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Comment by nottorp | Hacker News Reader

That's eliminating the temptation forcefully, not training to ignore it.

You enforce discipline from an extrinsic source until the expectations are understood and self discipline takes over. Works with dogs, soldiers and kids the same. Doesn't work with cats sadly.

And the best thing you can do is model the behavior of putting your phone away and out of sight for things like meals and family time.

This is exactly how we fought the war on drugs! I'm sure it will go great!

It's sad how addiction implies "be more tolerating because it'll happen anyways and be worse if you aren't", though.

I'm not saying that addicted people should just be thrown aside. At the same time, since addiction implies an altered mental state like insanity, addicted people are clearly a burden to society that can't be reasoned with. In general, people have their circumstances that lead them to do what they do, but addicted people may stay addicted even if their circumstances are somehow resolved. Addiction is a costly affair to individuals, their friends and families, and the state. We should try to rehabilitate addicted people and we should try to tackle the root causes (much easier spoken than done), but it's a lousy situation in the first place.

But it’s not "happening anyway", most people take drugs just fine without getting addicted. It’s when you are in a lousy situation and you take them regularly as an escape that you have a problem.

Most people may be fine, but considering that the CDC reported nearly 92,000 drug overdose deaths in 2020[0], I think there is a problem. Granted, it's a low percentage of the population, but that feels like the whole reducing people to statistics. The number seems to be growing, and anyways, you don't need to be on the immediate path to drug overdose for addiction to be an issue.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db428.htm#secti...

Overdose deaths are mainly caused by opiates, the surge is due to fentanyl. [0] This is also due to other drugs being cut with fentanyl. I'm not saying other drugs are otherwise harmless, far from it, but opiates are particularly sinister and addictive.

Most people know this, but many of those who seek out opiates are in a particularly lousy spot already where they don't care if it will ruin their life.

For other drugs that are used recreationally, the rate of addicts is comparable to that of alcohol users, if not lower.

[0] https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db428.htm#fig4

I don't exempt alcohol as a drug. At best, drugs are helpful in moderation. Social media, literal drugs, whatever potential object of addiction are trouble. There's enough trouble with society already.

Yes, eliminating the temptation is the first thing to do.

How do you expect someone to stop binge eating if they have the kitchen full of prepackaged foods?

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