= 27d567bc2d48d9f40e9ccc20ea370b15)
PeerInfinity comments on Antagonizing Opioid Receptors for (Prevention of) Fun and Profit - Less Wrong
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
= 783df68a0f980790206b9ea87794c5b6)
Loading…= b715d02e85f7b3b4ae65ca3d3e450868)
Subscribe to RSS Feed
Powered by Reddit
= f037147d6e6c911a85753b9abdedda8d)
You are viewing a comment permalink. View the original post to see all comments and the full post content.
Comments (33)
This comment isn't specifically about naltrexone, and might not be relevant here.
This is an example that may provide some vague suggestive evidence that lack of opioids sometimes doesn't help overcome addictions.
I used to really enjoy video games. I used to want to spend almost all my time playing video games. But then (for unrelated reasons?), I developed a bad case of anhedonia. Over a period of several years, I gradually lost the ability to experience pleasure, to the point where I was almost entirely incapable of experiencing any form of pleasure. Video games weren't fun anymore. Playing them usually involved lots of stress, but no fun. But I was still addicted. The addiction got even worse when I started playing the Flash games at Kongregate. That site tracks your achievements across all the games, and often has challenges that are only available for a limited time. Now the previous addiction to positive experiences was replaced with an addiction to avoiding negative experiences. I was now addicted to not failing to earn these achievements, even I knew they really didn't mean anything, and even though the games themselves involved lots of stress, and almost no fun at all. This continued for months, and the addiction didn't end until after my anhedonia finally started to get less bad. Thanks Adelene! Thanks Alicorn!
So, yeah, that's some anecdotal evidence that addictions can continue despite an almost complete absence of opioids.
What did Alicorn (or you and Alicorn) do to make the change?
Actually, Adelene Dawner was helping me for months before I had any contact with Alicorn, though Adelene's methods were similar to what Alicorn described in her Luminosity Sequence.
Basically the main problem was that I was pushing myself too hard, and worrying too much, for reasons that were actually counterproductive. I was also trying to suppress all desires and emotion, and it turns out that was a very bad idea. I offered to post a detailed analysis of my progress, to LW, or possibly someplace else, but so far almost noone seemed interested.
As for the strategies we used to solve these problems, we got a surprising amount of leverage from the City of Lights technique. But mostly it was just asking the standard questions "what do I believe and why do I believe it?", and "what am I doing and why am I doing it?". And just generally talking through stuff we didn't understand until we figured it out. And my results were surprisingly similar to what Alicorn described in her Ureshiku Naritai post.
You say you decreased your anhedonia. Does that mean videogames are fun again?
I want to make my own anhedonia go away.
Interestingly, no, videogames are still usually more stressful than fun (with only a few specific exceptions, depending on how I feel at the moment). But other things are gradually becoming more enjoyable now. Most notably friendship. I sent you my contact info, I would like to chat with you about this.