My 30-Year Quitting Addiction | Hacker News Reader

My 30-Year Quitting Addiction

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29 pointsandsoitis65 comments

As a kid I never understood how many of the other kids were starting to smoke, given how incredibly addictive it is. The warnings were everywhere. Like, why would you ever start when you know perfectly well it is both addictive and bad for you? It doesn't even make you sociable like alcohol.

Unfortunately, nowadays I instead get addicted a lot to various websites, like YouTube and ... Hacker News.

It's pretty easy to hang out with smokers when you smoke. Light one up, shoot the shit.

It's pretty easy to hang out with drinkers when you drink. Grab a glass, shoot the shit.

But it's hard to hang out with smokers and drinkers when you don't drink or smoke. Those who smoke or drink are the vast majority of the adult US population.

It's especially hard when you're not religious, as most of the teetotalers seem to be religious. Finding non-smoking, non-drinking, religiously tolerant peeps as an adult is so, so tough. It's like, choose one (or more) - drinking, smoking, institutional religion. Those are your options if you want to be a social adult.

It doesn't seem like it should be this way, but it seems to be, across countries and cultures.

> It doesn't seem like it should be this way, but it seems to be, across countries and cultures.

That's definitely not across countries and cultures, that seems to either be specific to your country, or at least your part of the world.

Try traveling to the Nordics (specifically Sweden). Usually very tolerant of most things, few smoke but most drink. But won't look sideways at you if you don't do either.

Non alcoholic drinks are becoming a lot more prevalent where I live, which is maybe surprisingly Wisconsin. It's a welcomed change for those of us that want to drink socially but not get drunk.

I really didn’t understand what an “addiction” was until I started smoking and subsequently tried (for years) to quit. Sure people say, “don’t do that, it’s addicting,” but most of what I heard was warnings about blackened lungs and cancer. I didn’t understand that smoking meant tremendous mood swings and irresistible cravings upon quitting.

And dreams even years later about having a cigarette and then waking up and wanting a cigarette... I started smoking around 13 or 14 and quit at 27. Still have those dreams once in a while seven years later.

> how many of the other kids

As a proud owner of two kids and as a former kid myself: their prefrontal cortex is still developing. Either they cannot stop themselves or they don’t notice the danger or don’t believe it applies to them. Kids will happily walk into traffic without realizing they’re in any danger at a much older age than it would seem reasonable.

I think this is one of the reasons cigarette companies keep getting caught marketing to kids, as if they wait until people have more ability to reason and more agency, then they would decide to not start smoking. It’s almost as if they are preying on that weakened mental state to build a pipeline of lifelong customers.

Well, as I said, I was their age myself when I couldn't understand their irrationality. Perhaps some of them wanted to look cool or rebellious. But I suspect some people just can't really imagine what "addicted" means. Prefrontal cortex issue perhaps. "You can't stop but you can totally stop?? Makes no sense!" A previous poster mentioned something like this.

> I was their age myself

Gotcha. It’s hard to reason about in that case and I agree it’s really frustrating when you’re in the same peer group.

As much as I struggle to understand why someone would fall for something as obviously bad as smoking, I have ADHD and routinely have to explain why things that are easy for others are hard for me. We all have strengths and weaknesses. One of the only universal weaknesses is that we are all bad at understanding what is hard for others.

I teach 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. Executive function is a skill. Some people are better at it than others.

I think the ULTRA hard thing to realize about other people is that they’re not like us. Even when we are comparing a peer group. What is easy for you and me might be hard for others. The inverse is true as well. Empathy is hard.

When it comes to smoking, I think of it like cult indoctrination. It doesn’t work on everyone, but it REALLY works on the people who are susceptible to it, and intelligence unfortunately has very little to do with it.

Almost?

That’s almost funny, except for how sad it is…

> Like, why would you ever start when you know perfectly well it is both addictive and bad for you?

Just because something is addictive doesn't necessarily mean that my life overall would be better without it. I drink coffee daily, I smoke and have other vices too, and realize that they're harmful. But I think with moderation, it won't kill you too quickly, and if I really enjoy something, shouldn't I just enjoy it?

Eventually I won't be able to enjoy anything as I'll be in the ground. But until then, I'll try to enjoy myself (in moderation of course).

The main issue with smoking as “shouldn’t I just enjoy it” are the secondary effects on other people. There are ways to mitigate some of those (e.g. not smoking when anyone else is present) and others you have to choose to ignore or not consider worth worrying about (e.g. the potential costs to the health system if you do have major problems later).

Not to pass judgement. We all do things that cause secondary effects to others. I just picked smoking here as an example because everyone knows what those are.

Yeah, you're absolutely right, there are definitely drawbacks that are bigger than me (secondary smoke, giving money to a horrible industry, costing taxpayers more health-care and so on), but I'm pretty sure me driving a diesel car every day might have a even bigger effect. And if I travel to the other side of the planet in an airplane a year, I'll already done a lot of harm to the environment indirectly, probably way more than both me and my cigarettes could ever do.

The only thing I can do is minimize the harm. I don't smoke next to others outside, I use tobacco made by smaller company with no additives, I never throw the fag-end on the streets and so on.

What's even the advantage of smoking? Smokers don't even seem to get significantly "high" as with alcohol or marijuana.

Well, the advantage of smoking if you like smoking is that you get to smoke. Nothing more than that :)

That sounds pretty meager. Like being addicted to sugar that doesn't taste sweet.

I used to smoke a lot and I still miss it quite a bit. Never felt that I was chemically addicted but the ritual aspect was a big part of why I felt the need to keep at it. Also, it was something that you could do completely on your own without having to explain yourself. Maybe not such a big thing now, but pre-smartphones it was a great excuse to leave a party or social situation and spend some time away from people.

I got addicted to nicotine because its a stimulant and I had no idea how to get help for ADHD in college. To make it worse i had various oral fixations since infancy.

Years later my vape is still my oral fixation, I use a fairly low nicotine level. But its a constant need for myself. Even after getting medicated.

Take this as you will, the relationship between mind altering chemicals and the pressure to succeed in a rat race.

I started smoking at 18 and quit 15 years later. Truth be told, we didn't fully understand how addictive it is. The thing with addiction is that it's a very abstract concept. As a smoker, you tend to believe that you smoke because you enjoy it, not because you desperately need it, although the signs of dependency are there. For instance, you wake up in the morning, and the first thing you feel compelled to do is light a cigarette to get your fix. Ironically, I only realized how addicted I was to smoking when I quit and experienced withdrawal symptoms, which came as quite a shock

What about the opposite effect? I know/think I'm addicted to cigarettes, I smoke a couple every day, but the times I've stopped smoking for weeks/months at a time (most recently a year ago), I feel no withdrawal symptoms nor typical signs of dependency. But after smoking for more than 15 years, I'm either addicted or have some sort of addiction resistance... But knowing myself with other substances, I don't think it's the latter.

Funny how different bodies seem to react very differently to substances...

I don't think that a couple a day can build an addiction. My withdrawal symptoms were quite severe. Depression, insomnia, difficulty to concentrate etc. Every person I've known who has quit cold turkey went through symptoms of similar severity.

> Unfortunately, nowadays I instead get addicted a lot to various websites, like YouTube and ... Hacker News.

I realized this about myself recently as well. I found a pretty good solution that works for me and may or may not work for you.

1. Disable all Youtube search history (no more recommendations!)

2. Use your hosts file to block sites you spend too much time on. To visit them you have to go through the effort of opening the hosts file and edit it (which for me requires typing in a long password because sudo). This was enough to break my habit of mindlessly visiting them. Here's an excerpt from mine:

127.0.0.1 youtube.com

127.0.0.1 www.youtube.com

#127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com

127.0.0.1 chess.com

127.0.0.1 www.chess.com

127.0.0.1 reddit.com

127.0.0.1 www.reddit.com

127.0.0.1 facebook.com

127.0.0.1 www.facebook.com

3. For your smartphone, uninstall all browsers and just use Firefox Focus. Turns out having to manually enter URLs and searches without auto-complete is pretty shitty user experience (which is good in this case!)

There is a free and open source app called SelfControl for macOS. It allows one to block access to any site one adds to the list in the app for the amount of time the user chooses. Attempt to use multiple browsers, restarting one's machine, deleting the app, etc. won't get around the block either. It's been super helpful for me, so I thought I'd just throw it out there.

https://selfcontrolapp.com

If your addiction isn't too strong, this windows app lets you quickly switch between host profiles: https://github.com/jerone/HostProfiles

The idea is that there should be some amount of 'friction' involved. I used to have a script that made it easier, but realized after a while that it defeated much of the purpose of blocking the sites in the first place.

Thanks for the tips. (Blocking sites in the router software works as well as in the host file.)

> I never understood how many of the other kids were starting to smoke

Human behavior is not generally a result of reasoning.

> My addiction to quitting started in seventh grade, when my teacher read some meatpacking excerpts from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle out loud in class.

It's impressive to me that this book was read in a 7th grade class. The Jungle is a pretty hardcore read.

Though I do respect the author exercising such self control, I wonder where their limit lies. Avoiding addictions can end up being an addiction in itself, and lead to things like orthorexia where one is so careful to avoid harmful substances that they end up eating an insufficient amount of nutrition. I've also known people who have gotten into a new age or spirituality kick, decided that even an hour of video games a day is an hour a day of time wasted, went minimalist, and then came away looking to fill that void with other things that are just as surrogate as video games are.

Notwithstanding, An hour of video games a day doesn't sound like a small amount of time to me.

Replace "video games" with "reading" or "TV" or "dicking about on your phone" and it starts to feel much more reasonable.

Reasonable? If anything it just points to how much of your day disappears with those. Profoundly unreasonable... unless they actually help you reach your goal somehow.

It's a hobby. It doesn't have to have a goal other than leisure or relaxation. It's only unreasonable if it causes distress and prevents him from reaching other goals.

I do not for the life of me understand why every waking activity has to be judged by its contribution to goal achievement maximization.

My goal is to lead a happy life, and by and large the entertainment derived from all of the above activities contribute to that goal.

There is a lot more to life than grinding yourself into the machine you know.

Absolutely not. Maybe it sounds more reasonable because you have been programmed to not think too much about those other activities

Yes, how dare you have an hour of leisure time per day. Unthinkable.

That's not what I'm saying, but your aggressive reaction shows you have a particular attachment to garbage activities

This mirrors my experience remarkably. Quitting smoking and becoming a runner in my 20s was transformative for many reasons, perhaps most of all by replacing regular feelings of shame with pride.

I'd love to kick sugar for good. It's inflammatory, destabilizes my concentration, make my moods less steady, and interferes with deep sleep. I've tried many times and many ways. But it's such a strong addiction (it's a big part of what the dopamine system was built to make sure we get!) and short of going keto, you can't take the kind of absolute approach that worked for this author and me with nicotine, alcohol, etc. because all carbs hit that reinforcement system. If anyone with addictive tendencies has figured this out, I'd love to hear how.

I think the trick here is to avoid having sugar nearby and to fill your pantry with healthy alternatives. Avoid purchasing sugar laden foods from the supermarket and opt for healthy choices, so the only foods to snack on within your home are fruit and nuts. Unfortunately if you have roommates or a family this requires everyone in the household to opt in, but it makes it easy to avoid sugar. You only need to exercise restraint when buying food at the supermarket once or twice a week, instead of every day.

If you follow this advice, then your only option to get sugar is to leave your house to get it, which discourages its use because of the extra burden to procure it. Also, this trip will give your forebrain extra time to kick in and abort the quest to fulfill your cravings.

Unfortunately if you go into the office and they have a bunch of sugary stuff around (m&ms, candy bars, etc) then your only choice is to avoid wherever that stuff is stored. You could try moving where you sit to another floor or farther away from the office pantry.

Yeah, the difference between willpower while shopping and willpower all the time is huge. No one would try to quit smoking with cigarettes around the house. I was almost a year off sugar when I went to work at one of those shops with the pastry chefs and piles of snacks... It wasn't long before the stress and easy availability knocked me off the wagon.

> Quitting smoking and becoming a runner in my 20s was transformative for many reasons, perhaps most of all by replacing regular feelings of shame with pride.

I have a loved one, a life-long smoker in their 60s, who is moving into a non-smoking residential complex. I feel some concern.

> I'd love to kick sugar for good.

And now we're onto my addiction. It ramped up after a new schedule shorted my sleep by 1-2 hours a night.

In my experience, quitting sugar and carbs reduced my overall appetite, so the cravings were gone fairly quickly. I did have a mild headache for two days.

Aside, I wonder how/when "carbs" became a euphemism for refined grains and junk food instead of just saying junk food.

Presumably you aren't talking about quitting beans and broccoli, for example, nor did you add those to your diet in place of junk food.

Yes thank you for the correction. I have eliminated starchy vegetables such as potatoes and corn.

Stepping down gradually was what worked for me and I was way up there. I mean taking the nozzle off the fountain machine spout to pour pure Mountain Dew syrup before filling it up normally.

There are a few keys I think for overcoming addiction (former smoker, I vibe quite a lot with the running to quit smoking).

1. Feedback loops. Addictions tend to be positive feedback loops - 100% pleasure. EG: Sit on ass, smoke, feel great, continue to sit on ass, smoke more, continue to feel great. But, add running into the mix and that turns into: sit on ass, smoke, run, feel like shit. "feel like shit" was never part of that first feedback loop. At least "feel like shit" won't be until the lungs are damaged enough where they begin to have serious trouble repairing themselves. Even then, that feeling is masked by smoking (when a person smokes, pain suppressing hormones are released in and around the lungs). It could even become perverse, when a persons lungs start to hurt - they then want to go smoke. Identifying these positive feedback loops IMO can really help clarify what is driving a behavior.

2. Replacement. Are you sitting at a desk eating too many sweets? Try replacing with mixed nuts or another snackable. (I swapped alcohol for tea once and was pretty successful there)

3. Desensitization. Cook 100% of your own food for a month or two. At the end of that, you'll be eating a lot less salt and sugar. Going from that, to then eating a big mac or candy is going to be nothing short of an assault on the senses. The big mac will taste greasy, the candy over-poweringly sweet. It'll be easy to jump right back in the feedback loop and become re-addicted to this food, but the initial positive feeling will be significantly lessened.

4. Budgeting. Be careful with this one. This technique never worked for me, but for some it does. Allow certain things at truly specific times & places. This is how some people control coffee, for example: they get one cup a day, before 10am, period. Ask that person if they want a cup of coffee and they say "I already had my cup of coffee for the day." My willpower to do budgeting is close to zero, so I don't try this, but it works well for some people.

5. Inspection, why do you love it? Addictions are centered around love. I loved smoking. It's really a very nice thing to do, it's fun, it feels good, relaxing, something to fiddle & fidget with, reliable, a nice little break every now and then to enjoy the night air. Once a teenage peer said of drugs to me: "what's the worst, you won't like it and won't do it again?" Actually, the worst is you do like, and you wind up liking it a lot. We do these things all the time for a reason, not just because we are weak, but because we love these activities, that is why we're addicted. In this technique, simply seek to better understand - what is this activity doing for you? Why do you like it so much? What holes is it filling in your life? Personally, I thought there was something very empowering to absolutely state, "I love smoking", and I will always love it - that is why it is an addiction. Once you make that statement, I think it's easier to gain compassion and agency, and then it becomes easier to also start to think about why. Before then, the thoughts of being a smoker were generally things like "I'm just weak", or "this is a small vice, I'm trying to kick", or "I don't really like this, it's all meh, I'll quit soon." These latter things were all lies for me, confronting head-on that I was dealing with something powerful, and slightly more profound than "just a small little vice", was just really important. Without that, thinking about the situation really just got very negative, makes you feel like a failure as a person, thoughts that generally humans do not like to dwell on - so instead less thought is given to the vice and the habits just kinda continue. Instead stating, "I love this, now let me think about why?" puts it into a frame that the mind can dwell on.

I'm overdue to write a book on this. I hope my experiences/thoughts might be of some help and interest.

I resonate with a lot of this.

1. Identifying and shaping positive feedback loops is so under-appreciated. As true for the spiral upward of exercise, healthy diet, good sleep, etc. as the downward dynamic you describe.

5. Absolutely. I used to say that cigarettes were my most reliable friends. Always there for me; always made me feel better. I imagine you've seen the idea that addiction is a consequence of loneliness/isolation. I think that's probably taking it a bit too far, but I'm sure that feeling belonging and love protects against it to some degree.

4. Doesn't work for me either, at least for a certain kind of addiction. One year on Halloween I had been sugar and refined-carbs free for months, had a fun-size Butterfinger at work, and then had a pint of ice cream that evening. Same thing with cigarettes.

It would be a good book. Let me know if you want to collaborate on it.

One of my greatest hopes for near term AI is that individualized medicine and best health practices can be improved.

Take my actual genetic data, observe my current bloodwork, ask a series of informed questions to fill in the blank.

Then cross reference all of the studies and data that meet some basic criteria of efficacy and scientific proof and output, actual recommendations, and or answer questions to specialized symptoms.

it feels like that is something we could reasonably expect to work in our lifetimes, right?

Not asking AI to even do the science yet just help to individualize the current body of work.

This is one of my hopes too, but it's going to threaten the livelihoods/existence of some of the wealthiest and most powerful people in our society. They already very tightly control the reins on who is allowed to "practice" medicine. It's going to take a fighter with very deep pockets and a serious commitment to their principles to make that happen. Alternatively if the people got mad and vocal enough about it, the democratic levers could be used, but the population is so largely apathetic and accepting of whatever we're told that I don't see that happening. For example, many people are being forced into purely artificial shortages of medicines they depend on, and there's no outcry.

What I see as much more likely, is this software will exist but will be gated to use only by a licensed physician, ostensibly for our "safety"

I relate so much with your writing (both quitting and your writing style), thanks for sharing.

For me, this habit of breaking habits is based mostly on my curiosity about how my mind works and the fear of losing control.

I know that I easily get addicted to pleasure, so I quickly cut habits from my life when I have the first glimpse of losing control of it.

Lately I’ve been trying to quit this “all or nothing” mentality and adopt a more balanced mentality, where I allow myself to enjoy a cup of coffee or chocolate, within the amounts where I feel acceptable. It is not easy, but having compassion with myself has helped me not stress when going over the “limit” and also to stick with good habits when I need.

And as you mentioned, it is so easy to make this topic about me. Sorry about that!

What does this person do for fun/instead of all of these things? What is their vice?

Why do people assume that to have fun one need alcohol or some other unhealthy stuff?

Most people do not, but people with social anxiety usually can't loosen up with strangers at a party. Alcohol helps in that regard, to an extent.

Eating a banana by first breaking it in half, and then peeling the halves.

Why would joy be intrinsically tied to unhealthy behaviors?

Marijuana was mentioned as enjoyed, but not as quit.

Author indicated that he smokes weed and eats sugar. Clear vices IMO.

Coffee, maybe? I know it is for me.

It's interesting that the author mentions quitting as a way to exercise agency over their life. It's like a healthier version of anorexia.

What all the healthcare obsession, self improvement fads and quitting in the article reminds me of is a segment from Baudrillad in America (1989), who anticipated this:

"This omnipresent cult of the body is extraordinary. It is the only object on which everyone is made to concentrate, not as a source of pleasure, but as an object of frantic concern, in the obsessive fear of failure or substandard performance, a sign and an anticipation of death, that death to which no one can any longer give a meaning, but which everyone knows has at all times to be prevented[...]

This ‘into’ is the key to everything. The point is not to be nor even to have a body, but to be into your own body. Into your sexuality, into your own desire. Into your own functions, as if they were energy differentials or video screens. The hedonism of the ‘into’: the body is a scenario and the curious hygienist threnody devoted to it runs through the innumerable fitness centres, bodybuilding gyms, stimulation and simulation studios that stretch from Venice to Tupanga Canyon, bearing witness to a collective asexual obsession. This is echoed by the other obsession: that of being ‘into’, hooked in to your own brain. What people are contemplating on their word-processor screens is the operation of their own brains. It is not entrails that we try to interpret these days, nor even hearts or facial expressions; it is, quite simply, the brain. We want to expose to view its billions of connections and watch itoperating like a video-game. All this cerebral, electronic snobbery is hugely affected - far from being the sign of a superior knowledge of humanity, it is merely the mark of a simplified theory, since the human being is here reduced to the terminal excrescence of his or her spinal chord. But we should not worry too much about this: it is all much less scientific, less functional than is ordinarily thought. All that fascinates us is the spectacle of the brain and its workings. What we are wanting here is to see our thoughts unfolding before us - and this itself is a superstition"

I like this quote! Was going to buy it on Kindle, but it's only available in print. It was reprinted with illustrations in 2010. Maybe the library has a copy. Thanks!

I wonder how many people like this (myself included) would fall under the “Type 8” in the enneagram system. (I view it as a personality system, not a spiritual system)

I find that my fear of losing control makes it very easy to do cold-turkey quitting. Something that seems harder for most other folks. It sounds like the author may resonate with that idea. It’s the main reason I quit things as well.

I quit reading. not ironic.

I kept waiting for them to drop that they are quitting quitting. But alas, the author is not very self aware.

I love quitting. I quit most things I start. I wish I didn't-- I'd be far more successful. Life is short and you're lucky to do one thing well, so stop quitting.

Funny quote at the end: Writing in the first person? (Never.)

Whole article is first person…clever use of sarcasm…

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