[Not jerking off] is by far the most difficult challenge you will ever take on, and if you do since most men don't, everything else in life is easy compared to not ejaculating." - some guy on r/semenretention, the one of the most absolutely hilarious subreddits.

Dayman?
 

Nicotine, smoked cigarettes and had those high nicotine vapes- quit cold turkey one day. Although it was a few years ago, I still crave them when I’m under a lot of stress. Been 4 years now that I haven’t touched it.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

Was there anything that helped you quit? I am down to the vapes and really want to. I had two attempts that failed after 3 and 7 weeks, respectively. Falling back into it after nearly two months the second time really hurt my spirits.

Dayman?
 

This sounds so simple but it works for me- stop buying it. Throw it away, and stop buying it. It takes a conscious effort to buy it, if you have some sort of automated subscription then cancel that. If you do succumb and buy it, throw it away. Realize you're wasting your cash for 3 puffs before you throw it away. Find a new goal to substitute it, like stated above. I quit and shortly after decided to get into better shape. 

This also sounds weird- but want to live. That stuff ruins your lungs and increases your propensity for an earlier death. Sure, everyone knows some 95 year old who smokes a pack a week. It's not a surefire thing, but it does increase your propensity to have health issues later on. Fuck that, I don't want tubes down my throat. Trash that garbage. Realize you don't NEED it to function, stop justifying it in your head. "I NEED this vape to chill out, my job is stressful." Your life may be stressful, but nothing you can't handle. Don't find a crutch, get stronger.

“The three most harmful addictions are heroin, carbohydrates, and a monthly salary.” - Nassim Taleb
 

Same Depression - smoking cigarettes and juuling to maintain some sort of kick. 

Also drinking and coke when I was partying and now everything's locked down. Feel hella depressed as every day seems to blend in to the next. 

It's like every week feels like a month but every month feels like a day 

 

Lol, no you don't...  You just want some escapism. You can try watching lighthearted shows on Netflix. There's a lot of dumb ones  but also some good ones.

I recommend Avatar: The last Airbender or Legend of Korra. They're cartoons, but their okay in terms of story telling, and the fact that they're cartoons will probably assist with the escapism you're looking for. A while back you mentioned having achildren, so you could watch it with them too.

Yeah, cartoons are for kids, but that doesn't mean adults can't watch and enoy them either. Honestly, I might have not watched either show if it weren't for the desire to finish the Avatar series which I started watching many years ago, but I did and its was good. Initially, I wasn't going to watch legend of Korra because it was a cartoon with different characters, and as an adult I wasn't really interested in watching cartoons, but eventually I watched an two episodes and finished the whole series. I would say I kind of enjoyed it a bit more than Avatar.

Avatar sets the world for the story, but you can also try watching Legend of Korra first.

 

people who are still playing their childhood games like League of Legends or Counterstrike 

 

I don't believe anything you say due to your fake macho-alpha post history but yeah. I have struggled with a minor addiction to cigarettes. I have since pivoted to a Juul and have been slowly weening off of it where now I only take a couple hits at night. I let myself have cigars as a treat, which is nice and doesn't really throw me back into the cycle. Also felt like I got close to an addiction to a certain substance that I shall not name. I use it a lot when partying and drinking, but ended up taking it a few times outside of those events and felt myself really liking it. I went cold turkey before it got out of hand and reintroduced it to the party regimen a while later. 

Dayman?
 

Fair enough: blow. Also I don't stalk your posts, you posted twice recently and I happened to click on them. Sorry but your posts about women constantly throwing themselves at you just seem pretty extreme. I mean if its true than good for you--I'd be jealous IRL, but just seems like a bit much... If I'm wrong, I'm wrong.

Dayman?
 

Get an insanely abusive, controlling gf to take the power away for you. I used to b a huge pot head and a borderline alcoholic. It got to the point where I would wake up and immediately drink a beer or I would need to smoke a joint to sleep. I then met a woman who would beat me if I even mention drinking (I'm not joking) . Addiction is a very hard thing to break. You are powerless to it, it's harder to leave if you have friends doing it too. 

 

Bro, I can't tell whether you're serious or not. But relying on someone else to break your addiction might not be the best long-term solution. You need to take responsibility of your own life, you can't shove it off to someone else or it will come back to bite you.

Just my two cents. You do you.

 

Fuck, yeah I do this way too much too. Once I didn't for awhile and noticed how nice my nails were (that light tap you can make on a wooden surface or a steering wheel), but then it went straight to shit all over again.

Quant (ˈkwänt) n: An expert, someone who knows more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing.
 

Nicotine.

Started Juuling to help me stay awake while studying for MiF exams. Only 2% pods here in the UK, so started having my friends ship me 5% pods from the states (I'm American living in London). Ended up transitioning to smoking rollies because pods are stupid expensive. Mostly quit because it was getting out of hand and making me feel like total shit all the time. Best methods I've found to get over it was just getting into healthy habits like eating clean and working out often. I also chew on Thursday Plantation cinnamon tea tree chewing sticks....highly recommend.

There's a book called "Atomic Habits" by James Clear, which helped me a lot with strategies to overcome all the shit habits and build better ones.

 

Friend of mine used to chew them...just helps with the oral fixation part of it. Put them next to my computer where I used to plug the juul in, so I'll just chew one when I'm craving that nicotine hit.

 

This is going to sound borderline unhealthy but whatever. At the end of the day, all habitual behavior can be considered a form of behavioral addiction to a certain degree. We're not creatures of habit - we're creatures of addiction, so if you can channel that destructive addictive energy into something that's relatively productive like exercise or work, you can minimize addiction's negative aspects.

To a certain extent, these aren't totally healthy either, as addiction by definition implies a certain loss of control or agency over your actions, but from a purely practical standpoint, I'd rather be addicted to working out than doing drugs.

Even if you can't get rid of your addictive tendencies, just channel them into something relatively useful.

 

I used this a lot in college. 

Do you have the feeling where you now need it to study/work? And that you feel like you, yourself can't focus without it? 

For me, what I didn't like about it was the crashing waves of anxiety after I was coming down off it, and that's what got me to stop using it 

 

Yes it feels like I don’t have any motivation or the ability to focus for prolonged periods of time without it but I’m sure this is largely mental.

The anxiety and comedowns are what have made me quit in the past because they get worse and worse as tolerance increases. However, whenever things get stressful I find myself coming back.

I think if I were to quit drinking/partying completely, sleep 8 hours a night, eat clean, and exercise every day it would make quitting for good a lot of easier.

 

Stims and uppers are easy to get hooked to. Best way to stop contrary to popular opinion is not to go cold turkey but ween off over a week or two on a regimented plan to make sure you don't have a sudden relapse. The lack of sleep and the loneliness you feel will quickly alleviate as you get on a wavelength and pace of life as others around you. Stims can be quite isolating as you often begin to spend a lot of time in your own world of getting shit done or generally being wired so ease off of it and maybe switch to something like black coffee to get the rush you need over time in order to satiate the need to feel that rush you initially get. It's not easy but I think it's absolutely crucial as you can easily delve down a dark path if you continue status quo. Happy to discuss more via PM as it's something me and my friends (especially in greek life) dealt with earlier in life, especially in college

 

sex addiction - although i would argue that human males DNA are programmed to have sex with as many females as possible to maximize the chance to spread our seed and ensure our DNA propogates thru the species...so not sure if this is really an addiction, or just accepting our natural state regardless of modern societies attempt to reign in what evolution has determined to be the most effective strategy to propogate DNA lineage.

 

Same. 

Everytime I bang a new chick, I just wanna nut inside her, and it takes every sliver of will power in me to not do it. I know it would fuck me up financially so I end up pulling out/putting a rubber on. Shit sucks though, like this is our primitive nature. If there was no established family law/child support system, everytime we banged, we would just be nutting in chicks with no care in the world 

 

Deo et Patriae

I'm clean...

So is Phil Gaimon with the tattoo to prove it:

-

"If you always put limits on everything you do, physical or anything else, it will spread into your work and into your life. There are no limits. There are only plateaus, and you must not stay there, you must go beyond them." - Bruce Lee
 

While it's not a panacea, meditation has some pretty significant positive impacts on brain health and overall mental health. Studies have shown that regular meditation for as little as 20 mins per day changes the structure of the brain such that the amygdala (fear response) center shrinks or sees a reduction in activity.

Also, addiction is basically when your "reptile brain" limbic system overpowers your prefrontal cortex, which is what's responsible for higher level executive control and critical thinking. When you allow yourself to indulge or become addicted to things, it weakens the prefrontal cortex in relation to the limbic system and you're left basically a slave to your basal impulses and desires. It also means that you're more or less running on "autopilot" all the time, which results in constant rumination and anxiety. Meditation strengthens your prefrontal cortex, and allows you to be more present in whatever you're doing and less driven by instinct. That instinctual mode is called the default mode network, and while it's useful for repetitive tasks, if you're not able to turn it off if can lead to anxiety.

Basically meditation slowly reroutes your brain to do things with a bottom-up approach and you feel more present in the moment and less a slave to every thought and urge. This also has the side effect of allowing you to feel more mental clarity and peace moment-to-moment so you can focus totally on your given task, rather than worrying about 5 different things concurrently.

 

Paging Mike Novogratz. Dude was a classic 90s Fx trader, the anti-quant. He buzzed the P-rade (alumni reunion parade---alumni and students and all their children shitfaced or high on sugar for whole weekend) on Nassau St in a helicopter--he asked his pilot to drive b/c he went into Army after Princeton before getting into GS thereafter.

Made partner @ GS, one of 2 people to have partner invite pulled. He was an addict, went to rehab, then Fortress, then Fortress IPO'd. Billionaire. Today: Eccentric bitcoin evangelist

https://tim.blog/2020/08/05/mike-novogratz/

 

If you have an addiction, go to therapy.

Every addiction is a response to deeper emotional issues. If you don't deal with those, you're just putting bandaids on the problem.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it." - George Bernard Shaw
 

LeveragedTiger

If you have an addiction, go to therapy.

Every addiction is a response to deeper emotional issues. If you don't deal with those, you're just putting bandaids on the problem.

i recently tried therapy for the first time in an attempt to regain sanity. dude told me i do a tremendous amount of drugs and i need rehab. yeah dude im going to rehab. go fuck yourself. folks been telling me i have a drug problem for like 10 years. i feel like i have a finely honed system of drug solutions.

heister: Look at all these wannabe richies hating on an expensive salad. https://arthuxtable.com/
 

MrJack5

Nope none, except maybe a 2 month gaming addiction. I have an extremely strong will power, thanks to great genetics.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH

omg

lawl

heister: Look at all these wannabe richies hating on an expensive salad. https://arthuxtable.com/
 

GoldenCinderblock

MrJack5

Nope none, except maybe a 2 month gaming addiction. I have an extremely strong will power, thanks to great genetics.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAH

omg

lawl

bro are you also a creative genius who has yet to find his calling?

heister: Look at all these wannabe richies hating on an expensive salad. https://arthuxtable.com/
 

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Sunt illo unde et ducimus hic. Tempore quibusdam qui placeat voluptas dolores adipisci corrupti. Quod et ad quas quis et adipisci dolor.

 

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heister: Look at all these wannabe richies hating on an expensive salad. https://arthuxtable.com/
 

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heister: Look at all these wannabe richies hating on an expensive salad. https://arthuxtable.com/
 

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