16 Comments

Such a good article, thank you

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Thank you for reading, Giorgio.

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Once again, great work on a fantastic topic.

More and more, I am thinking that, if anything, cortisol is the addiction. Your final paragraph suggests this is the case. And that you are being bad if you DON'T separate mind and body. I remember Georgi posted an article about an ex-combat vet who could not experience the pleasure of his being home with his lovely wife and kids. He longed for the comraderie of combat. Georgi suggested the addiction was to cortisol. Which also suggests that without it, the metabolic rate is actually very low. Clay Martin, an ex-sniper gwot door crasher, just wrote a book called Barbarian Spirit where he describes his use of psych mushrooms to re-connect and find meaning to it all. “If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” Blake. But I did think that prolactin increases from masturbation. It surprised me that the neuro-protective steriods simultaneously increased?? Cheers!

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Thank you for reading, Regina. There is an increase in prolactin, but I think the rate at which it increases and decreases is mediated by thyroid function and won't be an issue for someone with a vigorous metabolism.

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Ah. I have to remind myself that.

So interesting.

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fascinating. so in another sense...

addiction media vilifies the negative consequence of a substance use while misunderstanding that the pleasure-part might correspond to basic biological processes.

and if i got it right. it's the addiction that reveals a potential lack, not the pleasure.

Ie. i might like to smoke weed occassionally because it feels good but if it has no "pull" over me it's because my body has not identified it's stimulus as a way to return to homeostasis and fix my "lack."

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Apart from the opioids, I think the negatives are strongly exaggerated because even for something like alcohol, the presence of PUFA and endotoxin greatly amplify whatever slight detriment it'd have produced. I think the pleasure also to a degree reveals a low metabolism. When I first tried penicillin, it produced great euphoria but as the baseline health increased, additional doses did not produce a similar effect.

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Ooooh. Ok. How about the universal addictive substance: content/tech/smartphone?

I think it slips under radar cause no one would "kill" for youtube like an addict might for a strong drug. But it's so difficult to put down nonetheless...

Btw. Penicillin? I didnt know it felt good

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In the presence of real life meaning, the dopaminergicity of youtube shorts for example becomes quite boring, at least in my experience. The euphoria from penicillin is from its endotoxin purging action, the latter greatly inhibits thyroid function.

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another funnier note. girls my age (20s or so) LOVE coffee and can barely function without it...

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As someone who definitely was an addict on various things and got out of it... I PROMISE YOU it really is what the people in Peru experienced. You're literally just hungry/starving/malnourished. Like I could not stop my addictions until I just addressed the most basic thing, my body, and nutrition. Ultimately I just learned that whatever the addiction is, as mentioned in this article, is a substitute for food. Like why nicotine can be so addictive, is that an unknown side effect is that it increases hemoglobin. Root chakra issue, the most basic thing. Mother stuff. Did you eat today? Get enough rest? Sunlight? Exercise? Etc etc. The fact it's such a simple fix for massive problem... It really just makes one just sad to think about. As the whole point of the article, the lived experience really is that addicts are just trying to stabilize themselves with the best way they learned how are the time. When you really listen to their stories this because very obvious. "I needed x to feel normal". "I couldn't function without x". "Needed x to get through the day." "X made life less painful." "I felt NORMAL with x." "People liked me with x."

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I really value your work. Thank you.

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Heya t3--I'm considering non-smoked nicotine as a "work lock in" stimulant at low doses... to help me complete checklist type tasks (i have some adhd like tendencies which I am fond of, but get in way occasionally).

Excluding addiction, and tobbacco, where do you stand on nicotine as good vs. bad for metabolism? it appears to be neuroprotective, among other things

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It lowers estrogen and is protective against degenerative brain diseases in old age. I think it's okay in small amounts (as long as you don't build a tolerance to it), I know a few people who find it relieves some of their ADHD symptoms.

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Love it! Thanks T3!

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Well said on the end about bootstrap and discipline psychosis. It can be done for years, but you always have to pay the piper at some point. I sure did

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