Addictions

[Raggamuffin]

The more I've read about the spectrum, the more I see mentions of issues with impulse control and addictions. It might seem reductive to label some of the following as addictions, and they could be considered obsessions, or interests. But I know how much time I invest, how much restraint I lack - and how consumed I am with each and every one of the following. Either way, I wondered what people live with in terms of addictions. Also, are there any you've attempted or succeeded in overcoming? Here's mine:

• Impulse purchases - money has always burnt a hole in my pocket. I don't have many wants or needs - but I can rarely reign in my spending. Even when I have no money; I'm constantly window shopping or planning my next purchases
  
• Sugar - my diet is atrocious. It's non-stop snacks, cakes and nonsense.
  
• Carbs - as above. I'm a carb fiend.
  
• Junk food - as above.
  
• Caffeine - 4-7 oversized cups of coffee a day.
  
• Skin picking - any pimple, scab or insect bite I turn into a wound from incessantly picking, squeezing and attacking them.
  
• Stimming - all day long: I can never sit still.
  
• Music - I've spent £1000's on music and tens of thousands of hours sifting through, organising, rating and collecting more.
  
• Video games - a conservative estimate is 25,000+ hours spent on video games.
  
• Computer - At least 95% of my free time is spent in front of a computer.
  
• Internet - I think I'd be lost without it.
  
• Alcohol (261 days sober).
  
• Weed (261 days sober).
• News - I went without it for years, but recently I've slipped back into bad habits and find myself compulsively checking news websites 5+ times a day.

What are yours?


Ed

 

[Progster]

Mine are:
-Music: spend thousands, also spend a huge amount of time organising my collection, rating releases on RYM, tagging and looking for and listening to new music.
-Picking at scabs and skin on face and lips.
-Internet: I'm on the internet all day and this is related to my music obsession, but also work - I work from home.
-Stimming - yes, non-stop.
-Watching documentaries.

I don't have substance addictions - though I drink coffee and wine/beer, but in moderation. Two cups of coffee, a glass of wine with my evening meal most days.

 

[Misery]

Mine:

Kinda a crappy diet. Sort of. I dont know if I'd call it addiction, but I tend to eat the same things over and over. I dont even want to think about how many Poptarts I've had. But then there's milk. The need for THAT can get strong. Going too long without that (which isnt all that long) produces a sort of beyond-thirst sensation.

I do the skin picking too. My left hand hasnt looked normal since.... 7th grade. I actually remember the *exact* moment I first started doing it. Sitting in Ms. Johnson's literature class, bored out of my mind. So, I can blame school for this. Of course.

Video games. Duh. I mean, I was raised on this stuff. For reasons that will never become clear, my parents bought an Atari 2600 when I was 3. So I've been into this for as long as I can remember. The 2600 and NES remain to this day my favorites. I play them frequently.

Internet. DUH.

Youtube. I have really specific sets of things I'll watch with my meals, and I have a tendency to go back to the same things over and over. And over, and over, and over, and over...

Spending. To be blunt, the family is wealthy. I dont really have spending limits. Well, within the realm of sanity anyway. I'm not going around buying helicopters here. For my hobbies, and even for travelling (conventions) I can typically do whatever I like, whenever I like. This can be an issue considering an absolute lack of impulse control. It's not uncommon for me to buy some $50 game because I've been bored for 5 minutes. Even now I've got about $150 of board game stuffs due to arrive in the mail soon. Nobody in the family seems to care. I'm convinced they dont NOTICE most of the time.

Driving. I must do this daily, lest my sanity shatter. Destination is irrelevant. I dont even NEED a destination. I just need to use the car/van/whatever it is. This is one of the reasons I hate winter so much, because it can lead to days where I CANT do this.

Caffeine. I dont drink huge amounts. It causes "issues" if I go to far with it. But still, the addiction is there. However, I dont drink it for that reason, personally. I just really like that particular soda (Mountain Dew). I couldnt care less about the caffeine aspect. But physically, caffeine is inherently addictive, and I sure aint immune to that effect, so there it is.

My dogs. I dunno if this one counts, but too much time spent apart from my dogs will start to lead me to despair. The feeling appears to be mutual, so that's good.



Have I tried to put a stop to any of these? Ye gods, no. Though I did have to lower the caffeine one awhile back. I used to drink alot of it. Then things got bad. Had to dial it down.

 

[Nervous Rex]

I think that addictions are very different from Aspie stims, habits, compulsions, and things we hyper-focus on.

Addictions:

• Addictions are all forms of escape - they are behaviors which numb feelings or overwhelm those feelings with other feelings.
• Addictions are always progressive - they always get worse. When one turns to an addictive behavior to escape the worst feelings that one feels, then the second worst feeling becomes the worst feeling. So, the addict turns to the addiction to get rid of that new-worst feeling. This continues until the addiction is the addicts coping mechanism for everything in life, no matter how great or small.
• Addictions take away the ability to choose - an addict may have chosen to start the behavior, but there comes a point where they can no longer choose not to do it.

Other (Autistic) Behaviors - stims, idée fixes, obsessions, perseverations, collections, special interests, etc.

• These are often not used to distract one from feelings, but to help one focus. They don't come from a desire to escape emotions but to fill a mental need or to regulate and redirect the background noise in our brains.
• These behaviors can get momentarily worse, due to stress, over-stimulation, or meltdowns. However, they don't become permanently worse - they ebb and flow with the current needs and circumstances.
• They are not compulsory to the point of not being able to choose. Yes, there are times when an Aspie must stim, but they are still free to choose the stim. There are several discussions on this forum about choosing a stim that isn't distracting to others. As for special interests and obsessions, I, myself, tend to wander from one obsession to another and I often deliberately choose to abandon one special interest and pick up a different one. Yes, the ability to choose to do something different depends on the severity of ASD, but the most severe cases don't justify classifying all cases as addictions.

Out of those you originally listed, I would only classify alcohol and weed as addictions - and possibly the computer. And I think they only qualify as addictions if you notice that your use of them makes you feel like you're losing control of your life. Congratulations on your sobriety! 261 days represents a lot of hard work!

The rest are typical ASD habits.

• I've done the skin picking, but it was easy to quit.
• Cracking my knuckles hasn't been easy to quit. In 40 years of trying, I haven't been able to stop it.
• Sugar and snacking is definitely a stim for me - argh.
• I have been off caffeine since Dec 21, 2019. Yay - celebrate the victories, no matter how small.
• Shopping isn't an issue for me because I'm so cheap, but I do go overboard with whatever my latest favorite geometric construction toy is. Rubik's Snakes, Buckyballs, ball of Whacks's, Straws, Metal Earth models, etc. Once I start messing with one of them, I always want to buy a ton more.

 

[simetra]

One of my friends on the spectrum is so addicted to sugar, his doctors have warned him he could give himself diabetes.

I overcame my personal sugar addiction, but I have been skin picking since approximately age 8.

Impulse buying of books. Only books. Study and work-related, but still problematic looking at my bank account.

 

[Progster]

News - I went without it for years, but recently I've slipped back into bad habits and find myself compulsively checking news websites 5+ times a day.

I've started doing this too, since Coronavirus started.

 

[Raggamuffin]

^ Same here.

 

[onlything]

For me it's (or used to be in some cases):

1) Sugar and junk food - stopped buying anything a few months back due to the lack of money, so it got cut down considerably. I still live by the new rule: if you don't need it, don't buy it, if you don't buy it, you won't eat it even if you crave it. I drink a coke sometimes still, but that's it - and my teeth are definitely grateful for that (as well as I lost like 4 kg since March thanks to that).

2) Gaming - I used to be able to play even 16 hours non stop, every day, from the moment I woke up to the moment I fell uncounscious on my bed. Depression robbed me of that 'pleasure' though - one good came of it that I can't seem to enjoy gaming as much anymore. If I play it's for a few hours every few weeks or months at most. Frankly, after the first hour or two gaming becomes useless - it doesn't teach you anything new and won't relax you more than you already are.

3) Shopping - used to shop too much but never more than I had at the time. I solved it by creating a saving account where I put most of my money that doesn't go towards bills. If it's on the account, it can't be touched is the rule.

4) Reading silly fiction - at times quite an unambitious one as well. I do it mostly on my phone, though, so I downloaded a YourHour app (not sponsored ) - this app monitors the usage of your phone and locks down apps according to specifications. At the moment, all browsers are limited to 2hrs per day, one for distracting stuff like fiction and one for productive stuff like learning.

5) Phone - I went for a day-long no-phone challenge from curiosity... I can't believe how difficult it was. How can you even be addicted to your phone? Yet, I am. I depend on it for most things - mail, personal and professional communications, alarm clock, work, entertainment. During that one day I would catch myself reaching out for it into my pocket even while eating or waiting a minute for microwave to finish cooking. That's crazy and I wasn't even aware of how much I'm using it. According to YourHour I would somehow sit on it even 5-6 hours per day with more than hundred of unlock counts! I currently limit it to about 3-3,5 hrs per day. Still a lot, but hopefully I will slowly bring it down. Of course, monitoring only doesn't really help. You need to uninstall most apps you waste your time on like games or social media.

6) Skin picking - one of the most difficult since I do it mostly unconsciously when focused or stressed. I told my friends to slap me on the hand whenever I do it (and whenever I slouch as well). I do the same myself - if I catch myself picking on my forehead, I slap the picking hand with the other one and sit on it. Works well enough.

Frankly, I have little self-control myself. That's why I create specific systems and optimise my environment instead of working out my mental muscles all the time - it's easier and not as exhausting. If I put healthy snack on the level of my eyes in the cupboard, I will grab it instead of the less healthy ones in the back for example. If I don't buy coke, I will drink water or tea instead because I won't bother with going to the shop every time I have a craving. Stuff like that - easier and in the long run reinforce new habits like not eating chocolate anymore, or not drinking as much coffee.

Edit: Ed, just wanted to add that you're doing really well on your alcohol and weed sobriety! Keep it up!

 

[Statest16]

Alcohol:Sober since 2003 (slight relapse after dad died in 2010 but sober since)
Cocaine:Clean since 2003 I do like strong coffee as a coke substitute,coffee's my coke methadone program.
Pot:Never liked it,made me paranoid and nervous,likely why I got so into coke cause pot didn't do anything for me.
Heroin: Did it maybe 25 times in my life,came close to OD once,never did it again.
LSD/Mushrooms: Tripped maybe 5 times between the two,all good trips,even once tripped on acid while playing golf.
Methamphetamine:Never tried it,lucky to be able to say that,not a popular drug in New England,rare if ever seen in this part of the US.

 

[unperson]

I thought the impulsivity was comorbid pd stuff, i probably have a touch due to toxic family stuff.

 

[Major Tom]

Recently, I've abandoned many bad habits/addictions. Really my only current one is the internet. I can't stop, it's worse than crack. Every 5 minutes or less I'm checking my phone. It's rediculous. I feel that my life was much healthier without the internet. I was both physically and mentally healthier. Lately it's either one thing or another that sets me off and I can't control it. I feel ashamed and not very intelligent because of it. I'm trying to convince my wife to just let me abandon my smart phone and stop the internet at my house. (She can keep her smartphone and play Netflix or Amazon off her phone and cast screen it onto the tv). I don't see what the big deal is, but she's strongly against it.

I told her it's for my own mental and physical well-being, but she doesn't see that it's really effecting me negatively. Even though half the time she's talking to me, I'm so engrossed in the internet I either don't respond at all or just say yes or no even though I'm not really listening like I should be. It's caused multiple arguments recently so I would think she'd see my reasoning, but apparently not.

 

[Au Naturel]

Not really addicted to anything. I can walk away from it all and live happily in a tent. While I'm near a computer I might as well take advantage of it.

A stricter definition of addiction might move those things out of addiction into habituations, obsessions, stimming, or tics. These are different creatures entirely. A real addiction is usually a substance that your body becomes dependent on. It happens because your body stops producing its own analog of what you are taking. Should you stop, you get the screaming heebeejeebies until your body spools up production again.

There's a conditioned reflex that settles in where you learn to associate the substance and the ritual of taking it with feeling REALLY good. Even after your body has stopped craving it, your mind still does. Having learned that association it's difficult to lose it and hence the psychological aspect of the addiction is still in you. It is a fundamental Pavlovian thing and overrides the higher brain.

That's a concept called psychological addiction. The problem is that is gets used for anything I like a lot that someone else doesn't get. Broaden a definition enough and it loses all useful meaning. I've been told I was addicted to a number of things that preoccupied me at the time but I eventually got bored with. You never get bored with an addiction. That's an insult to anyone who has battled a true addiction.

X is psychologically addicting so we must ban it. It usually isn't. It could just be an OCD issue and that is not an addiction. Most often the person involved simply doesn't have anything better to do. Or they are engaging in avoidance behavior of what might be if they weren't doing X.

 

[Metalhead]

My primary addictions are one night stands and frivolous impulse shopping. I am 12 stepping for both of these things. Been sober for a while on those fronts.

 

[Jumpback]

Spending. To be blunt, the family is wealthy. I dont really have spending limits. Well, within the realm of sanity anyway. I'm not going around buying helicopters here. For my hobbies, and even for travelling (conventions) I can typically do whatever I like, whenever I like. This can be an issue considering an absolute lack of impulse control. It's not uncommon for me tobuy some $50 game because I've been bored for 5 minutes. Even now I've got about $150 of board game stuffs due to arrive in the mail soon. Nobody in the family seems to care. I'm convinced they dont NOTICE most of the time.

My additions are directly related to money issues while having a malfunctioning executive function. I started drinking and restarted smoking when weird things happened with my roommate where he kicked me out and later committed suicide which made me homeless.

It's all self medicating to deal with anxiety and pressure and to try to make myself function when my executive function issues are fighting me every step of the way. If I do not attempt to function, I don’t do bad habits.

It's a sad, backwards thing with mental illness or specific troubles where the poorer more desperate people seem to get caught up in more bad coping mechanisms and spend more money on bad habits as ways to get through the day or just escape from reality.

Though money can also result in opening doors to other bad habits:

“Cocaine is God's way of telling you you are making too much money.”

― Robin Williams

 

[Jumpback]

Addictions:

• Addictions are all forms of escape - they are behaviors which numb feelings or overwhelm those feelings with other feelings.
• Addictions are always progressive - they always get worse. When one turns to an addictive behavior to escape the worst feelings that one feels, then the second worst feeling becomes the worst feeling. So, the addict turns to the addiction to get rid of that new-worst feeling. This continues until the addiction is the addicts coping mechanism for everything in life, no matter how great or small.
• Addictions take away the ability to choose - an addict may have chosen to start the behavior, but there comes a point where they can no longer choose not to do it.

The hard thing is that bad habits do help in the short term. Like it’s easier to approach someone in a bar or maybe rob a store if you’ve had some “liquid courage.” This is how I have felt since issue with roommate that messed everything up a few years ago....everything was impossibly hard, and it was easier to get through them if I drank. So I started drinking, which wasn’t a thing I wanted to do, but I did not know what else to do. But then the executive function is still malfunctioning and there are still more never ending problems, and now if you try to stop drinking there is withdrawal while you still are required to function. It’s very difficult to get out of.

 

[Raggamuffin]

Back when I tackled another addiction, I read an interesting book called Your Brain on Porn. It was quite a fascinating read, which showed how the brain chemistry is altered in a near identical way to behavioural addictions as it does with substance addictions.

One thing I noticed on porn quitter Reddits and forums and video game quitters - so many people had similar issues with withdrawal, boredom, lack of drive etc. But also, many people had issues with other addictions too.

It feels rather challenging in life when your mindset is often "all or nothing" and finding a balance can feel especially tough. I often wonder how I'd feel if all these aforementioned addictions/obsessions were completely cut out of my life. I know moderation feels more like psychological torture than it does a healthy or "balanced lifestyle choice."

But what if I had none of them? I think I'd probably replace them with others. No doubt they might be deemed more productive or satisfying - such as drawing and painting all the time, or reading nonstop. Tricky really - I think I was immature to assume sobriety from weed and alcohol would be a "eureka" moment, but it really wasn't. Plus, tackling anxiety and depression when sober feels a lot heavier without the fog or false confidence of being inebriated.

There's a book on my list to buy next regarding Autism and Alcoholism. It could be an interesting read, hopefully it'll explore and expand upon ideas I've pondered, as well as providing new and challenging thoughts to explore.

Ed

 

[Moonhart44]

video game is my obsession or compulsion but idk if id classify it as an addiciton
i have a big bad impulsive habit of talkin major trash, especially if im super focused on the issue.

 

[Raggamuffin]

It seems this year a university completed a 6 year study around video game addiction:

Is video game addiction real?

Not the most in depth article, but it's good that they dedicated such a prolonged period of study. Also, there's plenty of anecdotal evidence and a growing awareness that some people can play computer games excessively and that this could potentially have far reaching consequences:

"When compared to the non-pathological group, those in the study displayed higher levels of depression, aggression, shyness, problematic cell phone use and anxiety by emerging adulthood. This was despite the groups being the same in all these variables at the initial time point, suggesting that video games may have been important in developing these negative outcomes."

Ed

 

[Moonhart44]

yeh i wouldnt say thats wrong. when i moved out of state and couldnt play video games for a couple months, i had no vent outlet ( i was renting a room), and needless to say, i felt . . .
distraught

 

[Nervous Rex]

One thing I noticed on porn quitter Reddits and forums and video game quitters - so many people had similar issues with withdrawal, boredom, lack of drive etc.

Addictions numb our feelings. When beginning recovery, most addicts go through a period of anhedonia (an inability to feel pleasure). It takes a while to learn to feel again.

I think that it might be especially difficult for autistics, because it takes more conscious effort and work to feel, recognize, and regulate emotions. It makes a numbing activity (an addiction) more desirable, and it makes it harder to overcome the anhedonia afterward.

But also, many people had issues with other addictions too.

Also, when giving up on one addiction, it's easy to just switch to another - it's called addiction transfer. That's why doctors recommend that people get counseling before getting a gastric sleeve/bypass operation - if a person is addicted to overeating and their ability to overeat is taken away, it's too easy to switch to alcohol or something else instead.