Addicts Don't Enjoy Their Addiction

It's not talked about much, but not only does addiction trade long-term for short-term, it even trades the short-term at a loss. Once it's settled in, the addict's choices are suffering and more suffering. 

Or: wholesome food doesn't count as an addiction because it tastes good and feels good. Profitable. 

 

For this reason, when someone says a commercial product is 'addictive' I automatically, unconsciously convert that to [bad]. I hear that they don't like it but can't stop. E.g. a page-turner isn't a good book, it's merely an addictive book. It's not enjoyable, it exploits a bug in the system. Defection or deviance.

I find grocery stores are wonderfully educational. Food engineering works: they can make food that taste bad and yet still make you want to keep eating. I find grocery-store cookies are always like this. The first like 2-3 taste good. The rest taste like burning, yet I still want to eat the rest of the box. The downright bad cookies aren't as bad as the craving for cookies. I can't stop thinking about them until the box is empty.

In other words, it's a nice cheap microcosm of addiction. You can test it in a couple hours, and withdrawal will be over before you go grocery shopping a second time. Maybe for you it's potato chips instead. Regardless, there will be something at the store you can use to try it yourself.

The hack is kinda interesting, but complicated and hard to accurately describe. (Except this: "Surely I will enjoy the next one." I don't. It's even worse.) It doesn't really matter, since it is a hack. The solution is to not buy cookies in the first place. Easy, convenient, dollar cost actually cheaper than free.

The thing to learn isn't just that addiction is unpleasant, but how to detect and interrupt an addiction. I remembered this topic because I was thinking about World of Warcraft. Frankly, it's a boring game. Whether classic or nu, it overstays its welcome by at least an order of magnitude. The amount of stuff in the game is vastly exceeded by how much playing the game demands to let you see the stuff. It's unprofitable. Yet, folk keep playing; it is addictive. 

If you reflect on the memory of the cookies, you can tell, without any chance of a mistake, that you didn't enjoy them. There was no payoff. Catch the feeling of intentional reflection in this way. That moment you set your id aside and employ your ego. Make a meta-habit of reflecting like this on every habit.
Likewise, it's good to become familiar with the withdrawal cycle. If you stay away long enough, if you suffer through the withdrawal, the cravings indeed vanish like a mirage. There's a sense of accomplishment. Or something like that, anyway. If you get into withdrawal again, vividly inhabit the memory of a previous mirage, and recall the future accomplishment.

If you're 'addicted' to World of Warcraft, after a session, ask: did I enjoy myself? Or was I bored? WoW is not an investment. Quite the contrary. If you're normally bored while in-game, you should cancel your subscription. 

Democracy trains you to follow your id. It will not 'naturally' occur to you to interrupt your addictions; it wants you to be pure id, because it can't handle an ego. Tell democracy to fuck off.

Once you've noticed you don't in fact enjoy your addictions, it's dramatically easier to quit. In fact, it can be hard not to quit. You grok that it's a bad idea.

Most addicts have to become delusional about their substance of choice. Indeed you can detect addiction in another by a pattern of delusion. If they can't see the thing clearly and refuse to compromise, they're probably addicted to it. This is almost certainly why VG fora are full of morons - they're addicted and can't see the actual VG they're playing through the haze of addiction. Discussion with a dedicated addict is impossible. 

 

P.S. I suppose the genius of the cookie engineering is that, if you wait long enough, the first couple are good again. Whereas lesser attempts like WoW stay boring. They found a loophole where you don't naturally associate the cookie badness with the cookies, but it's impossible not to associate WoW with grinding tedium. Even looking at the art style, e.g. the title scree, is aggressively boring, never mind actually playing working it.