I see the root cause (for me atleast (used to read HN and blogs for 4 hours everyday)) is that i cant stand being with myself.

During the last two months ive been trying to not panic when i'm idle. And not take out my phone or read the nearest material i can lay my hands on.

Instead i try to accept the necesity of "falde i staver" (danish for 'falling out of presence'). When i was a kid i would often just fall into this state and just defocus with my sight and let daydreaming take over.

Basically i have a war going against effectiveness. I hold unto my right as a mammal to be inefficient and sit drooling looking at trees.

My advice on "doing something" when you have day without plans is the following: Bike in the forrest, coffee from thermos near the ocean, read newspapers at the library, talk to people at trainstations (the frequent hangouts are always open for conversations)

But on that note, have multiple kids AND get a pet. You'll never have a free minute again.

Is it career? If so, that's pretty depressing. Happiness is a superficial emotion. If your loved one was "happy" spending his entire life playing fortnight in his parent's basement, would you be sad for him? Charity?

I don't know. Never found a meaning as compelling as having children.

A google definition of superficial is "appearing to be true or real only until examined more closely."

I don't see how the definition of a type of emotion can be "superficial". Presumably your usage of "happy" in quotes is not actually happiness if you decided to put it in quotes. If you meant it as him actually being happy then someone could decide to be sad for him but that has nothing to do with his own happiness. Instead it would just be someone arrogantly projecting their own sensibilities and worldview onto the fortnite player while thinking they know better sources of happiness (when really the causes are subjective and every person derives varying levels of joy in different ways).

Making kids a "point of life" can itself be seen as a last ditch effort to be happy. The thought that there's some purpose in life that points to procreating is arbitrarily chosen and is seemingly that way because people derive happiness from some idea of having a legacy or finding comfort in interpreting the potential continuous spread of dna as some proxy for immortality

wait for the scientist who'll start printing soldier clones of himself

I understand it was hyperbole, but I would suggest one possible application of having and throwing everything you've got at raising children[1] to help with aimlessness/meaninglessness/purposelessness. Particularly when they're your own the common experience is your instinct/genome takes over and you'll find great imperative to do things you couldn't do for yourself. I learned about this concept from Jordan Peterson who also notes it works with pets[2]. For any bit of resentment about how the world has treated you, pouring yourself into someone else can at least give the solace that for them they will not suffer as much as you have, or at least not in the same insanity producing cyclical way as you had.

[1]: (technically can also be someone else's like foster, adopt, church, mentor, nephews/nieces) .

[2]: he talks about how people more frequently fill prescriptions for pets than for themselves.

Society keeps encouraging a lifestyle with less and less responsibility.

The government takes care of you (until you start bringing in profits), your employer takes care of you (with no raises). Everything seems engineered to coddle people without making them realise what they're missing. I feel most people are basically unaware cattle, happy to stay in their comfort zone and to keep producing what they tell them to.

Sexual promiscuity is cool, relationships don't last, having kids is a suicide, you're a victim.

A lot of the shitty parents have way deeper problems than this. The ones doing ok are probably glad they get to use their judice and they enjoy the freedom that comes with responsibility (without forgetting the obligations).

I believe there is a similar function in marriages, parenting, and other relationships -- the act of working through challenges makes you a "better" person at least in the regards of perspective, negotiation, less selfishness etc.

Of course, like basically everything in every discussion, there are exceptions but lets not focus on those because it makes it difficult to talk about anything save for physical laws.

Personally, I'm shocked at how just having kids has healed a lot of my held resentment. I used to look back at moments in my life that I wished had gone differently. Now I see that if you gave me a time machine and the chance to go back and change how I responded, I can't do it because I'd be erasing my kids.

I wouldn't even be able to stop the covid pandemic, selfish as that may be.

But then you’ll flock to these addictions because you feel you need an escape.

I have four kids and a ShiTsu.

I can spend hours in my own head, just thinking about… everything. For me the phone rabbit hole usually starts with an idea that needs more information to live.

The outcome, however, is the same: I get very little practical work done, I am constantly behind and very frustrated.

I am getting better at doing things, but I quickly become overwhelmed, because those thoughts never stop and instead of doing what I need to do, it's a battle plus all those thoughts I have that feel like I need to spend time thinking them through etc, rather than doing the most basic of things that I need to do.

OK, I get this. Really, I do. I've spent many many hours doing "nothing" just like this, and those have generally been happy times. But ... how would that change if you had a lot more free time? Could you spend all day every day in such a state? Would it be healthy if you did?

The reason I ask is that I've had to grapple with that question since I retired. Probably will even more so when my daughter leaves for college. And as much as I enjoy doing "nothing" I find that I just can't do it all day. I have to be doing something, which brings us right back to the issue of low-effort low-reward activities (e.g. doomscrolling on the internet) vs. high-effort high-reward activities (e.g. hobbies, community involvement, travel). I force myself to do the latter first so I don't lose the ability to do hard(er) things, and there's still plenty of time left over for the low-effort stuff.

I suggest that your "war" only needs to be fought because you don't have enough total free time, and it will seem like a very different war when that changes.

Since i am on sickleave due to anxiety, stress and skizotypia i dont usually like being alone with my thoughts.

so what ive done with my time is this:

Wake up, fill my thermos with hot water. Leave my apartment.

Drive around on my bike looking for hidden places. It can be an empty lot behind a supermarket or an off-path place in the forrest.

Walk around and study the vegetation. Find a nice place for some instant coffee, chill.

Sit-drink coffee-stare-listen-repeat.

Decide to leave. Bike to a place where there is a lot of people i know. Leave cuz i am too anxious to talk to any of them.

Have a quick chat at the harbour with some strangers.

Go to the library and read a bit of comics or newspapers. Take the bus to another harbour.

Make minor.fixes to my small boat from the 70's.

Go to the swimming hall. chill in sauna and max up the heat. Stare.

Go home, make food for minimum money as an exercise. Eat.

Think about projects i could imagine would be fun. Imagine the details of them. Maybe write them down. Be okay with never doing them.

Watch some hbo.

Plan when i have my kids again "maybe tomorrow?" And where to take them? Usually the beach or the forrest and have fun in the woods.

Go my my bedroom without any devices and sleep.

I live in denmark

I like your routine though, I envy those who live in walkable areas!

My war is personal, ive been over productive for 7 years like this: Work 50+ hours as it engineer, taking on too much responsibility. Doing opensource projects in spare time. Doing srt projects like stage shows and stuff on weekends. Being a dad to 3. Being main supplyer of moneys in the home. Having some heavy duty mental ilness diagnoses on the top. All the while i never felt i was worth anything. Not a dime.

Now i aim for having low amount of recurring bills. Chill with my kids (i now dont live with anymore since the above details produced my divorce) Be outside, all weather, all the time. Be helpful. And accept a new way of not being productive. And therefore also not consuming a lot.

What if it was disadvantageous to outwork everyone else during anthropogenesis even if it is rational in our modern world where the upside is practically unlimited and the downside is nearly always limited? A natural environment is almost exactly the opposite - Does that mean we are fighting our "natural" behavior every day? This question isn't meaning to be fatalistic, exactly what OP and the video by Luke Smith he linked criticize. But understanding the biological reason behind procrastination could lead us to some deeper understanding on how to win this uphill battle.

yes, I even like framing this as an environmental conservation activity.

I'm doing nothing at all (only consuming oxygen, no content, no nothing) as a conscious action to save the environment.

And humans can have a positive impact on the environment. We can plant trees, do civil engineering to shore up damaged ecosystems, care for animals, develop cleaner ways to live and make food, etc. humans do not have to be a net negative for the environment.

Which isn’t to say that resting and daydreaming are bad or net negative. I think they’re good! Even if just good for the soul, that helps fight the encroaching nihilism of modern life and think more in a positive-sum manner.

So you’re saying that I should have some potato chips on hand for when I’m being lazy? You seem wise.

the point is that it's the least we can consume, in contrast with a more capitalist friendly "go sit at a cafe to buy a drink" or even a scholarly-ambitious "read a book, or newspaper or learn something, don't just sit there". both of which are much worse.

There is no environment that need saving. Carbon emissions are merely changing the environment in a way that may not be convenient for a lot of humans.

You're just saving the status quo of human society, not "reinvesting in the Earth".

If by environment you mean species of animals you should worry more about plastic and trash than carbon emissions.

here, here!

I use "here, here" on text forums because you can't hear anything, but "right here" is a post worth reading!

You touch on it a little when you say you begin to panic when you’re idle - what is the source of that panic? Is it FOMO? Is it un-processed traumatic memories? Is it unhinged neuroticism and overthinking? Is it something else? What is the source of that panic?

Both of these are traits of my skizotypical diagnosis being 'lack of identity' 'lack of understanding of how other people engage in life' 'emotional blindness' etc

I agree with you that the obsession with S-tier clearing life is very bad for people. I have many young friends who obsess over optimizing every move they make at cost to their sanity and time. Specialization is for insects.

Somewhere along the way I realized I had not day dreamed or used my imagination for a long time because it was so easy to "read the nearest material I can lay my hands on".

To add to your advice I would suggest to try to find out who you are without outside material and to get comfortable with this self.

Half the article was them complaining about poor working memory, and the rest about getting stimulation/dopamine from unhealthy sources.

Everyone has "a little ADHD". We all occasionally, forget things, hyperfocus on things we are excited about, etc. ADHD is the disorder of having those struggles so often it's debilitating. It stems from having an underdeveloped frontal lobe that doesn't feel dopamine as well as neurotypical brains do, meaning an ADHD brain needs more stimulus to feel healthy.

Because of the deficit in stimulus, people with untreated ADHD are statistically much more likely to have a substance abuse disorder (SAD); but in many cases, treating their ADHD (with medication and cognitive behavioral therapy) has the side effect of treating their SAD.

Addiction, in the public consciousness/vernacular, is more abstract than SAD: it can mean anything from chemical dependence to unwanted habits. I suspect most people tend to make a false equivalence between the former and the latter. I see all the time people struggling to change a simple habit and immediately labeling themselves "addicts". I think that's a unhelpful characterization.

I think the point people tend to miss is that in order to change a habit, you don't just "stop doing it": you must replace it with an alternative dopamine source. This is especially tricky with untreated ADHD.

I agree, and I think it is important to talk about the sensation, not just the observation or impact on others (which are easy to compare poorly).

To me it isn't so much the _what_, but the _why_. The brain is hunting for stimulation due to a baseline deficit below that required to operate normally. I can tell you from experience that "hunt" can range from classic hyperfocus/lack of focus to chronic boredom, hypersexuality, drug abuse and so on.

What provides the stimulation to reach baseline one day, may not work the next day, or even from hour-to-hour or minute to minute. That's the core issue, however it manifests. If just one thing consistently hit the spot, it'd be akin to an addiction (where in addiction your brain down regulates, so you need to keep supplying it).

As it stands, it is more like being addicted to both everything and nothing, in a never ending frenzy of disatisfaction, frustration and boredom. Your brain, always downregulated, always chasing a moving fix.

Habit doesn't come into it one tiny bit.

I implore anyone reading this and noticing it in themselves to go to a professional and find out if you have ADHD or not. I am by no means "cured" or completely functional but at least now I have a fighting chance.

I was initially given Dexedrine (dextroamphetamine) and it was so good and I wrote the most beautiful code and my focus was pure and I needed more and more and I lined the pills up at night and did I mention beautiful code, on on sentences and becoming insufferable?

Anyway, I switched to a different stimulant (vyvanse) which had a more measured effect and did not lead to that kind of addictive over the top behavior.

Apropos of the original post - I find that during a procrastination spell, I’m still “working” in the back of my mind even though it might look like I’m doing legos at work. At some point my brain hits what I think of as an “activation level” and I suddenly “flip” my attention and focus to the job at hand. It feels like what happens when you’re kindling a fire, and you get a little bit of flame in some dry stuff, and then you “pop” that flame (attention) into the larger pile of fuel.

What a wonderful way to describe such a feeling. I have struggled, and still struggle, with the same issue. I have no idea of get that switch to flip on faster, but I hate wasting so much of my day just waiting.

I was tested at very young age, as most millennials were in the US, and was told I did not have it, luckily; but looking back on the people who were raised in that era and how they handed out SSRIs like candy I'm glad I dodged that bullet because the adverse affects of those drugs sound way worse than coping with ADHD--but it also explains why mental hygiene/health issues in the US are as severe as they are.

It's sad that people have ADHD, I personally can enter 'flow state' and block out all things for hours, even days or weeks if I really try; but it's to the detriment of everything else and so horrible for my mental and physical health.

I lived that way for almost a decade with only small pauses in between, power napping is all I slept and a good day was 3-5 hours, with work schedules that were optimized for productivity over everything and my life seriously was in shambles: I was a boot-strapping founder with a stressful day job(s) and side hustles and worked 7 days/week with 90+ hour totals. I tried my best to maintain a very contentious relationship and failed miserably at it.

I think what needs to be addressed is that extremes are all bad, and OP's situation seems like it would be manageable were it not for self-satisfying rationalization to waste his time. It's like those self-sabotaging people who get off on the rush from the failure more than succeeding, this scene in Two for The Money explains it rather well [0].

0: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdE-BZoB9SA

The first time I took my meds, my mind was blown. It was the first time in my long life I experienced peace and quiet. Now I am able to track my work, break large tasks into smaller ones, and quiet my brain. I’m on a dose + brand name with no side-effects etc.

The issue, and this isn’t true for everyone but I believe it is true for a lot, is that some doctors start people on what they think they should be at. Instead of starting at 5mg, they will do some BS calculation of gender and weight and start someone on 60mg. Yeah that is going to fucking suck.

Mine was a life of extremes, put simply I stopped caring about myself during that time and I poured myself into my work as I wanted to have something to show for what I felt was more than likely going to be a short Life.

I didn't think I was going to get rich doing any of that, in fact I lost money for most of it's existence and I never paid myself in order to pay everyone else and keep the lights on until we accomplished our mission statement, the only thing that saved me in the end was the skill set I developed made me marketable in fintech and I got head hunted to go work for a Megaorp.

I spent my Life doing what I wanted and lived a perilous and risky life and got addicted to the adrenaline rush and still deal with bad PTSD to this day. I take your words to heart, and I'm glad it worked, but sadly a family member who had a schizophrenic break down really early in life (teens) just passed from a heart attack this week; her health really went down hill after having been put on SSRI meds after that. But she also had substance abuse problems with alcohol, that run on both sides of her family, that exacerbated an already bad situation.

I'm devastated, I'm glad it worked for you, but honestly... I'm not sure it's as cut and dry as you make it out to be.

Back then I was trying to cope with my situation as best as I could, without medical insurance for most of that time, but I'm also the kind of person that goes to Ukraine during this situation and goes to help feed and process Ukrainians/Russians/Belarusians at the Mexican border in order to feel anything other than pain and sorrow if I have access to resources to do so. I'm not exactly seeking a medical escape to what I deal with, so much as trying to play a part in trying to accelerate the progress of the Human Condition in it's current form as I fear extinction is a real possibility.

In short, I was trying to fix my Weltschmerz with seemingly noble but self-destructive behaviours because I didn't want to give in to the often depressing and bleak realities of the World. I didn't, nor do I now, want to feel any number than I already was back then. Given your handle, I imagine you understand what that show was trying to communicate the most was about addressing mental health issues more than it was an edgy hacker show with cool realistic cut scenes.

I've since worked on it after the aforementioned situations and a friend's abrupt suicide last year: it forced me to re-evaluate my value system, and gain some perspective on my limitations.

If the medication doesn’t work or has side-effects, try a new one. Find a doctor (or more ideally a psychiatrist) who starts you on the lowest dose (if a stimulant) and slowly ramps you up.

The right dose is when, after taking the medication for some time like 2-4 weeks, you don’t feel much but at the end of the day you can reflect and realize you did way more than usual.

Medication is a small part of ADHD treatment. People have shown improvement with healthy coping mechanisms, strategies, exercise, healthy diet, etc. I’ve heard even an official diagnosis can relieve it a bit.

Of course ADHD is a blanket term and everyone’s is different. But it is possible that you would have a better experience with meds with a better doctor. I’m on meds and all my side effects have gone away due to my body adjusting, due to me buying brand name medications, and in my switch to Adderall XR. A better doctor can help you with all of this.

> bupropion may be effective for ADHD but (...) this conclusion has to be interpreted with caution, because clinical trials were of low quality due to small sizes and risk of bias

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bupropion#Attention_deficit_hy...

There's a couple week period of euphoria where I didn't have those issues at all, but I've come back down to baseline.

First off there are multiple types of ADHD drugs. I presume you are referring to stimulant drugs which are the most commonly prescribed for ADHD, but there are many non-stimulant drugs available for ADHD particular in the USA.

Second stimulants are only party drugs if you abuse them. At prescribed doses they're very safe long term, so long as you've no heart issues. You often get a mild euphoria when you first start or increase a dose but it stops after a few days of use. The same applies to a lot of medications, they can get you high when abused but that's no reason not to use them at the prescribed doses.

Third there's plenty of evidence to suggest that the end effect of stimulants is different for many with ADHD and that they're less likely to abuse them due to this. The drugs do the same thing to everyone but due to lower levels of dopamine and/or higher sensitivity to dopamine many people with ADHD don't get high the same way if they abuse their meds.

Fourth there are lots of long last slow release meds which are difficult to abuse. Vyvanse in particular is almost impossible to abuse as it metabolizes into amphetamines after you take it and there's no way to speed up the reaction enough to abuse it.

Fifth to get diagnosed with ADHD your symptoms have to be having a severe negative effect on you life in multiple areas. I can't find the stats atm but life expectancy for undiagnosed and untreated ADHD sufferers is significantly lower than average mostly due to risky behaviour, mental health and bad consumption habits (food and self medicating with other far more dangerous substances). So the risk of any stimulant medication (which is extremely low for most people) has to be weighed against the risks of being untreated.

That's not to say there aren't any potential issues with ADHD meds. Everyone reacts differently so you should be careful and only take them under the supervision of a trained Psychologist. They're also not sufficient on their own. But they're well studied, extremely safe when used correctly and statistically the most effective individual treatment by far for a very serious condition. So please don't post misleading things like this and put people off of seeking potentially life changing treatment.

Anecdotally, green tea or just L-theanine extracted from it helps. Even mild euphoria is unwelcome as it can reposition dopamine (and possibly serotonin) baseline and lower effects from following doses.

> plenty of evidence to suggest that the end effect of stimulants is different for many with ADHD and that they're less likely to abuse them due to this.

Unmedicated ADHD person is even more likely to seek dopamine hits and get addicted. We are commenting a post titled "I'm an addict" which seems to be written by someone undiagnosed (I'm not a specialist).

2) Drugs work differently on ADHD brains than on “normal” brains.

My partners life was literally changed by taking medication. Do you think that’s a bad thing?

I strongly doubt that ‘herbs’ are more effective than decades of scientific research. I presume that you’re hearing amphetamines and thinking of the extremes; as the parent said, the medical doses are far lower than that of recreational users.

Drinking coffee is a stimulant, and yet in moderation it’s not harmful to the used. Do you feel similarly about any sort of caffenation?

I've noticed this is mainly a US thing. If you all think it's great, there must be something to it. Like a big marketing campaign going back years. Nope, too wild! It's more probable I need a lecture on the benefits of being hooked on amphetamines in the name of mental health.

How long do you think such treatment can last? Have you checked? Do it for your partner. Do you honestly think using this stuff for decades does not come with major drawbacks?

Again, does coffee sit in that same boat?

To say life with mental illness/disorders comes with its own major drawbacks is really an understatement. Amphetamines may well have harmful effects, but untreated mental illness/disorders can cause an incredible amount of damage, not just to the person affected but to those around them.

Many people, such as myself, seek treatment with medication after they've exhausted all other known options. There's only so long you can keep running on empty. I'm just happy to have something that works.

I know people who have been on ADHD medication for 30 years. I'm assuming the people I know aren't the only ones. So do you have any evidence that these treatments can't last, or are you just making things up?

Edit: Also one of them has a doctorate and it would have been impossible for him to obtain it without medication.

Looking at your past posts it appears you aren't a discriminatory bag of shit, but you could have fooled me with this comment.

You don't know people's situation and you don't know how medicines affect them.

People with ADHD are 2.7 times more likely to deal with depression than people without.

This is very subjective and I can’t put a finger on what it is exactly but something in this post just feels like depression.

My unrelated take is that remote work is going to make this problem way worse.

A recent related post:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31408431

My mechanism for remaining focused and getting through work has been to consume harder illicit substances, mostly cocaine. It's effective but definitely not sustainable long time and I'm not too sure where from here.

Second, seek medical help. Today, thats the path I would choose. You need a social safety net too, or things might take a bad turn.

Good luck with it, be well, and try and care for yourself the way you’d care for a sick parent or child.

As counterproductive as it seems, I think pot makes me more mindful, which can boost my work productivity. Sometimes I will smoke and then spend 30 minutes organizing my folder structures, documenting code, or writing a script to do something that I do manually everyday. When I'm not on pot, all of those tasks seem too trivial to justify doing.

What's the evidence that it is horrible for your health?

I am in the same boat, but I couldn't find anything conclusive when I was trying to do my research. Just various things that either or can cause an increase in heart rate and blood pressure, and I would assume combining both just increases said cardiac effects more.

No joke; shoot me an email if you want a detailed solution. I can easily chew your ear off with my own tale and anecdotes. Email on my profile page.

I was later diagnosed with severe ADHD.

I am as above board as I can be when it comes to my medicine (never take more than 1 a day, never ask for more, etc) but the song and dance for getting refills, let alone a new or changed prescription, makes me feel like a criminal hunting for his next fix.

I can't imagine what it must be like for people who legitimately need opiates.

The 'good news' is the active compound in Desoxyn is widely available at cheap prices and surprisingly high-purity in hypo-regulated markets. It is, in a way, easier to acquire (on every street corner and through the mail) than many very boring prescription chemicals. So there is at least a theoretical alternative.

Amphetamines for ADHD is one of the most effective treatment there is in all of medicine, along with things like insulin for diabetics and benzodiazepines for anxiety.

Unfortunately, self-medicating with N-methylamphetamine is an extraordinarily unwise thing to try. It is hard to recommend that anyone who is already prone to substance abuse attempt that maneuver.

The hoops and ridiculous requirements he has to jump through are crazy. He just got a random drug test the other day. He has to meet with the doc all the time. They ask him stupid questions (I've been in the room). He has to fill out the same form each time with all these questions about addictive behavior. He's got to bring his pill bottle with him; not allowed to have too many pills, or too few, or you get in trouble. Doc was quizzing him about why he has other prescribed medications. And on and on.

My dad has to set aside pills so that he doesn't lose the prescription, since he doesn't use as many pills as he's prescribed; it's highly important to him, as he's played pool nearly every single day for about 57 years and he is going to hold onto that as long as he can.

The wildly excessive prescription of oxycontin & opioid is a crisis and a tragedy. If the response is an overreaction in the opposite direction, the result is also more tragedies.

Pain doctors seem like they are really stuck between a rock and a hard place now. You have a whole population of patients who have been given pain meds like candy, and when you suddenly take them away they're left dealing with the problem. Some of them turn to street drugs out of desperation, and that's a countdown to another fentanyl overdose.

Then there's people with chronic pain who may legitimately need the medication on a continued basis (some of whom have had their dosage increase to dizzying levels during the opioid crisis!) You frequently have patients with chronic pain who, after the pills are taking away, spend their time thinking of ways of killing themselves, as a pain management option. They cannot deal with the all-natural, constant torture.

When I look at the opioid epidemic, to me it's really hard not to think that the onus should be on pharmaceutical companies to not advertise their pain medication to doctors as non-habit forming when they are the very opposite, and results in those extremely addictive pills being given like candy to an entire population.

Wellbutrin is known to fuck with dopamine, presumably sometimes for the better.

Next, set up an appointment with a mental health professional (I recommend a psychiatrist) to talk through your thoughts. They will help you identify the causes of your behavior and provide solutions.

And whether you have it or not, learning about ADHD is a great thing to do. I recommend starting with this cheesy yet informative YouTube channel: https://m.youtube.com/c/HowtoADHD

I get what you’re saying but I want to push back hard on this. Everyone has some of the symptoms of ADHD at any given time.

But, ADHD isn’t more of the same symptoms. That’s how it’s diagnosed, but the underlying mechanism is a severely compromised ability to self-regulate which is categorically different from what people experience when they are out of mental energy.

Edit: I've clarified what I mean in other comments in the thread. My issue is the use of the phrase without explaining why it is wrong.

Everyone has a little trouble regulating themselves, some people have a little more trouble, some people have enough trouble that it becomes a disorder.

An equivalent is saying everyone has trouble walking sometimes when we're talking about someone who limps and needs a cane.

The symptoms are not the disorder and don't come from the same mechanism that causes normal people to have difficultly paying attention sometimes.

Feeling like you need to wash dirt off your hands before eating isn't a "bit of OCD", that's normal.

Worrying irrationally so much about clean hands that it ruins your life, leaving you crying from normal tasks like cooking ... every touch of a surface triggers fight/flight ... is a disorder.

It isn't the mechanism that's important, but the impact and motivators.

Same with ADHD. A bit of being inattentive or forgetful or whatever ... isn't a "bit" of the disorder that also contains some of those behaviours in extreme.

But I don't feel like that's the case here.

Personally when I hear people speak like this I assume they're trying to root someone in an empathetic perspective. I'm not sure I've ever heard it from someone who was arguing against the seriousness of the subject.

My issue was using the phrase in the first place without some explanation of just how wrong the idea is.

Two sides of the same coin imho. Both mechanisms are dopamine-driven.

ADHD is like having a coin that's to thin for the press (stimulation/dopamine) to leave a mark. Addiction is like having the press put too much pressure.

I feel like I am one of the rare people that developed a SAD from medically treating ADHD. It's not from the intended effects of the medication, but from trying to treat the side-effects.

For me personally it is also about being above average smart. I'm intensely bored by a lot of people and activities. I lose interest, can't remember a lot, get irritated easily.

After many years I have some good friends, work which suits me, I know how to leasure well, basically I know how to amuse and challenge myself and don't experience lots of the adhs symptoms anymore.

Yikes. What a bad take. Many people experience some of the side effects of ADHD may be a true statement. But saying everyone has a little bit of this debilitating mental disorder makes light of something that is not an easy thing to deal with for many sufferers.

That's like saying everyone has a little cancer because sometimes we all get colds which people going through chemo may be more likely to get.

It's like concern for having clean hands. A certain amount is sensible, normal and part of being a human.

Too much of that concern, when it becomes life ruining anxiety ... is a disorder. Normal concern for clean hands isn't "a little bit of OCD".

The fact that we, as humans, have to decide who gets the label of 'Has the Disorder' and who doesn't is just an artifact of how we like to label things.

For the same reason that you don't magically go from a child to an adult the minute you turn 18. There is a smooth spectrum of development as people age, but for practical and legal reasons we need a cutoff for officially calling people adults.

Some disorders are also on a smooth spectrum. Some people have a little anxiety, or show a few autistic symptoms without it ruining their lives. That doesn't invalidate the experience of people who have severe anxiety or a more advanced degree of autism. Don't imbue too much meaning to the where the cutoff for the label is.

There's no need to gatekeep mental illness, the goal is helping people. We're not competing for who has the real thing™ and deserves to be taken seriously. Let's just listen to people, let them describe things as they perceive them to be, and try to be helpful.

Those two X's are not the same, and it isn't useful to compare them even though they appear comparable or similar or the same.

The key bit is the anxiety (however small or large, frequent or infrequent) that makes the distinction.

I agree it's not very useful to use labels for behaviors that are considered normal and don't have any negative cause or impact (whether that's anxiety or something else).

My understanding is that a good part of the diagnosis of many disorders, as per the DSM, is by looking at the impact they have on one's life. If someone is perfectly happy with what they're doing, it's certainly an important distinction that makes labeling them with X disorder somewhat less meaningful.

It really muddles the picture and distorts what's really important; the experience of anxiety/stress/irrationality/impulsivity/attention issues/ ... to the person feeling it.

I think that's exactly what they meant, since they put it in quotes and then go on to say that ADHD proper is when those complications are debilitating.

Adderall has helped, so has some behavioral approaches, but nothing is a cure. For me, trying to eliminate distractions is either a distraction itself or ineffective.

Structured procrastination is useful, at least I am practicing piano or getting more fit instead of sitting around watching TV or reading dumb articles and forums.

The biggest problem is that I am randomly bored and watch a youtube video. It's just 15 minutes after all, how much could it hurt? and then I waste 2 hours which is 105 minutes more than I had when I started watching that video. Maybe I should play mobile games because those have those pesky daily energy limits that stop you from playing more.

Helps I got a side gig playing music haha but my bookmarks on that are gargantuan. The dancehall reggae section alone is massive. I never listen to that and get stuff done, really the best concentration music for me doesn't matter the BPM it just has to be mostly free of lyrical content. So work music is mostly electronic or classical.

What are you listening to that's high BPM for work? That hard techno shit out of Europe lately is a lot of fun, Anetha is incredible [1]

[1] https://youtu.be/qVRj8-t4PwI

Shit is WAY too spazzy for me to focus though, I guess you guys got different brainwaves than I do. It's funny because in the suggestions I got this, titled pov: you have adhd (breakcore mix) [1]

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mojBQ6yo7_o

I think personally what I like about them is as much as they're not above taking some sample and running it into the ground, they have a really good ear for melody and pathos. IMO all their best songs start by them going "this anime soundtrack is great, but it could be about 25% faster and more high pitched and backed by a really hard beat." And you know, they're usually right.

A really good example for me is [2], Jersey*Spirit, which is a remix of Try Unite! [3], some anime opening. I think depending on which you listen to first you're going to have a totally different idea of how that melody is supposed to go, because as far as I can tell without a music education, by inserting a break with a slowed down voice sample and leaving out some parts, Sharpnel's version puts the verse emphasis on a totally different measure than the original (the "fly away" part is the "B" measure in the original, and the "A" measure in Jersey*Spirit). Would you have heard that was in there? I wouldn't! And I'm not making a statement on which take is better, but to me, having heard Sharpnel's take first, the just original seems unbearably slow, and also they should put that melodic idea in the center instead.

edit: And that's how I learnt that HNews strips unicode symbols...

edit: Also I challenge you to listen to Watashi wa Maid without getting it stuck permanently in your head. [4] but note that the album art is very nsfw. (Yes this was the only version I could find. Youtube probably keeps taking it down, can't imagine why.) Then compare to the [5] original - if you can, without falling asleep!

edit: Also that's from a hentai OVA. I should note that. Fucking Sharpnel, how do they find this stuff... but you can't argue they don't elevate it above the source material.

edit: As a final link, here's a (VR) DJ set they did recently that I like a lot. [6] It's less of their own songs and also a bit slower and less hyper. Might be more to your liking.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjpHgH8a8IY

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4x9W7kKl_k

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vaKXIxnon_8

[4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=996u-54Fscs NSFW album cover!

[5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4eFsbnEHR4

[6] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYMzaqzXqMo

Anyway, my pet theory is that the fast music acts as a stimulant, raising activity in every part of the brain - including executive function. Same principle as amphetamines.

I'm gonna need names.

Some of my most clearest thoughts, ideas, or beliefs came to me when I was just walking on the street not listening to podcasts, audio books, music or browsing social media.

I think it's far more useful to literally stare at a wall for 3 hours than just mindlessly watch youtube videos. I say this as someone who is addicted to social media/internet as well and struggle very hard to overcome.

What I do is use the freedom app to set time limits and ban these sites during periods of the week. I bought one of those timed safes where I stick my phone in to completely stop the temptation for 4 or 6 hours. I know I can't completely end it, but what I want to do is just nudge myself to do something else. Instead of grabbing a phone maybe I'll attempt to read a book, or draw, or work on some data visualizations, or contribute to OSS. All activities I'd say I value more than browsing reddit (or twitter or youtube or HN) for hours every night, but my actions prove otherwise.

I'm not saying I've improved my habits 300% but at the beginning of the year I would read a book for 5 minutes put the book down pick up my phone then read reddit for an hour; at least now I can read a book for 45 minutes without being distracted. It hurts writing this because in college I'd read nearly 500 pages a week + my readings for class, I'd read nearly 200 books a year but over the last 5 years I've probably read 3.

I don't know where I'm going with this, I guess my mind wanders when writing as well...

[1] https://www.calnewport.com/books/digital-minimalism/

One thing I enjoyed about Four Thousand Weeks was the story how people viewed work 100s and thousands of years ago, how whatever you didn't finish that day, you had time tomorrow to continue; I think this is a useful idea because modern society feels so "rushed" over work that isn't exactly useful. Also the idea of JOMO (joy of missing out); it was just a new heuristic introduced to me. We make choices all the time, we neglect doing things all the time. It's just a part of life, missing out on things means enjoying others It sounds like it's more stressful but it's not, at least how the book describes this.

With Stolen Focus, I was a fan of the author's interview about his other book "Lost Connections" when he appeared on an episode of econtalk [1]. I won't say much else about Stolen Focus, except his tips on what he does to lessen the nodge toward social media is what I now do as well.

[1] https://www.econtalk.org/johann-hari-on-lost-connections/

It's about being happy with the life you're living, the life you chose, and being able to take control to work towards your fulfilling desires rather than just choosing the feel-good compulsions forever.

Also, again maybe not for you, but a lot of people's numbers if they're just looking at watch history are going to be totally out of whack if they're using YouTube as a music streaming service. My wife's account is the one logged into our television and this would constitute the vast bulk of watch hours, having music on in the background while cleaning the house, cooking dinner, and doing a whole lot of other things. You definitely can't practice tuba in the background while also cooking and cleaning.

So, less than the average amount of time people spend watching TV?

Edit: Maybe "upper beginner" is a better fit. I dunno, self study is weird.

The only thing I couldn't find an abundance of is long-form video essays -- it seems that (for whatever reason) that isn't something that Japanese YouTube audiences want to watch. TV shows make documentaries which are kind of similar but those are also fairly hard to find.

I was hoping for an easy win here. ;)

That's impossible. You can click on a youtube video instantly at any moment and waste 3 hours thanks to the power of the algorithm. Spending that time on anything specific would require you to plan that into your schedule. You are not going to work on a side project when you think you have 30 min for some "harmless" fun but you sure are going to be trapped by the algorithm for three hours without planning to do so.

This is a very unfair set of "ANYTHING else". I am sure you can come up with more real world list of what other people actually do after work, and that might make you feel a little more lenient about your own choices and needs.

> Any other ideas besides cold turkey?

/etc/hosts

127.0.0.1 youtube.com

127.0.0.1 www.youtube.com

Best of luck.

You might want to check out https://watchlimits.com/ (free extension, I built this), or some other tools I mention in https://watchlimits.com/blog/posts/more_hours_per_week/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/unab...

Just curate a decently small list of high quality channels and only browse via the subscriptions list. You'll know when you're all caught up and the FOMO isn't there. You'll still catch the stuff you're interested in, but you won't be pulled in a million other random directions.

That said, I have the YouTube bug pretty bad myself.

As I recall there was no time spent stat, just video history eothout watchtime indication.

For all of this there were multiple projects on github that do all of this + with plots.

Apparently videos watched on the desktop aren't counted correctly, but I imagine it's not worse than summing the durations.

I'm "unhappy" multiple times a day when I start doing something that doesn't usually have to be done right away. But it's often a choice not between doing something now or later, but doing something now, not never.

However weirdly this may sound - I constantly do things against myself, for myself. I don't get much satisfaction from finishing those tasks but my life quality has increased drastically and I wouldn't go back from moments of discomfort to an ongoing discomfort.

I think I'm a highly functional adha person due to my mom being a very responsible person and also I started taking Ritalin 12 years ago.

I'm always wandering how it feels for normal people who get there shit done without any meds.

I also want to do fire because all those responsibilities and the fighting feels exchausting.

My perspective is that once I took a step back and really looked, I noticed almost nobody is getting ANY shit done, and perhaps that’s OK. I was just holding myself to unreasonable standards of what “shit done” is that I don’t hold other people to and that was the root cause of my exhaustion. Society progressing is really just a series of extremely tiny things with the occasional rare major event pushed up to human population scale, something that one individual can’t compete against without burning out.

I'm not saying there are absolutely no people out there who are actually getting shit done and making it look easy, and somehow never burning out, but they are by far the exception and in no way "normal" people (and in many cases they are ticking time bombs, but the fallout may be well hidden)

“Independent discharges of dopamine neurons (tonic or pacemaker firing) determine the motivation to respond to such cues. As a result of habitual intake of addictive drugs, dopamine receptors expressed in the brain are decreased, thereby reducing interest in activities not already stamped in by habitual rewards.”

From: Dopamine and Addiction | Annual Review of Psychology — https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-...

----

Edit:

I'd like to add a couple more ideas, because what you're describing in your article is spot on, and I believe can be generalized past your own experience.

> Another angle that makes this ever more distressing is that my memory is very, very fallible ... I can confidently say that I've done nothing I said I would do there.”

Herbert Simon says: “In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention”.

As an information-addict myself, I've been meditating a lot about this topic. During the past two years I've been researching it from a psychological perspective (And for that, I'm grateful to @ericd for this HN comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24581016). I'll throw in some resources that I've came across during this journey, in case anyone finds them useful:

- Dr Gabor Mate: Addiction: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-APGWvYupU

- Dr. Anna Lembke: Understanding & Treating Addiction | Huberman Lab Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3JLaF_4Tz8

- The book “The Molecule of More” by by Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long.

- The book “The Shallows” by Nicholas Carr.

“Talk to me about taste, and if this stuff tastes better, don’t run around trying to sell stuff that doesn’t taste good.” - Stephen Sanger, head of General Mills

You can search the web using that quote to begin your descent into the rabbit hole.

The food you eat does not just affect your body weight. It also affects your mental state.

I find this YouTube channel very informative (albeit cheesy): https://m.youtube.com/c/HowtoADHD

Not really. But I'll check this, thanks!

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QmOF0crdyRU

There were some correlations that didn't sit well with me - one, off the top of my head, was an implication that MDMA consumption could make me politically conservative.

I personally would recommend just Huberman as he covers Dopamine to a great extent.

1. I tried to get diagnosed with adhd but my doc just prescribed me some meds (amphetamines I think). They seemed like they would work until the effect wore off and I stopped taking them.

2. I have never abused any drug in the past.

3. I know this is a non issue for a lot of you guys and rightly so. I know I'm well off compared to a lot of real drug addicts.

4. I'm kinda depressed I think?

After a day of reflecting, speaking to my grandparents, spending time in a ceremony with my parents, and at the end of the day compulsively opening hn (I didn't expect this post to have any comments, addiction just took over), I can say a few things (before forgetting them!).

Firstly, I had a lot of time on my hands today and spending it on personal relations has been good. And secondly staying away from my room in general is positive. Being alone in my room is almost certainly a negative. I want to practice programming and do projects before my masters so I don't know how Ill deal with it. I'll reply to other comments once I wake up. Its almost 2am now!

Thanks for all the comments and advice!

1) I at least made an attempt at some of Cal Newport's suggestions in "Deep Work" and schedule working blocks for myself. I adopt a different posture, maybe wear different clothes, If you can afford to, get a second cheap laptop and use that only for work... And then go somewhere else physically. Even if it's just a different room.

2) Consider trying a few sessions of neurofeedback therapy. I did it in high school and really felt my ability to concentrate and think along a single track improve significantly. I can't guarantee anything but it's worth looking into.

1. Ask yourself why do you think this is a problem and debug deeply. Maybe, after all, spending day watching videos is fine and what you want to do and the story that you don't is unnecessary.

2. Once you bring it to your conscious mind, you face a decision, do I want to watch videos and maybe learn something and relax, given that it comes with not delivering some things I promised and doing the thing I've been thinking I need to do for a long time, or do I want to do e.g. that thing.

3. Then do what you want. It requires no effort. You do what you want. I know habits and dopamine addiction narration, but there is no substance dependence here and the trick is that we cannot really hold contradicting beliefs in our conscious mind (we have plenty of them in the background but once you collide them actively you usually end up creating some micro-rationalization). But here your focus is consciously facing the choice. Plus there's plenty of dopamine for something that's been on todo for a long time.

I am jealous this works for you. Life would be so much easier if my intrinsic motivation was well-aligned with my rational thinking.

I don't know if it can help you in whatever you want to achieve, but to me just realization that I always do what I want was huge. You can't honestly tell yourself you want to be doing this right now and that you don't want to be doing it right now. Once you unpack what does that mean in your head that you want it (requirements, consequences), whatever that means, you find some contradiction. But it took me some practice to be honest with myself and eliminating wishful thinking.

Accepting reality as it is, is huge. When you have in your head that if you spend time doing A you can't be doing B during this time, or that you can't achieve goal without going through steps you think are necessary, there really is not much left to do. Whatever you choose is fine, it's what you want.

E.g. I used to be thinking "I don't want to clean the kitchen, I have more interesting ideas for my life". Right now, it's a simple choice - don't clean the kitchen and have it dirty or clean it and have it cleaned up. Both are fine. Debugging gets complex when you have other people involved in your life etc but it still drops to the same thing.

Life's too short for telling yourself that you don't want to be doing what you are doing.[1]

If you take it deep enough, with our current understanding of the universe, there is no objective argument that working on renewable energy is better than watching youtube all day.

OK, I'm quitting this topic on HN, I've been selling this idea in many of my comments lately, just because it made my life so much better, but it's too verbose.

Btw if somebody knows this kind of thinking from a different source I would appreciate some pointers, because I'm sure I'm not the first one to come up with this but I haven't stumbled upon it yet and I would much prefer to point people to that direction.

1. And just to be clear I'm not ignoring very difficult situations that people are in saying that people are always doing what they want. The situation is difficult, whether that's hunger, war, illness or death. But that's reality. Given that terrible situation you decide to do something (or do nothing). It's what you decide, it's what you want. Telling yourself that you want to do something else that's not possible in that salutation is just wishful thinking. Wishful thinking is pure suffering. I strongly suggest stopping whatever you're doing if you think you don't want to be doing it and either stop doing that or fix the contradiction in your head.

No more verbose life views from comboy.

I just finished the book Four Thousand Weeks: Time management for mortals. Similar thinking in that a lot of suffering and procrastination is caused by not accepting the reality of our finite time on earth, that we can never do it all, and we have to make tough choices and most people try avoid the anxiety of facing those by distracting themselves. I loved the book, and your comment, as refreshing take on “productivity” but I recognize it’s also extremely difficult for many people to practice.

Many people here have the super power to focus on a problem relentlessly, it's kind of the trademark of the nerd stereotype - Addiction is the dark side of that superpower and one that I have to constantly keep in check. But I don't want to kill that superpower by squashing whatever thing I'm deep into at the moment, so I always use the litmus test - "Is this affecting the ability to keep my life in order?"

As long as there isn't a strong chemical component to whatever addiction you're trying to purge, a book like "Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg has a lot of practical ways to adjust your unconscious compulsions.

People with ADHD are naturally at a constant deficit in stimulation/dopamine. That's why we get distracted mid-conversation: the conversation wasn't stimulating enough to fill that deficit, so the brain started looking for more stimulation, thinking it could just multitask to compensate.

The deficit in simulation/dopamine is why people with ADHD can hyperfocus: as soon as there is a satisfying source of stimulation, the brain tries to squeeze out as much dopamine as it can.

Similar to what I was told: "When you compulsively do something despite it having negative impacts on your life"

But I like framing it this way because if you only think about compulsion you're going to waste a lot of time shutting down things that don't actually matter. We're creatures of habit - we've gotten this far BECAUSE of compulsion, not in spite of it.

Getting out of Facebook or before watching TV was rather easy, it was mostly uninteresting stuff I did not choose to watch.

Youtube and Hacker News got me. The quality, sometimes life-changing, content I have had access to there is really hard not to get into. Augmenting friction in accessing the content in the only way I found that works when I succeed convincing myself it is a real problem. This way it tilts the tediousness of accessing them towards the tediousness of boring tasks, which I have learned to find ways to make less tedious in turn. Trying to find balance in the addiction. Restraining from it in order to give time to interesting content to bubble up.

Also I have also been distancing so much from social activities only because they were slightly dissatisfying but instead of working on fixing them (which feels to me impossible because I lack the communication skills and I have an irrational core belief that no one can withstand even slight criticism) I'd rather spend time reading/watching about stuff that interests me on the internet. I manage to keep my life in order but I am not really investing in making something out of it. All the things I'd like to do irl, build a ecological passive house, build low tech devices, I lack the economical resources and social bonds to even start even though I am competent.

I don't know if I was always was a nerd (not the brilliant nerd type) or if I became one. Anyways I am doomed until this really becomes a hard problem in my life.

For me there was no big Aha moment or solution to getting distracted from what I actually want to do. It had been incremental steps, such as:

- focusing on consuming long form reading/videos

- heavily curating consumption with RSS, individual settings etc.

- disabling notifications of anything that is not important

- taking responsibility of things that I could avoid, engaging more

- regular exercise and sleep

Things like that. But again, incremental steps. Sometimes I shifted from one distraction to the next, but after recognizing this it becomes clearer what’s happening.

The results are quite powerful. Over just a couple of years I gained so much. I started to get bored of things that would distract me otherwise. I gained confidence and especially courage. I recognize undesirable behavior really quickly now and stopped fooling myself.

Initially I also used focus mode and different kinds of blocking apps to try to control my addiction. I configured them to block HN, reddit, lichess, twitter, youtube, etc, allowing me to use them only a few minutes at the end of the day and during the weekends. This approach didn't work so well. It worked fine for a few days but then the abstinence syndrome kicks in and I inevitably ended up "temporarily" disabling the blocks just to get that precious shot of dopamine before starting to work. Additionally, I was still wasting almost all my weekends and holidays consuming garbage.

So I got this idea, what if I tweak the approach a little bit: Instead of blocking the apps during "productive" time, what if I block them during leisure time, i.e at the end of the day and during the weekends. The thing with media consumption addiction is that it leaves me feeling that I don't have time to do anything. I neglect a lot of my personal tasks and goals. Work is something that I have to do somehow, after all I need a salary. Doing apartment chores, reading that book I bought or learning a new skill is something that can always wait. And it's during leisure time that I should be doing those things. So I decided to block media consumption during the weekends and try to do something more meaningful in that time. It's easier to deal with the abstinence syndrome, because the activities can be fun as well, they also produce (more slowly) dopamine, just that they are more meaningful to me. It's easier to skip silly but addictive YouTube videos to work on an interesting programming project than it is to skip it for a boring task at work. And there is also this feeling that it's only for a short time, I can get the dopamine shot later and that somehow tricks my brain. And then on Monday I already feel much better, and without feeling the need to consume that much media.

You could think of it like the nutrition labels on food. Imagine a pop up when you log onto reddit saying "this site on average engages users for 90-120 minutes per session". That would give you some forethought about how much value you're getting from the engagement and prompt you to make a different decision. Or at least a more informed decision.

But, it does seems like an addiction when I want to accomplish a task and 20 minutes into that task I'm back on YouTube or forums looking for more interesting data.

1. Physiological: This is relatively easy. The key is to understand how to get an accurate account of incoming calories and an accurate count of outgoing calories. When you have an accurate count of those you can lose weight. Andrew Huberman is really good on this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqPGXG5TlZw&ab_channel=Andre...

I say this one is easy because it is very easy to be misinformed about food. For example, someone may have heard that salads or protein bars are low calorie and healthy, but that isn't necessarily true. And once they realize that they can adjust their food intake to account for accidently over eating.

2. Psychological: Generally speaking, a lot of people with drug, alcohol, or food problems are dealing with some sort of stress, anxiety, depression, or childhood trama. Everyone has a limit to their will power. So even if you strengthen your will power if there is another force acting against that will power it will win and you will stress eat or stress drink. Depending on this situation, Therapy, Meditation, life changes, rehab can help.

Nets are for trapping prey, that part has been completed a long time ago.

When we don't have the emotional tools to resolve trauma from our past, we resort to coping mechanisms. While I'm not a therapist, I've had to deal with my fair share of trauma and have come to learn a lot about how trauma affects us and the way we deal (or fail to deal) with our day-to-day struggles.

1. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/smarter-living/why-you-pr... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rat_Park 3. https://nida.nih.gov/about-nida/noras-blog/2018/10/new-nida-...

But I believe we all are addicts to some degree and, at the very least, have the potential to become addicted to things.

Things I have been addicted to, in no particular order:

- Alcohol. No I wasn't an "alcoholic", but I continued to drink alcohol even though I knew it made me feel worse the next day etc. This one is very common.

- Cannabis. It turned me into a recluse and perpetuated a downward spiral into depression.

- Food. I became obese and thoroughly unfit due to my eating habits.

- Porn. It affected my real sex life which made me and my partner feel bad.

- Sex. I spent far too much of my time pursuing sex with multiple partners, broke many hearts and burnt many bridges along the way.

- Youtube (and previously TV). I watched it every night in bed and it caused me to have terrible sleep.

I'm not sure why so little attention is given to addiction. Obesity should simply be framed as food addiction. Nobody wants to be obese. It's uncomfortable, inconvenient, embarrassing. They all want to "lose weight". They can't because they are addicted to food. Making that clear would probably help people deal with it. It has certainly helped me in many cases to understand that I'm addicted to something.

You're in control, the end. Give yourself grace when you find that you've strayed from your target. Classify things into "Crisis" and "Not A Crisis" and set up daily, hourly, etc redirections to knock out whatever falls into the crisis bucket before anything else.

As for me, my path has been from just how the author describes the feeling to fairly functional. Years of anguish, piles of notes on how to act vs actually acting any different. My suggestion to you is to write down a morning routine that redirects you into taking care of what will cause you anguish up front if not taken care of.

I've personally written software for me that literally text-to-voice's reminders and redirections to an earbud my morning routine tells me to put in first thing. Second thing says to enable "repeat mode" so it can chime in with redirections.

If you want something lightweight just on your PC that does the same thing, alter this bash one-liner to your heart's content. It's osx specific but there are other ways / commands to do this on linux or otherwise. I've personally written an android launcher / service that does this so I can have it while I walk around in the world but isn't in a state yet that would work for others. Hopefully this will help keep you on target. :D

while true; do say --rate 230 --voice Daniel "Stay on target"; sleep 18; done;

The only solution I've found that isn't an impossible uphill battle against my lizard brain is... Be around people.

I'm not deep in an internet rabbit hole when I'm with another person. It's actually a motivator for me to live with a partner or roommates - they make me a 'better' person.

Maybe they make me ->A person<- rather than a brain hooked up to a doping device.

I wrote this [1] specifically to help you understand some of what's going on - well, at least some views for those of us who feel passionate about technology but sometimes have unhealthy relationships with it.

You already touch on many of the issues in your post. I have submitted lists of other books here too (search through my history for Cal Newport for example) that deal with tech overuse, addiction, hoarding and so on. Hope it's useful.

[1] https://digitalvegan.net

People forget AD(H)D is fairly common, regardless of if you think it's overdiagnosed or not. And with how technology has been turning everything into dopamine slot machines it will exaggerate the symptoms even more.

Note that inability to concentrate reliably has fairly severe downsides as well, like (at the extremes) inability to hold a job. This is not good for your medical situation either!

Depending on person, "ask a roomie to try their meds" can be a lot more viable than "go and talk to a medical professional." And it comes with a safety valve - your roomie will presumably cut you off if you get problems. Plus the dosage will be predictable and there won't be random additions. Note that I didn't say to go try meth.

(Google "death by adderall". It's not hard to avoid.)

Of course if there's medical contraindications like blood pressure or heart conditions this is a bad idea, but first of all the side effect profile is pretty mild, and second if you have a medical condition you should already know to not take meds on the basis of random HNews recommendations. - Actually, they should know their preferred risk profile anyway. I'm just reminding them that the option exists.

I’m a recovered amphetamine (Adderall) addict. I was enslaved to amphetamines for over 10 years. I started taking pills in college because they helped me focus and get things done, but I quickly fell into addiction and abuse.

Talked my psychiatrist into giving me ever higher doses. Frequently stole my wife’s ADHD medication after burning through all of my own. I couldn’t stop.

It all started (somewhat) innocently enough…

Yes it’s capable of giving you super powers at work, but it’s also really quite dangerous from an addiction standpoint.

Could you elaborate on why you increased your dose? Was there a loss of effectiveness?

I started taking ADHD medication during a time in my life where I was exploring and challenging boundaries. I had been a good rule following kid until college. In college I started experimenting with drugs in general. So naturally I wanted to experiment with taking more to see what it would be like.

I didn’t realize by chasing the high provided by Adderall that I would become addicted. Sounds dumb when I write it out like that…

Even so, the rest of the advice is solid.

Technology - especially software - attracts people with ADHD traits like hyperfocus, so it's not a stretch to expect a higher percentage of ADHD brains on HN.

On top of that, "arguing with people on the internet" is an attractive source of stimulation for those of us with ADHD, meaning we will overrepresent ourselves in any discussion.