Comment by dijksterhuis

1 day ago

“just one more”

“after this one i definitely need to stop”

“i can handle another”

“i’m fine, i can go for a bit longer”

“i can stop after this one”

“the next one will make me feel better”

^ the illusion/delusion of being in control. even when all evidence points to the opposite conclusion — that one more i had yesterday, and all the previous days, was never the last one.

when your in this shit it’s basically impossible to think your way out of it because most thoughts become “a drink will solve this” or some such. that right there is the core problem. the thinking process has become completely twisted and warped into “more is the solution”.

the powerlessness is over the compulsion, obsession and delusions in our own minds around <insert X here>.

i appreciate HN is often a more technical / scientific / rational / whatever audience who can maybe sometimes value their own thinking as paramount (coding etc. takes a lot of thinking after all). that’s not a bad thing. it just means it’ll be quite an understandably large leap for some folks to understand what it’s like at the bottom of a bottle.