Addiction

Having kids is what it's all about. Cant remember specifically, maybe it was the celestine prophecy which said 'the ulitmate aim of the individual(child) is to resolve the conflicting philosophies of their parents so as not to repeat the cycle' or something to that effect, so i did. And now, having kids for me is about simple economics. If i could afford to have lots more i would.

re burroughs i spose id reccomend the collected interviews.

luka said:

re burroughs i spose id reccomend the collected interviews.

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why read burroughs when you can read luka! (or soon? or should i have said "listen" instead of read...)

yeah obviously im better. but burroughs definitely knows more about addiction.

zhao said:

your comparison is from a typical materialist point of view, which is of course also the POV of this woman.

to neglect a child's feelings in trying to shape him is just another way of "simply couldn't give a shit", the effects of which can be just as disastrous as other kinds of neglect and abuse.

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No, I disagree: the woman I was talking about clearly just wanted the best for her daughter, wanted her to be successful (by the parents' standards) when she grew up. Because in the mother's own mind, being successful equates to being happy - and who doesn't want their kids to be happy? And when all's said and done, I'd rather be a highly-paid exec than an unemployed bum (which is, er, actually quite a good approximation of my current situation, but never mind that).

I don't think this woman "didn't care about her daughter's feelings" per se, I just think she was maybe pushing too hard in one direction and not paying enough attention to aspects.

Edit: and I'm sorry to hear about your experiences but that sounds like something way, way beyond what I could see in my student's life. Although of course people can be fucked up in myriad different ways...

well this woman certainly doesn't sound all that bad, like you say, just overboard.

but if you don't think emotional neglect, under what ever banner or agenda, can have disastrous results... well you need only look at those child prodigies / beauty pageant kids who turn to drug abuse later in life.

zhao said:

well this woman certainly doesn't sound all that bad, like you say, just overboard.

but if you don't think emotional neglect, under what ever banner or agenda, can have disastrous results... well you need only look at those child prodigies / beauty pageant kids who turn to drug abuse later in life.

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exactly. but his childhood problems were probably even more complex...

And, correspondingly, his adult problems. If only Jacko 'merely' had a drug problem to deal with, poor fucker.

Mr. Tea said:

Tell me about it...not me personally, thankfully, but some of the kids I've tutored over the past couple of years. Some of whom were kids of seriously go-getting, arse-kicking, high-flying moneymoney career people (you get the idea). Like this one girl of 10 or so whose mum obviously just wanted the best for her, you could tell she really did, but so many times I had to bite my lip and say "You know, you're really not going about this the right way, if I may say so...". So much expectation, it can just end up having the opposite effect by making the kid feel like nothing they ever do is going to be good enough.

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I had the opposite problem, though. My parents were (and are) very liberal and easy-going. "As long as you're happy..." types. Looking at my employment and prospects now, I wish I had been pressured a bit more to get better grades at A-level, or whatever... My sister didn't even bother doing most of her GCSEs, she just wrote her name on the exam papers. My 17 year old brother gets more shit from me just for thinking about dropping out of sixth form than they'd ever give him. I don't think my dad learned to read and write until he was about 16 and only ever reads car magazines, but now manages to run a successful small business. He thinks education is a racket even though I'd say he's actually pretty bright.

I suppose there's a balance to be had between the two attitudes.

That's funny, my dad is also the clever-but-uneducated sort, also ran business(es) (retired a few years ago at the age of 50-odd...jammy bugger...) but was always keen to see me and my brother do well at school, to take advantage of the education he never benefited from. I guess he did do an awful lot of quite shitty jobs before he happened upon something that turned out to be a good earner, I suppose. And my brother was never very academically inclined and is now earning more as an IT consultant type than I probably ever will, doing anything...me with my two Master's degrees. So it goes...

i think you lot are just whinging cunts. i could blame all my problems on my parents, my education which stops at 5 gcses, my employment history, drug issues, etc etc etc etc but my little sister is a super high achiever and everything always goes right for her. so they can't of been that bad.
its all your fault.
thats my analysis, unless you got raped and beaten and that. then i will cut you slack.

luka said:

i think you lot are just whinging cunts. i could blame all my problems on my parents, my education which stops at 5 gcses, my employment history, drug issues, etc etc etc etc but my little sister is a super high achiever and everything always goes right for her. so they can't of been that bad.
its all your fault.
thats my analysis, unless you got raped and beaten and that. then i will cut you slack.

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It's true, you've got to be responsible for your own life.
There are also so many miriad types of intelligence and achievements.

luka said:

i think you lot are just whinging cunts. i could blame all my problems on my parents, my education which stops at 5 gcses, my employment history, drug issues, etc etc etc etc but my little sister is a super high achiever and everything always goes right for her. so they can't of been that bad.
its all your fault.
thats my analysis, unless you got raped and beaten and that. then i will cut you slack.

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Yeah, I think past a certain point you are alone and have to take responsibility for your situation. I was just saying that I don't think "pushy" parents would have done me that much harm. I probably will end up going to uni at 26 under my own steam if my job vanishes.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/HEALTH/04/23/ep.facebook.addict/index.html?imw=Y&iref=mpstoryemail

You know you're a Facebook addict when ...

1. You lose sleep over Facebook

"If you're staying up late at night because you're on Facebook, and you're tired the next day, Facebook may be a compulsion for you," Lipari said. "You shouldn't be neglecting yourself because of Facebook."

2. You spend more than an hour a day on Facebook

Pile says it's hard to pinpoint exactly how much is too much time to be spending on social networking.

"I can't imagine that anyone would need more than an hour a day on Facebook, and probably no one needs more than 30 minutes," she said.

3. You become obsessed with old loves

Reconnecting with old friends is one of the great attractions of Facebook, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with "friending" an old boyfriend or girlfriend. But Pile warns that it can get out of hand very quickly.

"One of my clients met up with an old boyfriend on Facebook. They started spending hours and hours into the night talking to each other on Facebook. She made some really inappropriate comments about how unhappy she was in her marriage," Pile said. "Her cousin saw the comments and told her parents, and the parents told the husband, and now they're in the process of getting divorced."

Health Library
MayoClinic.com: Addiction
4. You ignore work in favor of Facebook

"If you're not doing your job in order to sneak time on Facebook, you could have a real problem," Lipari said.

5. The thought of getting off Facebook leaves you in a cold sweat

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luka said:

im horrified at the amount of time i spend on dissensus. its actually quite distressing. its the only thing i worry about. i dont watch tv or eat junk food or need sugar. i can smoke cigs every day for months and then stop without getting the slightest craving. drinks never been an issue. i smoked an 8th os skunk yesterday but i'll have a week or two off now. i hate not having control. not being able to decide.
burruoghs is definitely the one here, he breaks it all down so precisely its utterly awe inspiring. the same ruse. over and over. press the pleasure button! again! again!

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If you're still getting pleasure from dissensus, you're not an addict yet. Thank yr lucky stars!

Addicts don't feel pleasure, they can't, that's the problem. Their stimulus of choice is not a button pressed to get pleasure, but to stave off hideous physical and psychological agony. Until you've crossed that line, until your brain becomes dependent on the substance, you still feel pleasure from it, so you think--ha! I can beat this, I'm not an addict like all those losers. But once you've crossed that line, you're there, there's nothing you can do to go back. It's too late. You're just like all the other losers and there's nowhere to go but back to the same empty room over and over and over...

There's this weird misperception, I think it's in large part spread by the media, that addicts are just hedonists who are too selfish to stop using because it feels too good.

Wrong!

There is a huge element of self-centeredness to addiction, but it's mostly a symptom and not a direct cause. Addicts do not necessarily want to do drugs (drink, eat, fuck, whatever), they have to stay under the influence or they will get ill. Drug addicts rarely have sex, despite the media's obsession with linking the two, since they can't enjoy it anyway. Most addicts are anorgasmic. By the time you've become an addict, you are clinically considered quite literally incapable of experiencing pleasure. You have to relearn how to enjoy food, how to care about books, music, how to take care of yourself, how to focus on an entire movie, how to feel things against your skin without wincing, how to smell things without getting nauseous--everything. (When your pleasure comes back, it's applified by like a million, though. It almost feels like another kind of high to be clean. Strange.)

Addiction is being a prisoner in your own body; it's the ultimate submissive relationship.

I've heard of gambling addicts having serious "DT" like withdrawal syndrome--complete with vomiting and cold sweating, insomnia, panic attacks and tachycardia. This is because just like drug addicts they've been flooding their brains with dopamine and serotonin for long enough at high enough levels to become dependent on these high levels just to function. Take away the slot machine or whatever and they get sick just like a crack or heroin addict, until their brain rebalances itself chemically--which can take weeks to months to years.

End rant.

Sick Boy said:

Just saying. This is a bad idea. You of all people.

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Don't worry, it was just a guest appearance. You bore me to tears.

craner said:

Fine, it's a case-by-case issue, and I used to buy that. But is it true? Think about it. Yes people are fucked up, individually, but, then again we give birth to children, and have to raise them.The best way, ideally, is with a strong mix of masculine and feminine influence, and a stable background. It's ideal, and hard to instill and maintain, but I think it's been generally proved to work. All children from broken homes miss it. I mean, weirdly, I don't wish my parents had remained married, but I also miss the family, who barely exist in my case. Really, I just wanted an older sister, a key to my psychology.

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I understand the idea that people need a strong support network, especially early in life, but why would this necessarily have to come from a mix of one "masculine" and one "feminine" influence?

That's the oldest lie in the book.

I had two parents (a straight couple), and it didn't give me any appreciable advantage over my peers that I can detect. Like Zhao, I was basically a trained monkey that got attention and affirmation for as long as I made my parents look good to their friends. They came from hardworking immigrant families who took it as a huge point of pride that their own children do better in life than they did. I resent the fuck out of that and always have.

I'm addicted to chocolate milk.

nomadthesecond said:

I've heard of gambling addicts having serious "DT" like withdrawal syndrome--complete with vomiting and cold sweating, insomnia, panic attacks and tachycardia. This is because just like drug addicts they've been flooding their brains with dopamine and serotonin for long enough at high enough levels to become dependent on these high levels just to function. Take away the slot machine or whatever and they get sick just like a crack or heroin addict, until their brain rebalances itself chemically--which can take weeks to months to years.

End rant.

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really? That's interesting and believable; is there any documentation of this? I'd like to read about it, and I'm trying to tempt you out of retirement.

I do recall hearing someone on the radio saying that the physical effects of heoin withdrawal are in fact quite trivial, and that most of the horrendous trappings are psychological.