You must log in or register to comment.
Excessive amounts of food. I have to eat, but cutting back to the amount I should be eating for my age and physical activity is so tough.
The cause is binge eating in my youth when I was extremely active but didn’t eat three meals a day due to adhd absentmindedness. Frequently I would only have one or two meals a day, but eat two or more meals worth of calories at a time and burn it off in short order.
Now with family and a desk job with a scheduled lunchtime it is basically impossible to eat when I’m hungry instead of when it is ‘time to eat’ and portion control is a struggle. Quitting smoking required buying a house and quitting together with the wife, at least that had a cutoff date that I could say “I haven’t smoked since moving in”. Eating less is something I need to do every day!
When I was assessed for (and diagnosed with) ADHD when I was 39, 5 years ago, I asked the psych whether my obesity was perhaps linked to it. He replied that, “no, probably not. Most of the people I see are thin”.
This had the double whammy of making me doubt my diagnosis and consider that I’m just an irredeemable fat cunt.
Which was nice.
He said most, not all. If my parents had been more regimented about me eating every meal I probably would have had weight issues earlier on.
To spin it positively, being exception to the general trend makes you exceptional!
Since covid, there’s been a lot of food in the house. Something about not being able to get it when we wanted made us buy more, more often and stockpile. Of course, food expires and throwing it away means that it was a bad decision to buy so much, so eating it is the only financially responsible thing to do, right?
Not to claim equivalence or anything, but smartphone and the internet (ironic saying so here I know).
I’m a xennial … old enough to remember living without all this and the middle time where computers were either games or just useful tools.
For me, and I’m pretty sure many others, I’m pretty convinced it’s better that way.
I’d really like to get away from these things, at least just to relearn older habits.
I’m slightly younger (born in 86) but went through a similar thought process a couple of years back. I remembered being an avid reader as a kid but could barely make it through a book or two a year, and struggled to maintain any form of attention span. I forced myself to read more for about the first month, then I got addicted to it again and ended up reading 42 books that year. I’m very conscious now about pretty much always having my devices in some form of focus mode/app time limits and prioritizing focus/reading time. I feel much better.
I’ve been starting to think that it’s something us older millennials can actually do for our younger friends … remind, demo and teach what a less tech ruled life can look like, how tech can be treated as more humane and not a necessity.
Born in 80, so a similar vintage to you; and yeah, we have connections and information now, but I feel like we should have stopped some time around 05, before smartphones really took hold.
I’m absolutely willing to accept that I’m wearing the highest grade rose tinted goggles, but not having to do everything online certainly felt better than whatever all this is. gestures broadly
I remember what it was like before I could stave off boredom at any time, but even then I don’t think the convenience outweighs the problems. Though in fairness it’s not really the phones, but the companies who make billions from us using them. But those companies had nowhere near the same amount of power, and I can’t help thinking that was a good thing.
I am confronting the fact that I have lost the ability to just be bored. I need to get that back.
Yep! Embracing boredom is likely the path back. Because it’s not a dead space. It’s a canvas.
Porn I’m afraid. Starting as a way to combat boredom and loneliness and anxiety as a preteen has turned in to a fifteen year long struggle and descent in to various medications and treatments that only impede my ability to develop healthy intimate relationships. Nofap, yorubrainonporn, abstaining, none of it has been effective for more than three weeks of it. Even being a pen tester when the compulsivity hits, it’s me versus my skills. And it’s always a losing demoralizing battle.
I’m currently trying to quit that too. It’s harder than I expected. I’m not severly addicted or anything but I’ve recently learned a lot about why porn is bad and why we should stop consuming it. The two aspects to it are basically the exploitation of the industry and the effects that watching it has on the viewer. If anyone’s interested, I can also go into more detail on that. For the first reason it would be enough to watch porn that’s not made using real people, like hentai but the second reason is why we should stop it entirely. It’s just that I grew up with phones and the internet, so I’ve jacked off to porn since I was 11 and it’s kinda hard to jack off without it because that’s where my mind goes automatically. I should be able to just do it without having to watch anything but I end up just not doing it at all. I don’t know if there’s any advice or something that could help me there.
What is a pen tester? I’m sorry to hear your problems and hope you get better soon
I do red team cybersecurity. Basically I try and break in to systems. Putting blockers up in my place is always a challenge as I break through the, by sheer skill.
Nicotine. No cigs anymore but never got off the vape.
Phond
I quit heroin and other heavy opioids just before fentanyl really hit the streets. Quit cold turkey after losing a few friends and realizing that I could get a bag cut with fent and die, and I couldn’t do that to my siblings; they’re a lot younger than me and really idolized me at the time.
When I was well enough to get to a store without shitting myself or throwing up bile everywhere, I went and bought a handle(1.75l) of the cheapest vodka I could. I continued that every day until 4 years ago.
I have cirrhosis, and my liver could shit the bed at any time, but I’m alive and I’m clean (for the most part) and sober. I work in recovery and am working to become a Drug and Alcohol Counselor now.
I quit smoking about 6 months ago. I went to the store, didn’t have quite enough for a pack, and just haven’t bought another. Tobacco has been the hardest for me by far. Alcohol withdrawal almost killed me - I had to be hospitalized for near a month - but I was on high doses of benzodiazepines so I don’t remember much of it. The cravings for a cigarette are intense. They’ve gotten better zand they will continue to do so, but damn, it’s rough.
Ozzy Osbourne called it the hardest drug to quit and that man has done many drugs
Social media. I’ll close the app and put my phone in my pocket, done with scrolling, then immediately take out my phone and open an app.
New things. I simply can’t stay with anything. Makes it basically impossible to have any decent job, because people want and expect you to be an expert at what you do.
Adhd?
Alcohol. Nicotine was a walk in the park.
Absolutely same. I woke up one day and cigarettes felt horrible. Quit easily.
Alcohol… I’m trying. It just makes everything so much more fun. I hate it. I love it.
It makes everything seem more fun.
That’s the same thing.
No, it really isn’t.
Being too damn nice.
Fiction. Written. Scifi almost exclusively.
When I can’t get the good stuff I use the bad stuff. But I’m always using.
I can beat the addiction of playing around on my phone very often throughout the day.
Sitting down too much. It took four lumbagos in three years to finally get the point.
I don’t write as much anymore unfortunately, but the huge upside is that, after two decades of not being able to do so, I can finally squat again with heels planted without tipping over. A proper Slav squat. Practicing this almost daily for nearly a year has improved my foundational skateboarding skills significantly. And I simply feel more youthful too.
Weed was easy. Don’t even think I was addicted. For me, I’ve been struggling for with sleeping pills lately. Might go back to the weed but just do oils before bed for sleep. I’m a shift worker in a high stress job so I need something at night to calm the nerves sometimes.
Nicotine by far. I quit doing most other drugs (except I still enjoy smoking weed), but I just cannot quit smoking. I’ve tried several times, and even if I go a month or two, I still can’t resist.
I think the reason for this is because I actually enjoy smoking quite a lot. All those other drugs eventually became more of a living hell than they were fun, so quitting them was easier.
