welcome. i'm glad you're here. i love you.
addiction is hard. I've had my own struggles with it for all of my life, particularly around digital / content addiction. it has been one of the core elements shaping my life, up there with transition, a privileged childhood, and a talent for music. i'd like to offer some solidarity and advice to those who struggle with anything similar.
addiction tries to convince you that you're permanently broken, that you're a bad person for choosing to hurt yourself and those around you over and over, but that's not true. it's a separate force that can overpower us in the right situation.
denial is also a really strong force. one of the scariest parts of addiction is that it overtakes our internal judgement to a point where we don't realize we can't trust it in the same way. you may think "nah, i don't struggle with addiction", but that may be a defense mechanism for your addiction to stay undetected and unchecked. i have literally no way to judge your own mental state via a blog over the internet, but i encourage you to listen to any such doubts, talk with friends, and keep reading.
if you feel like excess / unwanted time with some possibly addictive behavior is harming your life:
- i'm proud of you for making it this far. addiction is hard, but you're still here. heck yeah!
- i'm glad you're here reading this page. the first step is admitting you have a problem. things may get better over time if you admit that, but if you don't, they will likely get worse.
- you aren't broken. you are wonderful and worthy of love and capable of so much growth. every day you have the power to change your life. i believe in you. i love you. 💙
6 truths to accept
these are the lessons and affirmations that have led me towards real progress. if you don't (yet) read the rest of my thoughts here, i strongly encourage you to at least read these.
try speaking these in your own voice:
- I am capable of radical change, even if it often feels impossible. There will come a time in my life when I have so much more awareness, control, and joy every day. It's always worth fighting for.
- Recovery takes time and sacrifice. I may have to give up habits, make lifestyle changes, and spend energy exploring new ideas. I'm willing to put in that effort in pursuit of a deeply fulfilling life.
- Relapses happen. This time will probably not be "The Time" where everything works out perfectly, and that's okay.
- Change is gradual and non-linear. The most important thing is to maintain a growth mindset, focus on the immediate steps for today, and practice picking myself back up to try again, a little bit wiser each time.
- Self-understanding is the main means of progress. I heal and grow by learning more about my triggers, figuring out what systems do & don't work for me, and becoming more in touch with my inner desires and dreams.
- Addiction is the opposite of connection. It is a weed that fills up the space left by depression, isolation, and other life hardships. But it can be pushed back by filling a life with true joys like friendship, excitement, accomplishment, and fulfillment.
it may be helpful to adapt these into your own words, write them down somewhere, and even make a daily/weekly habit to remind yourself of these.
a deeper look
okay, if you're reading past here, I want to go a little more in depth on the experiences and mental tools that led me to those 6 truths.
content warning: descriptions of intense negative mental health
my history
i spent the vast majority of my childhood addictively playing competitive first-person shooters and other video games. i have spent hours and hours playing silly incremental games in my browser, just watching numbers go up while my emotions twist and contort in dread and despair. i have binged so, so much YouTube, procrastinating and escaping from life's stressors. i grew up with hardly any social life, very few other hobbies, barely driven to succeed in school despite very strong gifted kid abilities, and generally just very disassociated from reality.
i think being unknowingly trans was a big contributor to this disassociation. but content addiction is what filled all of that time. games and videos were some of the few things that made me feel emotions, accomplishment, meaning.
once i was more aware of addiction and trans-ness, i had a little more desire and drive to shape my life, but I found myself frequently overpowered by a decade of deeply-ingrained habits of escapism. the real world can be exciting, but it's also hard. I was vastly under-developed in healthy coping mechanisms. instead of being numbed out by gender dysphoria and indulgence, i was trapped between this beautiful promise of real joy and the crushing immovable object of my addictive habits.
i felt so incredibly helpless and pathetic and defeated. addicted to video games? that's not even a substance, there's no physical dependency. just stop playing the games and watching the videos, 4head. why are you doing this to yourself? stop hitting yourself. stop hitting yourself. stop hitting yourself. stop hurting yourself. stop wasting your time. stop being such an idiot. stop turning things in late. stop blowing off plans and commitments. stop ignoring your friends and parents. stop playing the games. uninstall them. why did you re-install them? why is it 3am again? why are you such a fucking idiot? you're never going to make it if you keep doing this. obviously you're just a fucking idiot who doesn't care about people or grades or anything. you're a disappointment. you only ever hurt people. you're a failure. you're a failure. you'd be better off [REDACTED]
addiction is hard. but i have survived. you can too.
recovery is gradual and non-linear and weird and hard and unique
my recovery came in waves, like an upwards cycle:
- getting a deeper understanding of what's positive and negative in my life,
- feeling stronger intentions on what I want to do about it,
- figuring out helpful or unhelpful strategies for managing environments or triggers, learning more surprising things that end up being triggers.
I've been doing a lot of journaling, partly because I'm an extremely forgetful bitch, but also because addiction makes internal judgement so much harder and more biased. i've found it's much more impactful and successful to externalize things, write them down in whatever medium works best, and also talk about it with an accepting community.
i've had to make some larger lifestyle changes to avoid triggers. I used to spend a lot of time playing board games, but i found them to be in the "mildly triggering" zone for me, and kinda just being "fun filler" rather than where I really wanted to be spending my time. I have a lot of other things I want to accomplish in life, so I've chosen to focus on those achievement-based pursuits instead. I do still keep space for a few social board games here and there, but it's not something I put active energy and time into anymore.
there are occasional awkward moments when someone invites me to play a board game or a Smash Bros match, and I need to figure out how to respectfully decline. but it's gotten easier the more I progress through recovery and practice that situation.
it does really suck not being able to watch much YouTube. there's a lot of fantastic art and great ideas shared on that platform, but I still need to be careful what I allow myself to watch. I use systems to hide all recommended videos, shorts, and a few other things.
i make heavy use of Android's digital wellness tools on my phone. it has taken time to be able to follow time limits, but persistence and routine has eventually won out for me.
I haven't needed to fully cut friends out of my life, but I have fully migrated my social life away from certain circles that are triggering for me, and I know many people who needed to fully cut out uncooperative friends (who may be in denial about their own addictive behaviors). that's really hard, but your life and freedom are worth prioritizing over pretty much anything else.
remember that different things work for different people. the changes I've named here might not be necessary for you, or they may be insufficient. you need to keep trying different ideas until you learn what sticks for you.
addiction is the opposite of connection
for me, video games (and sometimes board games) were a symptom of not having access and confidence and routines on things i'm more internally driven for. I would reach for games to have a sense of pride and accomplishment (ha) when that's inaccessible in those other areas.
now that I've done a lot of the psychological and emotional work to get some better routines and outlook and gratitude and affirmations and trust in myself, I find myself much more naturally drawn to those other more fulfilling activities, and only really drawn to games in circumstantial triggers.
of course everyone is different, there are many people that have a much healthier relationship with games, I'm not trying to assume everyone this same story.
but I'm curious if any parts of it sound familiar. if you do find yourself identifying with my story, I'm curious:
- what would you rather be doing than spending time in your unwanted behavior?
- what difficulties do you have in pursuing those goals? (aside from spending a bunch of time in your unwanted behavior)
important note: time is not the only resource we need to make changes happen in our lives, don't get stuck in thinking "if I just had time instead of playing video games I'd be able to solve all my problems super easily." often games fill in time because time alone is insufficient to address some other large difficulty we feel powerless over.
free will is a lie
addiction often feels so shitty because we blame ourselves for all the bad decisions we're making for ourselves. in this way, free will is a somewhat dangerous idea:
- assumption: I have the free will to decide any course of action in any moment.
- evidence: I have been pursuing a lot of harmful addictive behaviors that are not in my best interest.
- implication: I am regularly consciously choosing behaviors that hurt myself and those around me. I am a terrible person.
in this way, I don't believe in free will. there are influences in our head that can overpower our inner voice. admitting this is scary, but there are some really effective ways to manage these influences over time.
hear me out.
have you heard of the analogy of the Elephant and the Rider? it describes behavioral change in the human brain. i really like it when talking about addiction.
here's a cutesy 2-minute video to explain the idea: https://youtu.be/X9KP8uiGZTs
when the Elephant is influenced by cravings and stressors with no other coping mechanisms, of course we the Rider are powerless to stop it. we're not choosing these harmful behaviors, we've just ended up in a situation where our Elephant is drawn into a trap. oops, i'll try to navigate better in the future.
one other important concept to be aware of is euphoric recall:
the tendency [...] to remember past experiences in a positive light, while overlooking negative experiences associated with some event(s).
this is the seductive siren voice that often draws us back into addictive behaviors. "this was so fun! remember all the excitement and thrill from last time? we should definitely do it again :)"
we can challenge euphoric recall by "playing the tape forward": try to realistically imagine how it would go. is that euphoric recall scenario really accurate? how might you feel afterwards - are there people you might disappoint, emotions you might be feeling, other things you wanted to do instead?
addiction is not me
i like to think of addiction as this other presence in my mind. it has thoughts and agency, but it's not me. have you seen the movie Inside Out? kinda like that, if there was another character that made all the emotion ppl run all around in a panic and lose control of the normal self-regulation they do. when I'm in an addictive headspace, I can see those addictive thoughts personified, taking over my head, and I feel powerless.
in that moment, I really am in many ways powerless. but, excluding cases of severe substance impairment, I never lose the ability to observe what's happening, to notice what triggered this addiction con-man to spring into action, to learn how he convinced my mind and my body to do the stupid thing again. it might be really hard to figure out how he works - it might take therapy and addiction support groups and years of time - but over time I can understand, and over time I can learn to protect against his threats.
it's not strengthening my force of will that brought me here. it's bravely and repeatedly confronting the times where I've indulged in an unwanted behavior to figure out what happened, what I didn't account for, how I could do it differently next time. observing the situations that make me want to indulge, changing my environment to avoid those situations. one bit at a time. every relapse is a learning opportunity, a case study of what didn't quite work. it just takes some courage to accept it for what it is, and some perseverance to figure out how it could be different in the future.
this mental shift pushes the addictive thoughts and behaviors out of my identity and self-blame. "I" am not the impulses, intrusive thoughts, indulgences and relapses that plague me. "I" am the voice of reason that pushes back, the wounded depressed person picking up the pieces afterwards, the curled-up ball bleeding and crying on the floor when my brain is overtaken with fire for the hundredth time and I know it's bad I knew it would be bad but I still ended up here, I'm powerless to stop it, why, fuck, why why why. that love, care, desire for something greater is the real me, and it deserves so much better than the horrifying abuses it's gone through.
in many other ways, I am stronger than the addiction. i have the persistent desire to improve and grow. i can change my environment to minimize triggers and set up barriers in front of indulgences. i can find communities to actively and intentionally support my growth and recovery.
what do?
the Elephant and the Rider video from earlier identifies 3 important components of behavioral change:
- give direction to the Rider, a detailed realistic plan for how to get to your destination.
- avoid unreasonable expectations. break down intentions into goals, goals into plans, plans into steps. use calendars, alarms, journaling. schedule specific times where you want specific things to happen.
- motivate the Elephant by tapping into emotions and daily motivation
- figure out what is motivating or rewarding for you. try out silly mental games / like "i can only open this app if I take a walk first" - if it works, it works. recognize the real needs that addictive behaviors are addressing, and figure out other coping mechanisms to redirect into. reward yourself for progress.
- shape the Path by changing your environment to allow for easy progress
- externalize your thoughts, change your environment, build up systems. talk with others to find social accountability. reduce your exposure to triggers. fill your space with healthier alternatives that spark true joy.
over time I've come a very long way. I'm happy to say that at time of writing i'm doing much much better. I feel like I have a really good community and support network and lifestyle and environment to fill my life with other connections and interests so that addiction doesn't have space to take hold. i believe it can get better. i believe it can for you, too.
finding support
a support network is invaluable. i encourage you to find people willing to talk and support you, whether it's listening to your experience, problem-solving abt your recovery, or even helping to recover from a relapse.
i also encourage you to seek out support groups, if you aren't already. I highly recommend SMART Recovery.
I tried traditional AA-like approaches to addiction (there's gaming / internet-technology variants), but I bounced off of them for being too focused on "giving up" control to a higher power. I really really like SMART for being self-guided, focusing on evidence and self-awareness and tools to define and take ownership of your recovery. it's a lot more accepting of the non-linear progress of recovery with some relapses, treating them more as learning opportunities.
I highly encourage you to find a SMART meeting to attend, in person if you can or just online to check it out. maybe also look at some of the resources online, they can be a good way to find structure.
be kind to yourself
there is no rush to figure everything out immediately, do it right the first time, or make perfect use of your time. change takes time. every day is a new opportunity to reset, restore inner peace, and renew the pursuit of the life you want to live.
you are an incredible person capable of so much. be kind to yourself, make space to listen to your inner thoughts, do something nice and relaxing. i believe in you. i love you. 💙