Asklemmy

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Haven’t kicked them. Stopped using nicotine and alcohol but man is the addiction still there. 🥲

Benzodiazepine addiction. Was abusing etizolam at first then graduated to clonazolam and was getting fucked up and going to work. I have no idea how I didn’t get fired honestly. I have some videos of myself doing things and I’m clearly fucked, but I suppose I didn’t get that twisted for work. My memory went to shit and a bunch of other things did too, because who gives a shit when you’re constantly wrecked. Weight dropped from normal 185lbs to a skinny ass 165lbs. Mind you, I’m 6’3”. It wasn’t a good look.

It took me 2 years to slowly taper down and that still was a pretty shitty process. Now I’m 9 months clean and up to 205 lbs by lifting weights and actually eating.

What a nightmare. Fuck benzos and godspeed to anyone who’s been using them for longer than a few weeks. Even at clinical doses you’re going to be in some shit when you stop. You’ll be glad you did, though. I’m helping a friend quit etizolam after I told him of my problems and he told me of his addiction. He’s doing great and making a lot of progress on the taper. It helps so much to have someone you can talk to.

A less serious answer - Reddit. Fuck em for killing the apps. Lemmy has been pretty great except for a few rare encounters with tankies. I genuinely enjoy posting here, the smallness is great.

I haven't self harmed for a long time

Smoking. 7 months in, feeling great, not looking back!

Biting my nails.

I started at about two years old and chewed them to the quick for over 35 years.

I smoked for a decade and have been quit for 19 years.

Ruminating on fake emotionally charged social altercations in my head.

It just kept happening. I couldn’t stop. Just felt the absolute need to “prepare” myself for bad events/fights with people so that I’d be “better prepared for it”. What a load of shit.

The mind is its own worst enemy sometimes.

Like half the thread, I quit smoking and legitimately feel like it was easy in hindsight. Once I really made up my mind to quit it was not hard. The most difficult part was breaking out of the rituals - smoking in the car, after meals, coffee and a cig...

Honestly I still end up having one every few years when I'm drinking and it's kind of nice, but I will never go back to being a smoker. Unless I ended up dating a smoker, which I would avoid. Unless they were like really hot. Or rich. I could totally fix them either way

I used to drink heavily daily. Turns out it had more to do with anxiety/stress/depression than biology. I used to be afraid to be sober in a night. Now it's not even on my mind and my tolerance has dropped to nil. Two light beers on friday hits me like a sixer of 8% used to, and i can enjoy it instead of it just being an escape.

Video games. I used to play 4-6 hours per day (or often more), every day. It was kind of my default activity when I wasn't forced to do something else. If I ran out of steam trying to focus on work or family I would drift into playing a video game. The result was a MASSIVE sink of time into something that left me with little afterwards. I didn't learn new things, I drifted away from my kids, and I didn't take care of my home.

Video games are fine. They're entertaining, but they're also potentially life consuming. I watch people who want to do more with their lives, but instead they just put more time into some game or another.

I managed to kick the habit and it's been a great 10 years since then where I play very little and only in very short, controlled bursts when I can play with my kids for a bit (they usually destroy me these days). With all of that saved time, my career started flying, my home is in better shape, and I actually don't drift away from family events like I used to.

I have a big one rather than a small one. 11 years sober off all drugs and alcohol. Took going to rehab and sober living after but I made it.

Video games. It wasnt for long thankfully but it took all of my time.

When I was the most depressed and the addiction was at its worst I could sink more than 100 hours a week into destiny. I wanted to get to the "good part" of destiny, get the best guns, gear and stay competitive in PvP (its very meta heavy). After hundreds and hundreds of hours and sun setting, I realized I was still at square fucking one. Sun setting made many old weapons "unusable", to keep it brief, and I had grown sentimental for my favorite guns and the memories I made with them.

On top of that, the power level resets, increases further with every season and becomes exponentially harder to increase near the cap (which you need to experience end game content). Destiny is the definition of Sisyphean. Sunk 700 hours and got nowhere, not in real life or even the game.

I also played other games like Minecraft, terraria, don't starve and oxygen not included and whilst I harbor much more respect for them, I still despise their grind and slow progression.

I sunk like 168 hours into a terraria master death calamity run with friends and we only got 2/3 through until I quit and it disbanded.

What was the nail in the coffin for me was getting meaningful and useful hobbies. I was always under the assumption that skills were excruciatingly hard to learn and master. The whole "it takes 10 years and 20,000 hours to master something".

Once I started participating in some I realized you can learn as fast as you want, if you're passionate enough. I'm no master but I've gotten good at computer repair, soldering, cooking and woodworking.

If you're dedicated you can pound out a piece of furniture, in a day, with hand tools. You can cook lots of delicious food in an hour It could take DAYS to get a single weapon I wanted in destiny. .

I learned these skills in just a few years after kicking my habit. Now I'm going to start a business soon and begin teaching others. I still love the occasional game, but not the kind with hour long side quests of traveling to fetch some random shit. They're old, fast paced shooters that will leave you satisfied after a quick session.

Life is interesting, you just have to find it.

Reddit, but now I'm here, so...

Nicotine, and I really think I've totally kicked it this time.

I made the mistake the first time I quit of thinking that cigars and pipes wouldn't be addictive because there's no inhaling. Yeah, I was a moron.

But I know that it's a zero use thing now, and while I miss the ritual of smoking, neither tobacco or more modern nicotine delivery tempt me at all.

I'm sure as hell not paying for some herbal cigarette crap, because those were never worth a damn to begin with. And I can't smoke weed because it fucks with me. So, I won't be dragged back to it that way, even if I wanted to find alternative rituals to do.

It also helps that I can't handle the smell of cigarettes now. It hits my nose, and I'm sneezing for an hour.

I quit right as covid was hitting the news, and after six months, I didn't even have the urge to engage in the ritual after meals or sex.

Also, no smoking = better sex. Kinda difficult to do it right when you can't breathe right and get winded fast.

Meth. Used to shoot up 2-3 times a day. Had 3 years sober, relapsed for about a year and a half and kicked the habit again about 2 months ago. Feels good man.

Smoking, drinking, weed and sugary drinks. All happened between 2013-2018. All took effort, but smoking was definitely the most difficult. Switched to a vape first and then slowly lowered my nicotine level, once every 2-3 weeks until I get to 0mg nicotine. Going from 1.4mg to 0mg was the hardest, but about 3 weeks after, I forgot to use the vape for a whole day. Never picked it up again.

Facebook, I've been off it for 5ish years now. I miss some connections but I am much happier for it.

jerking off 40+ times a day. cant move time backward I only do 15 max now

Caffeine

I lowered the daily dose very gradually, and eventually I was drinking only one cup of tea every day. After that, I could just quit caffeine entirely.

After about a month, started drinking coffee again, but at that point I was more aware of the quantities I was drinking and what the effects were. Currently I’m drinking only two cups a day, and that seems to be pretty good dose for me. However, I’m planning to switch to tea once I run out of coffee. Maybe I’ll keep tea in my life in the future… we’ll see.

I don't know if this counts as an addiction, but I used to have a particular liking for anything fire related.

Nicotine.

I stopped counting when my last nicotine hit was, which I think might be the key here. A couple of years at least.

No urges, never even think about it.

Drinking, finally for good I hope! I'm 3.8 years in. I first blacked out at 12 and was drinking liquor regularly by 14 so booze was my way of life. I can't socialize very well as I am naturally super awkward then never honed my "don't be super weird" skills, but I'm finally free to live my life how I want!

Smoking and drinking. Drinking was hard

My first wife

• Quit nicotine several years ago and never went back (shisha, cigarettes and cigars).
• Quit porn because it had become a bad coping mechanism (still struggling with it a bit tho).
• Slowly trying to quit my bad eating habit (I see them as addictions). I don’t gain weigh, so bad eating habits happens.
• Slowly trying to quit my soda addiction.

Sobriety

Alcohol. Last drink was 42 days ago. I was getting very drunk every day for years. I feel pretty good right now, getting therapy to work through the issues that I was self-medicating. Also making some big positive changes.

I guess it's too early to say with confidence that I "kicked" it, but I haven't gone this long without a drink for a very long time and I'm determined to never touch alcohol again.

I quit meat. It's been 15 years now and I feel so much healthier for it.

Used to drink like, 4 redbulls a day it was bad. Now since February 27th I've had, maybe 2 or 3. (in total)

Heroin. 0/10 would not recommend starting.

Sugar. Ok, that's a slight exaggeration. I don't eat anything with added sweeteners. (Like, if it has sugar, honey, HFCS, corn syrup solids, cane juice, apertame, sucralose, agave nector, dates, maple syrup, etc, that's just a deal breaker for me.) And I don't eat anything that has natural sugar any sweeter than a tomato, red bell pepper, or carrot.

I've been doing that for the last 15 years at least and made very very infrequent exceptions. (Like, I can literally count the times I remember making exceptions to this rule in the last 15 years on one hand.)

...because any time I do make an exception, I have severe gastrointestinal symptoms.

When I was three years old I was complaining to my parents about how much my thumb hurt in the winter. They told me it was because I sucked on it and so it became chapped. So I just stopped. Apparently never sucked my thumb again.

I wish I had the willpower now that I did when I was three.

Smoking cigarrettes. I was up to two packs a day. Quit coldturkey fourteen years ago and haven't picked it up since.

Both alcohol and nicotine. Corona probably saved me with its lockdowns (though I did go back to hard drinking to some degree after). I still have the odd drink and odd cigarette, but neither are everyday things for me anymore and I can go weeks without either (though on days I do drink, it certainly makes me want to smoke).

Currently battling coke zero. I will dehydrate rather than just drinking plain water (carbonated makes little difference) as I just don't want to drink it and forget about it. As a kid, the place I lived had well water that didn't taste great, so that's probably something to do with it. I've managed to somewhat replace it with a zero-calorie sports drink powder that I put in water. Still, it lacks the mouthfeel and satisfaction.

The other current battle is gluten and thus wheat and everything containing it. This is more-or-less impossible here in Japan if eating out (most soy sauce has gluten). The background is that I likely have Celiac's (dad has it with very rough symptoms starting in his 60s, I'm in my 40s and a DNA test already told me I had inherited markers for it was likely to develop it). I was called "the bread kid" as a child because of how much I liked to eat (particularly homemade) bread. Until very recently, I baked bread and stuff a lot. It really sucks because I really miss the texture and taste of good bread. It's also difficult when thinking about what to eat. "Oh, I've got some pasta that will just take a few minutes to cook" is not a thing anymore. I have to make rice or potatoes ahead or have nothing but meat and veg.