As a long-time compulsive Internet user, I am aware of the emotional and psychological risks of this new technology. For now, the ability to find information faster (with certain caveats) means I actually spend less time on the internet than before.
But chatgpt for example showers the user with compliments. I'm sure this encourages user engagement, but it is eerily similar to the "love bombing" of cults from the 70s and 80s. I don't know how to reconcile the long-term risks with the huge short-term gains in productivity.
Are there any technologies or apps that are worse than others, particularly for people with obsessive/compulsive tendencies?
> As a long-time compulsive Internet user, I am aware of the emotional and psychological risks of this new technology.
> Are there any technologies or apps that are worse than others, particularly for people with obsessive/compulsive tendencies?
Social media, gambling, and "freemium game" sites/apps all qualify as worse than LLM-based offerings in the opinions of many. Not to mention the addictiveness of their use on smartphones.
However, the above are relative quantifications and in no way exonerate LLM offerings.
In other words, it doesn't matter how much poop is atop an otherwise desirable sandwich. It is still a poop sandwich.
It (and the rest of the blather in responses) is one of the two biggest factors keeping me from using ChatGPT more. But I assume they have numbers showing that people for some reason want it.
I don't even think it's necessarily intentional. The idea of a 'yes man' being successful is very common for humans, and the supply is artificially constrained by the fact that it feels bad to be a sycophant. When you have a bunch of people tuning a model, its no surprise to me that the variants who frequently compliment and agree with the tester float to the top.
I've had custom instructions for ChatGPT for a couple years now to respond in as short and straightforward a way as possible (including quite a few more guidelines, like no exclamation points etc.). I recommend setting up something like that, it helps a lot to avoid blathering and sycophancy.
It's funny how pendulum-like life situations can be. On one extreme of the pendulum pulled to its highest point on one side is abuse and constant berating. Once you let the pendulum go, it has to swing all the way to the highest point on the other side with the 70s/80s cult of everything is love, man. At some point, the pendulum eventually settles back to a point of equilibrium in the middle. Unless someone manipulates it again, which seems to always happen.
No, my simple and obvious statement was not "a deep and insightful point". No I am not "in the top 1% of people who can recognize this".
The other thing that drives me crazy is the constant positive re-framing with bold letters. "You aren't lazy, you are just *re-calibrating*! A wise move on your part!".
I don't find it ego stroking at all. It's obviously fake and patently stupid and that verbiage just mucks up the conversation.
The sycophancy is noticeably worse with 4o, the default model when you are not subscribed. My theory is that is on purpose to lure emotionally vulnerable users into paid subscriptions.
I feel exactly the same, but I believe this is not universal.
I see a similarity with the repulsion I feel when someone is being nice to me because of a job (or more generally, when someone address me "as a customer").
Not everyone react the same, and many people, despite of being perfectly aware that the attention they get is purely calculated, are totally fine with that. It's just fare game to them.
I would not be surprised if the same applied to IA obsequiosity: "yes of course it's flattery, would you prefer to be insulted?" would probably be their answer to that dilemna.
The flattery is also a turn off for me, yet I am not ignorant to the fact that even insincere flattery can be pleasurable. The voice model is even better at flattery - it actually sounds sincere!
I've never had an AI respond to me with this kind of phrasing. General psychophancy, sure, but nothing that obnoxious. I haven't used ChatGPT much in the last year though, does it speak that way?
When a company outsources their core competencies in the pursuit of reducing costs, it inevitably becomes wholly dependent upon its vendors and loses its previous capability to independently deliver. Most companies which choose this path either fail or are purchased by competitors.
The same can be said for individuals whom outsource their understanding of both what must be done and how to do it to a statistical text generator.
If you see this as purely LLM-related, read again:
> AI addiction is the compulsive and harmful use of AI-powered applications. It can involve AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, video or image generation apps, algorithm-driven social media platforms, AI-powered gaming, AI companions, AI roleplaying, AI-generated pornography, or any other
The youth is not ready. Infinite pictures of whatever you want to see. Downloaded models have _no_ restrictions.
I'm hoping at some point people will just get turned off by the internet and value human interaction more with no phones.
However, I recently when camping with some friends...nearing 40s....and the other couple kept getting sucked into watching tiktok....one showed me a "touching" video that was AI garbage.
As a counter-point, I was able to write lyrics with chatgpt (lots of back-and forth to get the right "feel"), then put those words to music with suno. It took two hours of my time, and my wife definitely had an emotional response to what was produced. There was definitely a human aspect to what the AI produced; it was personal and personalized, and it brought us closer. So AI can strip us of our personhood (especially through false intimacies), but used wisely it can also be a tool to reach parts of our humanity that otherwise might never be touched.
Nobody is ready, and ever will be. Like it or not, we thrive on the scarcity of information. But our instinct to collect it has overpowered that scarcity in a big way, and that will lead to a high degree of neurosis no matter who you are.
Yeah I think we often point to the youth because we often implicitly value them more than others, but I've seen seniors more addicted to Tiktok than any kid I've met. In some ways kids have more adaptive power than older generations when confronted with new technology.
AI helps us feel efficient, but it also slowly trains us to give up our attention.
I've been through that phase of not being able to put it down. These days I just remind myself it's fine to use AI, as long as it doesn't feel for you, choose for you, or live for you.
'''
Do I ever use AI applications to quickly check something and then discover that hours have passed?
Do I ever swear off or set limits around my use of AI, and then break my commitments?
Do I have binges on AI applications that last all day or late into the night?
Do I turn to AI whenever I have a free moment?
Does my use of AI lead me to neglect my personal hygiene, nutritional needs, or physical health?
Do I feel isolated, emotionally absent, distracted, or anxious when I’m not using my AI applications?
Does my use of AI contribute to conflict or avoidance in personal relationships?
Have my digital behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career?
Do I hide or lie about the amount of time I spend using AI or the kinds of AI-generated content I consume?
Do I feel guilt or shame around my use of AI?
'''
Hmm i answered almost all of them with Yes, but i'm also a developer using AI and developing AI apps. So not sure what to make out of it.
I would say all questions except maybe the first one, are about impact on your personal life: "late into the night", "whenever I have a free moment", "personal hygiene", "personal relationships", etc. So if you answer yes to them, I don't think you can use work as excuse; it is affecting your life outside work.
I tend to agree, with current products, at least the ones I've used. But companies developing AI products would do their investors as disservice if they did not tune their models to maximize engagement. We are in the honeymoon phase of some of these models, but there lie dark times ahead.
Interesting article! My take is that AI Addiction is a subset of Digital Addiction. A few weeks ago, I was with extended family and everyone but me was staring ‘lovingly’ at their phones. I tend towards Digital Addiction myself, and I fight back by not carrying my phone when I run errands and try to spend at least a little time every day in nature.
The Apple Watch is a good compromise: some ability to get calls and text messages, but not a very ‘addictive device.’
Does that prompt work? Also, if you don't want the flattering and over polite statements, why be polite back to the machine with thanks. Why does it need your thanks? It is a computer. It was made to do what you told it to do. It has no emotions. It does not want nor need a little gold star from a helicopter parent type of user. Just give it instructions.
> ITAA is a Twelve-Step fellowship of individuals who support each other in recovering from internet and technology addiction. This includes social media addiction, phone addiction, video addiction, television addiction, gaming addiction, news addiction, pornography addiction, dating apps, online research, online shopping, or any other digital activity that becomes compulsive and problematic.
Seems to be about general IT/computing addiction (too), which seems even better than a group focusing only on "AI Addiction". Seems like a very active effort (online calendar has multiple events per day), across multiple countries and languages.
I haven't participated (or even seen this before) myself, but as far as I can tell, it's basically a fork of AA and their methodology, but I've also not participated in AA so maybe they're different in some major way? Otherwise it seems like a good approach, take something that is somewhat working, make it more specific and hopefully people into that specific thing can get the help they need.
I've taken part in 12 Step programmes and even occasionally attended AA meetings. After browsing the site for a while I can confirm it seems pretty faithful to the AA methodology, except for the addition of the "top/middle/bottom line" classification of behaviours - because in AA sobriety is universally defined as "abstaining from all alcohol" whereas this fellowship is not proposing that members should never use the internet, so the members need to define for themselves which specific patterns of behaviour qualify as "relapse" and which are risky.
This addition is not new or unique to ITAA, as I understand it was pioneered as the "three circles" model by Sex Addicts Anonymous and has been adopted by other recovery fellowships where the definition of clean/sober is not so binary or universal.
The addiction label is a useful trick. Before criticising it, consider how labelling behaviours as "addiction" and constructing the 12-step infrastructure and community around them, makes it possible for people who suffer to find support and start improving their lives. Most of them will eventually come to understand that it wasn't "addiction" but a symptom of suffering from complex mental health problems. But without that gateway they might have suffered even more, for longer, and potentially with disastrous results.
Gabor Maté - a physician who worked with people with serious substance abuse disorders for many years - talks about how addiction is usually a symptom of some other underlying suffering; often trauma. The addictive behaviours act as a way to avoid confronting that pain.
That may apply to things like serious substance abuse, but what about things like smartphone, social media addiction? I seriously doubt everyone glued to their phone has a trauma. Some things are simply engineered to be addictive.
I guess one could argue that modern life in industrialized world is deeply understimulating, and the phones just provide an escape from that, but that's just living conditions, not a trauma.
I’ve heard this take a lot in my life. And I definitely struggle with substance abuse addiction. However I’ve looked inside myself many times to find said trauma or suffering and I just don’t really see anything of note. Perhaps the only way to discover this is through some very expensive therapy sessions, or maybe vaping some 5-Meo-DMT.
Gabor Maté is popular, but he’s an example of an influencer who has one tool (trauma treatment) and applies it to everything. His approach is extremely reductive. Many people get addicted to drugs simply because they like taking the drugs and have poor self control, not because they’re avoiding trauma.
It’s another example of something that isn’t really correct for everyone but can be useful to get people to go to a therapist and get treatment.
Trauma is far too vague and far too appealing to be as useful as people believe. Everyone thinks they have some sort of trauma, and that everything can be boiled down to trauma. Some people are more inclined to addiction and this is not necessarily related to trauma.
I distinctly remember english speakers being less annoying before this guy filled everyone full of relating absolutely everything to trauma. It just seems like a massively reductionist point of view in a world of people more complex than that
As someone with an incredibly "addictive personality", I've always seen it much more simply. I become addicted to things when there's nothing else I'd rather be doing that is incompatible with the addictive behavior. Like if I'm sitting on the couch scrolling on my phone, if there was something else I'd rather do (not something that I'd "ought to" rather be doing but don't actually want to) then I would be doing that instead.
It’s important to understand that all 12 step programs(all of which are based on AA) approach addiction as a spiritual disease, and the program offers a spiritual solution. 12 step programs also teach that addiction is a progressive disease, and there is no permanent ‘fix’, but rather a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of one’s spiritual condition. Here is a concise summarization of the 12 step design for living: ‘reverse selfishness, get out and help others’. According to 12 step programs, if you stop working the program, addiction will come back in full force.
Its also important to understand the most of the successes sang by 12 step evangalists are coming from the <5% it works on.
Im not against it but it simply is not the only cure for addiction. In fact its provenly a very bad program for the 95% that cant hang.
Much better CBT and medical interventions out there and millions of people are told every year to ignore them because of 12 step evangalist.
If the west had the answer to addiction in the form of 12 step, we probably wouldnt have the highest rates of addiction in the world and is probably a sign of societal trauma that no amount of meetings is going to help.
We could also stop gerrymandering the use/abuse line and just make a call as a society: we use drugs (most people most places most of history) or we don't fuck with drugs (most of the Islamic world, certain subcultures).
America is a Puritan origin society with a temperance faction that has been everything from writing the Constitution to largely ignored, standards for alcohol, cannabis, scripts fluctuate like hemlines: a typical adulthood will see multiple incompatible regimes of acceptable use vs unacceptable abuse.
None of that is anything to do with compassionate provision of high-quality medical care to vulnerable people (a strict ethical and practical good). Compassionate provision of high quality support is both expensive and leaves no room for insider/outsider lizard brain shit, i.e. not a very American thing to do in the 21st century.
Our society needs to get its shit together on this, not further weaponize it.
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when people "lie" about psychological terms because they feel it enables a greater good.
I see the point you're making. But we as a society do this a lot, and it hasn't always historically been good for the people who are actually affected by the disorders.
Historically, this has been done by therapists who aren't well connected to the research world. They think they find a framework that works for their patients and promote it. Sometimes it becomes a fad despite not being backed by evidence. It's not always clear what the consequences are, but a common consequence is that many people miss out on actually figuring out what's going on with them and getting evidence-based treatment.
I'm not saying that there is no AI addiction. I'll leave that to the professionals. But I do want to gently push back on the idea that we should raise something to the level of pathology because it seems useful.
And as the parent of kids, there are a lot of habits that become compulsions and where you experience withdrawal if you stop. Reading is one in my family. Exercise is something that's rewarding and you feel bad if you stop. But exercise addiction is a very specific disorder. Just some stuff to keep in mind.
As an aside—my therapist encouraged me to go pretty deep into twelve step literature. The core of it is dealing with fears and resentments. So many damaging behaviors start as coping mechanisms for dealing with these issues.
I was pretty skeptical initially, but it turns out I also have a ton of fear and resentment that I never thought existed. My stubbornness strikes again! But if you're able to deal with and process your fears and resentments and then switch bad coping mechanisms to good ones—that will improve your life substantially.
A lot of it has been surprisingly eye-opening to me.
The rebranded modern stoicism, otherwise known as broicism? Or actual stoicism? Influencers normally push the broicism version which focuses on stifling emotions to be more “successful” and focused on self interest. Not unlike what the west did to buddhism and mindfulness.
Very few people have the internal discipline for Stoicism. Sure its great and wise and reasonable, but its basically life on hard mode.
To be a stoic you have to be minimalist, have intense will power, and high tolerance for pain. How many people do you know that fall into that criteria?
I'm not a fan of stoicism, because I see it often used as a way to bypass actual emotional processing. Sometimes we need to actually fully feel and process the "negative" emotions, otherwise they get stuck in our system.
Stoicism only talks about logic and ignores the rest, that's basically the default for male engineers. It results in decisions that make logical sense but no emotional sense and a complete detachment to yourself as a human. Removing all emotions is not happiness, it's just the absence of pain.
The AA big book, as it is known. It's actually a small, but very thick book. It's the basis for all twelve step programs.
The main exercises related to my comment are writing out resentments as they occur—who/what wronged you, why that hurt and what part we may have played. Same with fears—what they are, how do they affect us.
Honestly, a lot of it is so simple, but it really forces you to think about these things.
i always recommend Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception [Twerski M.D., Abraham J] on the topic. A short and insightful read that goes one level deeper than looking at any particular substance. He focuses on the contradictory thinking that addicts use to avoid seeing reality.
Friends who go to therapy don't seem to finish their sessions relaxed, it's usually more of a shaken up state, whereas that ego pampering style of interaction you describe would surely not have that effect?
I'm not there to be healed, I'm there to talk to someone about my problems, my insecurities, the shit I can't (or don't want to) talk to anyone else.
In my current routine with work, two kids and a challenging marriage I don't have the opportunity to get an hour a week of talk with a friend. I have nowhere to vent. So what do I do?
I do therapy. I think of the therapist as some sort of counselor. I exercise my ideas there, I experiment with stuff I would not talk about anywhere else.
This is terrible advice and it’s irresponsible of you to even assert it. There’s also a bit of irony here given the narcissism required to say “I don’t need ever outside help. Not only that, it will always make things worse than doing it myself.”
The issue with discussion of 12-Step programs, is that folks that are members, are explicitly enjoined from getting involved with these types of public discussions, so almost everything that you hear and read, doesn't reflect what the actual deal is.
Something social media proved long before AI is that a significant portion of the population would consume low-nutrition socialization like Twitter all day if it lets the avoid having face to face conversations.
AI lets them remove even having to deal with humans over the Internet. It's a bit like the lengths we go to avoid moving our bodies, despite how much of life's joys require physical exertion.
AI addiction is not an intelligent decision. But changing this addiction for another one could be worst, so the solution seems to be finding why you are prone to addictions and then solving the core problem.
If not using AI means becoming irrelevant, I am happy to be irrelevant. Because that's a value of the modern technological system, and it seems to me that any trait negative for that system is actually a positive these days.
Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales. It's obvious that the modern society requires addiction counseling and rehabilitation facilities, what we don't need is even more outlets for cults of all color to pray on people in dire situations.
Just the very 12 Steps themselves are enough to show you that[0]:
> We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
> Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
> Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him
> Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
> Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
> Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
> Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
> Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
> Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
> Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
> Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
> Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
> Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales.
One of my old friends was a staunch atheist since middle school. He joined AA after some struggles.
He said it was no problem at all. They told him his “higher power” could be anything he chose, such as nature or the universe. The prayer part was just meditation. Nobody tried to push religion on anyone.
I don’t know if his experience was typical or not, but he didn’t think it was a problem at all.
I haven’t kept up with him for a while but last we talked he was still doing well, many years later.
> I don’t know if his experience was typical or not, but he didn’t think it was a problem at all.
His experience is typical. I know have someone very close to me in AA+12-step. There is no pressure to have your higher power named "God". It could be anything; the point is to have a power higher than the one over you (the addiction).
Yep that was a deal-breaker for me going to AA. I eventually just quit drinking on my own after a few years, but AA being the only option for addiction support groups in many places is a bummer.
Yup. The steps are definitely rooted in Christianity, but you can exercise them however you want. As you might imagine, most people suffering with addiction are not that religious (if at all) and the same thing goes in those groups.
What’s interesting to me about all this is it sounds like people are defending appropriating religious practices but de-mystifying them. Even though belief in god is explicitly mentioned in the 12 steps, people claim to have had success by just ignoring the god parts -
But at that point, why is The Twelve Steps as an institution still pedaling belief in the supernatural, when it’s ostensibly just as effective with the Christian mythology removed?
Why not make the atheist version the baseline, and allow members to mix in religion if they find it to be useful - as opposed to making religious belief the default, and allowing users to substitute other things for religion if they find that to be useful?
I think the thing that most atheists are objecting to, with ‘religion as default’ situations like this, is the way religious belief is treated as the norm. I remember growing up and going to church, hearing about how “everyone had a god-shaped hole in their heart” - and each person would inevitably find a way to fill that hole, but nothing would ever quite fit, because that hole was god-shaped and could only properly be filled by god.
So when you run up against this kind of language in a system that’s supposed to be helping people free themselves from addiction, it’s off-putting to run into language that coerces them into making themselves beholden to magical thinking and supernatural beliefs, in gods and higher powers. “It can be whatever you want” feels like a cop out - it’s merely a softened stance on what I described above - “everyone has a god-shaped hole in their heart, and it’s okay if you fill that hole with love for your daughter or pride in your work.”
It’s still a turn-off for people like me, for better or for worse - maybe it’s a filter, maybe I’m not the kind of person who would need or would do well in that kind of program.
It is very much based on religious hokum. While technically you can choose anything as your “higher power” your options are either embrace Jesus (which people in the program tend to be very happy about) or essentially cosplay embracing Jesus, just with a one-word substitution.
That’s why it has been recognized as religious or “based on religious principles“ in court several times. For example, in the court case Inouye vs Kemna it was ruled that NA/AA “has such substantial religious components that governmentally compelled participation in it violated the Establishment Clause“
>It's obvious that the modern society requires addiction counseling and rehabilitation facilities
is it? or is that your opinion? Why don't we look at actual evidence:
"There is high quality evidence that manualized AA/TSF interventions are more effective than other established treatments, such as CBT, for increasing abstinence. Non-manualized AA/TSF may perform as well as these other established treatments. AA/TSF interventions, both manualized and non-manualized, may be at least as effective as other treatments for other alcohol-related outcomes. AA/TSF probably produces substantial healthcare cost savings among people with alcohol use disorder."[0]
That's a great resource because it's a meta study collecting data from other studies, thank you i was searching for something like that! Unfortunately your quote is misleading as it leaves out some serious issues with the evidence and studies used. I recommend reading the "Main results" parts in your link in full.
But, it works, right? 12-step type programs are also widely-available and low-cost.
Practicing religion yields a lot of net-positive effects, particularly mental anguish and internal turmoil. Otherwise, people wouldn't practice them. With moderate practice, you can easily achieve a state of 100% internal peace.
> Practicing religion yields a lot of net-positive effects, particularly mental anguish and internal turmoil. Otherwise, people wouldn't practice them.
I don’t think that follows. Plenty of people practice religion because they’re terrified of the consequences of not doing it, because they’re have been indoctrinated from a young age to believe that to turn away from God is to be tortured in hell for all eternity. (Or in the case of some religions, you can be straight-up executed for leaving.)
> Practicing religion yields a lot of net-positive effects, particularly mental anguish and internal turmoil.
True, being religious would cause me a lot of anguish and turmoil. Just the idea that I'm not in control of my life. I don't consider that a positive of any kind. That scene from the Matrix really speaks to me and always has :)
I think for people that like it it could have positive effects. Just like team sports would have negative effects for me but positive ones for others (I'm totally not a "team player")
I'm as rational atheist as they come, and was nevertheless helped, for a while, by a 12-step program. You don't need to believe anything other than that not everything in life is under your control.
I would recommend Refuge Recovery over AA any day. It's still buddhist inspired but it doesn't ask you to believe in a deity and basically just sticks to principles of buddhism like "be nice, be compassionate, to both yourself and others"
> to principles of buddhism like "be nice, be compassionate, to both yourself and others"
Principles shared with most religions and most non-religious people are hardly a mrk of Buddhism.
Buddhism is not a theistic religion, but it still requires a lot of religious beliefs (reincarnation, enlightenment, nirvana) and a lot of concepts such as detachment.
There is a BIG difference between "not monotheistic" and "not religious".
The article in Russian is much more thorough than the English one, run it through Google Translate or something.
There are various ways it's practiced in my area, all of them can be summarized as follows: a medical professional performs some procedure (sometimes just hypnosis, but it can get more physical), which either "cures" your alcoholism, or convinces you that you're going to die horribly if you have even a drop of alcohol. The process depends on who is doing it.
It's basically just placebo and is pretty useless in practice (most alcoholics I know haven't stopped drinking for more than a couple of months), which doesn't prevent it from being widely used.
I mean listen. If humans have to abstract a belief into something to get them through tough times then so be it.
It does not help anyone to pretend that the universe is some sort of pure logic and reasoning machine and that a human can operate that way, because we are governed by and a slave to our emotions.
Religion and God exist for a reason, and that reason is that the world is inconceivably complicated and if you dont create a mental and emotional reasoning system that helps see beyond the complexity then you are going to have a really tough time.
Now, churches and cults and all that preying on vulnerable people is a whole other subject. But God and religion is a powerful tool humans have turned to for millennia.
I would invite you to look into how modern cults started. Jonestown, Scientology, Children of God, Haven's Gate, Branch Davidians, Mormonism, etc.
It's really, really fascinating and there's tons of resources out there how they get started, how they function and why. Once you understand the functional purpose of them, you'll never look at other religions the same.
Plenty of non-engineering types are also atheists with a dismissive attitude. Putting art and religion in the same bucket like they belong to the same thought process is a ... very engineer minded thing to say.
>Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales.
This is both wrong and deeply harmful. As others in this thread have pointed out, you can choose any higher power you want, whether it's a tree or the inevitable increase in universal entropy. Don't throw away the whole thing because you might have to talk to a Christian.
Free, accessible addiction help is hard to come by so it's terrible to discourage people based on misinformation and culture war bullshit.
You are mistaken if you think AA has anything to do with religion. Methinks you're just parroting what you've read without actually verifying anything. Amplifying this nonsense just causes people in need to reconsider getting help.
Have you been to AA? I have. The implementation differs in different groups and different locations. The one I went to was queer-oriented, and while they adhered to the "higher power" language, they made it clear that this could really be anything, including the fellowship of AA.
I've been to a number of AA meetings trying to find less religious groups. While some have members who aren't religious, the 12 steps are a religious doctrine. The entire method and approach are derived from the Oxford Group/Moral ReArmament, and the structure is a cultish church structure. I've yet to see an AA meetings without the 12 Steps, and those steps are religiously oriented - you are submitting to some form of god (a higher power may not be God, but it's a god), and repenting for your sins.
AA can work for some people but studies of AA's efficacy show it's effectively a placebo effect. I'd recommend against it, personally, since the organization itself is really odious and the suicide rate of AA members is far higher than people in any other treatment form, and there's been a lot of cases of sexual abuse covered up and other typical cult behaviors.
I had a friend go through AA. He doesn't do heroin anymore, which is great, but he is pretty big into Jesus now, which is a bit disheartening to see. Better then overdosing for sure.
Tell a student or software engineer they cannot use LLMs to do their work anymore. They will clutch their LLM tightly, like an alcoholic clutches his bottle.
On that same line of thinking, why not tell the contractor they can't use hammers to build their buildings anymore? They will clutch their hammers tightly. They're all tools, useful in certain situations and not others. Yes, including alcohol.
As a long-time compulsive Internet user, I am aware of the emotional and psychological risks of this new technology. For now, the ability to find information faster (with certain caveats) means I actually spend less time on the internet than before.
But chatgpt for example showers the user with compliments. I'm sure this encourages user engagement, but it is eerily similar to the "love bombing" of cults from the 70s and 80s. I don't know how to reconcile the long-term risks with the huge short-term gains in productivity.
Are there any technologies or apps that are worse than others, particularly for people with obsessive/compulsive tendencies?
A long time ago I added "be brief" to ChatGPT's custom instructions and I seem to get less blather. Haven't tried it without for a while, though.
Same, I've also had good results with "Don't ramble".
"you're a terse assistant with minimal affect."
That’s better than “debrief”, I guess.
> As a long-time compulsive Internet user, I am aware of the emotional and psychological risks of this new technology.
> Are there any technologies or apps that are worse than others, particularly for people with obsessive/compulsive tendencies?
Social media, gambling, and "freemium game" sites/apps all qualify as worse than LLM-based offerings in the opinions of many. Not to mention the addictiveness of their use on smartphones.
However, the above are relative quantifications and in no way exonerate LLM offerings.
In other words, it doesn't matter how much poop is atop an otherwise desirable sandwich. It is still a poop sandwich.
It (and the rest of the blather in responses) is one of the two biggest factors keeping me from using ChatGPT more. But I assume they have numbers showing that people for some reason want it.
I don't even think it's necessarily intentional. The idea of a 'yes man' being successful is very common for humans, and the supply is artificially constrained by the fact that it feels bad to be a sycophant. When you have a bunch of people tuning a model, its no surprise to me that the variants who frequently compliment and agree with the tester float to the top.
I've had custom instructions for ChatGPT for a couple years now to respond in as short and straightforward a way as possible (including quite a few more guidelines, like no exclamation points etc.). I recommend setting up something like that, it helps a lot to avoid blathering and sycophancy.
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It's funny how pendulum-like life situations can be. On one extreme of the pendulum pulled to its highest point on one side is abuse and constant berating. Once you let the pendulum go, it has to swing all the way to the highest point on the other side with the 70s/80s cult of everything is love, man. At some point, the pendulum eventually settles back to a point of equilibrium in the middle. Unless someone manipulates it again, which seems to always happen.
The machine flattery is a big turn off for me.
No, my simple and obvious statement was not "a deep and insightful point". No I am not "in the top 1% of people who can recognize this".
The other thing that drives me crazy is the constant positive re-framing with bold letters. "You aren't lazy, you are just *re-calibrating*! A wise move on your part!".
I don't find it ego stroking at all. It's obviously fake and patently stupid and that verbiage just mucks up the conversation.
The sycophancy is noticeably worse with 4o, the default model when you are not subscribed. My theory is that is on purpose to lure emotionally vulnerable users into paid subscriptions.
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I feel exactly the same, but I believe this is not universal. I see a similarity with the repulsion I feel when someone is being nice to me because of a job (or more generally, when someone address me "as a customer"). Not everyone react the same, and many people, despite of being perfectly aware that the attention they get is purely calculated, are totally fine with that. It's just fare game to them. I would not be surprised if the same applied to IA obsequiosity: "yes of course it's flattery, would you prefer to be insulted?" would probably be their answer to that dilemna.
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The flattery is also a turn off for me, yet I am not ignorant to the fact that even insincere flattery can be pleasurable. The voice model is even better at flattery - it actually sounds sincere!
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> in the top 1% of people who can recognize this
I've never had an AI respond to me with this kind of phrasing. General psychophancy, sure, but nothing that obnoxious. I haven't used ChatGPT much in the last year though, does it speak that way?
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When a company outsources their core competencies in the pursuit of reducing costs, it inevitably becomes wholly dependent upon its vendors and loses its previous capability to independently deliver. Most companies which choose this path either fail or are purchased by competitors.
The same can be said for individuals whom outsource their understanding of both what must be done and how to do it to a statistical text generator.
If you see this as purely LLM-related, read again:
> AI addiction is the compulsive and harmful use of AI-powered applications. It can involve AI-powered chatbots like ChatGPT, video or image generation apps, algorithm-driven social media platforms, AI-powered gaming, AI companions, AI roleplaying, AI-generated pornography, or any other
The youth is not ready. Infinite pictures of whatever you want to see. Downloaded models have _no_ restrictions.
Make of that what you want.
I'm hoping at some point people will just get turned off by the internet and value human interaction more with no phones.
However, I recently when camping with some friends...nearing 40s....and the other couple kept getting sucked into watching tiktok....one showed me a "touching" video that was AI garbage.
As a counter-point, I was able to write lyrics with chatgpt (lots of back-and forth to get the right "feel"), then put those words to music with suno. It took two hours of my time, and my wife definitely had an emotional response to what was produced. There was definitely a human aspect to what the AI produced; it was personal and personalized, and it brought us closer. So AI can strip us of our personhood (especially through false intimacies), but used wisely it can also be a tool to reach parts of our humanity that otherwise might never be touched.
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> The youth is not ready.
Nobody is ready, and ever will be. Like it or not, we thrive on the scarcity of information. But our instinct to collect it has overpowered that scarcity in a big way, and that will lead to a high degree of neurosis no matter who you are.
Yeah I think we often point to the youth because we often implicitly value them more than others, but I've seen seniors more addicted to Tiktok than any kid I've met. In some ways kids have more adaptive power than older generations when confronted with new technology.
AI helps us feel efficient, but it also slowly trains us to give up our attention. I've been through that phase of not being able to put it down. These days I just remind myself it's fine to use AI, as long as it doesn't feel for you, choose for you, or live for you.
''' Do I ever use AI applications to quickly check something and then discover that hours have passed? Do I ever swear off or set limits around my use of AI, and then break my commitments? Do I have binges on AI applications that last all day or late into the night? Do I turn to AI whenever I have a free moment? Does my use of AI lead me to neglect my personal hygiene, nutritional needs, or physical health? Do I feel isolated, emotionally absent, distracted, or anxious when I’m not using my AI applications? Does my use of AI contribute to conflict or avoidance in personal relationships? Have my digital behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career? Do I hide or lie about the amount of time I spend using AI or the kinds of AI-generated content I consume? Do I feel guilt or shame around my use of AI? '''
Hmm i answered almost all of them with Yes, but i'm also a developer using AI and developing AI apps. So not sure what to make out of it.
I would say all questions except maybe the first one, are about impact on your personal life: "late into the night", "whenever I have a free moment", "personal hygiene", "personal relationships", etc. So if you answer yes to them, I don't think you can use work as excuse; it is affecting your life outside work.
> Do I ever use AI applications to quickly check something and then discover that hours have passed?
This used to happen on Wikipedia all the time back in the day. It was called going down a rabbit hole. Actually a cool phenomenon IMO.
Used to love going down wikipedia rabbit holes.
With AI usage I actually find I spend less time on the internet or going down rabbit holes than I used to without it.
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"Don't get high on your own supply" comes to mind :P
Tbf, is getting high on someone else's supply a better option?
I think you know exactly what to make of it.
We label everything as an addiction if we do it too much and enjoy it.
But what if the thing we do is good?
Addicted to eating vegetables, addicted to healthy living, etc.
If a developer is using AI for example and they spend a lot of time doing it, and they're feeling fulfilled and happy, then that's fine.
And that's what it has to come down to: does it have a net benefit or net detriment?
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Personally, I think the addiction aspect of AI is not worse than what's already out there, it only gets attention right now because it's new.
Yeah it kind of matters how you define AI. Tiktok and other short-forms videos are arguably AI addiction.
I tend to agree, with current products, at least the ones I've used. But companies developing AI products would do their investors as disservice if they did not tune their models to maximize engagement. We are in the honeymoon phase of some of these models, but there lie dark times ahead.
Interesting article! My take is that AI Addiction is a subset of Digital Addiction. A few weeks ago, I was with extended family and everyone but me was staring ‘lovingly’ at their phones. I tend towards Digital Addiction myself, and I fight back by not carrying my phone when I run errands and try to spend at least a little time every day in nature.
The Apple Watch is a good compromise: some ability to get calls and text messages, but not a very ‘addictive device.’
Probably why i end up always returning the watch.
Please avoid starting your comments with flattering statements, respond directly. Thanks.
Does that prompt work? Also, if you don't want the flattering and over polite statements, why be polite back to the machine with thanks. Why does it need your thanks? It is a computer. It was made to do what you told it to do. It has no emotions. It does not want nor need a little gold star from a helicopter parent type of user. Just give it instructions.
> ITAA is a Twelve-Step fellowship of individuals who support each other in recovering from internet and technology addiction. This includes social media addiction, phone addiction, video addiction, television addiction, gaming addiction, news addiction, pornography addiction, dating apps, online research, online shopping, or any other digital activity that becomes compulsive and problematic.
Seems to be about general IT/computing addiction (too), which seems even better than a group focusing only on "AI Addiction". Seems like a very active effort (online calendar has multiple events per day), across multiple countries and languages.
I haven't participated (or even seen this before) myself, but as far as I can tell, it's basically a fork of AA and their methodology, but I've also not participated in AA so maybe they're different in some major way? Otherwise it seems like a good approach, take something that is somewhat working, make it more specific and hopefully people into that specific thing can get the help they need.
I've taken part in 12 Step programmes and even occasionally attended AA meetings. After browsing the site for a while I can confirm it seems pretty faithful to the AA methodology, except for the addition of the "top/middle/bottom line" classification of behaviours - because in AA sobriety is universally defined as "abstaining from all alcohol" whereas this fellowship is not proposing that members should never use the internet, so the members need to define for themselves which specific patterns of behaviour qualify as "relapse" and which are risky.
This addition is not new or unique to ITAA, as I understand it was pioneered as the "three circles" model by Sex Addicts Anonymous and has been adopted by other recovery fellowships where the definition of clean/sober is not so binary or universal.
The addiction label is a useful trick. Before criticising it, consider how labelling behaviours as "addiction" and constructing the 12-step infrastructure and community around them, makes it possible for people who suffer to find support and start improving their lives. Most of them will eventually come to understand that it wasn't "addiction" but a symptom of suffering from complex mental health problems. But without that gateway they might have suffered even more, for longer, and potentially with disastrous results.
Gabor Maté - a physician who worked with people with serious substance abuse disorders for many years - talks about how addiction is usually a symptom of some other underlying suffering; often trauma. The addictive behaviours act as a way to avoid confronting that pain.
That may apply to things like serious substance abuse, but what about things like smartphone, social media addiction? I seriously doubt everyone glued to their phone has a trauma. Some things are simply engineered to be addictive.
I guess one could argue that modern life in industrialized world is deeply understimulating, and the phones just provide an escape from that, but that's just living conditions, not a trauma.
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I’ve heard this take a lot in my life. And I definitely struggle with substance abuse addiction. However I’ve looked inside myself many times to find said trauma or suffering and I just don’t really see anything of note. Perhaps the only way to discover this is through some very expensive therapy sessions, or maybe vaping some 5-Meo-DMT.
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Gabor Maté is popular, but he’s an example of an influencer who has one tool (trauma treatment) and applies it to everything. His approach is extremely reductive. Many people get addicted to drugs simply because they like taking the drugs and have poor self control, not because they’re avoiding trauma.
It’s another example of something that isn’t really correct for everyone but can be useful to get people to go to a therapist and get treatment.
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Trauma is far too vague and far too appealing to be as useful as people believe. Everyone thinks they have some sort of trauma, and that everything can be boiled down to trauma. Some people are more inclined to addiction and this is not necessarily related to trauma.
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I distinctly remember english speakers being less annoying before this guy filled everyone full of relating absolutely everything to trauma. It just seems like a massively reductionist point of view in a world of people more complex than that
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As someone with an incredibly "addictive personality", I've always seen it much more simply. I become addicted to things when there's nothing else I'd rather be doing that is incompatible with the addictive behavior. Like if I'm sitting on the couch scrolling on my phone, if there was something else I'd rather do (not something that I'd "ought to" rather be doing but don't actually want to) then I would be doing that instead.
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It’s important to understand that all 12 step programs(all of which are based on AA) approach addiction as a spiritual disease, and the program offers a spiritual solution. 12 step programs also teach that addiction is a progressive disease, and there is no permanent ‘fix’, but rather a daily reprieve contingent on the maintenance of one’s spiritual condition. Here is a concise summarization of the 12 step design for living: ‘reverse selfishness, get out and help others’. According to 12 step programs, if you stop working the program, addiction will come back in full force.
Its also important to understand the most of the successes sang by 12 step evangalists are coming from the <5% it works on.
Im not against it but it simply is not the only cure for addiction. In fact its provenly a very bad program for the 95% that cant hang.
Much better CBT and medical interventions out there and millions of people are told every year to ignore them because of 12 step evangalist.
If the west had the answer to addiction in the form of 12 step, we probably wouldnt have the highest rates of addiction in the world and is probably a sign of societal trauma that no amount of meetings is going to help.
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We could also stop gerrymandering the use/abuse line and just make a call as a society: we use drugs (most people most places most of history) or we don't fuck with drugs (most of the Islamic world, certain subcultures).
America is a Puritan origin society with a temperance faction that has been everything from writing the Constitution to largely ignored, standards for alcohol, cannabis, scripts fluctuate like hemlines: a typical adulthood will see multiple incompatible regimes of acceptable use vs unacceptable abuse.
None of that is anything to do with compassionate provision of high-quality medical care to vulnerable people (a strict ethical and practical good). Compassionate provision of high quality support is both expensive and leaves no room for insider/outsider lizard brain shit, i.e. not a very American thing to do in the 21st century.
Our society needs to get its shit together on this, not further weaponize it.
It leaves a bad taste in my mouth when people "lie" about psychological terms because they feel it enables a greater good.
I see the point you're making. But we as a society do this a lot, and it hasn't always historically been good for the people who are actually affected by the disorders.
Historically, this has been done by therapists who aren't well connected to the research world. They think they find a framework that works for their patients and promote it. Sometimes it becomes a fad despite not being backed by evidence. It's not always clear what the consequences are, but a common consequence is that many people miss out on actually figuring out what's going on with them and getting evidence-based treatment.
I'm not saying that there is no AI addiction. I'll leave that to the professionals. But I do want to gently push back on the idea that we should raise something to the level of pathology because it seems useful.
And as the parent of kids, there are a lot of habits that become compulsions and where you experience withdrawal if you stop. Reading is one in my family. Exercise is something that's rewarding and you feel bad if you stop. But exercise addiction is a very specific disorder. Just some stuff to keep in mind.
I will ask AI to come up with the 12-step plan....
As an aside—my therapist encouraged me to go pretty deep into twelve step literature. The core of it is dealing with fears and resentments. So many damaging behaviors start as coping mechanisms for dealing with these issues.
I was pretty skeptical initially, but it turns out I also have a ton of fear and resentment that I never thought existed. My stubbornness strikes again! But if you're able to deal with and process your fears and resentments and then switch bad coping mechanisms to good ones—that will improve your life substantially.
A lot of it has been surprisingly eye-opening to me.
What about reading about Stoicism? I have a couple of close family members who are deep into recovery.
The more they talk about it, the more it just sounds like repacked Stoicism.
The rebranded modern stoicism, otherwise known as broicism? Or actual stoicism? Influencers normally push the broicism version which focuses on stifling emotions to be more “successful” and focused on self interest. Not unlike what the west did to buddhism and mindfulness.
Very few people have the internal discipline for Stoicism. Sure its great and wise and reasonable, but its basically life on hard mode.
To be a stoic you have to be minimalist, have intense will power, and high tolerance for pain. How many people do you know that fall into that criteria?
I'm not a fan of stoicism, because I see it often used as a way to bypass actual emotional processing. Sometimes we need to actually fully feel and process the "negative" emotions, otherwise they get stuck in our system.
Stoicism only talks about logic and ignores the rest, that's basically the default for male engineers. It results in decisions that make logical sense but no emotional sense and a complete detachment to yourself as a human. Removing all emotions is not happiness, it's just the absence of pain.
Do you have specific books to recommend?
The AA big book, as it is known. It's actually a small, but very thick book. It's the basis for all twelve step programs.
The main exercises related to my comment are writing out resentments as they occur—who/what wronged you, why that hurt and what part we may have played. Same with fears—what they are, how do they affect us.
Honestly, a lot of it is so simple, but it really forces you to think about these things.
i always recommend Addictive Thinking: Understanding Self-Deception [Twerski M.D., Abraham J] on the topic. A short and insightful read that goes one level deeper than looking at any particular substance. He focuses on the contradictory thinking that addicts use to avoid seeing reality.
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Friends who go to therapy don't seem to finish their sessions relaxed, it's usually more of a shaken up state, whereas that ego pampering style of interaction you describe would surely not have that effect?
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What about reframing therapy as counseling?
I'm not there to be healed, I'm there to talk to someone about my problems, my insecurities, the shit I can't (or don't want to) talk to anyone else.
In my current routine with work, two kids and a challenging marriage I don't have the opportunity to get an hour a week of talk with a friend. I have nowhere to vent. So what do I do?
I do therapy. I think of the therapist as some sort of counselor. I exercise my ideas there, I experiment with stuff I would not talk about anywhere else.
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Therapy is just the modern, secular alternative to religion.
This is terrible advice and it’s irresponsible of you to even assert it. There’s also a bit of irony here given the narcissism required to say “I don’t need ever outside help. Not only that, it will always make things worse than doing it myself.”
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Your advice is dangerous.
There is no such thing as AI addiction. It is a mislabelling, at best. A manufactured event, at worst.
https://archive.org/details/prime_intellect
Looks useful. Hope it works out.
The issue with discussion of 12-Step programs, is that folks that are members, are explicitly enjoined from getting involved with these types of public discussions, so almost everything that you hear and read, doesn't reflect what the actual deal is.
I must be an addict, I read 12 step as 12 factor
I'm surprised this is already a thing. With AI being still so basic and limited.
But I guess with the virtual girlfriends and all this was bound to happen.
Something social media proved long before AI is that a significant portion of the population would consume low-nutrition socialization like Twitter all day if it lets the avoid having face to face conversations.
AI lets them remove even having to deal with humans over the Internet. It's a bit like the lengths we go to avoid moving our bodies, despite how much of life's joys require physical exertion.
I saw that back in the day with icq. Two roommates in my dorm preferred to use text chat rather than engage in conversation.
> I'm surprised this is already a thing.
That was my thought as well. I think it's specific to (part of) America.
AI addiction is not an intelligent decision. But changing this addiction for another one could be worst, so the solution seems to be finding why you are prone to addictions and then solving the core problem.
Somehow this text looks suspiciously clean, as if it was generated ;)
On a tangent, does anyone feel bad about their HN addiction?
Addiction? I keep hearing "get the most of AI or become irrelevant", so I guess this should be tackled too.
I can't wait to be irrelevant so AI will leave me alone.
If not using AI means becoming irrelevant, I am happy to be irrelevant. Because that's a value of the modern technological system, and it seems to me that any trait negative for that system is actually a positive these days.
https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-03-21
I'm trying to find out of this website is satire or not? Is this real?
That was my suspicion at first as well, but I hope it's real because I am certain there are people who need it.
Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales. It's obvious that the modern society requires addiction counseling and rehabilitation facilities, what we don't need is even more outlets for cults of all color to pray on people in dire situations.
Just the very 12 Steps themselves are enough to show you that[0]:
> We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
> Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
> Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God, as we understood Him
> Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
> Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
> Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
> Humbly asked Him to remove our shortcomings.
> Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
> Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
> Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.
> Sought through prayer and meditation to improve our conscious contact with God, praying only for knowledge of His will for us and the power to carry that out.
> Having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, we tried to carry this message to alcoholics and to practice these principles in all our affairs.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve-step_program
> Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales.
One of my old friends was a staunch atheist since middle school. He joined AA after some struggles.
He said it was no problem at all. They told him his “higher power” could be anything he chose, such as nature or the universe. The prayer part was just meditation. Nobody tried to push religion on anyone.
I don’t know if his experience was typical or not, but he didn’t think it was a problem at all.
I haven’t kept up with him for a while but last we talked he was still doing well, many years later.
> I don’t know if his experience was typical or not, but he didn’t think it was a problem at all.
His experience is typical. I know have someone very close to me in AA+12-step. There is no pressure to have your higher power named "God". It could be anything; the point is to have a power higher than the one over you (the addiction).
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Yep that was a deal-breaker for me going to AA. I eventually just quit drinking on my own after a few years, but AA being the only option for addiction support groups in many places is a bummer.
Yup. The steps are definitely rooted in Christianity, but you can exercise them however you want. As you might imagine, most people suffering with addiction are not that religious (if at all) and the same thing goes in those groups.
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What’s interesting to me about all this is it sounds like people are defending appropriating religious practices but de-mystifying them. Even though belief in god is explicitly mentioned in the 12 steps, people claim to have had success by just ignoring the god parts -
But at that point, why is The Twelve Steps as an institution still pedaling belief in the supernatural, when it’s ostensibly just as effective with the Christian mythology removed?
Why not make the atheist version the baseline, and allow members to mix in religion if they find it to be useful - as opposed to making religious belief the default, and allowing users to substitute other things for religion if they find that to be useful?
I think the thing that most atheists are objecting to, with ‘religion as default’ situations like this, is the way religious belief is treated as the norm. I remember growing up and going to church, hearing about how “everyone had a god-shaped hole in their heart” - and each person would inevitably find a way to fill that hole, but nothing would ever quite fit, because that hole was god-shaped and could only properly be filled by god.
So when you run up against this kind of language in a system that’s supposed to be helping people free themselves from addiction, it’s off-putting to run into language that coerces them into making themselves beholden to magical thinking and supernatural beliefs, in gods and higher powers. “It can be whatever you want” feels like a cop out - it’s merely a softened stance on what I described above - “everyone has a god-shaped hole in their heart, and it’s okay if you fill that hole with love for your daughter or pride in your work.”
It’s still a turn-off for people like me, for better or for worse - maybe it’s a filter, maybe I’m not the kind of person who would need or would do well in that kind of program.
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No but it's kinda passive aggressive isn't it? It's built on the belief that having religion is the standard.
Also, many of these staps make no sense.
I don't believe in higher powers and I don't want to humbly beg them to remove my character flaws. If I want those removed I have to do it myself.
Some of the steps make some sense but there's way too much senseless groveling in there.
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This is ENORMOUSLY variable based on the specific group you wind up with.
It can be extremely christian, it can be not substantially christian.
It is very much based on religious hokum. While technically you can choose anything as your “higher power” your options are either embrace Jesus (which people in the program tend to be very happy about) or essentially cosplay embracing Jesus, just with a one-word substitution.
That’s why it has been recognized as religious or “based on religious principles“ in court several times. For example, in the court case Inouye vs Kemna it was ruled that NA/AA “has such substantial religious components that governmentally compelled participation in it violated the Establishment Clause“
>It's obvious that the modern society requires addiction counseling and rehabilitation facilities is it? or is that your opinion? Why don't we look at actual evidence:
"There is high quality evidence that manualized AA/TSF interventions are more effective than other established treatments, such as CBT, for increasing abstinence. Non-manualized AA/TSF may perform as well as these other established treatments. AA/TSF interventions, both manualized and non-manualized, may be at least as effective as other treatments for other alcohol-related outcomes. AA/TSF probably produces substantial healthcare cost savings among people with alcohol use disorder."[0]
[0]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32159228/
That's a great resource because it's a meta study collecting data from other studies, thank you i was searching for something like that! Unfortunately your quote is misleading as it leaves out some serious issues with the evidence and studies used. I recommend reading the "Main results" parts in your link in full.
But, it works, right? 12-step type programs are also widely-available and low-cost.
Practicing religion yields a lot of net-positive effects, particularly mental anguish and internal turmoil. Otherwise, people wouldn't practice them. With moderate practice, you can easily achieve a state of 100% internal peace.
> Practicing religion yields a lot of net-positive effects, particularly mental anguish and internal turmoil. Otherwise, people wouldn't practice them.
I don’t think that follows. Plenty of people practice religion because they’re terrified of the consequences of not doing it, because they’re have been indoctrinated from a young age to believe that to turn away from God is to be tortured in hell for all eternity. (Or in the case of some religions, you can be straight-up executed for leaving.)
> Practicing religion yields a lot of net-positive effects, particularly mental anguish and internal turmoil.
True, being religious would cause me a lot of anguish and turmoil. Just the idea that I'm not in control of my life. I don't consider that a positive of any kind. That scene from the Matrix really speaks to me and always has :)
I think for people that like it it could have positive effects. Just like team sports would have negative effects for me but positive ones for others (I'm totally not a "team player")
12-step programs have a 5-10% success rate.
You can also just meditate or engage in other practices that have nothing to do with religion. Religion is unnecessary.
I'm as rational atheist as they come, and was nevertheless helped, for a while, by a 12-step program. You don't need to believe anything other than that not everything in life is under your control.
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44531234.
I would recommend Refuge Recovery over AA any day. It's still buddhist inspired but it doesn't ask you to believe in a deity and basically just sticks to principles of buddhism like "be nice, be compassionate, to both yourself and others"
> to principles of buddhism like "be nice, be compassionate, to both yourself and others"
Principles shared with most religions and most non-religious people are hardly a mrk of Buddhism.
Buddhism is not a theistic religion, but it still requires a lot of religious beliefs (reincarnation, enlightenment, nirvana) and a lot of concepts such as detachment.
There is a BIG difference between "not monotheistic" and "not religious".
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Self compassion is a major part of any kind of recovery really, life is really dark when you hate yourself for being who you are.
>pray on people
bravo
I'm gonna leave that in.
What do alcoholics do for recovery outside the US?
I'm in the former USSR; this thing is very popular among alcoholics I know personally or have heard of from friends and relatives:
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Кодирование_от_алкоголизма
The article in Russian is much more thorough than the English one, run it through Google Translate or something.
There are various ways it's practiced in my area, all of them can be summarized as follows: a medical professional performs some procedure (sometimes just hypnosis, but it can get more physical), which either "cures" your alcoholism, or convinces you that you're going to die horribly if you have even a drop of alcohol. The process depends on who is doing it.
It's basically just placebo and is pretty useless in practice (most alcoholics I know haven't stopped drinking for more than a couple of months), which doesn't prevent it from being widely used.
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As Alcoholics Anonymous operates in 180 countries quite often people outside the US do go there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoholics_Anonymous#Internati...
In civilized countries? Get support from Doctors, licensed psychologist and addiction counselors. In less civilized countries? Die.
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Get proper treatment by professionals.
Die by drinking and driving, mainly.
I mean listen. If humans have to abstract a belief into something to get them through tough times then so be it.
It does not help anyone to pretend that the universe is some sort of pure logic and reasoning machine and that a human can operate that way, because we are governed by and a slave to our emotions.
Religion and God exist for a reason, and that reason is that the world is inconceivably complicated and if you dont create a mental and emotional reasoning system that helps see beyond the complexity then you are going to have a really tough time.
Now, churches and cults and all that preying on vulnerable people is a whole other subject. But God and religion is a powerful tool humans have turned to for millennia.
“Religious nonsense” is such an engineer minded thing to say.
I’m with you for sure, but the truth is systems like religion, art, design, etc all serve a functional purpose to trick the mind, calm the mind, etc.
I would invite you to look into how modern cults started. Jonestown, Scientology, Children of God, Haven's Gate, Branch Davidians, Mormonism, etc.
It's really, really fascinating and there's tons of resources out there how they get started, how they function and why. Once you understand the functional purpose of them, you'll never look at other religions the same.
Plenty of non-engineering types are also atheists with a dismissive attitude. Putting art and religion in the same bucket like they belong to the same thought process is a ... very engineer minded thing to say.
>Let's not forget that the "12-step-infrastructure" is a VERY American thing based around mostly christian religious nonsense and is by design completely inaccessible for people without a belief in fairy tales.
This is both wrong and deeply harmful. As others in this thread have pointed out, you can choose any higher power you want, whether it's a tree or the inevitable increase in universal entropy. Don't throw away the whole thing because you might have to talk to a Christian.
Free, accessible addiction help is hard to come by so it's terrible to discourage people based on misinformation and culture war bullshit.
You are mistaken if you think AA has anything to do with religion. Methinks you're just parroting what you've read without actually verifying anything. Amplifying this nonsense just causes people in need to reconsider getting help.
> You are mistaken if you think AA has anything to do with religion
Reread the 12 Steps.
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folks doing their best with what they've got, a huge portion of the population this language speaks to, your contempt is not helpful to them
I asked Chatgpt whether this was a joke. And asked Claude and Le chat for confirmation.
Results?
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Have you been to AA? I have. The implementation differs in different groups and different locations. The one I went to was queer-oriented, and while they adhered to the "higher power" language, they made it clear that this could really be anything, including the fellowship of AA.
I've been to a number of AA meetings trying to find less religious groups. While some have members who aren't religious, the 12 steps are a religious doctrine. The entire method and approach are derived from the Oxford Group/Moral ReArmament, and the structure is a cultish church structure. I've yet to see an AA meetings without the 12 Steps, and those steps are religiously oriented - you are submitting to some form of god (a higher power may not be God, but it's a god), and repenting for your sins.
AA can work for some people but studies of AA's efficacy show it's effectively a placebo effect. I'd recommend against it, personally, since the organization itself is really odious and the suicide rate of AA members is far higher than people in any other treatment form, and there's been a lot of cases of sexual abuse covered up and other typical cult behaviors.
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Did it help? Going to AA I mean
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I had a friend go through AA. He doesn't do heroin anymore, which is great, but he is pretty big into Jesus now, which is a bit disheartening to see. Better then overdosing for sure.
Transfer of addictions. We're all slaves to dopaminergic reward, even if that means preaching the good word
I'm so glad I don't use AI - at all.
Tell a student or software engineer they cannot use LLMs to do their work anymore. They will clutch their LLM tightly, like an alcoholic clutches his bottle.
On that same line of thinking, why not tell the contractor they can't use hammers to build their buildings anymore? They will clutch their hammers tightly. They're all tools, useful in certain situations and not others. Yes, including alcohol.
How can you say that LLM is the same as alcohol? If I use something that is useful a lot, it does not mean I am addicted...
Alcohol helps people get through their day and social situations.
Does Anyone else actually want more AI addiction? I really forget to use it when it could be a useful resource.
There is nothing to addict about AI