Anyone here actually battled addiction? Any books that helped you through your low points?

>I use drugs, alcohol, video games, or sex to calm me down at night. If at least one of them is not available, I get very anxious and angry.

If you use drugs or alcohol just to calm down, you might not be an addict, but you are abusing drugs. If you abuse drugs long enough, then you probably will become an addict.

I'd say fuck books, get into therapy, start doing the things you know you need to be doing, and start learning how to feel the way you want to feel, or get the things you want to get without substances.

Yeah, believe it or not, it's actually way fucking easier to just deal with your problems, start being the person you want to be, than just ignoring everything and self medicating and putting all your responsibilities off for a decade before you finally do it. take it from me, I know.

Learning is half the battle!

Plot twist: I am a clinical psychologist.

Thanks for the advice. Let me offer some in return. If you're going to use the addiction/abuse terminologies, know that you've got them the wrong way around conceptually. Addiction is about compulsion to use and increase usage, which can lead to abuse where the use has tangible negative impact on your life. I don't fit the bill for either. I'd also be careful about defining abuse as intention change of psychological state with drugs, because that's literally the whole point of what all drugs do.

I wouldn't say I'm avoiding problems either. I work hard during the day, I get a lot done. I think it's more about dealing with the time where there is nothing much to do. It'd probably more about boredom than anything else. My life is very good.

So thanks for the recomendation of therapy, it's (in the continually updating process of being) sorted out. What about books?

Writting helps more than reading though...

Yeah: food

Lost 50kg in a year, went from 120kg to 70kg, gave myself to binge eating tendencies along the way, regularly go through stints where I eat

The NA basic text

alright, whatever, you're way smarter than everyone and you have no problem whatsoever.

Read whichever book you want, you know best, of course.

>Anyone here actually battled addiction?
Yes. Alcohol.
>Any books that helped you through your low points?
No. I couldn't mix my anti-depressants with it.
I basically just had to remind myself that my brain was desperately trying to trick me. That the "Fuck it!" argument was also a trick.
So I'd often pace the room, arguing with myself.

I went cold turkey for almost a year, with few minor slip ups.
Now (like, two years later) I can drink relatively normal. I just have to be extremely careful not to fall back into old habits. (It was mainly self-medication.)
I had to break both the motives and associations tho.
When I get VERY upset, it gets hard tho. Especially if what is bothering me isn't something that will go away quickly.

I'd like to say it is willpower, but that isn't really it. It's discipline. Making a decision and sticking to it. And not using failures as an excuse to give up. Like exercising, you have to get rid of the patterns day by day.

>I went cold turkey for almost a year, with few minor slip ups.

So...you didn't go cold turkey for almost a year.

>Now (like, two years later) I can drink relatively normal.

It's good to know you tell yourself that.

I like the unsure language you constantly use, probably subconsciously. went sober for ALMOST a year, but with a few slip ups. can drink RELATIVELY normally.

I remember for a while if I had money in my pocket and I drove passed a store that sold booze, I was buying it, no question. Then I got that under control, and could go in and out of a store with money and not buy booze. I thought that was a massive accomplishment. I'd still buy booze from a store 2-3 times a week, but I could occasionally not do it, so I felt like I was making progress.

I went from being drunk 75% of the time to like 50% of the time, and I thought I was doing great. Kind of ignoring the fact that i was FUCKING DRUNK HALF THE GODDAMN TIME! I also don't even think it was an achievement, because I simply think my body couldn't physically handle being drunk 75% of the time anymore and I was forced to only drink half the time, not so much any willpower I had.

I'm just pointing out that alcoholics tell themselves a lot of bullshit, minor achievements or what have you, to make themselves feel better and ignore the massive goddamn problem still going on. You just strike me as that type.

Unironically Infinite Jest.

Midway point of the book is essentially a vicarious AA experience.

Seems a bit passive aggressive, user. We are on /lit, me describing myself and then asking for a book is not rude.

>Seems a bit passive aggressive, user.

Really? Not sure where you'd get that. Not sure why you even want a book to help with your problem, you got that under control.

Go skydiving or running on the beach or something, you got it together.

When did I ever say I have a problem and why do you want me to think that I have one? Do you need to have problems to qualify for book reading?

If you're arguing with trolls on /lit, you obviously have a problem.

Good point.

I was never a heavy drunk and (as I said): I self-medicated. It was a coping mechanism. Purely psychological.
I drank 2-4l of beer or about 1-1,5l of wine (a liter is a bit more than a pint for imperials) every night for two years straight. I told myself "so I could relax/sleep" but it was just to calm my anxiety and get the storm to shut down that was going on in my head.

And again, it wasn't an incremental thing. I told myself I wouldn't drink. And that decision didn't change even when I fucked up.
Telling yourself that tripping up devalued all the past days you didn't drink is just your head trying to trick you again.

Now I can drink a beer once a week or so in the evening and enjoy it. And without instantly running to the bank to get cash so I can walk half an hour to the 24/7 hotdog place that sells beer all night.
I never drink if the reason is self-medication/coping. It took a lot of time and self-reflection to be able to tell the two apart.
The only times I'm really tempted now is a) shit is going down around me or b) I am being forced to spend an extended amount of time with strangers I don't like.
>I'm just pointing out that alcoholics tell themselves a lot of bullshit, minor achievements or what have you, to make themselves feel better and ignore the massive goddamn problem still going on.
I get what you mean, but I pretty much "fixed" the root of the actual problem. Doing better every day.
Without doing that I'd probably have flunked out of school and be sitting in my parents basement drunk right now.

I'm also not saying I'm an example for how others should do it. It's just how it worked out for me.

Not sure if I was categorically an alcoholic, but I went through a period of about a year of drinking everyday, always at home, alone. I was also on 5 kinds of psychiatric medication (now I'm on 3), so I gained some weight and started suffering from a lot of abdominal pain, vomiting, bad, prolonged hangovers, etc. It wasn't really one thing that made me stop, it was a gradual process where I was making progress in therapy and letting go of the almost delusional self-loathing which I had been feeding and tending to since childhood. Still am, for the most part.

Anyway, I echo the recommendation for The Myth of Sisyphus, and Camus in general is very inspiring. On a similar vein, Nietzsche is reinvigorating to read and has made me less bashful about enjoying life, his writing on self-depreciation was essential to me. And Burroughs in Junky and Naked Lunch, he just really understands the despair of addiction.

Generally, authors who start off from the assumption that our position (as humans) is abismal, and then try to answer if it's even justifiable to remain living knowing this, are the most inspiring ones for me. I've been meaning to read Schopenhauer and Cioran, but too consumed by university right now.

There's a pretty big difference between acute alcoholism and chronic. Most everybody will go through acute phases of it, like it's fairly normal to live an alcoholic life in college. Or if you're depressed, or just divorced, or shit is generally bad with you, then a lot of people drink heavily during that. This really isn't "alcoholism" at all but the term gets thrown around.

Actual alcoholism is quite a bit different. It doesn't really matter what's going on in an alcoholic's life, they still drink. In college drink, out of college drink. Happy, drink. Sad, Drink. Bored, drink. Busy, drink. The key is they drink despite whatever is going on in their lives, and they actually drink when they don't even want to necessarily.

surprise, surprise, a self-diagnosed alcoholic thinks Dostoevsky is like, totally fucking deep, bro

For me it was just drinking everyday to calm my nerves, sleep, ''cope'' with depression, etc. What makes me think it was addiction, even if not full on dependence, was that a) it wasn't for fun, rather it was a clutch, and b) because if I skipped a day or two I would feel extremely depressed, and then extremely anxious and with the feeling that I would have a heart attack etc.

Sounds just like regular self medication to me, which isn't necessarily and addiction in itself, but can be.

Also you sound generally really fucked up, so who knows what numerous problems you got rolling around in your head that are all symptoms of the main cause.

Alcoholism itself i generally thought to be a symptom of another problem, rather than the actual problem itself.

He already said that.
Is this gonna be one of those mental health threads, where cunts try to one-up each other in the severity of their symptoms and try to shame the others?

I don't know.

Or....did you actually want an answer to that?

ya'll motherfuckers even read?

i'm addicted to whacking it
i literally dropped out of uni and failed all my classes because i stayed inside whacking all day instead of going to class

did you start whacking it in the waiting room and the crazy fuck got an instant section 8?

I'm not really sure what this means.

Dr. sleep, despite being kinda naive compared to other King's novels, for some reason hit me hard while I read about the alcoholism of the protagonist.

I'm an opiate addict of 8 years. Took Oxycodone habitually until I almost died and am now on a daily dose of Suboxone as an outpatient on the replacement therapy program.

A lot of books romanticise addiction, it's very easy to do. It has an intoxicating mystique that helps bolster the illusion of sexiness that surrounds addiction but the best kind books to read are ones that don't involve addiction. It took me years to realise that I was self-medicating underlying psychological issues but reading things for fun as well as, and I cannot stress this enough, going to the gym.

It's a universal anti-depressant and motivational tool. Lifting weights did wonders. I'm still an addict and Suboxone allows me to live a functional life and at least I don't think about morphine constantly all the time.

>Anyone here actually battled addiction
No, I just let it take over.

Yep.

I did that too. I think the first 7 or 8 years were a fucking blast.

Alcohol addiction is fucking pathetic, most useless, disgusting and uneconomic drug

Better get addicted to phenidats or beta-cathinones

>uneconomic drug
It's pretty cheep, compared to more illicit drugs.

At my worse, I might spend $20 or $30 on booze in a day.

Any decent pill or hard drug addict spends several hundreds

what has helped me is replacement
i quit smoking cigs by switching to vape
it was not hard at all

>addict
keyword. I need 0.7 bottle of whisky or 1/3 bottle of grain alcohol to make myself decently drunk. For this price i could get 2-3 lsd analogs and get myself out of fucking orbit 2 or 3 times, not even mention powdered rc drugs like 4-ho-mipt or u-47700, cheap like a water and it will last loooong. Great, dark world is hidden from you my friend, maybe better for you, if you managed to get addicted to alcohol

probably chapters 2 through 5 of kevin macdonald's the culture of critique

amazing post.

Nameste, my nigger.

>it was a gradual process where I was making progress in therapy and letting go of the almost delusional self-loathing which I had been feeding and tending to since childhood. Still am, for the most part.
this hits extremely close to home. i've been drinking like half a liter of vodka a night and it's getting bad. i just can't handle being alone with my thoughts and loneliness and shit.

i need to see a therapist. i know my body can't keep up with this shit much longer, i've gained weight and my face is puffy as shit all the time. my bowel movements are just bad

the thing is, i really can't handle any social interaction without being drunk as well. it just makes everything so much better. i don't even overdo it. when i drink i get to a perfect point and i actually feel like myself again

This book has an entire chapter on the author's alcoholism.

>Alcohol addiction is a drug

What the actual FUCK is this?

I stopped binge drinking and pot smoking two years ago. Nearly did it everyday. Some other drugs were ocasionally involved. Self hatred made me stop all of it in one day. Of course you need something to replace it. In my case I became a Veeky Forums-bro.

>Anyone here actually battled addiction?
Yes.
>Any books that helped you through your low points?
No.

Gay and Catholic by Eve Tushnet

I'm addicted...

...to literature