Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

Comment by photochemsyn | Hacker News Reader

The tendency to link the 'addiction' tag to every undesirable human behavior is a common trend, but it's worth remembering what actual physical addiction to a substance is: a biochemical response to the introduction of a foreign substance into the body, that results in withdrawal symptoms when said foreign substance is removed. If there are no withdrawal symptoms, there is really no addiction involved.

What the author of this piece calls 'addiction to righteousness' can also be described as 'obsession with outrage porn' or 'wanting to get triggered'. It's an easy fix for the addict to obtain - anyone suffering this malady can just scroll Twitter or Reddit etc. until they find something that does the trick. Then they can add their voice to the chorus of condemnation or commiseration and get the biochemical stimulus they were craving, most likely a dopamine reward. Note that the story they're reacting too doesn't even need to be true, and I always assume at least 50% of the 'anonymous personal testimonials' on social media are just fabricated stories put out for the upvotes (upvote addiction being rather similar).

One way out of that trap is to 'buffer' all the social media information you get, i.e. assume everything is untrustworthy, and if only it's something you think you're really interested in, something worth spending time on, only then move it to the 'active' folder, and do some work to verify the information is actually reliable.

Warning: outrage addicts might suffer some withdrawal from the dopamine release effect if they do this. Long-term mental health will likely improve, however.

> The tendency to link the 'addiction' tag to every undesirable human behavior is a common trend, but it's worth remembering what actual physical addiction to a substance is: a biochemical response to the introduction of a foreign substance into the body, that results in withdrawal symptoms when said foreign substance is removed. If there are no withdrawal symptoms, there is really no addiction involved.

"addiction" is not equivalent to "dependence", nor does one imply the other. pain management patients are typically dependent on opioids; they would have severe withdrawal if they abruptly stopped their regimen. but they don't necessarily have the compulsive/obsessive behavior of addicts. there are also drugs people get addicted to that don't have much or any associated withdrawal symptoms. people don't get withdrawal from gambling, but they can surely be as addicted as opioid users.

I've seen several comments like this recently. addiction seems an odd thing to gatekeep. the only "requirements" for addiction are impairment of control related to particular behaviors/substances, preoccupation with said behavior/substance, and continued use/behavior despite consequences.

Opiate addiction results in a higher concentration of opiate receptors on many cell surfaces. Possible down-regulation of endogenous endorphin production may also occur, as I recall. The result of removing the exogenous opiates is thus a very painful experience as the endorphin/receptor ratio is destabilized. This also seems to play a role in alcohol addiction as alcohol use has opiate-like co-effects[1]

[1] https://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/arh313/185-195.htm

Calling this 'dependency' instead of 'addiction' seems like a semantics game. A lot of other behaviors seem to involve dopamine rewards, but in those case withdrawal does seem to be much less of a physical phenomenon. However I'd definitely argue that addiction is a biochemical phenomenon. Whether or not it is 'compulsive' - well, people have free will and some people just want that little boost, even if it means they get led around by the nose by advertisers and opinion influencers and so on. A bit of self-awareness is a good antidote.

Some author - William Burroughs? said something like, "Heroin is the ultimate capitalist product - the consumer will crawl through a sewer of broken glass just for the opportunity to buy". That's why consumer culture promotes addiction in all spheres of life.

While it does seem like a matter of semantics, in the end, whether something is classified as an addiction or a dependance doesn't seem to be as binary as "has a biological response to removal of said substance".

I'd argue that since we do have dopamine/seretonin driven reward systems, anything that modifies a physiological expression of the neuro-chemical lifecycle from pre-exposure to post-exposure (whether that be density of receptors, abundance of neurotransmitter, some yet unknown neurochemical expression), then that substance can cause addiction.

Video games could do this, just not as dramatically as heroin, but given that modern day life is basically just a hamster wheel of our neurochemical systems, anything has the potential to be addictive as defined above, it all depends on where on the spectrum of addiction said substance lies.

it's not semantics. there's a useful distinction between addiction and dependence. dependence is the tolerance/withdrawal cycle. it doesn't necessarily coincide with the cravings that are characteristic of addiction. someone on pain meds for a broken leg may never think of them again once the treatment ends. it doesn't make sense to consider/treat them as an addict. conversely, a gambling addict is more similar to a heroin addict than a typical PM patient.

I’ve been addicted to video games without being physically dependent on them. I’ve been physically dependent on amphetamines without being addicted to them.

The relevant distinction isn’t what happens in your brain (which is not a useful diagnostic criterion), but whether you pursue the behavior to a harmful extent.

Is that distinction really useful though? Doesn't that rope in pretty much any behavior that deviates from your idealistic expectations of yourself?

Is a nail-biter an addict?

"Not your ideal expectation of yourself" is probably not enough, but if it's causing the nail-biter significant harm, then potentially, yes. If you've got someone who's tried unsuccessfully to stop biting their nails, they do it as a stress relief mechanism, it's causing significant bleeding/infection, they're hiding their hands out of embarrassment, they're having problems at work because it's grossing people out, etc, that could probably qualify as a behavioral addiction.

Also: Consider delaying discussing, liking or re-sharing an article until you've read it.

Not many people these days dispute the idea that you can become addicted to gambling.

https://www.economist.com/international/2022/01/01/are-video...

Nitpick. Dopamine doesn't signal a reward, and it isn't a reward in itself. In this context, the important function of dopamine is that it signals a reward prediction error.

Thanks for this, I never quite thought of it that way.

I struggled with ADHD-like symptoms profoundly during the eras of my life when my beliefs didn't match the trajectory the world was on, mainly during the early 2000s and late 2010s. My beliefs have since changed, now that I'm able to set boundaries and not let the outside world influence my inner peace as much as it once did.

But I really think there is something to the connection between negative feedback loops and ADHD/CPTSD/OCD etc. Which suggests to me that our obsession with medication is only looking at half the issue. Why are so many (generally clever, effective) people so consistently feeling like their intentions don't match outcomes? If it's not them, then what's wrong with the world or our role in it? Could we change reality instead of ourselves? Is there a difference? These are the questions I wrestle with now.

These are good questions.

> The tendency to link the 'addiction' tag to every undesirable human behavior is a common trend

It’s a subset of a common, but dishonest, technique of using false equivalence to downplay or exaggerate one thing.

In this case, the author points out similarities between drug addiction and some behaviors which are very much not in the same league as drug addiction. They may have a point that both are bad, but that does a disservice to readers who don’t really grasp just how much worse drug addiction is than, say, a pseudo-addiction to arguing with people on the internet.

> If there are no withdrawal symptoms, there is really no addiction involved.

It depends how you define withdrawal symptoms. Some people really do become anxious or angry or moody if they are deprived from their vices, whether drugs or habits. However, the addiction to drugs definitely runs deeper, given that they literally poke at the parts of your brain that inform it that you want more of something.

> It’s a subset of a common, but dishonest, technique of using false equivalence to downplay or exaggerate one thing.

In the first sentence the author identifies as an "sober addict" - so not without authority, they're claiming a subjective equivalence between drugs and internet outrage.

I'm sure everyone's experiences of those things is going to be different.

Medicalizing (or, providing the veneer of medical explanation in the realm of) ideological differences is weird.

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