Hacker News Reader

Comment by ThinkBeat | Hacker News Reader

To compare it to heroin is a horrible trivialization of something that destroys a person and at time those around the person.

I feel that to make this statement in any genuine way, the author should spend 6 months developing a serious addiction to heroin then attempt to get clean.

I am blessed I have never done heroin and hopefully I never will.

I have gone weeks without sugar and had a craving, some mild headaches and at times been a bit grumpier. That is not even a measurable fraction of trying to get sober from a heroin addiction.

View on HN

The author did not imply that sugar addiction is anywhere as bad as heroin addiction.

They observed a technique that was shown scientifically to be effective for the more serious addiction and decided to try it for their milder addiction. That’s just good reasoning, and it worked for them.

> The main conclusion from the study is that a change of environment as radical as Vietnam’s during a war period compared to the US was critical for their recovery.

Obesity related deaths are the second leading cause of preventable deaths in the US.

Sugar addiction can lead to obesity. And obesity can absolutely affect the lives of others around you.

I’ve mentioned here before how I’m the only person in my immediate family who isn’t obese. Growing up with obese family members can affect your lifestyle greatly. It’s not fun.

You're wrong, actually, based on my conversations with my friends who are sober through Narcotics Anonymous.

Intuition may tell you that "softer" addictions like sugar/food, video games/tech, pornography/sex, etc. are easier to stop than narcotics, but reality doesn't bear this out from those I've spoken with, at least if you have a true DSM-5 criteria addiction to these "softer" substances (which if you have a true addiction, can readily destroy your life and even kill you).

The trivial availability, legality, lack of social stigma/shame and other factors cause such addictions to actually be much more challenging to become sober from than narcotics or alcohol, on average. That said, my sample size is quite small and skewed, since those I've talked to have achieved long-term NA/AA sobriety for the most part.

Don't get why you get into such criticism, the author did not compare sugar to heroin, he made an example of something indeed more dangerous and even more addicting that had a great benefit from the change of environment and stated he worked for him too.

There are other axes of comparison than severity. I think it’s a comparison that well illustrates their point.

It's a blog post, not a feature article in a national newspaper.

I’m glad I’m not the only one that feels off about that. I feel like heroin as the standard measure of “really bad addiction” is at least an unhelpful choice.

I don’t think people walk away from an article like this thinking opiate addiction is any less horrible than they originally thought, but the usual refrain of “[porn|sugar|social media] is like heroin!” usually presented with a fMRI capture with circles on it, gives me pause. At best, it’s not communicating the actual effect of addiction on someone’s life, at worst it does trivialize it.

To be fair to the author, this article doesn’t follow that usual refrain.

People’s experiences vary.

If you want to understand through experience, try a GLP-1 drug. It changes your relationship with rewards, from alcohol to sugar to sex.

Addiction is addiction regardless of the product or its side effects on your life. That is what is important here.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com