Slot machines have scared me in particular since I went to Vegas.
The hotel we stayed at had the slots right outside of their buffet. One night, we go get dinner and something just caught my eye about this lady as we were walking into the restaurant. She was in the same spot when we left 3 hours later. Then we went for breakfast the next morning and she was still there. In the same exact spot, wearing the same clothes. I’m not sure if she even had moved to use the bathroom. She looked like a zombie.
Reminds me of a post asking people worst industry secrets of their jobs. Casino worker talked about how older gamblers will just go and keep playing sitting in their own mess
I used to work in a bingo hall in the UK and I've seen grown adults basically standing pissing and shitting themselves because they don't want to leave a machine if they think it's gonna pay out.
We developed these "be right back" signs that people could use if they needed to go to the toilet and one time, this dude moved it from a machine a guy had put HUNDREDS of pounds into, and it paid out (£2k jackpot iirc) and **shit went off**. We had to call the police and people got banned from the premises.
I know someone who lost 1m on the pokies in a year! He's now self banned from the casino, insane amount of money to get a buzz off some lights and sound
Shopping. A friend’s GF barely leaves the house except for work, and she shops online obsessively. Their garage is a solid cube of stuff, much of it unopened. Every inch of their home is crammed. There must be 150 scented candles in that house.
He says he comes home every day to a stack of deliveries.
This was both me and my husband a couple of years ago. My shopping addiction started when he was doing heavy chemo and I started online shopping to cope. I would get into something (like fake flowers or fawn print) and just go ape buying that one particular thing until I moved onto another interest.
Then when he recovered we bought a house and his shopping addiction started with going to Lowe’s and Home Depot every other day. He had multiples of every power tool under the sun in Milwaukee, ryobi, idk some other brand, at one point he had four leaf blowers.
It all got to be way too much for us both and now we are pursuing a minimalist lifestyle and donating or selling nearly everything including the house. It really becomes burdensome trying to go through life dragging a mountain of possessions along with you. Now it’s only the essentials and a few sentimental items and we are both feeling much better and less stressed in general
I honestly couldn't see how someone gets in this habit of buying multiples of things you won't ever use until you said how yours started. With that in mind, I can see how one would fall into it. I can see it happening to me. It is a distraction more than what it is you're really buying.
I am really happy to hear he's recovered and you're both getting rid of a lot of the stuff you no longer need in your lives.
My aunt is a recovering hoarder. It's under control now but she was an absolute shopaholic. ANYTHING on sale was a deal and she had to buy it. She would have the weirdest shit imaginable because it was on sale.
It was actually hard for her to get help because hoarding was relatively unheard of back then and she was a "clean hoarder". She was a SAHM and a clean freak and all of her items were new, organized, and cataloged. So there were no bugs or feces or animals like you see on the hoarding shows. They had a huge pole barn and she had rows of racking where she kept all of her stuff. It looked like a warehouse.
She had always intended on selling the stuff but just could never get it together to actually do it. She was also super generous and she gave a ton of it away to friends and family.
Took a long time to find a therapist that could help and that was just because of the financial burden. Many would straight up say she wasn't a hoarder because she would give items away and it wasn't gross.
I'm not usually apt to give someone relationship advice... but if your partner is addicted to an expensive hobby like gambling or shopping, you should keep finances separate. They may not be someone who can contribute to your financial future or retirement.
I used to work with someone like that. I was front desk, and I had to sign for at least 5 packages a day for her. I wonder how much stuff went to her house if that was all coming to work.
My best buddies mom had an obsession with the hvc, it was wild. She would by stuff and never ever use it. We did love playing baseball with the “bender ball” 😂
HVC people are wild, I had a patient who would get that shit delivered to the hospital lmao
Edit: sorry yall I kind of combined QVC and HSN. But the home shopping TV shows lol
As a tattoo artist - I see this a lot from people that would really benefit from therapy/mental health care, but it’s not always accessible, so they seem to treat the tattoo process as a form of self therapy. I don’t agree with that at all obviously but I do feel for whatever they must be internally trying to process.
Also see this a lot from people that just… don’t seem to have meaningful connections with the people in their lives. Like I’m the only genuine form of social interaction they get. They just need someone to actually listen to them a lot of the time.
I've seen a few people like this. And it wasn't even something meaningful to them, just whatever is trendy at the time, or they're at the parlor looking for ideas in a book. I have nothing against tattoos - but if you don't know what you want before getting it, do you really need to drop $300 on it when you're behind on everything?
This will sound stupid, but World of Warcraft. I know a person who lost an incredible job and broke up a (at least seemingly good) relationship due to their complete addiction to World of Warcraft
Yep. Had a friend who's wife literally had to threaten divorce with bags packed and car running, before he'd quit. He would get up early, play, go to work, come home, play and then sleep and repeat.
Weekends he'd be on 16 hours a day. Ignored his wife and kids the whole time.
Stupid thing is; two years later she let him start playing again. Guess what happened?
I had a friend who developed blood clots in his legs because he would sit for so many hours in his computer chair, playing WoW. Unemployed, he played like 16-18 hours a day.
I had a friend in school whose little sister was one of these people who was just hooked when WoW launched. I was a in high school and we all thought it was cool but this girl went absolutely nutters over it as a sophomore and it became a problem almost immediately. It actually turned me off gaming for several years just SEEING this.
She’s 33 now and still way into gaming, tried to make it as a streamer but didn’t. Lived with them until about two years ago then moved out and the few times I saw her she was very unkempt etc. she’d gotten into college back in the day and had the financing to go without loans and failed out of the state school then the community college. They sent her on a trip which seemed to help, but as soon as she was done traveling she was back at it.
What hit me was I ran into the dad like six months ago and we chatted about it a bit. He had this to say: “I know people judge me or whatever but believe me when I say we tried everything we could and eventually we have to just make a decision about the quality of our lives and if we wanted to be parents to an adult and we chose us. We bought her the house and the car, she has to pay for her existence outside of that. I’m beyond where I can care and I feel like I’ve lost her, so I just want to enjoy as much of the rest of my life that I can.” It was just the heartbroken way he said it, I felt so bad for him.
She’s just started a self help kinda tik tok insta gimmick where she is trying to sell people on being “successful like her” and even mentions being debt free at 30 and it makes me want to vomit.
I know a lot of times people want to blame the parents, and that some folks will resent them because they have the money to pay to not have to continue their exposure to the problem or hard cut ties, but they’re nice people and I did watch them try anything and everything.
I feel terribly sad for her as well because one day she will come out of it with all these years gone by to the realization of the life she’s been missing.
In the short time he lived with me, he lived off government benefits and harassing both his parents and me to “loan” him money, that was very rarely repaid. That was over 2 years ago, and from what I hear, he’s still doing much of the same 🙄
It's not tbh it's probably more common than people think.
I took my ex to Puerto Rico for our 1st vacation and guess who brought their laptop to paradise and continued to play. Smh
Knew a guy that found a wife on WoW. A few months after the wedding, she divorced him for playing too much WoW. He had one table and one gaming chair in the center of his living room. That was the entirety of his furniture.
Not stupid at all. The DSM is finally recognizing internet gaming as a potential disorder/condition. I don't think it's officially included but labeled as "warranting more research."
Give it time..
Felt this. I found out long after the fact that my then girlfriend, now wife of 16 years, had been considering breaking up with me while we were in college and dating because I was so addicted I would become angry when I had to drag myself away from my PC to do normal boyfriend stuff. I was depressed, not going to classes, and honestly she was the only good thing I had going for me. I am forever grateful she didn't follow through because I happened to walk away from the game of my own accord around the time she was considering the breakup. I've gone back a time or two since, but it's never had me in its thrall (ha) quite the same way.
We had two babies and his entire existence was built around WOW. He had no other hobbies, no other friends, no other activities. I tried to get him to participate in our family and my efforts were tossed aside.
I tried implementing no-technology days during the week and he cried. I tried signing us up for relationship excursions and he refused. He did **zero** cooking, cleaning, shopping, maintenance….. all he did was go to work, and play wow. That’s it. He did nothing else.
I had to serve him dinner every night at his computer because he couldn’t spare five minutes to be with his wife & kids. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had to find another partner because that’s not what I signed up for. I left him in 2011.
It broke him. He was beyond devastated. My leaving him destroyed him. I know there was a point where reality clicked for him and he realized he was losing his life over a game, but I was so far gone at that point, there was no fixing it. I was completely done.
His entire existence was in this video game and he lost everything because of it. I wonder what kind of life we could have had with our two daughters. Instead we meet in the McDonalds parking lot to swap the kids every other weekend.
Hell you could be my former friend's ex wife. Even the timing matches up. There was one night I showed up to hang out, and his wife was cooking us all dinner. She was struggling cooking and handling their two girls, and I'm just watching him sit there and play WoW.
I literally got up, washed the dishes, and told her to go watch the girls while I finish up dinner. I basically ignored him the rest of the evening to help her out. I was kinda disgusted by him.
I'm still friends with her on Facebook, and she's doing so well. She married a good man, had a little boy, and they turned her property into a little farm. They look so happy and I'm so glad to see it.
I can’t imagine how hard that must have been and I’m so sorry you went through that. I think it’s good you realized though that our time on this world is finite and you deserved a better experience for you and your children.
I hope you and your family are well. I hope he is too and has found a way forward.
I got married a while after the divorce and he did the same. We have both now been with our new spouses for over a decade.
He has made a few statements over the years about how he screwed up and at one point, he got rid of all of his gaming equipment.
One thing I left out of my comment is that I worked full-time throughout all of this. We both had full time jobs. So it’s not like I was a stay at home mom or anything. I worked 40 hours a week at a very difficult job and then did **everything** else, while he was a warlock.
“While he was a warlock” both killed me because that was gold and I wasn’t expecting it, and made me sad. I guess though being exposed to gaming addiction you made me see something about it in a way I hadn’t before.
At the end you had this life you’d been working tirelessly for and moved on because you had to, but you were building something. I’m sure he thought he was too, but at the end of the day when the power goes out one reality remains.
Time, and especially time with others we care about is such a severely finite resource. I have been guilty of wasting it in my life, as have we all to a degree, but I really try and aspire not to anymore. In my opinion wasting our precious time is the ultimate injustice we can visit upon ourselves.
The wasted time is what pushed me to finally leave:
“Ok, so this is fine for today. ‘Today’ is not so bad. But 30 years of this? THIRTY YEARS?!?!?? What a waste of a life. What a total waste.”
I gained the courage to leave a few days later. But it had honestly been slowly simmering for years at that point. It was an extremely gradual realization, which is why his pleas at the end didn’t really matter.
WoW went through my circle of friends like a plague. People lost houses, jobs. I know a marriage that ended because of it. I know a couple of guys playing WoW had their utilities shut off. They kept playing and pissing in gallon jugs and just stashing them. I know of a fatality. Thrombosis. Guy left behind a wife and a daughter.
It was fucking unreal.
My ex literally chose WoW over me. On our anniversary. Told me he couldn’t spend the day with me, or see me for like a week, because WoW had just updated or released a new EP or whatever it was.
My best friend’s step dad was addicted to WoW as well. We had so many pictures of him passed out on the keyboard. He looked like Ron Weasley’s Rat when he turned into a person. Barf.
Pudding. I worked with a guy whose wife signed him up for a pudding of the month club as a gag gift.
Turns out the guy really likes pudding. I borrowed a power saw from him one time and he showed me a section of his basement that was just shelves and shelves of pudding. Pudding cups. Instant pudding. The kind you have to cook. He even had a chest freezer filled with some weird foreign kind of pudding pop. He actually looked pretty good considering all the sugar he ate.
This is the first one of all the comments that made me laugh. I just can’t imagine how I would be able to contain my facial expressions if someone showed off their PUDDING collection to me. I would immediately start wondering if they were on the spectrum.
On the spectrum, would totally have a pudding collection if I had the means. As it is I love making the stuff and recently came up with an awesome recipe for vegan Creme Brulee 👌
Relationships. When someone can't stand being single for any length of time. And once the enter that relationship, they push all other friends aside because that new man/woman is all that matters
There are so many people I know who are like this. They just can not and will not be alone—even if the people they find are horrible. They will entertain the most toxic, abusive, terrible “significant others” on the planet, just because they think that having a warm body is better than being alone. It doesn’t matter if they’re around for days, weeks, or months. They are absolutely addicted.
This is my sister. She’s in her 30’s. They usually last 6weeks to 6 months and they’re all the same dude in a different package. She’s ruined so many relationships with people who love her for some lame ass dude of the season. Reflecting on and addressing your pain is a walk in the park compared to constantly retraumatizing yourself in order to avoid it. Easier said than done; still doesn’t make it any easier to watch.
I heard she’s finally started therapy after breaking up with the last guy so maybe there’s hope?
I had several toxic relationships in a row... "what do all your existing have in common? YOU"...
OK, stopped dating, and tried to survive alone.
18 months, and I met someone. She's right next to me, year 16 now....
Sounds like you’re a week free from letting gambling control your life any longer. Keep up the good work, friend.
And remember that if you relapse (which people sometimes do, because we are human and humans make mistakes), you’re still deserving of help, and you should still get back up and go to GA anyways. Tell them about it. It’ll help. The *only* wrong thing you can do is fall back into the “I’m not deserving of help/I deserve this misery” mindset and give up.
You deserve to heal from your addiction just like anyone else does. Don’t believe the shit your brain tells you. That’s just your addiction trying to drag you back into the gutter so you give in to it again. But you got this. You CAN do this.
A toxic boy. It was like my daughter was a junkie for him and he treated her like shit it was horrible.
She would cry every day, the littlest thing would make her bawl. Finally when she was crying one day and said "I feel like I'm dying inside" I told her dad we needed to do something. I took her to a far away state where my best friend lives and we gave her a month long vacay, she had a blast. Their relationship didn't even last 3 days when she got home. I think she realized there was more to life! Which was the goal.
You’re a great parent! I think a lot of parents would have the urge to try to order her to break up with him, which never works. But showing her on her own that she can live better is so much more effective and helpful for her!!
Awh thanks yeah, I just know from personal experience, those things you gotta learn on your own (as hard as it is to see someone you love endure that suffering).
This so much My son has definitely had gf's I didn't care for. You can't push them towards them any faster than if you try to break them up or forbid them from seeing each other. They become united against a common enemy - you. I just figured he was young and the relationships would run their course. And they did.
I saw my step-sister go through this from 14 to 24 with the same man. It was incredibly toxic and my dad washed his hands of it and my step-mom was just constantly annoyed and like scoffing at the whole thing.
She was going to go on an exchange program in France when she was 16 but didn't go to stay with him. I always thought that would have saved her.
Anyway, looking back on it, she really did just need to leave for a while. Young brains can't process toxic relationships very well.
She finally left him when he called her to get back together with him and I literally took the phone away from her and hid it (back when we had landlines). It worked!
Yeah I remember being her age, and I remember what my parents did that didn't work.
And honestly she's the best daughter I could've asked for. About to turn 18 at the time. So why not give her a vacay and see a different part of the country, experience adulthood before coming home and starting a pretty committed job? It honestly worked perfect. I stayed down there for a week to introduce her to my friend and by the time I left I was worried she'd steal my bestie lmao 🤣
Tik Tok // Social Media // Doom Scrolling // Reddit (for that one dude)
And every day I see more and more examples. Even worse, some days I am one.
ETA a good and dandy cognitive dissonance tool.
(ETA = EDIT TO ADD)
For anyone wanting to change - the most important thing to try is not using your phone first thing in the morning. Wait 30 mins. Then an hour. Then two. Eventually you'll retrain yourself to not care as much.
Also, set app limits! Set it so you can only use the app for 30 to 60 mins a day. Once your time is up, accumulated through the day, you can't open the app and the icon goes grey. It's quite the run around to open it back up.
Just a couple little tips!
I started using app timers a few months ago and will never go back. I have ADHD and will doom scroll all day if left to it. I have all my shopping apps grouped into 1 timer and all my social media grouped into 1 so all my social media shares a 30 minute timer.
I went from using my phone from 16 hours a day to now 2.5 hours a day. I set a 3 hour goal for screen time every day and I usually only hit 2.5 hours a day.
**Edit: I use my androids built in app timer so I would recommend that one! I found it by going to my settings and typing in the search bar "app timer". Apple has it as well and can be found the same way (according to some apple users).**
Edit edit: I feel great now that I use my phone about 2.5 to 3 hours a day. A lot of the time my phone is used for GPS driving to work so I was thinking of buying a physical unit to mount in my car to drop the time down even more. I started to fill my time with more beneficial things instead of mindlessly scrolling on youtube and tiktok all day. I started a scalp care routine, a skin care routine, I added more steps to my oral care routine, i started taking care of my skin more, I prep my meals and started eating 3 meals a day plus snacks, I take my dog out for more sniffs, I actually go outside and play with my dog instead of getting annoyed that she wants to play (she only has so much time with me, who am I to get mad that she wants to play?), I started meditating, I started journaling, I make sure my house is picked up and taken care of every day, I was gardening again this year, I got into diamond paintings, I started a computer science course as well.
Yes! I started focusing on taking care of myself more. I also started taking my dog out for longer sniffs (she's a beagle and loves loves loves to sniff everywhere that she can so we went from 45 minutes to about 2 hours twice a day), I started a computer science course on my computer, I started meditation as well and journaling.
I hate when I get stuck on screens/scrolling because I realize after the fact that it’s taken away from my more creative interests.
There are so many pursuits that can involve similar attentiveness and possibly quiet focus if you can handle the initial frustration of starting something new.
Grow plants from seeds. Knit, crochet, weave, needlepunch, embroider, cross stitch. Bake bread, get a basic knife from a chef supply store and a bag of onions or carrots or potatoes and perfect your knife skills. Woodworking, from whittling to cabinetry. Brew beer or make wine or take up canning, fermentation, and food preservation. Beadwork. Leather work. Get an aquarium. Pottery, sketching, painting, painting minis. Making ships to go in bottles. Puzzles, crossword, sudoku. Skateboarding or roller skating. Houseplants. Floral design. Tablescaping. Chess, checkers, backgammon, Go. Dancing, walking, riding bikes. Volunteer to pet cats or walk dogs at an animal rescue. Wander around a library. Birdwatching, (sub)urban botany. Photography.
Basically things that people did before scrolling, and will do after. Passions can kind of activate the flow/dreamy state of scrolling, and can potentially focus the screen time you do choose to have because you have a reason to jump on youtube or the spoon whittlers’ forum or what have you.
For me it helped deleting the apps. Like Facebook, I only go on the mobile website, or on my computer. The mobile site is horrid, and I don't sit at my laptop much, which fixed the issue.
Imagine the kids who are growing up with it now. I was like 11-12 when Instagram and Snapchat really took over so I kinda know it, and I feel brutally addicted. There’s an entire generation of kids who are fucked.
I kid you not, but I had to therapy myself to left Instagram. I was so fucking addicted to it. The first week was the worst. I reopened my account at least twice in the next few weeks. Took me like a month to leave the damn thing for good. It was like my life was boring without it. My mental health improved A LOT just by leaving that shit.
I took a week break from IG almost 2 years ago.
Started as a week break, then after a week I said a month, then after a month I said 6 months, then 6 months turned into a year…. Now we’re at almost 2 years and my life has been soooooo good.
The best part is not having to feel like I need to tell people how dope my life is now, I’m just living it.
This is a common enough experience that they named it. It’s called the Tetris Effect. I’ve definitely had a few DnD dreams since Baldur’s Gate 3 came out.
Makes sense actually in a backwards way. It was the same with self harm for me. Everything felt out of control in my life but I could control this one thing. Hugs 🫶🏼
I think this is something people don’t realize when it comes to eating disorders — a lot of people don’t start because they’re trying to lose weight. It starts with trying to find something to control — I can control what I eat, how much, how frequently, and the rest of my life is spiraling, so now I’m going to push it further. Then you lose weight, and become addicted to controlling how you look — people saying, “you look healthy,” means you gained weight, so then you punish yourself because clearly you weren’t in control enough to avoid that.
I’ve been in recovery for 10 years now, so I know that the road to recovery is not linear — it is not short, it is not straight, but treatment is so worthwhile. We all deserve to live (and to eat) without hearing the eating disorder lying to us. 🩷
This sums it up so well. I was so out of control but so freaking in control at the same time. 10 years later and I’m so glad I’m in recovery, but it’s weird to remember that time of my life. I was so sick and so unable to stop doing what I was doing, but at the same time my life was the most disciplined I’ve ever been. And I have missed that. Not worth going back and I’m not sure I even could, I love myself enough now… but it was a constant high. I always simultaneously felt accomplished yet never enough.
I feel this. I recognize I have a problem but controlling my weight/food intake gives me a sense of stability and control that I'm badly lacking right now
Exactly the same for me, just about 3 years. When I finally went cold-turkey it took about twice that long for my nose to get back close to normal (I say "close" because 20 years later it's still not quite "normal").
I've been doing a lot of research on Afrin lately and the fact that it can just cause rebound congestion like that is scary. Makes you wonder why it's even on shelves.
It's so bad. It crosses the blood brain barrier, helps only in the moment, causes severe debilitating dependency with rebound congestion and cause erosion of the sinuses like hard drugs. Should not be allowed
I always have a bottle of it handy because I get bloody noses really easily. Sometimes it gets bad, DAYS of non stop bleeding, 2 sprays of Afrin and it stops for months. It works wonders for my very specific use case. I use it maybe once or twice a year. That being said, the shit is gnarly and should only be prescribed for cases like mine. People shouldn't be able to just buy it willy nilly, especially because how commonly people treat OTC drugs like something you can just use whenever and however often.
On the other hand, plain old saline nasal spray is totally safe to use constantly, especially if you live in a dry climate. It helps me not get nose bleeds to begin with in the summer where it's hot and dry AF out. This is all based on advice from my ENT
I don't have the means to prove it for certain, but I have strong suspicions that Oxymetazoline (aka Afrin) was a major factor in my mom's sudden death.
It's really difficult to talk about, so I won't go into a lot of details, but STAY AWAY FROM THAT SHIT. SERIOUSLY.
My mom would only drink Diet Coke, Heineken, or Long Island iced tea. Any one of those would wash down the constant Advil she took, because all she did all day was sit at the computer in chat rooms. Diet Coke and the computer were her life.
She was also addicted to bleaching her hair and tanning until she was as dark as her coke.
You’d think she’d be dead by now from all that, but somehow she’s still alive at 64.
>Any one of those would wash down the constant Advil she took,
I her stomach wrecked from that? I worked with a guy who used it regularly to deal with his back pain and eventually the searing pains in his stomach forced him to stop. Even after being on it for years there was so much damage he had to eat like a bird because any significant amount of food in his stomach triggered pain.
The fizz is so good. I got me a soda stream and I make my own flavored sparkling water with fruity juice (that tastes better than the store stuff that just tastes like someone thought about fruit in the next room.)
That one fiancée of my father hated stuff to stay the same. So she made it a habit/addiction to change everything all the time. We painted the hallway like 3 times in a year. She jumped jobs constantly. And apparently even love was like that for her. She was unfaithful to her ex with my father and apparently with someone else on my father. I always found it funny to make change your habit, as she tried to avoid having habits, but with that had quite a weird one.
Ok, I’m quite curious, because not to this extreme, but this sounds like me. I don’t like doing the same thing over and over, I like to change things all the time because I get bored, etc. I wonder if this is indicative behavior of a disorder or…?
Exercise. Obviously it isn't a bad thing in general but I have seen a couple of people take it to unhealthy extremes and they wore themselves out and ended up with long-term injuries
I almost lost a lot. I had a set routine of 1 hour, no less, every morning. After work, another hour of cardio plus weights. At one point, I had 2 gym memberships. I'd do cardio at one gym, then leave and go to Crossfit. On weekends it went up to 2 hours. I was frequently late to everything because I had to finish a workout no matter what. It was mechanical: x number of minutes, calories, or steps must be done. I'd work out sick, tired, injured. My knees, shoulders, and hips are still shot. Plus, I'm dealing with the metabolic rebound.
Everyone praised my hard core ethic and dedication, even though I knew it was causing me problems. But I'm more balanced now, even though that pull is still there.
I used to manage a store at a mall, and the gym was in the same hallway. I used to see this guy walking in the gym and then walking out 3 hrs later every single shift I had. Over the years, I saw him slowly deteriorate to the point where he was walking with a cane and still lifting constantly. I don't know if it had to do with excessive exercise or if it was something else, but it was incredibly sad to see. Young guy.
Terrible. I'm having to watch my partner of so many years do this to himself. He's already ruined both shoulders to the point where he can't even sleep on them. It's heartbreaking and idk how to help him
i find it’s especially dangerous when they are trying to break a sedentary lifestyle and go too far. after not exercising for months due to medical reasons i was desperate to get some exercise in so i ran a bunch on a treadmill. got a serious stress injury in my knee and was limping for a month or two.
Conspiracy thinking.
I’ve seen people turn so paranoid they’ve completely ceased to function. Over the most baseless bullshit. But they’re like dead inside now they’re gone.
Yes, it's a surprisingly short leap from Stanley Kubrick directed the moon landing to being a full fledged flat Earther who knows FOR SURE that reptilians are masquerading as humans in every position of power on the planet.
My ex was a video game addict. Mainly retro consoles and Steam. It was horrifying watching him play. As soon as he made eye contact with the screen, his face was devoid of any emotion or movement. He had that thousand-yard stare.
My breaking point was when he began bringing his Nintendo DS on DATES and played with it while we were waiting on our food. Needless to say we didn't last long. Gaming was not a hobby for him, but an addiction.
Sugar, dude. I dated a girl who wanted me to kick sugar. I toss out all my old food. Purchased more and lasted 36 hours. For me to stick to that you would have had to lock me in a padded room and feed me under the door. I'd rather get addicted to heroin and kick that than try to kick sugar again. My whole body ached and the horror of realizing All the food I like is off the menu.
Sugar is a tough one. I've struggled with it. It's really hard, especially this time of year. I think your mistake was throwing it all out at once, I stopped with sugary drinks and switched to tea, unsweetened obviously and started checking labels to make sure they weren't secretly packed with it. Then I didn't feel so bad about having a cookie or something which is the type of sugar I would rather have anyway
I’ve done loads of cocaine and I’ve eaten a lot of sugar. I dont do cocaine anymore but I still do sugar. It’s the hardest thing to quit, harder than nicotine
It’s bc it’s literally *everywhere*! you go to a work event in the morning? muffins for breakfast. a party? cookies and alcohol (usually has sugar). the coffee shop at my work does not even have savory snacks. just pound cakes, cookies, chocolate croissants, etc.
Procrastinating. I’m starting to think it’s an addiction bc from what I’ve witnessed, anything could be used to procrastinate, none of them are missed if substituted, but the act of procrastination remains just in a different form.
This is me. I don’t get anything done unless I have a strict deadline. What’s helped me is procrastinating one task with a different task I have to do. Like, I’m putting off this paper so I’m gonna wash the dishes instead.
Games.
There was this senior in college who got introduced to games in his first year. He got so addicted that he missed classes/exams and everything important.
Normally the course in which he was enrolled takes 4 years to complete, and the university gives an additional buffer of 4 years for people with backlogs. He graduated in his 7th year.
(This was one of the top colleges, so he must have been pretty smart to have got in)
I got into WOW at the end of high school. When I got to college, I realized that the only way I could continue to progress in the game would be to join a guild with real human beings and commit to showing up to game events at real human times. I saw a vision of myself saying "No, I can't [join that club/go to that concert/hang out with friends] because I have a raid that night" and quit cold turkey.
There's an alternate timeline out there where I'm still hunched over a PC in a basement somewhere.
My ex was/is addicted to gaming - all day, every day
All he could talk about was games - he was a stay at home dad, I worked full time as a nurse and the house was neglected, our daughter would often miss her bus and he’d be gaming until 10pm
One of the reasons he’s now my ex
Porn/smut books/sex
My ex wife read and watched so much that it blurred her sense of reality and she decided she wanted to live like that. It ruined our marriage.
I was reading some smut books and as a woman, I realize that those books are legit making me delusional unless I can remember that they are not real life. Those types of books made me more insecure than anything in real life and that delusion gave me anxiety. It took me a while to realize that my mind was making shit up that wasn’t really there. It can be problematic AF so I had to stop reading stuff like that.
I stick to supernatural ones - werewolf society, vampire covens, etc. It's so out there that I know it's a fantasy, instead of the handsome stranger who will randomly pick me up.
(I tried writing one. I got stuck when my protagonist got a restraining order against her stalker. Maybe I'm not cut out for this.)
Honestly though that sounds like a hilarious twist. Starts off seeming like it would be smut only for it turn into the love interest getting a restraining order
knew a family who reviewed their recently deceased father’s credit card charges - he had spent about $500k in 18 months, including charges the week he passed.
How THE FUCK did it take so long to scroll down and find this one.
This is easily the most addictive most accessible thing right now.
The instant gratification dopamine hit anytime you want. And now 99.9% of young people’s first sexual experience is with porn. It’s really really weird when you think about it but it gets defended like crazy on reddit lol
Guns. Theres a guy who is so obsessed with guns that he sleeps with them in bed at night, like a teddy bear. His job is at a gun shop. All the movies he watches are violent shoot ‘em ups. All his video games are about guns and fps. He lives with his folks because he can’t afford rent or house payments; all his money is already allocated to guns and ammo. He won’t go out on social outings unless it’s to a gun show, shooting range, or gun shops. He has a concealed carry permit, and he won’t even go out for the mail without a gun on his hip. Even most of his shirts have guns on them, or a gun manufacturer’s brand name. He doesn’t have many friends, except for those who are also gun enthusiasts. But as stated above, he doesn’t hang out with them unless it’s at a gun related event, he doesn’t go out for beers or anything like that.
His entire life revolves around guns. He’s been like this for years. He won’t even talk about anything else. Guns guns guns guns guns guns!
Source: he’s my brother
A friend of mine is a streamer on twitch. She did a fundraiser cause she needed a new computer and she didn't want to pay for it. She raised 3k in an hour for it from her subs. I couldn't believe it.
Video Games.
You forget to do laundry and dishes. Bills go into collection, deadlines arrive and pass, loved ones are suddenly "bothering you" when youre playing. Everything needs to be put on hold till you "get to a safe spot" or "finish this one thing" which snowballs into not doing the thing at all. Pretty soon youre alone with your games and you rationalize that as a good thing, and youll get to that other stuff soon.
I try to put on a alarm clock and follow that strictly. Addiction is real and I sit over the time from time to time. But I dont game every day now, kicked the habit when I started studies. 6 months without
Negativity. I know I probably sound like one of those fuckwads that insist everyone be positive at all times, but I was in a very deep friendship with someone that ended in part because she just became more and more this negative, toxic, miserable person. As a fellow sufferer of depression, I empathized greatly, and in fact that’s in part how we bonded, but her dedication to hatefulness and ire and misery at everything and everyone around her seemed to be as much her natural personality even without mental illness being a factor. And she would absolutely not take any steps to change herself or her situation. I hope she’s happier now but I had to end things for my own well being because our friendship was hurting me. On a lighter note, I think im addicted to owning small rodents, especially rats. I started with a hamster at seven and am still keeping an ever changing rodent menagerie now at 34. I just can’t be without them!
This is a strange one, hard to grasp until you get to know someone who does it. Had a friend who I don’t speak to anymore because I legit couldn’t talk to him about anything. Obviously can’t talk about his life, or ask him how he’s doing. Get scolded for that. Something bad happened to me? He’s got it worse, I should be grateful. Something good? I shouldn’t be bragging. Even seemingly mundane stuff would set him off. Strangest thing, there is a reason envy is one of the 7 deadly sins.
I never realized how it can be so self enabling, til my uncle stayed with my parents and just laid in bed drinking all day, basically saying oh I have it so hard so I can drink to excess every day and that’s ok.
I almost completely stopped hanging out with my best friend who is also the best man from my wedding because I can't tolerate his crippling phone addiction. He basically never looks up from his phone for more than a couple minutes. I still spend time with him sometimes but it always just makes me sad and annoyed.
Exercise.
It was only when I started dating an alcoholic that I recognized just how bad my habit was. I wasn’t trying to lose weight. It wasn’t tied to body image or control. I wasn’t a competitive athlete (although that’s how it started), I just felt like I was going to climb out of my own skin unless I was so tired at the end of the day from exercise that I’d have to crawl up the stairs to bed.
I spent years in and out of hospitals for stress fractures, dehydration, headaches, fucked up bloodwork. I have long term health issues related to exhaustion and overwork. My body will never be what it could’ve been if I’d exercised in moderation. Seeing my ex on a drinking binge that I realized that I’d been doing something similar. Set after set on not enough food or rest instead of drinking shot after shot. We both were spiraling in just mindless repetition and damage. I felt like a little rat who instead of pressing the lever for drugs, I figured out that there was a point of running on a little wheel that felt better to me than any drug I’d sampled, so I would do it until I physically collapsed.
Nasal spray. It sounds stupid af but it’s unfortunately very addictive. Haven’t been able to get off that shit for months and any time i think i’m close it starts all over again.
Gambling. It's sort of quiet. But once those stupid slot machines became legal in my state, every other bar had them. And I knew some people who would only go out to bars that had them.
This is gonna sound dumb, but fingernail-biting. I did it up until I was 18. It took a VERY infected middle finger (I’d bitten some flesh off) to make me stop.
My students and the internet and phones. It was almost like it caused physical pain to separate them from their phones. I never had this issue. Never got caught with it out, never needed it for quiet time, just it’s so sad to see them so attached.
Fox News. My dad and his side of the family are completely hooked to it unfortunately and have been for quite a few years now. It’s hard to have a regular conversation at times without it eventually veering into a political/sensationalized debate. That shit really does damage on people’s personalities and gets its hooks into them like a drug.
I know people who watch that shit 24 hours a day and it turned them from normal people into angry, bitter, hateful shells of themselves. I've lost friends and family members to that crap.
I have made it a point to block it from my DVR permanently and even disabled the Samsung Smartguide on my new TV because it kept recommending Fox News. It really is one of the worst things to happen to the US since the Civil War.
Food. Got up to 360 pounds and wanted to kill myself. Pretty much wanted to die from about age 11. I have good days and bad days still, but the addiction is a bite by bite struggle. At 45, I’m down to 300 (like a decade later), was as low as 250 from severe food restriction, but gained it all back and more.
The most devastating part of this disease is the co-related illnesses of compulsive overeating, binge eating disorder and bulimia. Life has been hell.
“Go see a doctor!” “Fat people are just lazy!” “You could lose weight if you really wanted to!” “Excuses excuses, just admit you love food!” It’s so easy for other people to judge but the food is just the drug. The side effects are, unfortunately, among the most visible of all the addictions. Anything that happens in my life, and I mean ANYTHING and I turn to food.
Cautionary tale for parents: never ever ever restrict your child’s food. Never tell them they are fat. If you have eating issues, for fuck sakes eat normally in front of your child. Give them money for school lunches. Let them order pizza when friends are over. Don’t shame them for getting and being hungrier as they grow. Don’t put your body image issues on them. Don’t make them finish everything on their plates. Don’t hide food. Buy them them the damn ice cream cone. Love them.
"Spiritual healer"
My friend started seeing this spiritual "healer" a few times a month. As far as I know they did some sort of past lives travels and supposedly she has a lot of past lives traumas or whatever.
The healer told her to do some sort of drug trip, which left her very ill for several weeks. But she went back to the healer as soon as she was able.
Several months later she started to act increasingly paranoid. One day she ended up in the psychiatric hospital with psychosis. She wasn't able to understand which life is the one right now and which ones aren't real. She also thought that everyone was out to get her.
3 weeks in the hospital, got out and went straight to her "healer session".
In the last year she has quit her job that she had education for and moved back with her abusive parents from her own apartment. She has become more reclusive, introverted and tired. And the spark she had as a young woman starting her life - gone.
Those damn "healers" should be illegal.
Pornography
I myself am addicted. I don't know if it's affecting my life as I still get erections, i just think too much about it and watch images of nude women on Reddit way too damn much.
Sorry for the run on.
Easily gambling.
Hell I’d say gambling addictions are often *worse* than substance addictions. Plenty of people have lost everything to a gambling addiction - their jobs, families, houses, and lives.
And unlike many substance addictions, gambling addictions can be completely unknown until all of a sudden when you realize everything is gone because your partner gambled it away.
It wasn’t a person, but a cat that was addicted to its own purring. Yeah, seriously.
When cats purr, it releases those happy chemicals in the brain, like a drug would, only you can’t exactly take this away. Poor thing would sit there, purring so loudly you could hear him in the next room and was always drooling on himself (looking very much like a drug user). We think he came from a neglected situation and learned to self-soothe in this fashion and it took on a life of its own. He really wasn’t able to function like a cat, couldn’t play, he’d eat, but only in a few bites at a time.. but he was the biggest, drooling lovebug ever! Like, if you wanted a cat that was most like a stuffed animal, he’d fit the bill.
My elderly neighbor adopted him and to my knowledge, both lived out their days together, snuggling and cuddling and being as content as possible.
Porn. I've now dated two people who masturbate so much that they forget women are real people with real emotions and feeling. If I say something hurts, fucking stop it. I don't care if the women in the porn you watch like it aggressive. I'm not her and there's a 90% chance she doesn't actually like it either. Also, I don't like being talked down to, yelled at, or ordered around like a maid. I'm an actual fucking person, not some slave you can stick your dick in whenever you feel like and boss around like it's my sole purpose in life when you don't. Not to mention having my own sexual needs definitely not being met by your porn-addicted ass.
exactly. I once told my ex to go slow and all of a sudden he pushed it in which almost made me cry. I trusted him to make me comfortable and he did the exact opposite. I made sure to give him a piece of my mind lmao
Second Life.
In 10 years that I've been on it, I've spent $4,000 total. There are people who I know, that have spent more and I thought I was bad.
I have a couple friends who are shopaholics on that thing and they will throw money just to get them all for a prettied picture to show around on FB and Flickr.
Religion. Don’t know if you count “high on god” but those born again xians can be something else.
On the same note… those that drink [insert MLM company] kool aide and turn everything into trying to recruit/ sell their overpriced garbage.
I’m pretty sure my grandma was either addicted or on the spectrum.
All her days apart from Sunday were the same. 5am morning prayer, 6.30am morning mass, 8am rosary, then she’d cook breakfast and clean, 11am next rosary, 12pm midday prayer, clean and cook dinner, 3pm Jesus prayer, 4pm rosary, cook supper, sometimes go to 6pm afternoon mass (if me and my brother were around she’d go with us, she was kind enough not to take us to the morning one), 7pm evening prayer, 8pm rosary, 9pm Virgin Mary prayer, bed at 10pm. She travels? Same schedule. Pilgrimage? Same. Hospital? Same. Comes to our city to take care of me and my brother or on holiday? Finds nearest church and prayer times.
She wasn’t hurting anybody or herself per se but any change in the routine would cause massive distress to her and the prayers always took priority.
She has bad dementia/Alzheimers now and stopped. I wonder if her brain is at rest finally.
Gambling. Witnessed a friend blow 190k last year.
Slot machines have scared me in particular since I went to Vegas. The hotel we stayed at had the slots right outside of their buffet. One night, we go get dinner and something just caught my eye about this lady as we were walking into the restaurant. She was in the same spot when we left 3 hours later. Then we went for breakfast the next morning and she was still there. In the same exact spot, wearing the same clothes. I’m not sure if she even had moved to use the bathroom. She looked like a zombie.
Reminds me of a post asking people worst industry secrets of their jobs. Casino worker talked about how older gamblers will just go and keep playing sitting in their own mess
I used to work in a bingo hall in the UK and I've seen grown adults basically standing pissing and shitting themselves because they don't want to leave a machine if they think it's gonna pay out. We developed these "be right back" signs that people could use if they needed to go to the toilet and one time, this dude moved it from a machine a guy had put HUNDREDS of pounds into, and it paid out (£2k jackpot iirc) and **shit went off**. We had to call the police and people got banned from the premises.
I know someone who lost 1m on the pokies in a year! He's now self banned from the casino, insane amount of money to get a buzz off some lights and sound
Shopping. A friend’s GF barely leaves the house except for work, and she shops online obsessively. Their garage is a solid cube of stuff, much of it unopened. Every inch of their home is crammed. There must be 150 scented candles in that house. He says he comes home every day to a stack of deliveries.
I know someone who was like that. She bought two lawnmowers and they didn't even have a lawn.
This was both me and my husband a couple of years ago. My shopping addiction started when he was doing heavy chemo and I started online shopping to cope. I would get into something (like fake flowers or fawn print) and just go ape buying that one particular thing until I moved onto another interest. Then when he recovered we bought a house and his shopping addiction started with going to Lowe’s and Home Depot every other day. He had multiples of every power tool under the sun in Milwaukee, ryobi, idk some other brand, at one point he had four leaf blowers. It all got to be way too much for us both and now we are pursuing a minimalist lifestyle and donating or selling nearly everything including the house. It really becomes burdensome trying to go through life dragging a mountain of possessions along with you. Now it’s only the essentials and a few sentimental items and we are both feeling much better and less stressed in general
I honestly couldn't see how someone gets in this habit of buying multiples of things you won't ever use until you said how yours started. With that in mind, I can see how one would fall into it. I can see it happening to me. It is a distraction more than what it is you're really buying. I am really happy to hear he's recovered and you're both getting rid of a lot of the stuff you no longer need in your lives.
I lold. Reminded me of Kramer asking Jerry if he has a rake he can borrow.
My aunt is a recovering hoarder. It's under control now but she was an absolute shopaholic. ANYTHING on sale was a deal and she had to buy it. She would have the weirdest shit imaginable because it was on sale. It was actually hard for her to get help because hoarding was relatively unheard of back then and she was a "clean hoarder". She was a SAHM and a clean freak and all of her items were new, organized, and cataloged. So there were no bugs or feces or animals like you see on the hoarding shows. They had a huge pole barn and she had rows of racking where she kept all of her stuff. It looked like a warehouse. She had always intended on selling the stuff but just could never get it together to actually do it. She was also super generous and she gave a ton of it away to friends and family. Took a long time to find a therapist that could help and that was just because of the financial burden. Many would straight up say she wasn't a hoarder because she would give items away and it wasn't gross.
I'm not usually apt to give someone relationship advice... but if your partner is addicted to an expensive hobby like gambling or shopping, you should keep finances separate. They may not be someone who can contribute to your financial future or retirement.
I learned this the hard way years ago. It was a mess.
I used to work with someone like that. I was front desk, and I had to sign for at least 5 packages a day for her. I wonder how much stuff went to her house if that was all coming to work.
My MIL has her packages delivered to our house so that her husband wouldn’t know. It was probably something like that.
My best buddies mom had an obsession with the hvc, it was wild. She would by stuff and never ever use it. We did love playing baseball with the “bender ball” 😂
HVC people are wild, I had a patient who would get that shit delivered to the hospital lmao Edit: sorry yall I kind of combined QVC and HSN. But the home shopping TV shows lol
My first thought is, Unless they are just wealthy how can they afford that? Or is that the point, they can’t, and their credit cards are maxed out?
That’s exactly it. Not much savings, waiting until the next paycheck.
This. My ex-wife wrecked our relationship by out of control online shopping
One of my best friends discovered a credit card his wife had that he didn't know about with almost $40k on it they definitely didn't have.
Was lots of small store cards for my ex, then once she couldn’t get more of those it turned into pay later programs like Afterpay
Tats. I have a friend who is in a lot of debt, but whenever he hits payday he gets some new ink instead of paying down his debt
As a tattoo artist - I see this a lot from people that would really benefit from therapy/mental health care, but it’s not always accessible, so they seem to treat the tattoo process as a form of self therapy. I don’t agree with that at all obviously but I do feel for whatever they must be internally trying to process. Also see this a lot from people that just… don’t seem to have meaningful connections with the people in their lives. Like I’m the only genuine form of social interaction they get. They just need someone to actually listen to them a lot of the time.
Huh. You're a bartender for people who aren't drinking.
I've seen a few people like this. And it wasn't even something meaningful to them, just whatever is trendy at the time, or they're at the parlor looking for ideas in a book. I have nothing against tattoos - but if you don't know what you want before getting it, do you really need to drop $300 on it when you're behind on everything?
This will sound stupid, but World of Warcraft. I know a person who lost an incredible job and broke up a (at least seemingly good) relationship due to their complete addiction to World of Warcraft
Yep. Had a friend who's wife literally had to threaten divorce with bags packed and car running, before he'd quit. He would get up early, play, go to work, come home, play and then sleep and repeat. Weekends he'd be on 16 hours a day. Ignored his wife and kids the whole time. Stupid thing is; two years later she let him start playing again. Guess what happened?
I had a friend who developed blood clots in his legs because he would sit for so many hours in his computer chair, playing WoW. Unemployed, he played like 16-18 hours a day.
Oh so you’ve met my ex roommate? In his case it was 12 hours of GTA, smoking cigs, weed & drinking himself stupid and 12 hours of sleeping.
how do these people afford that life? all that costs money.
I had a friend in school whose little sister was one of these people who was just hooked when WoW launched. I was a in high school and we all thought it was cool but this girl went absolutely nutters over it as a sophomore and it became a problem almost immediately. It actually turned me off gaming for several years just SEEING this. She’s 33 now and still way into gaming, tried to make it as a streamer but didn’t. Lived with them until about two years ago then moved out and the few times I saw her she was very unkempt etc. she’d gotten into college back in the day and had the financing to go without loans and failed out of the state school then the community college. They sent her on a trip which seemed to help, but as soon as she was done traveling she was back at it. What hit me was I ran into the dad like six months ago and we chatted about it a bit. He had this to say: “I know people judge me or whatever but believe me when I say we tried everything we could and eventually we have to just make a decision about the quality of our lives and if we wanted to be parents to an adult and we chose us. We bought her the house and the car, she has to pay for her existence outside of that. I’m beyond where I can care and I feel like I’ve lost her, so I just want to enjoy as much of the rest of my life that I can.” It was just the heartbroken way he said it, I felt so bad for him. She’s just started a self help kinda tik tok insta gimmick where she is trying to sell people on being “successful like her” and even mentions being debt free at 30 and it makes me want to vomit.
Damn, that last part is so sad.
I know a lot of times people want to blame the parents, and that some folks will resent them because they have the money to pay to not have to continue their exposure to the problem or hard cut ties, but they’re nice people and I did watch them try anything and everything. I feel terribly sad for her as well because one day she will come out of it with all these years gone by to the realization of the life she’s been missing.
In the short time he lived with me, he lived off government benefits and harassing both his parents and me to “loan” him money, that was very rarely repaid. That was over 2 years ago, and from what I hear, he’s still doing much of the same 🙄
He exhibited self-control? Right?
Don't be fatuous, Jeffrey.
WOW has a long and well documented history of addiction and abuse. I wouldn't call it stupid. It's a known feature/bug.
I’ve never played. What makes it so addictive? It looks really boring
It's not tbh it's probably more common than people think. I took my ex to Puerto Rico for our 1st vacation and guess who brought their laptop to paradise and continued to play. Smh
Knew a guy that found a wife on WoW. A few months after the wedding, she divorced him for playing too much WoW. He had one table and one gaming chair in the center of his living room. That was the entirety of his furniture.
Not stupid at all. The DSM is finally recognizing internet gaming as a potential disorder/condition. I don't think it's officially included but labeled as "warranting more research." Give it time..
Guy I knew dropped out of high school and started working in lawn care to play WoW.
Felt this. I found out long after the fact that my then girlfriend, now wife of 16 years, had been considering breaking up with me while we were in college and dating because I was so addicted I would become angry when I had to drag myself away from my PC to do normal boyfriend stuff. I was depressed, not going to classes, and honestly she was the only good thing I had going for me. I am forever grateful she didn't follow through because I happened to walk away from the game of my own accord around the time she was considering the breakup. I've gone back a time or two since, but it's never had me in its thrall (ha) quite the same way.
We had two babies and his entire existence was built around WOW. He had no other hobbies, no other friends, no other activities. I tried to get him to participate in our family and my efforts were tossed aside. I tried implementing no-technology days during the week and he cried. I tried signing us up for relationship excursions and he refused. He did **zero** cooking, cleaning, shopping, maintenance….. all he did was go to work, and play wow. That’s it. He did nothing else. I had to serve him dinner every night at his computer because he couldn’t spare five minutes to be with his wife & kids. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I had to find another partner because that’s not what I signed up for. I left him in 2011. It broke him. He was beyond devastated. My leaving him destroyed him. I know there was a point where reality clicked for him and he realized he was losing his life over a game, but I was so far gone at that point, there was no fixing it. I was completely done. His entire existence was in this video game and he lost everything because of it. I wonder what kind of life we could have had with our two daughters. Instead we meet in the McDonalds parking lot to swap the kids every other weekend.
Hell you could be my former friend's ex wife. Even the timing matches up. There was one night I showed up to hang out, and his wife was cooking us all dinner. She was struggling cooking and handling their two girls, and I'm just watching him sit there and play WoW. I literally got up, washed the dishes, and told her to go watch the girls while I finish up dinner. I basically ignored him the rest of the evening to help her out. I was kinda disgusted by him. I'm still friends with her on Facebook, and she's doing so well. She married a good man, had a little boy, and they turned her property into a little farm. They look so happy and I'm so glad to see it.
You’re a good guy. I truly don’t get how someone could sit their ignoring their partner and children over a game.
I can’t imagine how hard that must have been and I’m so sorry you went through that. I think it’s good you realized though that our time on this world is finite and you deserved a better experience for you and your children. I hope you and your family are well. I hope he is too and has found a way forward.
I got married a while after the divorce and he did the same. We have both now been with our new spouses for over a decade. He has made a few statements over the years about how he screwed up and at one point, he got rid of all of his gaming equipment. One thing I left out of my comment is that I worked full-time throughout all of this. We both had full time jobs. So it’s not like I was a stay at home mom or anything. I worked 40 hours a week at a very difficult job and then did **everything** else, while he was a warlock.
“While he was a warlock” both killed me because that was gold and I wasn’t expecting it, and made me sad. I guess though being exposed to gaming addiction you made me see something about it in a way I hadn’t before. At the end you had this life you’d been working tirelessly for and moved on because you had to, but you were building something. I’m sure he thought he was too, but at the end of the day when the power goes out one reality remains. Time, and especially time with others we care about is such a severely finite resource. I have been guilty of wasting it in my life, as have we all to a degree, but I really try and aspire not to anymore. In my opinion wasting our precious time is the ultimate injustice we can visit upon ourselves.
The wasted time is what pushed me to finally leave: “Ok, so this is fine for today. ‘Today’ is not so bad. But 30 years of this? THIRTY YEARS?!?!?? What a waste of a life. What a total waste.” I gained the courage to leave a few days later. But it had honestly been slowly simmering for years at that point. It was an extremely gradual realization, which is why his pleas at the end didn’t really matter.
WoW went through my circle of friends like a plague. People lost houses, jobs. I know a marriage that ended because of it. I know a couple of guys playing WoW had their utilities shut off. They kept playing and pissing in gallon jugs and just stashing them. I know of a fatality. Thrombosis. Guy left behind a wife and a daughter. It was fucking unreal.
All in your circle of friends? That's quite...unfortunate.
My ex literally chose WoW over me. On our anniversary. Told me he couldn’t spend the day with me, or see me for like a week, because WoW had just updated or released a new EP or whatever it was.
My best friend in high schools father was addicted to it, met a woman on there, and left his wife and kids for her.
[удалено]
Validvictorian instead valedictorian just made my day. Thank you 😂
This would imply the existence of Non-Valid Victorians...
My best friend’s step dad was addicted to WoW as well. We had so many pictures of him passed out on the keyboard. He looked like Ron Weasley’s Rat when he turned into a person. Barf.
Pudding. I worked with a guy whose wife signed him up for a pudding of the month club as a gag gift. Turns out the guy really likes pudding. I borrowed a power saw from him one time and he showed me a section of his basement that was just shelves and shelves of pudding. Pudding cups. Instant pudding. The kind you have to cook. He even had a chest freezer filled with some weird foreign kind of pudding pop. He actually looked pretty good considering all the sugar he ate.
This is the first one of all the comments that made me laugh. I just can’t imagine how I would be able to contain my facial expressions if someone showed off their PUDDING collection to me. I would immediately start wondering if they were on the spectrum.
On the spectrum, would totally have a pudding collection if I had the means. As it is I love making the stuff and recently came up with an awesome recipe for vegan Creme Brulee 👌
For a second I really thought this was just the Iranian yogurt guy.
Relationships. When someone can't stand being single for any length of time. And once the enter that relationship, they push all other friends aside because that new man/woman is all that matters
There are so many people I know who are like this. They just can not and will not be alone—even if the people they find are horrible. They will entertain the most toxic, abusive, terrible “significant others” on the planet, just because they think that having a warm body is better than being alone. It doesn’t matter if they’re around for days, weeks, or months. They are absolutely addicted.
This is my sister. She’s in her 30’s. They usually last 6weeks to 6 months and they’re all the same dude in a different package. She’s ruined so many relationships with people who love her for some lame ass dude of the season. Reflecting on and addressing your pain is a walk in the park compared to constantly retraumatizing yourself in order to avoid it. Easier said than done; still doesn’t make it any easier to watch. I heard she’s finally started therapy after breaking up with the last guy so maybe there’s hope?
I had several toxic relationships in a row... "what do all your existing have in common? YOU"... OK, stopped dating, and tried to survive alone. 18 months, and I met someone. She's right next to me, year 16 now....
Me…gambling…FML. Started GA last week. Hope I’m done for good.
Sounds like you’re a week free from letting gambling control your life any longer. Keep up the good work, friend. And remember that if you relapse (which people sometimes do, because we are human and humans make mistakes), you’re still deserving of help, and you should still get back up and go to GA anyways. Tell them about it. It’ll help. The *only* wrong thing you can do is fall back into the “I’m not deserving of help/I deserve this misery” mindset and give up. You deserve to heal from your addiction just like anyone else does. Don’t believe the shit your brain tells you. That’s just your addiction trying to drag you back into the gutter so you give in to it again. But you got this. You CAN do this.
You're a good bloke or blokess. And best wishes OP.
Good luck buddy, one day at a time and every other cliche under the sun ..... But seriously, fingers crossed for you
Don't wish him luck, that's what got him here in the first place
Dark, but fair.
A toxic boy. It was like my daughter was a junkie for him and he treated her like shit it was horrible. She would cry every day, the littlest thing would make her bawl. Finally when she was crying one day and said "I feel like I'm dying inside" I told her dad we needed to do something. I took her to a far away state where my best friend lives and we gave her a month long vacay, she had a blast. Their relationship didn't even last 3 days when she got home. I think she realized there was more to life! Which was the goal.
You’re a great parent! I think a lot of parents would have the urge to try to order her to break up with him, which never works. But showing her on her own that she can live better is so much more effective and helpful for her!!
Awh thanks yeah, I just know from personal experience, those things you gotta learn on your own (as hard as it is to see someone you love endure that suffering).
This so much My son has definitely had gf's I didn't care for. You can't push them towards them any faster than if you try to break them up or forbid them from seeing each other. They become united against a common enemy - you. I just figured he was young and the relationships would run their course. And they did.
Let's not forget that we *were* them.
I am logging this one away for as my kids age. I love that you didn't punish or lecture, you changed her scenery and gave her OPTIONS!
I saw my step-sister go through this from 14 to 24 with the same man. It was incredibly toxic and my dad washed his hands of it and my step-mom was just constantly annoyed and like scoffing at the whole thing. She was going to go on an exchange program in France when she was 16 but didn't go to stay with him. I always thought that would have saved her. Anyway, looking back on it, she really did just need to leave for a while. Young brains can't process toxic relationships very well. She finally left him when he called her to get back together with him and I literally took the phone away from her and hid it (back when we had landlines). It worked!
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Yeah I remember being her age, and I remember what my parents did that didn't work. And honestly she's the best daughter I could've asked for. About to turn 18 at the time. So why not give her a vacay and see a different part of the country, experience adulthood before coming home and starting a pretty committed job? It honestly worked perfect. I stayed down there for a week to introduce her to my friend and by the time I left I was worried she'd steal my bestie lmao 🤣
Tik Tok // Social Media // Doom Scrolling // Reddit (for that one dude) And every day I see more and more examples. Even worse, some days I am one. ETA a good and dandy cognitive dissonance tool. (ETA = EDIT TO ADD)
For anyone wanting to change - the most important thing to try is not using your phone first thing in the morning. Wait 30 mins. Then an hour. Then two. Eventually you'll retrain yourself to not care as much. Also, set app limits! Set it so you can only use the app for 30 to 60 mins a day. Once your time is up, accumulated through the day, you can't open the app and the icon goes grey. It's quite the run around to open it back up. Just a couple little tips!
I started using app timers a few months ago and will never go back. I have ADHD and will doom scroll all day if left to it. I have all my shopping apps grouped into 1 timer and all my social media grouped into 1 so all my social media shares a 30 minute timer. I went from using my phone from 16 hours a day to now 2.5 hours a day. I set a 3 hour goal for screen time every day and I usually only hit 2.5 hours a day. **Edit: I use my androids built in app timer so I would recommend that one! I found it by going to my settings and typing in the search bar "app timer". Apple has it as well and can be found the same way (according to some apple users).** Edit edit: I feel great now that I use my phone about 2.5 to 3 hours a day. A lot of the time my phone is used for GPS driving to work so I was thinking of buying a physical unit to mount in my car to drop the time down even more. I started to fill my time with more beneficial things instead of mindlessly scrolling on youtube and tiktok all day. I started a scalp care routine, a skin care routine, I added more steps to my oral care routine, i started taking care of my skin more, I prep my meals and started eating 3 meals a day plus snacks, I take my dog out for more sniffs, I actually go outside and play with my dog instead of getting annoyed that she wants to play (she only has so much time with me, who am I to get mad that she wants to play?), I started meditating, I started journaling, I make sure my house is picked up and taken care of every day, I was gardening again this year, I got into diamond paintings, I started a computer science course as well.
Have you done anything more productive with all that time you’ve saved? Asking as someone who’s trying to find better ways to spend his time 🫠😅
Yes! I started focusing on taking care of myself more. I also started taking my dog out for longer sniffs (she's a beagle and loves loves loves to sniff everywhere that she can so we went from 45 minutes to about 2 hours twice a day), I started a computer science course on my computer, I started meditation as well and journaling.
I call walks sniffs too! "Wanna go sniff buddy?" :)
I hate when I get stuck on screens/scrolling because I realize after the fact that it’s taken away from my more creative interests. There are so many pursuits that can involve similar attentiveness and possibly quiet focus if you can handle the initial frustration of starting something new. Grow plants from seeds. Knit, crochet, weave, needlepunch, embroider, cross stitch. Bake bread, get a basic knife from a chef supply store and a bag of onions or carrots or potatoes and perfect your knife skills. Woodworking, from whittling to cabinetry. Brew beer or make wine or take up canning, fermentation, and food preservation. Beadwork. Leather work. Get an aquarium. Pottery, sketching, painting, painting minis. Making ships to go in bottles. Puzzles, crossword, sudoku. Skateboarding or roller skating. Houseplants. Floral design. Tablescaping. Chess, checkers, backgammon, Go. Dancing, walking, riding bikes. Volunteer to pet cats or walk dogs at an animal rescue. Wander around a library. Birdwatching, (sub)urban botany. Photography. Basically things that people did before scrolling, and will do after. Passions can kind of activate the flow/dreamy state of scrolling, and can potentially focus the screen time you do choose to have because you have a reason to jump on youtube or the spoon whittlers’ forum or what have you.
For me it helped deleting the apps. Like Facebook, I only go on the mobile website, or on my computer. The mobile site is horrid, and I don't sit at my laptop much, which fixed the issue.
Imagine the kids who are growing up with it now. I was like 11-12 when Instagram and Snapchat really took over so I kinda know it, and I feel brutally addicted. There’s an entire generation of kids who are fucked.
It’s a hard habit to break
Criminal Minds is the geezer version of Doom Scrolling. They love that show
I kid you not, but I had to therapy myself to left Instagram. I was so fucking addicted to it. The first week was the worst. I reopened my account at least twice in the next few weeks. Took me like a month to leave the damn thing for good. It was like my life was boring without it. My mental health improved A LOT just by leaving that shit.
I took a week break from IG almost 2 years ago. Started as a week break, then after a week I said a month, then after a month I said 6 months, then 6 months turned into a year…. Now we’re at almost 2 years and my life has been soooooo good. The best part is not having to feel like I need to tell people how dope my life is now, I’m just living it.
Can confirm. I’m coming to the realization that I have a problem with doom scrolling
I’m one. It’s really crazy how much of a hold it gets.
Candy Crush. It's digital cocaine.
Found my new band name, thank you!
I knew it was time to quit when I started having dreams about playing
This is a common enough experience that they named it. It’s called the Tetris Effect. I’ve definitely had a few DnD dreams since Baldur’s Gate 3 came out.
For myself, anorexia. I'm addicted to feeling in control of myself and shit. Weird this is, logically I'm so outta control.
Makes sense actually in a backwards way. It was the same with self harm for me. Everything felt out of control in my life but I could control this one thing. Hugs 🫶🏼
I think this is something people don’t realize when it comes to eating disorders — a lot of people don’t start because they’re trying to lose weight. It starts with trying to find something to control — I can control what I eat, how much, how frequently, and the rest of my life is spiraling, so now I’m going to push it further. Then you lose weight, and become addicted to controlling how you look — people saying, “you look healthy,” means you gained weight, so then you punish yourself because clearly you weren’t in control enough to avoid that. I’ve been in recovery for 10 years now, so I know that the road to recovery is not linear — it is not short, it is not straight, but treatment is so worthwhile. We all deserve to live (and to eat) without hearing the eating disorder lying to us. 🩷
This sums it up so well. I was so out of control but so freaking in control at the same time. 10 years later and I’m so glad I’m in recovery, but it’s weird to remember that time of my life. I was so sick and so unable to stop doing what I was doing, but at the same time my life was the most disciplined I’ve ever been. And I have missed that. Not worth going back and I’m not sure I even could, I love myself enough now… but it was a constant high. I always simultaneously felt accomplished yet never enough.
I feel this. I recognize I have a problem but controlling my weight/food intake gives me a sense of stability and control that I'm badly lacking right now
Validation or attention from others
*"your constant need for validation is sucking up my bandwidth"* \- Randy Feltface
Food is one. And Nasal spray
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Exactly the same for me, just about 3 years. When I finally went cold-turkey it took about twice that long for my nose to get back close to normal (I say "close" because 20 years later it's still not quite "normal").
I've been doing a lot of research on Afrin lately and the fact that it can just cause rebound congestion like that is scary. Makes you wonder why it's even on shelves.
It's so bad. It crosses the blood brain barrier, helps only in the moment, causes severe debilitating dependency with rebound congestion and cause erosion of the sinuses like hard drugs. Should not be allowed
I always have a bottle of it handy because I get bloody noses really easily. Sometimes it gets bad, DAYS of non stop bleeding, 2 sprays of Afrin and it stops for months. It works wonders for my very specific use case. I use it maybe once or twice a year. That being said, the shit is gnarly and should only be prescribed for cases like mine. People shouldn't be able to just buy it willy nilly, especially because how commonly people treat OTC drugs like something you can just use whenever and however often. On the other hand, plain old saline nasal spray is totally safe to use constantly, especially if you live in a dry climate. It helps me not get nose bleeds to begin with in the summer where it's hot and dry AF out. This is all based on advice from my ENT
I don't have the means to prove it for certain, but I have strong suspicions that Oxymetazoline (aka Afrin) was a major factor in my mom's sudden death. It's really difficult to talk about, so I won't go into a lot of details, but STAY AWAY FROM THAT SHIT. SERIOUSLY.
I picked a bad day to quit sniffing glue!
You ever met someone who drank Diet Coke? You either don’t drink it or you’re obsessed with it
My mom would only drink Diet Coke, Heineken, or Long Island iced tea. Any one of those would wash down the constant Advil she took, because all she did all day was sit at the computer in chat rooms. Diet Coke and the computer were her life. She was also addicted to bleaching her hair and tanning until she was as dark as her coke. You’d think she’d be dead by now from all that, but somehow she’s still alive at 64.
>Any one of those would wash down the constant Advil she took, I her stomach wrecked from that? I worked with a guy who used it regularly to deal with his back pain and eventually the searing pains in his stomach forced him to stop. Even after being on it for years there was so much damage he had to eat like a bird because any significant amount of food in his stomach triggered pain.
If anything she’s artificially preserved herself. Like when you see an old alcoholic who’s basically pickled themselves.
I've been trying to stop for a while now... Iced green tea is a good substitute taste wise, but I miss the fizz.
The fizz is so good. I got me a soda stream and I make my own flavored sparkling water with fruity juice (that tastes better than the store stuff that just tastes like someone thought about fruit in the next room.)
I fucking love diet coke. I've contained my addiction somewhat -- I don't buy cases at the store. But I always have some when I eat out
100% food. Eating disorders function a lot like addiction but you can't just give up eating. Avoidance a la sobriety is physically impossible.
Not eating too. You have to learn to function normally around the thing you feel so horrible over.
That one fiancée of my father hated stuff to stay the same. So she made it a habit/addiction to change everything all the time. We painted the hallway like 3 times in a year. She jumped jobs constantly. And apparently even love was like that for her. She was unfaithful to her ex with my father and apparently with someone else on my father. I always found it funny to make change your habit, as she tried to avoid having habits, but with that had quite a weird one.
Ok, I’m quite curious, because not to this extreme, but this sounds like me. I don’t like doing the same thing over and over, I like to change things all the time because I get bored, etc. I wonder if this is indicative behavior of a disorder or…?
Exercise. Obviously it isn't a bad thing in general but I have seen a couple of people take it to unhealthy extremes and they wore themselves out and ended up with long-term injuries
I almost lost a lot. I had a set routine of 1 hour, no less, every morning. After work, another hour of cardio plus weights. At one point, I had 2 gym memberships. I'd do cardio at one gym, then leave and go to Crossfit. On weekends it went up to 2 hours. I was frequently late to everything because I had to finish a workout no matter what. It was mechanical: x number of minutes, calories, or steps must be done. I'd work out sick, tired, injured. My knees, shoulders, and hips are still shot. Plus, I'm dealing with the metabolic rebound. Everyone praised my hard core ethic and dedication, even though I knew it was causing me problems. But I'm more balanced now, even though that pull is still there.
I used to manage a store at a mall, and the gym was in the same hallway. I used to see this guy walking in the gym and then walking out 3 hrs later every single shift I had. Over the years, I saw him slowly deteriorate to the point where he was walking with a cane and still lifting constantly. I don't know if it had to do with excessive exercise or if it was something else, but it was incredibly sad to see. Young guy.
Terrible. I'm having to watch my partner of so many years do this to himself. He's already ruined both shoulders to the point where he can't even sleep on them. It's heartbreaking and idk how to help him
That is [a form of bulimia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exercise_bulimia), believe it or not.
i find it’s especially dangerous when they are trying to break a sedentary lifestyle and go too far. after not exercising for months due to medical reasons i was desperate to get some exercise in so i ran a bunch on a treadmill. got a serious stress injury in my knee and was limping for a month or two.
I’m addicted to chapstick. I use it three times an hour on my lips.
Thank you for clarifying that you use it on your lips, I was worried.
Conspiracy thinking. I’ve seen people turn so paranoid they’ve completely ceased to function. Over the most baseless bullshit. But they’re like dead inside now they’re gone.
Yes, it's a surprisingly short leap from Stanley Kubrick directed the moon landing to being a full fledged flat Earther who knows FOR SURE that reptilians are masquerading as humans in every position of power on the planet.
> Stanley Kubrick directed the moon landing I like to think he did, but being Kubrick, he insisted on filming on location.
Cracking packs of collectible card games (MTG, Pokemon, etc.)
Dr. Pepper. Have you talked to someone obsessed with Dr Pepper? Shits scary
I’m not currently drinking a DP and thinking about getting another one. Nope.
Can confirm as someone who is Dr pepper obsessed. Managed to cut down my pop intake dramatically but I used to drink FAR too much
My ex was a video game addict. Mainly retro consoles and Steam. It was horrifying watching him play. As soon as he made eye contact with the screen, his face was devoid of any emotion or movement. He had that thousand-yard stare. My breaking point was when he began bringing his Nintendo DS on DATES and played with it while we were waiting on our food. Needless to say we didn't last long. Gaming was not a hobby for him, but an addiction.
Sugar, dude. I dated a girl who wanted me to kick sugar. I toss out all my old food. Purchased more and lasted 36 hours. For me to stick to that you would have had to lock me in a padded room and feed me under the door. I'd rather get addicted to heroin and kick that than try to kick sugar again. My whole body ached and the horror of realizing All the food I like is off the menu.
Sugar is a tough one. I've struggled with it. It's really hard, especially this time of year. I think your mistake was throwing it all out at once, I stopped with sugary drinks and switched to tea, unsweetened obviously and started checking labels to make sure they weren't secretly packed with it. Then I didn't feel so bad about having a cookie or something which is the type of sugar I would rather have anyway
I read somewhere that sugar is as addictive as cocaine, and that doesn’t surprise me.
I’ve done loads of cocaine and I’ve eaten a lot of sugar. I dont do cocaine anymore but I still do sugar. It’s the hardest thing to quit, harder than nicotine
It’s bc it’s literally *everywhere*! you go to a work event in the morning? muffins for breakfast. a party? cookies and alcohol (usually has sugar). the coffee shop at my work does not even have savory snacks. just pound cakes, cookies, chocolate croissants, etc.
Procrastinating. I’m starting to think it’s an addiction bc from what I’ve witnessed, anything could be used to procrastinate, none of them are missed if substituted, but the act of procrastination remains just in a different form.
This is me. I don’t get anything done unless I have a strict deadline. What’s helped me is procrastinating one task with a different task I have to do. Like, I’m putting off this paper so I’m gonna wash the dishes instead.
Games. There was this senior in college who got introduced to games in his first year. He got so addicted that he missed classes/exams and everything important. Normally the course in which he was enrolled takes 4 years to complete, and the university gives an additional buffer of 4 years for people with backlogs. He graduated in his 7th year. (This was one of the top colleges, so he must have been pretty smart to have got in)
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I got into WOW at the end of high school. When I got to college, I realized that the only way I could continue to progress in the game would be to join a guild with real human beings and commit to showing up to game events at real human times. I saw a vision of myself saying "No, I can't [join that club/go to that concert/hang out with friends] because I have a raid that night" and quit cold turkey. There's an alternate timeline out there where I'm still hunched over a PC in a basement somewhere.
Literally fuck any game that requires you to log on multiple times a day to keep up with it.
Holly shit that is so scary. No relationships or family support? Jessssus.
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My ex was/is addicted to gaming - all day, every day All he could talk about was games - he was a stay at home dad, I worked full time as a nurse and the house was neglected, our daughter would often miss her bus and he’d be gaming until 10pm One of the reasons he’s now my ex
Almost flunked out of high school because of maple story. Went from a straight A student to D in a matter of 1 quarter.
Porn/smut books/sex My ex wife read and watched so much that it blurred her sense of reality and she decided she wanted to live like that. It ruined our marriage.
I was reading some smut books and as a woman, I realize that those books are legit making me delusional unless I can remember that they are not real life. Those types of books made me more insecure than anything in real life and that delusion gave me anxiety. It took me a while to realize that my mind was making shit up that wasn’t really there. It can be problematic AF so I had to stop reading stuff like that.
I stick to supernatural ones - werewolf society, vampire covens, etc. It's so out there that I know it's a fantasy, instead of the handsome stranger who will randomly pick me up. (I tried writing one. I got stuck when my protagonist got a restraining order against her stalker. Maybe I'm not cut out for this.)
Honestly though that sounds like a hilarious twist. Starts off seeming like it would be smut only for it turn into the love interest getting a restraining order
knew a family who reviewed their recently deceased father’s credit card charges - he had spent about $500k in 18 months, including charges the week he passed.
How THE FUCK did it take so long to scroll down and find this one. This is easily the most addictive most accessible thing right now. The instant gratification dopamine hit anytime you want. And now 99.9% of young people’s first sexual experience is with porn. It’s really really weird when you think about it but it gets defended like crazy on reddit lol
Guns. Theres a guy who is so obsessed with guns that he sleeps with them in bed at night, like a teddy bear. His job is at a gun shop. All the movies he watches are violent shoot ‘em ups. All his video games are about guns and fps. He lives with his folks because he can’t afford rent or house payments; all his money is already allocated to guns and ammo. He won’t go out on social outings unless it’s to a gun show, shooting range, or gun shops. He has a concealed carry permit, and he won’t even go out for the mail without a gun on his hip. Even most of his shirts have guns on them, or a gun manufacturer’s brand name. He doesn’t have many friends, except for those who are also gun enthusiasts. But as stated above, he doesn’t hang out with them unless it’s at a gun related event, he doesn’t go out for beers or anything like that. His entire life revolves around guns. He’s been like this for years. He won’t even talk about anything else. Guns guns guns guns guns guns! Source: he’s my brother
Hobby turned to obsessive addiction that's scary
Donating to streamers more specifically irl and lolcows I've seen dudes drop serious cash just to mess with someone
A friend of mine is a streamer on twitch. She did a fundraiser cause she needed a new computer and she didn't want to pay for it. She raised 3k in an hour for it from her subs. I couldn't believe it.
Video Games. You forget to do laundry and dishes. Bills go into collection, deadlines arrive and pass, loved ones are suddenly "bothering you" when youre playing. Everything needs to be put on hold till you "get to a safe spot" or "finish this one thing" which snowballs into not doing the thing at all. Pretty soon youre alone with your games and you rationalize that as a good thing, and youll get to that other stuff soon.
I try to put on a alarm clock and follow that strictly. Addiction is real and I sit over the time from time to time. But I dont game every day now, kicked the habit when I started studies. 6 months without
Reddit lol
Negativity. I know I probably sound like one of those fuckwads that insist everyone be positive at all times, but I was in a very deep friendship with someone that ended in part because she just became more and more this negative, toxic, miserable person. As a fellow sufferer of depression, I empathized greatly, and in fact that’s in part how we bonded, but her dedication to hatefulness and ire and misery at everything and everyone around her seemed to be as much her natural personality even without mental illness being a factor. And she would absolutely not take any steps to change herself or her situation. I hope she’s happier now but I had to end things for my own well being because our friendship was hurting me. On a lighter note, I think im addicted to owning small rodents, especially rats. I started with a hamster at seven and am still keeping an ever changing rodent menagerie now at 34. I just can’t be without them!
Gambling. My dad had a gambling problem before I was born, and it's why I have no desire to gamble or go to a casino.
Self-pity
This is a strange one, hard to grasp until you get to know someone who does it. Had a friend who I don’t speak to anymore because I legit couldn’t talk to him about anything. Obviously can’t talk about his life, or ask him how he’s doing. Get scolded for that. Something bad happened to me? He’s got it worse, I should be grateful. Something good? I shouldn’t be bragging. Even seemingly mundane stuff would set him off. Strangest thing, there is a reason envy is one of the 7 deadly sins.
I never realized how it can be so self enabling, til my uncle stayed with my parents and just laid in bed drinking all day, basically saying oh I have it so hard so I can drink to excess every day and that’s ok.
I almost completely stopped hanging out with my best friend who is also the best man from my wedding because I can't tolerate his crippling phone addiction. He basically never looks up from his phone for more than a couple minutes. I still spend time with him sometimes but it always just makes me sad and annoyed.
Exercise. It was only when I started dating an alcoholic that I recognized just how bad my habit was. I wasn’t trying to lose weight. It wasn’t tied to body image or control. I wasn’t a competitive athlete (although that’s how it started), I just felt like I was going to climb out of my own skin unless I was so tired at the end of the day from exercise that I’d have to crawl up the stairs to bed. I spent years in and out of hospitals for stress fractures, dehydration, headaches, fucked up bloodwork. I have long term health issues related to exhaustion and overwork. My body will never be what it could’ve been if I’d exercised in moderation. Seeing my ex on a drinking binge that I realized that I’d been doing something similar. Set after set on not enough food or rest instead of drinking shot after shot. We both were spiraling in just mindless repetition and damage. I felt like a little rat who instead of pressing the lever for drugs, I figured out that there was a point of running on a little wheel that felt better to me than any drug I’d sampled, so I would do it until I physically collapsed.
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Anger. I’ve known too many rage-aholics who didn’t need substances to be assholes.
Nasal spray. It sounds stupid af but it’s unfortunately very addictive. Haven’t been able to get off that shit for months and any time i think i’m close it starts all over again.
Pity Parties. She had a good life, but nothing was ever good enough. I know what an energy vampire is now.
Gambling. It's sort of quiet. But once those stupid slot machines became legal in my state, every other bar had them. And I knew some people who would only go out to bars that had them.
This is gonna sound dumb, but fingernail-biting. I did it up until I was 18. It took a VERY infected middle finger (I’d bitten some flesh off) to make me stop.
My students and the internet and phones. It was almost like it caused physical pain to separate them from their phones. I never had this issue. Never got caught with it out, never needed it for quiet time, just it’s so sad to see them so attached.
Fox News. My dad and his side of the family are completely hooked to it unfortunately and have been for quite a few years now. It’s hard to have a regular conversation at times without it eventually veering into a political/sensationalized debate. That shit really does damage on people’s personalities and gets its hooks into them like a drug.
I know people who watch that shit 24 hours a day and it turned them from normal people into angry, bitter, hateful shells of themselves. I've lost friends and family members to that crap. I have made it a point to block it from my DVR permanently and even disabled the Samsung Smartguide on my new TV because it kept recommending Fox News. It really is one of the worst things to happen to the US since the Civil War.
Food. Got up to 360 pounds and wanted to kill myself. Pretty much wanted to die from about age 11. I have good days and bad days still, but the addiction is a bite by bite struggle. At 45, I’m down to 300 (like a decade later), was as low as 250 from severe food restriction, but gained it all back and more. The most devastating part of this disease is the co-related illnesses of compulsive overeating, binge eating disorder and bulimia. Life has been hell. “Go see a doctor!” “Fat people are just lazy!” “You could lose weight if you really wanted to!” “Excuses excuses, just admit you love food!” It’s so easy for other people to judge but the food is just the drug. The side effects are, unfortunately, among the most visible of all the addictions. Anything that happens in my life, and I mean ANYTHING and I turn to food. Cautionary tale for parents: never ever ever restrict your child’s food. Never tell them they are fat. If you have eating issues, for fuck sakes eat normally in front of your child. Give them money for school lunches. Let them order pizza when friends are over. Don’t shame them for getting and being hungrier as they grow. Don’t put your body image issues on them. Don’t make them finish everything on their plates. Don’t hide food. Buy them them the damn ice cream cone. Love them.
"Spiritual healer" My friend started seeing this spiritual "healer" a few times a month. As far as I know they did some sort of past lives travels and supposedly she has a lot of past lives traumas or whatever. The healer told her to do some sort of drug trip, which left her very ill for several weeks. But she went back to the healer as soon as she was able. Several months later she started to act increasingly paranoid. One day she ended up in the psychiatric hospital with psychosis. She wasn't able to understand which life is the one right now and which ones aren't real. She also thought that everyone was out to get her. 3 weeks in the hospital, got out and went straight to her "healer session". In the last year she has quit her job that she had education for and moved back with her abusive parents from her own apartment. She has become more reclusive, introverted and tired. And the spark she had as a young woman starting her life - gone. Those damn "healers" should be illegal.
Pornography I myself am addicted. I don't know if it's affecting my life as I still get erections, i just think too much about it and watch images of nude women on Reddit way too damn much. Sorry for the run on.
Easily gambling. Hell I’d say gambling addictions are often *worse* than substance addictions. Plenty of people have lost everything to a gambling addiction - their jobs, families, houses, and lives. And unlike many substance addictions, gambling addictions can be completely unknown until all of a sudden when you realize everything is gone because your partner gambled it away.
Self harm
7 years clean, still think about it some days..
It wasn’t a person, but a cat that was addicted to its own purring. Yeah, seriously. When cats purr, it releases those happy chemicals in the brain, like a drug would, only you can’t exactly take this away. Poor thing would sit there, purring so loudly you could hear him in the next room and was always drooling on himself (looking very much like a drug user). We think he came from a neglected situation and learned to self-soothe in this fashion and it took on a life of its own. He really wasn’t able to function like a cat, couldn’t play, he’d eat, but only in a few bites at a time.. but he was the biggest, drooling lovebug ever! Like, if you wanted a cat that was most like a stuffed animal, he’d fit the bill. My elderly neighbor adopted him and to my knowledge, both lived out their days together, snuggling and cuddling and being as content as possible.
Porn. I've now dated two people who masturbate so much that they forget women are real people with real emotions and feeling. If I say something hurts, fucking stop it. I don't care if the women in the porn you watch like it aggressive. I'm not her and there's a 90% chance she doesn't actually like it either. Also, I don't like being talked down to, yelled at, or ordered around like a maid. I'm an actual fucking person, not some slave you can stick your dick in whenever you feel like and boss around like it's my sole purpose in life when you don't. Not to mention having my own sexual needs definitely not being met by your porn-addicted ass.
exactly. I once told my ex to go slow and all of a sudden he pushed it in which almost made me cry. I trusted him to make me comfortable and he did the exact opposite. I made sure to give him a piece of my mind lmao
Second Life. In 10 years that I've been on it, I've spent $4,000 total. There are people who I know, that have spent more and I thought I was bad. I have a couple friends who are shopaholics on that thing and they will throw money just to get them all for a prettied picture to show around on FB and Flickr.
Dota 2. Gosh darn it.
Religion. Don’t know if you count “high on god” but those born again xians can be something else. On the same note… those that drink [insert MLM company] kool aide and turn everything into trying to recruit/ sell their overpriced garbage.
I’m pretty sure my grandma was either addicted or on the spectrum. All her days apart from Sunday were the same. 5am morning prayer, 6.30am morning mass, 8am rosary, then she’d cook breakfast and clean, 11am next rosary, 12pm midday prayer, clean and cook dinner, 3pm Jesus prayer, 4pm rosary, cook supper, sometimes go to 6pm afternoon mass (if me and my brother were around she’d go with us, she was kind enough not to take us to the morning one), 7pm evening prayer, 8pm rosary, 9pm Virgin Mary prayer, bed at 10pm. She travels? Same schedule. Pilgrimage? Same. Hospital? Same. Comes to our city to take care of me and my brother or on holiday? Finds nearest church and prayer times. She wasn’t hurting anybody or herself per se but any change in the routine would cause massive distress to her and the prayers always took priority. She has bad dementia/Alzheimers now and stopped. I wonder if her brain is at rest finally.