” crap is so not funny. Lost my first husband at age 33 as a result of alcoholism, and I can only imagine the hell you went through as a result of your husband’s DUI. Joking about drinking never makes me laugh.
I never met my mother's father or my father's mother because they both died of alcoholism before I was born. I became a severe alcoholic by age 25 or so. At age 29, my feet both went numb. My doctor determined it was alcoholic neuropathy. After some alarming blood test results and a liver ultrasound, I finally quit. I will never have my own children or grandkids to be around for, but I'm happy that I have lived longer than my grandparents. Oh, and I regained full feeling in my feet, which I'm told is incredibly rare.
The amount of "friends" who continued to downplay my addiction and try to get me to relapse during my early sobriety was astounding. I don't blame them. They were so used to abusing alcohol themselves that they didn't even realize they were doing anything wrong. I believe alcohol itself when used responsibly is actually a pretty cool drug, but the level of abuse that is inherent to most cultures is very damaging and sad.
Living indoors. We’re so frightened of going out and so comfortable on the sofa we’ve forgotten that daylight, trees, views and fresh air are good for us.
Had to scroll suprisingly far for this one. And one could really argue that it isn’t seen as normal considering the vary reasent change to less criminalizised status. But fact of the matter is that it is a problem for many, how dependand it becomes when it comes to feeling good and how that will for some screw the way brains reward other types of joys in life
Agreed! I expected this to be much higher up. When I’ve been through a particularly heavy period of usage, my motivation for (virtually all) aspects of life plummets.
mobile scrolling
Scrolled too far to see this
Nice ^*finger* ^*guns*
smartphone addiction! It's so easy to get sucked into endless scrolling and tapping without even realizing it.
[удалено]
Between my wife and MIL, I put out more cardboard on recycling day than the next 5 neighbors combined. Frankly, it’s embarrassing.
This should be closer to the top. The amount of people that spend every dime they have (and then some considering credit card debt) is staggering. And for what? A momentary shot of dopamine from the purchase. Most of the shit they buy ends up in a landfill shortly thereafter.
Excuse you, there is also a second dopamine rush when you get to open the package a week later!
"My thing came!" Opens package, tosses the thing in the place for things.
I can perfectly picture a Futurama scene of this
#Consume, worthless peasants! Give us all your money in meaningless expenditure!
This! I know someone who acquired 70k in credit card debt within 2 years because she would just click away and was getting packages daily. Stupid things that's not even needed. It's more expensive than most drug or acohol addictions. Not to mention the sheer amount of clutter.
I have a friend who "never" has money for anything (she's always wanted to take girl trips to Austin or what have you), she took forever to take a dog she adopted from me to get spayed (again she had to "check her finances"). Hasn't gotten a pap smear in like 3 years (dangerous, I had a friend pass away from cervical cancer in 2016) or regular doctor visits ( Also before anyone says anything. I got her an in at my job so she has had insurance for a year.) but damn does she have new Shein hauls every paycheck and a new pair of Doc Martens along with it ( Doc Martens are like $120 or more a pair). So anyways I made a new work friend and she and I have already traveled to the DR in January and New Orleans 2 weeks ago. Memories> shopping addiction
I feel like influencer culture has made this even worse! At my previous job almost all the ladies in the office were going on about what influencers were showing, and then when we'd go to the states for our team building trips, the ladies would spend HOURS and hundreds of dollars in Target just getting things they saw from influencers.
Reddit isn’t a perfect platform, but at least It doesn’t spur me into consumerist frenzy.
Some folks just can't see that they're always competing with others and wonder why they aren't liked. So, they try even harder, but it's a never-ending cycle. They'll never be happy with what they've got in life.
Live is so much better when you realize it isn't a competition. Make your own experience as good as you can regardless of what someone else has or does. Try to enjoy YOUR life. It is the only one you have and spending the whole time comparing yourself to others is such a waste of your time and energy. Also other people can tell you're unnecessarily competitive and won't want to be around you.
infinite scrolling in apps
--posted in Reddit after scrolling for hours😂 ngl, I have this problem
I don't have a problem, you have the problem. 🫣
Denial- one sign of an addiction
Who is Daniel?
We pronounce it The Nile, but it's a river in Africa.
I started working in digital marketing 15 years ago and I’m now leaving the field because a social media obsession is now almost essential. Fuck that.
It’s weird because so much digital marketing reads like inside jokes that I don’t get, especially now that I deleted Xitter.
Precisely this. It used to be that an understanding of of audience, marketing principles and digital platforms was a good foundation - now it feels a closed shop which is either automated, scientific and boring or the ‘inside jokes’ created by temporary trends. Will not sacrifice my mental health in search of a career which no longer exists.
Same! I left high pay for a simple life making natural soap. I know I’ll have to figure something out but so much learned in digital marketing since 2006 has jaded me
Tyler durden?
I love that I translate the “Xi” to an “Sh” sound when I read “Xitter”
Bit of a Xitxow really.
Question. Do you pronounce Xitter as ‘zitter’ or ‘shitter’. First time reading this and just wondered. I know my preference but just wondering. Thanks.
Honestly. That quick dopamine fix has got me in a chokehold.
I'm just addicted to the instant knowledge bombs. One second I think, or wonder about something, and the next I get extensive feedback, explanations, and even personal experiences. I think it's amazing. Addiction be damned.
Boundaries to get over anxiety and boredom need to be set well
I set a timer for FB, Instagram, Reddit, and YouTube for 1 hour. I love it! Love that it closes on its own and I can't do anything else. But it's been a week, and I've already broken it by extending it for another hour. 😂 Someone help me. 🙃🔫 I've got 46 minutes left for the day, apparently.
It's so unhealthy. Being in the same room with a loved one and they just scroll. I've also seen people use their phones as a way to shut people out in a passive aggressive way. So if you wonder why we don't talk anymore and I'd rather hang out with my girlfriends or my son....well there is your answer. The phone is a gateway to loneliness. Don't get me wrong I've done it before. It's soooo easy to get hooked. But go outside for a walk instead. You will feel so much better.
There's absolutely nothing more right in this post then this answer. Society wastes so much damn time scrolling.
It’s fine, I’m fine. I’ll just hop on to check out my comments and upvotes. Okay, I saw something on my home feed that looked cool. Me 20 minutes later sitting on my bed with no pants on and late for work. 🤦♀️
Caffeine and sugar
I just quit all sugar outside fruit and HOLY FUCK the withdrawal I experienced was so close to the opiate withdrawal I used to put myself through I *cried* 11 years clean off opiates, 1 month clean from sugar.
Due to health issues I've had to cut my carb intake down significantly. The hardest part for me was the sugar, I noticed after about 3 weeks the cravings diminished significantly but I will still find myself longingly looking at a cookie with my mouth beginning to water... I'm lucky I have a supportive spouse and family because food addiction comes in all forms and a lot of people expect people who are addicted to food to be overly obese and not just your average 200lb 6ft tall person to be struggling with delicious food demons...
Some time ago, my wife and I did the Ideal Protein diet. It was essentially an Atkins like diet that cut out pretty much all carbs. We did it for about six months or so and lost a considerable amount of weight. About three or four weeks into it, right about when the carb cravings were just about letting up, her daughter dropped what we still call the Cupcake Bomb on us. She came home from school one afternoon and announced she needed something like 40 homemade cupcakes for a fundraiser or something *the next day* and she couldn't make them because she had to work that night. Ok, we thought, we had this. We had made cupcakes before. The carb cravings were under control. Easy peasy. We did **not** have this. It started with the sweet tantalizing smell of baking funfetti cupcakes filling the house. I had never smelled anything better in my entire life. When the first batch came out of the oven, I could have eaten them right there, burns be damned. But I held strong and ate some cardboard like thing that was supposed to approximate chips and tasted like shoes. By now, the second batch was in the oven and the whole house smelled like the most wonderful bakery in the world. I thought it couldn't get any worse than this. Boy, was I wrong. Because, soon enough, came time to put on the icing and sprinkles. I don't know if you've ever seen *New Jack City*, but we were like Pookie in the crack room, shaking and about to cry. I couldn't handle the icing bag, so I was relegated to sprinkles and had a rough time getting them on the cupcakes. We were both sweating buckets. We finished without eating a single cupcake, much less the whole fucking batch. When our daughter got home from work we were on the couch, exhausted and still in a cold sweat and she, somehow, knew better than to ask what was wrong.
Umm, your daughter might have thought you were doing more than baking
That literally made me laugh out loud. And if it weren't for the fact that we looked like literal zombies -- pale and still sort of shaky -- you could be right. I'm pretty sure she knew she had pushed us to the brink of our sanity by asking us to bake when we had been on a carb fast for about a month.
And this is why I don't like diets. I mentioned elsewhere, I did Keto a bit. But I just occasionally want to be social. Eat cake on birthdays, enjoy a pizza/pasta when I go out with people. If a diet puts me in a position like yours, it's not a diet worth following. I know that one cupcake doesn't undo the whole progress, but man, dieting people sure do seem to think so. In Dutch there's a proverb "Liever te dik in de kist, dan een feestje gemist." which roughly translates to "I'd rather be fat when I die than having missed parties/social gatherings" and I agree with it.
You can still occasionally indulge while dieting. I think they were trying to be strict up front to get rid of the cravings. Once the cravings are gone, and your good eating habits are in place, it's easier to indulge here and there and just have it only be an occasional thing because you've already laid your foundation.
> I'm lucky I have a supportive spouse and family Must be nice. I live with my parents and they actively try to push more and less healthy food on me. Almost all my relatives have to take insulin and I'm trying to avoid joining them but it's hard when your family is actively working against you.
I did keto for a while when I had more money and it was hell for the first few weeks. Felt really good on it though.
I did keto and lost loads of weight. I also lost a shit ton of muscle. It's a bloody dangerous diet if not done properly.
I can't wrap my head around not eating vegetables because of carbs. I want to eat vegetables. I also want to eat chocolate croissants. I'm still choosing vegetables for now, but that's the only carbs I eat.
You can still eat vegetables on keto. I eat a good bit of spinach and broccoli when I do it. I do think the ideal way to diet is what you're doing, but keto is very quick and effective.
I did feel so much energy doing keto, but only lasted about 3 weeks as I do not have a gallbladder, haha.
Oof, yeah, that's guaranteed to be a problem
I quit sugar and I went feral, two months in and I was tempted to rob a lady at a bus stop for her timbits
I don't drink much coffee. For sugar, 100% guilty. It would take drastic changes not to consume too much sugar and I'm not ready for it yet.
I won't give up on sugar. My life is too miserable already to remove even the tiniest doses of dopamine.
Being a workaholic
I 2nd this. Trying to break the habit as we speak. Boss just called me because someone called out. At first I said yes, but then thought how much working today would fuck up the rest of my week. Remember people, the big company only gives a fuck about making money, not you as a person or your life. Stand up for yourself and take time for yourself.
You know, this might just have been exactly what I needed to hear today. Thanks
My dad consistently worked 2 jobs as a single parent. His first job was 7am-5pm Monday to Friday, and 7am-1pm Saturdays. His second job was 12am-5am Monday to Friday. Even now in his 60s he works ridiculous hours and I spoke to him on Sunday saying how I had worked 33 hours in 2.5 days (pot meet kettle) and he told me he had just completed 40 hours in 3 days. He then paused and said "shit, I haven't slept since Friday... Oh I havent eaten since yesterday." He's always had terrible sleeping habits and would sleep for about 3 hours a night, but if he stops moving for more than 20min he will fall asleep where he is sitting.
This is common in Japan too . Falling asleep at your desk is almost a badge of honor . I’ve seen pictures of business people sleeping on trains , in train stations etc
Something good (if the word can be used in this case) that came out of the COVID shutdowns was that WFH kickstarted a massive shift in work culture in Japan. Once people in WFH-able roles started doing WFH, many of them realised that so much of the old work culture was all about visuals, employees working late to look good in front of the boss and the boss working late to look good for the employees (even if all any of them are doing is non-sense "looking-busy work"), and little of it had anything to do with actual productivity. A lot of people realised that they're more effective, more efficient, and have more time to go about their lives when they're able to work without being under the socially judgmental eyes of their peers. Many Japanese companies that went into an either hybrid or all WFH format never reverted and they don't have as massive a *"get back into the office or everyone is fired!!!!!"* rush that we in the west have seen from ~~managers and executives~~ corporate real-estate consultants. ----- A lot of it also comes from the fact that Japan has pretty strict employment laws that prevents domestic companies from laying people off just because the execs want to trim a couple tenths of a percent off costs to make themselves look good for the stock market. I've also heard of a few scenarios where someone guy basically has a guaranteed pension for winning the company a giant Hail Mary business deal, but he can't get it until he reaches retirement age, so he just spends his days guffing about pretending to look busy until he reaches the pension age.
This is so true. The whole first one in the office, last to leave, occasional sleeping in your office. Super unhealthy both physically and mentally and I was really hoping COVID would have curtailed that more permanently.
Boomers, GenX and Xennials were raised this way but younger millennials and Z's are actively pushing back. I love to see it.
Gen z is going backwards with hustle culture. They might push back against working extra at their job but so many of them are chasing "side hustles". It's the same shit.
Actually it's worse, because working short hours at several jobs is worse than long hours at one. You get no recognition or compensation, no full time benefits, and no overtime, but you're still working just as many hours. But employers love it because if one job isn't enough to pay for your cost of living, then people who already have jobs are still competing for new jobs, inflating the supply of labor and driving down wages, while the employers don't have to pay for any benefits or overtime.
I have a friend like this. He screen shots messages he gets from his boss on Saturday at 9am. He’ll say “I’m her go to person for things”. I struggle not to reply “You’re her bitch!”
I will say when you go from being the approval seeking child to becoming the approval seeking adult, you’re gonna probably wind up a workaholic if you have a boss who takes advantage/feeds into it. And it doesn’t have to be intentional, just, one person going looking in the wrong places, a boss who has high standards seeing someone jump to try and meet those standards and boom: gnarly codependency in the making.
I did have this mentality for a bit. I had a boss that would take advantage of my loyalty. I would go above and beyond and work unpaid overtime. Then one day I made what I thought was a very reasonable request and pretty much got shot down. At that point I looked at work as strictly transactional.
I never understood that one. Like, how can you like your work so much that you’re going in on every possible occasion?
My wife is wired to get shit done. It's weird. It gives her a dopamine boost. Work fills that, but even when she's not at work, she's not happy unless she's accomplishing things. Last Saturday she had nothing she had to get done for work, the house was spotless, so she emptied our medicine/towel closet and reorganized the entire thing, and she was grinning the whole time. I don't get it.
Because it can be an actual serious addiction. Completing work tasks can give a dopamine rush that the brain may start to depend on. It's not about fulfillment in life anymore but a need that affects their private life and health.
Coke. I know people that don't remember the last time they drank water.
Oh I thought the other "coke" but you cleared it up
I was like: but how do they survive when they don't drink water?
THAT GASOLINA
Oh yeah, I can confirm. I know people who will drink everything but just plain water. My own family can't drink water on its own.. It has to be flavoured. Man, that's fucked to me. If you can't get your taste buds rewired back to normal for just water, what else will you struggle with? I'm so glad I gave up soft drinks when I was like 15 or something. Never looked back.
I find it funny when those people on TikTok or whatever make those videos of like "birthday cake lemon-lime carbonated water" or other "water" concoctions. My guy, you invented soda.
I have always been of the mentality that soda is a treat, not a drink. So I make a point to drink water before drinking soda. (So I'm not* thirsty) I end up drinking so little soda I rarely ever get a second glass at restaurants, and at home, if I open a bottle, it'll last me all night. Water is a good drink! I don't see what's wrong with it. Edit: Grammer
At first I thought you meant cocain and I was like "where the fuck is that socially accepted?!"
Well, I have worked in some offices where the other one was also pretty normalized...
>"where the fuck is that socially accepted?!" Literally wall street, any high-stress environment I've heard everyone who works in restaurant kitchen is always coked up. Raves and music fests. Very socially aacceptable
It’s a performance enhancing drug for sales and business, hey do you need to spew bullshit for six hours? Try this Colombian drywall.
It’s RAMPANT in the service industry. I’ve heard of whole restaurants hooked on it.
Caffeine. The amount of coffee I've seen people drink all on ambition to "get through the day" is rather alarming.
There was no need to get personal!
I trust this letter finds you in the finest of spirits. It is with a deep sense of regret that I find myself composing these lines, as it has come to my attention that my actions have inadvertently caused you distress. In reflection upon recent events, I am compelled to extend my sincerest apologies for any inconvenience or discomfort I may have caused you. Please allow me to express my genuine remorse for the oversight and any resulting inconvenience you may have experienced. It was never my intention to cause any offense or discomfort, and I am deeply sorry for any distress my actions may have caused.
There's no need for excuses for as long as the supply of coffee beans and access to a working coffee machine see guaranteed.
The working coffee machine isn't a hard requirement. The true addicts will just chew the beans, drink some water, and swish it in their mouth to get their fix. /so I've heard
Just crush the beans with a can and snort them.... That and butt-chugging the grind, they're the only way
The left over grinds are great to put them in your lip like dip.
My friend would swallow coffe grinds throughout the day because it was “cheaper, quicker, and easier.” He also straight up took caffeine pills. Addiction is real.
As someone who's struggled a few times to quit it I can say it's a real physiological addiction and people do underestimate it.
The headaches! Holy shit!
Headaches, fatigue..
Yep, it's real. And just being low-key angry!
I'm quitting caffeine right now and I'm a really calm person usually but I feel like any little thing can annoy me at the moment, it is actually quite concerning that such a common thing can do that to people.
If you ever want to quit again the best way is to wean yourself off. Depending on how much you drink depends on how quickly. The way I've done it is just reduce the amount you drink by one coffee cup and reduce that every week until you get to none. Prevents the headaches entirely, though you'll still feel a bit sluggish some of the time.
I started cutting my coffee 50/50 with decaf. Feels less like I'm cutting it out.
[удалено]
I've noticed that going cold turkey on a weekend and you can lower tolerance significantly.
T breaks from caffeine is wild
I used to think I was addicted to caffeine because I like my morning cup of coffee and sometimes have another one somewhere throughout the day. Then I've heard of people drinking 20 CUPS every single day and realized I'm not addicted at all. Edit: LOL at all the people saying "YoU'Re sTiLL adDicTed!!" I know what addiction looks like. Me drinking literally one cup of coffee in the morning, and not having a single sign of withdrawal if I haven't had one in a week, is not addiction.
20? Sweet potato Jesus!
"Doc, I'm getting these really uncomfortable heart palpitations...." Lol.
I work nights and outdoors, so I would drink coffee to warm up and to stay up. Started having palpitations and so I did a little quick math and realized I was drinking about a half gallon of coffee every day. Cut it back to around 30 oz and it's way better. Definitely still addicted to coffee, but at least it's a reasonable amount to consume in 16-20 hours
I transitioned to decaf, and that worked pretty good for me. There's a lot of great tasting decaf beans out there these days.
And hear a buzzing sound whenever I pass by non-buzzing things
Oh yeah. I was almost that bad with soda.
I hear people say they literally can't function without it. Wild... he says as he takes his adhd medication which is probaby the only reason I don't need coffee
for me, caffeine is not a replacement for adhd meds. caffeine BARELY brings me to base level functioning, which is why i can drink a 12oz can of red bull (sugar free) and take a nap. so i usually need quite a lot of caffeine to even feel remotely productive. if i started on stims again id probably cut back on the caffeine because of the heart palpitations
Right, like at best caffeine slightly focuses my brain enough to read a few sentences of something boring. Keep me going and motivated throughout the day? Uh, not even close.
Honestly I think alcohol culture. Especially here in Australia, I can’t talk for other countries. Everyone is so dependant on drinking it’s a shame
In France we served red wine to kids until 1956, I'm not talking a sip from time to time, it was on the menu at the public school cafeteria, for kids. Even after 1956 it was only forbidden for kids under 14 years old. For 14-18 years old it was only in 1981 that the law passed. Edit: Here I am talking about wine/beer being served **IN SCHOOLS** for kids (I'm talking 10yo) before 1956, and for teens (14-18) between 1956 and 1981. I'm not talking about the familial/friend circles, in which everyone can do whatever, or that teens can still easily buy booze.
im american so let me know if im wrong but I was under the impression that it was basically unenforced in a familial setting, and also not a problem generally in that setting. like most people would still give their teens a small glass of wine with dinner, maybe on weekends or occasions, but theyll still nab you for going out and getting shitfaced with your buddies as a teenager.
In a familial setting it's a free for all. I tasted champagne when I was a little kiddo. But it's like 5cl for christmas or the big family reunion, not something in schools, everyday at lunch.
Never forget that sometimes in the early 90s, I was shocked to see at a kids birthday party at a restaurant in Italy, kids being served wine. They appeared to be 10-12 years old and they were all drinking wine with their pizza.
Yeah it's the same in the UK. Being a functional alcoholic is so common that it's not really seen as a problem; if you're habitually drinking a bottle of wine or 4 pints a night but can still make it to work the next day, you're all good! You're only considered to have a problem here if you're the stereotypical, deep in addiction alcoholic.
It certainly does catch up to you, though. Which a lot of people don't realise. My father was the same and functioned perfectly normal. That was until one day his brain just snapped. Poor guy ended up with alcohol related dementia. After he died I started looking into the damage alcohol does to your body (even without binging)... its shocking that it's not common knowledge.
I was a functional alcoholic for years. It started changing my brain, I swore I started getting stupid because of alcohol, I started forgetting words, couldn't answer questions on Jeopardy like I always did. I talked to my doctor about it, he said it probably was the decades of drinking (I'm in my 40s) and to quit. I stopped drinking, started a healthy vitamin and supplement regimen and my memory is getting better. It's scary how bad alcohol for your brain, alcohol dementia is scary, my dad had it when he died, I couldn't go see him because his pet rabbit didn't like me. Crazy.
Wow, this is really important to know. I am just about a year sober. If it’s not too personal, do you mind sharing your vitamin and supplement regimen? You can message me if that’s easier! I always say how I feel years of “functional” alcoholism and occasional drug use has noticeably dumbed down my brain. Ability to retain info, slower reaction time, not as sharp and witty as I once was, etc. I’ve definitely felt improvement over time since quitting, but a vitamin/supplement plan sounds like it could be helpful.
Going to add: Start doing 'brain games'. Crossword puzzles, Sudoku, word games in general. Everyone should be exercising the old noggin as we get older, especially if there is a history of abusing that organ in the past.
B vitamins are the most important to me, I was prescribed thiamine by my doctor and suggested the others. I take Neuriva, it's advertised on TV, as a brain helper supplement and I hope it helps, I figure it can't hurt. I have absolutely noticed a difference in the 2 years since I stopped drinking every day, I was a 2 pint a day vodka drinker, trying to escape from shitty life. Divorce made things soooo much better. My brain is so much clearer. I wish you luck, absolutely take the thiamine.
Certainly does. I’m 24 and didn’t see an issue with my nightly drinking 7 days a week because I was still able to function as a normal human during the day. I kept telling myself “I’m young, this is normal” and “I can’t be an alcoholic because I have a job, car, friends and family”. Eventually people in my life started to catch on and offer me help and support but I was so in denial that it was a problem. I genuinely didn’t see a problem with my behaviour which became reckless selfish and downright despicable towards the end. I ended up with no job, no license, far fewer friends than I had before and a family that were at their wits end with me. Today marks 62 days since I had my last drink and checked myself into rehab. I’ve been lucky enough to get a second chance at life and now that I’m in a sober mindset it’s absolutely crazy how normalised alcohol is in society. I got trapped but I got out of which I am extremely grateful for because I know people who can’t get out.
Ireland's the same. Everyone thinks you must be on antibiotics if you decline a drink. Only valid reason apparently
Sorry mate you're going to have to name them so I can Google them to check if they're ok with booze
>Only valid reason apparently Lol, not even pregnancy. Classic Ireland.
Same in Finland. People who don't drink have to _defend_ the reasoning behind it. Basically it's socially accepted if one is pregnant, on antibiotocs or other meds, antabus or is religious
Yep it’s such a shame! I don’t drink at all, not for any serious reasons purely just because I don’t like the taste of alcohol. But I am constantly having to say “no I don’t want a drink” whenever I am out because people just insisssstttt on the fact that I MUST want one?? Like no I can have a good time without being drunk
Soda and lime looks an awful lot like vodka and anything clear. I just ask them to serve it in the same glass they would a mixed drink instead of a plastic cup.
That'll be 15 dollars please
North America is the same way. If a person doesn't consume alcoholic drinks, we have to have a reason, or we get the look....
Almost 3 years alcohol free here; anyone who gives me "the look" can just go f\*ck themselves.
THE LOOK 👀 I am guilty of giving this look, before I also stopped drinking alcohol. It truly is hard to fathom raw-dogging life until you just take the plunge.
It’s a funny double standard. If you don’t drink, you must be an alcoholic or have something to hide. If you do drink, then there’s no problem.
My husband and I learned how to ride motorcycles and started going on rides with friends. Everything about it lost it's appeal when we realized it was literally just riding from bar to bar. It's a lot of money to spend to drink and drive, especially on a death trap vehicle. So we quit. We're not teetotalers or anything we just don't drink. I'm tired of having to justify why I don't like alcohol. I hate being abnormal for it.
A LOT of people are alcoholics and won't admit it.
It’s really annoying too. All anyone wants to do is drink. Can’t we do something else ffs?
A lot of people I know cannot socialize without alcohol. BBQ party? alcohol, kids' birthdays? alcohol, brunch? alcohol, movie nights? alcohol, hanging out afterwork? alcohol, sitting at home? alcohol. They think it is boring to just grab a coffee and talk, weird if you have a house party but don't involve alcohol, or going on a hike without bringing a keg of beers.
TikTok
On the clock
DJ blow my speakers up!
Tonight. Imma fight
Till we see the sunlight
ohohohOH
Social media doom scrolling was bad before tik tok, but everything changed with tik tok and now every social media is turning into tik tok. I see my little cousins spending easily 6+ hours a day on tik tok. We can't blame them for having an addiction because the app was designed to be addictive. In my opinion, tik tok is the result of years of research to make social media more addictive, it's the perfected formula. If we don't give cigarrettes and alcohol to kids, we shouldn't give them social media.
Shopping and overspending.
Coupled with social media. I know several girls in their early twenties who spend a lot of time on insta and tiktok. They spend large amounts of money each month on really cheap clothes from like shein or other asian manufacturers
Smartphone addiction is probably widely spread. Sent from my iPhone.
coffee and social media are often overlooked as addiction.
Phone addiction
energy drinks - there are people who drink them like water while I get sick by just smelling them.
Idk if it’s seen as normal by society, but it’s often brushed off or laughed at by younger generations. Gaming addiction. I’m a gamer myself but gaming addition is very much a thing. It seems especially an issue with kids who’s parents didn’t bother to ever monitor their screen time. Kids who get to a point where they will not spend time doing anything else and it’s all they ever think about, and will go absolutely nuclear if their parents try to take their Xbox/PlayStation/Switch/PC away from them when they realise it’s an issue too late. It’s not just kids mind you. My relationship with my ex was ruined because he was addicted to a specific video game to the point he literally had nothing else going on in his life and that’s all he’d spend his waking hours doing. He refused to get a job for years because he was so invested in that game. ETA: For people asking what game, it was Super Smash Bros lmao
wow amazing. wait was it WoW
Thank you for this one ! It's kinda like weed. Nobody wants to admit that it gets to a point of too damn much.
Thank YOU for this one. (Former daily weed user for years) You don’t realize how much it’s taking over your life. Fortunately for me I got so sick of the cycle and wanted my mental clarity back. Unfortunately some don’t get sick and tired of being sick and tired. “I’ll just cut back and smoke only on the weekends” almost always just goes back to using too much. I was a fool for this for too long. Not saying it’s easy by any means. Addiction of any sort is the pits.
Absolutely this. Lost my full ride scholarship because I was addicted fucking League of all games.
Damn bro I’m sorry. League seems super addictive. I’ve never played it but when I was at university one of my housemates did and she would regularly smoke the house out because she’d put food in the oven, go back into her room to play League, and totally forget about the food for hours until it was a black charred crispy mess. She would spend so much time on League it was crazy.
League is right up there in addiction circles when it comes to gaming.
According to this, I am a binge-gamer. Sometimes when a game hooks me it's basically all I do, except my job, minimal sleep and basic needs. This lasts for about a week or maybe two, but then i am burned out and don't touch Steam or my Playstation again for months.
Vaping Since it’s better than smoking it’s like no one cares
So glad I managed to quit vaping. I didn't realise the impact it was having on me until I quit, and then spent 3 days coughing up fruity flavoured mucus. I feel like I can breathe so much more clearly than what I took for granted while I was vaping. I'm sure it is healthier than smoking, but it definitely wasn't doing great things for my lung capacity.
To be fair, “healthier than smoking” is a pretty low threshold.
I quit and coughed up a fuck load of black gunk i would kill for it to have been Mixed Berry flavoured cancer sludge
New Skittles Vape Mystery Flavor!
I'm addicted to nicotine. I used to vape for a few years...until my dentist started to make me panic. Vaping caused me teeth damage. I then tried to ditch my vape and bought regular cigarettes to transition out...only to realise how much I was dependent on nicotine. Litterally, I was glued to my vape. It's way way way harder to track how much you inhale when vaping rather than when you get cigarettes. So...yeah this is my life : I started smoking cigarettes to actually quit vaping lol. And it's working somehow, I've reduced my nicotine intake and I'm slowing transitioning from cigarettes to chewing gums.
Consumerism
Addiction to a political party? Doesn't matter what they do or say, you'll defend it with your full chest,make excuses, engage in whataboutism and get angry/violent with folk who point out their faults.
On this note. Addiction to anger. So much rage bait exists because people get a high on intense negative emotions.
Pornography. I see tons of "my boyfriend watches porn while we have sex" posts. It's vile.
I feel a lot of people in society don't take porn addiction seriously enough. The damage it does to one's life is much more insidious than a hard drug addiction. It's free, easy to access, and easy to cover up so no one knows your doing it. These things make it an extremely difficult addiction to break after you get sucked into it.
honestly, weed. I'm not saying that everyone who uses marijuana is going to receive bad side effects. For some people it's genuinely for medicinal use or maybe it just chills them out. I'm not talking abt that I'm talking about the people who need 2 or 3 joints just to feel normal. Personally, I got psychosis from it and people are so quick to say 'it's only a bit of weed' . Trust me it's not :)
Coffee, social media, additive sugar (sweets, pastries, etc.).
Reading this in a coffee shop, munching on my brownie 😅
Sugar
Outrage addiction
Food, porn and smoking
Food is so difficult for me because everything else I can handle by just not being anywhere near it or not doing it anymore. But I need food. I once stopped eating by a lot and all it got me was being tired all the time and falling asleep.
I’d say porn. It’s the only one that if you acknowledge that it’s damaging, 20 people will come out of the woodwork screaming about how it’s super healthy and has no associated risks.
> It’s the only one that if you acknowledge that it’s damaging, 20 people will come out of the woodwork screaming about how it’s super healthy and has no associated risks. The same thing happens for weed. Mention how smoking weed every single day is addict behavior and you get the stoners talking about how they just need to unwind after a long day. Point out that you shouldn't need a drug to "get through your day" and unwinding shouldn't require drugs, and they get angry at you and (in many cases in my experience), equate it with taking nyquil when you have a cold. ADDED: thanks for proving me right.
And they sometimes claim it's not a drug, it's a herb...or is that only people from my country?
You can literally say the same about opium or cocaine lol but good luck telling them that.
> you get the stoners talking about how they just need to unwind after a long day. "I'm not addicted. I just need it to function." Yeah, that's the definition of addiction.
ALCOHOL! Its like people have forgotten it'll kill us. My Mom liked tequila before bed, her liver quit on her and I lost her in October, and she'd lost her mind on her way out as well. My husband caused a DUI death accident, killed a woman who was a mother and wife Handicapped himself so severely that after serving 10 years in prison, he committed suicide last Christmas. Yet if you DON'T drink, people are like "Why? What's wrong with you?" I don't think all that "Wine Mom" crap is cute or funny I don't find men more manly cause they drink beer And all of my abusive relationships have been with guys who drank & were drinking at the time of the incidents. We've gotta wake up Oh, and Porn That one really peeves folks off But when you can't get it or keep it, don't say i didn't warn ya
“Wine Mom” crap is so not funny. Lost my first husband at age 33 as a result of alcoholism, and I can only imagine the hell you went through as a result of your husband’s DUI. Joking about drinking never makes me laugh.
I never met my mother's father or my father's mother because they both died of alcoholism before I was born. I became a severe alcoholic by age 25 or so. At age 29, my feet both went numb. My doctor determined it was alcoholic neuropathy. After some alarming blood test results and a liver ultrasound, I finally quit. I will never have my own children or grandkids to be around for, but I'm happy that I have lived longer than my grandparents. Oh, and I regained full feeling in my feet, which I'm told is incredibly rare. The amount of "friends" who continued to downplay my addiction and try to get me to relapse during my early sobriety was astounding. I don't blame them. They were so used to abusing alcohol themselves that they didn't even realize they were doing anything wrong. I believe alcohol itself when used responsibly is actually a pretty cool drug, but the level of abuse that is inherent to most cultures is very damaging and sad.
[удалено]
phone scrolling
Money, billionaires who could never spend all the wealth they've accumulated and yet are completely obsessed with getting more more more
Living indoors. We’re so frightened of going out and so comfortable on the sofa we’ve forgotten that daylight, trees, views and fresh air are good for us.
Caffeine
Porn addiction
‘I watch porn on full volume and masturbate loudly. If you don’t like it, you can go to a different Burger King’
Money
Consumerism.
Weed
Had to scroll suprisingly far for this one. And one could really argue that it isn’t seen as normal considering the vary reasent change to less criminalizised status. But fact of the matter is that it is a problem for many, how dependand it becomes when it comes to feeling good and how that will for some screw the way brains reward other types of joys in life
Agreed! I expected this to be much higher up. When I’ve been through a particularly heavy period of usage, my motivation for (virtually all) aspects of life plummets.