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Comment by ancientstraits | Hacker News Reader

This is a very unexpected way to try combatting addiction. I don't know how well it will work, but I will consider it.

Negative reinforcement. There's a strategy for smoking where you put a wad of hair in your cigarettes. I used nicotine patches myself, so I can't speak to the efficacy.

As someone who has smelled burning hair, it at least sounds plausible. On the other hand, cigarette smoke already doesn't smell good.

people who smoke on the daily have already tuned out cigarette smoke mentally, the burning hair however is rancid to anyone.

Definitely not always true. I smoke, I hate it, I've tried to quit several times. The smoke smell has never repulsed me but I find it to smell terrible. Many people I know who smoke are the same.

It's a constant reminder that you're killing yourself for miniscule amounts of Feel Good chemicals at a time.

I've always enjoyed the smell of tobacco smoke. It's nowhere near as astringent and repulsive as woodsmoke and good tobacco often has a nice nearly floral scent or a sweet smell. The taste and the tearing up my throat and making my breath bad and the expense are all things I can do without though.

Does anyone else get seasonal nicotine cravings? In the warmer months, I don't even think about smoking unless I drink, but in winter I often can't sleep for craving a cigarette, even when it's been literally years since the last one.

Definitely. I'm usually quite successful at quitting during the summer. Then the winter months come and for some reason the urges come back.

[flagged]

This isn't true at all, though. Nicotine is strongly dopaminergic, it directly produces euphoria.

You can describe the trap which is addiction without saying things which are obviously not true. Or, to return your uncharitable rhetoric back upon you, lying.

Ah yes, I lied to myself. Thank you for fixing things for me.

Use nicotine pouches or vape, there is no reason to smoke and nicotine isn't carcinogenic

Thanks but I'm not really looking for advice. Where I live vape juice is exorbitantly priced. Plus there are other habitual issues with vaping, such as vaping indoors which overall increases my intake. Pouches aren't always a solution either and don't solve the "habitual" part of the habit, which is the hardest part to kick for me.

Pay the higher cost for the vape or you pay with your life. If intake is increase because you will do it indoors it won't really matter, it isn't nearly as bad.

I'm aware, thanks.

That's why the pouches are good. They reduce your craving, therefore making the act of smoking seem less necessary. Of course, the act itself is still appealing, but then you can work on reducing that habit independently and perhaps saving it for special occasions. I find cigars quite good for this. Too expensive and fancy to smoke every day but you can really treat yourself on your birthday or on holiday with something like a cigar.

vapes aren't as cool as smoked tobacco :)

Nicotine pouches are okay, I would advise against vape though. Vape is honestly more addictive than cigarettes and I find, in large volumes, the vapour still affects my lung function. Nicotine pouches or gum are the way to go to get the benefits with minimal side effects.

I had the same experience. I vaped way more than I smoke, and it really is the nicotine that affects me the worst in the mid term. Pouches are expensive here after the tax hike and they make me feel dizzy and the gum makes me sick. I also scarred from a patch (my fault, I was dumb and left it on over a transatlantic and it chemical burned me) and they don't always work for me for some reason. Though they're my go to for when I try to quit.

I think the habit of actually smoking is the hardest for me to kick. The small break is what keeps me going and clears my head, especially during work, and it's hard to replicate that.

Cigarette smoke is vile, but burned hair is another level.

To that I raise: crude oil

Unbelievable how its products separately don't smell nearly as bad.

I’ve never experienced crude oil firsthand, but I assume you are talking about “sour crude” which has a high sulfur content, including hydrogen sulfide, resembling rotten eggs or raw sewerage. So-called “sweet crude”, with a low sulfur content, has a less offensive smell, smelling more like the petroleum products derived from it.

Nit: that's not what negative reinforcement means. Negative reinforcement is about removing a negative stimulus, like inducing someone to go to a desirable website by improving their initially bad text contrast whenever they go there.

In this case, jumpscaring yourself would just be considered punishment (or "positive punishment").

To re-frame it as a list of combinations:

* Positive reinforcement: [Adding] something so that entity does the action [more]

* Negative reinforcement: [Removing] something so that entity does the action [more]

* Positive punishment: [Adding] something so that entity does the action [less]

* Negative punishment: [Removing] something so that entity does the action [less]

P.S.: Note that this intentionally avoids diving into exactly how the Entity judges the Something. It's not always clear, even if in many cases you can guess.

P.S.: Sharing a book-quote that seems apropos, particularly the final two lines.

> People came, and tormented a nameless thing without boundaries, and went away again. He met them variously. His emerging aspects became personas, and eventually, he named them, as well as he could identify them. There was Gorge, and Grunt, and Howl, and another, quiet one that lurked on the fringes, waiting.

> [...] Howl handled the rest. He began to suspect Howl had been obscurely responsible for delivering them all to [the torturer] in the first place. Finally, he'd come to a place where he could be punished enough. Never give aversion therapy to a masochist. The results are unpredictable.

-- Mirror Dance by Lois McMaster Bujold

There's also Allen Carr's books about treating addiction, and they don't use negative reinforcement, at least the ones I've read

Rather it helps you learn to recognize the fallacies behind the addictive cravings themselves, and to thus resolve the core of why you turn to that in the first place

Still have to make the decision to recall those in the moment, but when you do you do neutralize the cravings

His first book was Easy Way to Stop Smoking

For digital addiction there's Smart Phone, Dumb Phone

For internet porn there's easypeasymethod.org (based on EasyWay to Stop Smoking)

I know two people that quit with that book, both more than 20 years ago. One restarted few years ago, the other one never smoked again.

I put wads of toenail clippings like ))))) in my Lisp code.

Didn't work; still at it, 25 years and counting.

I genuinely hope you find a way to quit. you made me do an audible gag sound.

Yeah, counting parens! Dohohoho!

Go Parinfer, never look back!

> toenail clippings like ))))) in my Lisp code

I smell a custom font opportunity.

I'll admit that I went quite far in your comment history to figure out if maybe those 5 closing parentheses were matching some long-lost post of yours, and as a Lisp addict you couldn't resist the temptation.

Alas, I am disappointed to inform you that your comment history will no longer compile :(

> where you put a wad of hair in your cigarettes

Oh god I almost gagged just thinking about it. If negative reinforcement works, that'd do it haha

SNRIs like Wellbutrin do this. They make cigarettes taste gross.

It is hilarious that page shows how one replaces FB with HN... which is precisely what I did in 2019, and now I'm a total HN addict, spending more than a few minutes on it at least 5 times a day.

In case you don't already know - set noprocrast in your HN profile to limit the time you spend on this site.

in case you don't know this only has limited effect, cause you can open it again in a private browser. besides the search works with the procast setting, and we're not talking external constraints, people, us, me,... lack at this point internal mental defenses against the negative impact of social media.

See, this is the problem with all these mindfulness tools. I, the human, can simply defeat every challenge the computer attempts. And i require the ability to do so in case i have a need that's only satisfied by searching reddit for textbook recommendations while I'm in half price books, or a youtube video to fix my broken zipper pocket before i head to the gym soon. The fact that they time wasting sites are also the "goldmine of knowledge" sites make me include a back door in any time minder tool. A backdoor which is only used when needed... until it slowly becomes muscle memory and the tool is defeated by my capacity to learn to fuck myself over again and again.

Instead you ought to pay someone $15/hr to sit next to you. Anytime you're distracted by a website for more than five minutes, they punch you in the arm.

They also have to know they don't get paid if you manage to convince them to go away and leave you alone for a while.

Someone should to invent an AI powered one that is utterly unpredictable and installs in the boot sector. You're browsing Hacker News one day and suddenly your smoke alarms goes off. You do it the next day and your Echo device starts playing death metal at highest volume. You do it the next day and your car alarm goes off.

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