So I have intentionally turned off analytics on this site. Before I saw anything; maybe 3 views. I was like 'here we go again' and killed it.

Addiction is the human condition. Food. Fuck me. Water. We crave those things. Hugs and kisses. Those too. Love. You get the picture. They all change our brain chemistry and we crave homeostasis so we try to minimise the change. Or we do if our dopamine systems work properly; if not I think we just try to keep water in the sink.

Anyway that's the crux of things. Everything is about brain chemistry. Can I state that enough? Praying to your god and meditating are probably the most direct ways to influence your brain chemistry, and the most admirable.

The easy way is a drink.

Or medicine it seems. I'm 100% addicted to this stuff, just like someone with shitty legs is addicted to their wheelchair. I used to be addicted to alcohol, which is like someone with shitty legs being addicted to a pogo stick.

Anyway this fucking criticism of the individual for just having the human condition a little more than someone else has to stop. Everything is self medication. Even food and hugging are self medication for hunger and sadness. Alcohol is a terrible option, and drugs usually consumed in ignorance.

Individual substances and behaviours aside, why would someone consume more of something, to the point where it harms their life, if they were as satisfied as someone who didn't? Is person B just gritting their teeth harder? I always assumed so.

Addiction is how the person learns which bush grows the berries. It is good for the species. It was good for the person, to a degree, but no more. Just as the lights and sounds are overwhelming for those with autism and adhd, the convenience of our modern society is overwhelming to those who have a 'keyed up' dopamine system.

So monkey50% is like 'I have a banana and 20 dopamine points'. You give him another banana and he only gets 10 points; you need to give him 2 bananas to replicate the original 20. MonkeyJ is like fuck you I want 300 bananas and spits in your face. It's because the dopamine drains from his synapse faster than yours. He's also more motivated and successful in work, because he's willing to go through anything - anything at all - to avoid redlining.

So would you.

That's the point. Addiction is not a bug; it's a feature of the human condition.

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My new med regime helps dial it down but previously I utilised it as best possible. Utilised it to work my ass off and retire in 3 years before imploding. You get the picture. I have always said my motivation was 'dialled up to 11' and I could not dial it down, just direct it. Moderation just made me feel like I would... yeah it was impossible, literally, because dopamine. So what you do is take an addiction you want to kill and replace it with one that is incompatible.

In the case of alcohol and athletics, initially I would gate beer behind rides (5km for 1 beer, then 10km for one beer) and it wasn't long before I was doing 200km. Quantify and record everything, and use other people to manipulate yourself; I got heavily into Strava and you can find my profile online; I'll see if I can make it public. Quantify and incentivise everything and as you get better the alcohol starts to become less important than the progress; you've successfully moved at least some of your dopamine encoding over to the new activity. Stepping away from the alcohol fully is still big, but a lot easier. And fuck me it would have been so much easier medicated.

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