lenin
Iron
- Joined
- Dec 10, 2020
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Why this thread exists?
There are ton of guides here on the harmful effects of vicious activities (f. ex. The detriment of excessive masturbation or excessive larping on the forum). But most of them are fixed towards ending an addictive behavior, rather than fixing the root cause. Why did the addiction started to manifest?
1. What is an addiction?
Rather than a disease, it is a RESPONSE, which has to do with the brain’s incentive and motivation circuitry, the nucleus accumbens and its projections to the cortex, and the availability of dopamine, which is also what cocaine and crystal meth and nicotine and caffeine elevate.
So when people say they do a “dopamine detox” what they actually attempt doing is regulating their response system by consciously abstaining from activities that disrupt the normal frequency.
Those are all related to pleasure-reward centers, pain-relief circuitry, incentive-motivation circuitry, and impulse-regulation circuits.
Addiction is a Traumatic Response.
Rather than FIXING the addiction ( f. ex. Forcing yourself to stop binge drinking), you must FIX whatever former experience led to the traumatic response, which ended up as an addiction coping mechanism.
It all begins from the Traumatic Event and not the Manifestation of the said addiction.
2. How you know you are an addict?
You start immediately feeling good, and soon after the feeling of emptiness comes back.
Take anything: overeating, gambling, shopping, kleptomania, internet overuse and gaming, excessive masturbating, sex abuse, drug abuse – all of these things give a momentary RELEASE of the feeling of EMPTINESS, replacing it with immediate pleasure.
That’s what separates a healthy person from an addict – the person will have a different response to these activities , while an addict will experience the feel of joy and relief.
The main causes are pathological ( genes ) and environmental ( family, relationships and events).Some could’ve had traumatic childhoods but end up living a normal life.
While every traumatized child doesn’t grow into an addict, every addict has been a traumatized child. Sources like the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study clearly show that the more trauma there is, the greater the risk for addiction, exponentially so.
Others who don’t become addicts end up developing depression or anxiety, or they develop autoimmune disease, or any number of other outcomes. The lucky ones that get support to overcome the trauma do not develop anything at all.
Solving an addiction is about solving your core life problems. You are coping in a very destructive manner. Only after you become aware that you are compulsively running the same addictive cycle and realize your life quality is hindered.
3. Why is it relevant on a looksmaxxing forum?
It is indisputable that looks are of Primordial importance when it comes to both personal well-being and validation / response output from the outside.
The issue with the addiction is not the external activity, but the internal relationship to it.
One person’s passion is another’s addiction – that’s why some looksmasxxers benefit greatly and actually improve their lives and their perceived value of themselves, while others continue rotting on the inside, trying to get their “fix”, believing they are diseased scum, even after they’ve fixed major failos and no amount of validation from the exterior world will convince them otherwise.
You can spend all your time and resources on looksmaxxing, but if your INTENTION stems from self-loathe, even the HIGHEST ascension will not end up making you satisfied.
Many here will tell you “ it’s over “ or “to kys”. People unironically saying this are unfortunately non self-actualized individuals who are projecting their own traumas and complexes.
Just ask yourself, why do you looksmaxx, why you’re here?
You can give an infinite number of arguments why it is a worthy pursuit (and from a proper perspective it definitely is), but if at your core you are still living from the traumatized self, going through an addiction cycle, you are denying yourself the chance to heal from the past, missing out the true joy of improving your looks, life, and living in an actual good mindspace.
4. What can you do ?
Your addictions are valid and they serve a purpose. It is not effective, but it’s a valid purpose. Accept that it is an addiction indeed, and that it comes with negative consequences .
A logical approach:
Many of you can’t afford therapy / would spend money on other more tangible things like Tren or HGH, but if you want to look into ways of correcting your life you should look into self-therapy methods such as: talk therapies, somatic work, EMDR, EFT, behavioural modification, etc.
Also you should reduce stress:
Yes we know it raises cortisol which is horrible from a looks perspective, and worsens literally everything else in the body, but it ALSO creates the premise for a REBOUND if you are an addict.
If you realize you come back to your addictions even years later, it means your stress-regulation circuitry isn’t fully developed.
Early circumstances didn’t allow these crucial circuits to develop properly. You must regulate it externally.
5. Extra: Psychedelic Therapy:
There is lots of evidence that incorporating therapy with psychedelic substances can have great positive impacts (also these substances contrary to popular belief are in fact NON-ADDICTIVE. Not that these can’t be abused or be used in a dangerous manner, just in nature they are not able to create an addictive response. I recommend looking this up, the researches and studies are growing and have a positive outcome.
If you have actually read this I hope it was useful. Otherwise, the point of this post was not to discourage looksmaxxing, but rather making it a more wholesome journey that won’t compromise your mental health.
tl;dr:
There’s a worlds difference between a looksmaxxer that fuels his pain and feeling of worthlessness and never truly ascending, from a looksmaxxer that accepts the current reality and his flaws, and ascends looks-wise and is not a slave of his past self.
There are ton of guides here on the harmful effects of vicious activities (f. ex. The detriment of excessive masturbation or excessive larping on the forum). But most of them are fixed towards ending an addictive behavior, rather than fixing the root cause. Why did the addiction started to manifest?
1. What is an addiction?
Rather than a disease, it is a RESPONSE, which has to do with the brain’s incentive and motivation circuitry, the nucleus accumbens and its projections to the cortex, and the availability of dopamine, which is also what cocaine and crystal meth and nicotine and caffeine elevate.
So when people say they do a “dopamine detox” what they actually attempt doing is regulating their response system by consciously abstaining from activities that disrupt the normal frequency.
Those are all related to pleasure-reward centers, pain-relief circuitry, incentive-motivation circuitry, and impulse-regulation circuits.
Addiction is a Traumatic Response.
Rather than FIXING the addiction ( f. ex. Forcing yourself to stop binge drinking), you must FIX whatever former experience led to the traumatic response, which ended up as an addiction coping mechanism.
It all begins from the Traumatic Event and not the Manifestation of the said addiction.
2. How you know you are an addict?
You start immediately feeling good, and soon after the feeling of emptiness comes back.
Take anything: overeating, gambling, shopping, kleptomania, internet overuse and gaming, excessive masturbating, sex abuse, drug abuse – all of these things give a momentary RELEASE of the feeling of EMPTINESS, replacing it with immediate pleasure.
That’s what separates a healthy person from an addict – the person will have a different response to these activities , while an addict will experience the feel of joy and relief.
The main causes are pathological ( genes ) and environmental ( family, relationships and events).Some could’ve had traumatic childhoods but end up living a normal life.
While every traumatized child doesn’t grow into an addict, every addict has been a traumatized child. Sources like the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study clearly show that the more trauma there is, the greater the risk for addiction, exponentially so.
Others who don’t become addicts end up developing depression or anxiety, or they develop autoimmune disease, or any number of other outcomes. The lucky ones that get support to overcome the trauma do not develop anything at all.
Solving an addiction is about solving your core life problems. You are coping in a very destructive manner. Only after you become aware that you are compulsively running the same addictive cycle and realize your life quality is hindered.
3. Why is it relevant on a looksmaxxing forum?
It is indisputable that looks are of Primordial importance when it comes to both personal well-being and validation / response output from the outside.
The issue with the addiction is not the external activity, but the internal relationship to it.
One person’s passion is another’s addiction – that’s why some looksmasxxers benefit greatly and actually improve their lives and their perceived value of themselves, while others continue rotting on the inside, trying to get their “fix”, believing they are diseased scum, even after they’ve fixed major failos and no amount of validation from the exterior world will convince them otherwise.
You can spend all your time and resources on looksmaxxing, but if your INTENTION stems from self-loathe, even the HIGHEST ascension will not end up making you satisfied.
Many here will tell you “ it’s over “ or “to kys”. People unironically saying this are unfortunately non self-actualized individuals who are projecting their own traumas and complexes.
Just ask yourself, why do you looksmaxx, why you’re here?
You can give an infinite number of arguments why it is a worthy pursuit (and from a proper perspective it definitely is), but if at your core you are still living from the traumatized self, going through an addiction cycle, you are denying yourself the chance to heal from the past, missing out the true joy of improving your looks, life, and living in an actual good mindspace.
4. What can you do ?
Your addictions are valid and they serve a purpose. It is not effective, but it’s a valid purpose. Accept that it is an addiction indeed, and that it comes with negative consequences .
A logical approach:
- Addictions arise when you try to soothe the emotional pain. Therefore the problem stems from where the pain is coming from. How did this pain arise? Most of us lost the sense of power to our lives from early childhood , therefore we have to dig deep there.
Then it gets easier to just see the whole thing building up to the point of where you are today. - With the acquired sense of Clarity you can see how this enslavement to the addiction has not been serving you.
There is no magic solution to this , but once you understand that addiction comes from trauma, and trauma is not the traumatic action inflicted on you but rather the INTERNAL impact that caused the discomfort to be in the present moment BECAUSE the present is too painful.
Trauma is the root of addiction, and not unregulated behavior.
Many of you can’t afford therapy / would spend money on other more tangible things like Tren or HGH, but if you want to look into ways of correcting your life you should look into self-therapy methods such as: talk therapies, somatic work, EMDR, EFT, behavioural modification, etc.
Also you should reduce stress:
Yes we know it raises cortisol which is horrible from a looks perspective, and worsens literally everything else in the body, but it ALSO creates the premise for a REBOUND if you are an addict.
If you realize you come back to your addictions even years later, it means your stress-regulation circuitry isn’t fully developed.
Early circumstances didn’t allow these crucial circuits to develop properly. You must regulate it externally.
5. Extra: Psychedelic Therapy:
There is lots of evidence that incorporating therapy with psychedelic substances can have great positive impacts (also these substances contrary to popular belief are in fact NON-ADDICTIVE. Not that these can’t be abused or be used in a dangerous manner, just in nature they are not able to create an addictive response. I recommend looking this up, the researches and studies are growing and have a positive outcome.
If you have actually read this I hope it was useful. Otherwise, the point of this post was not to discourage looksmaxxing, but rather making it a more wholesome journey that won’t compromise your mental health.
tl;dr:
There’s a worlds difference between a looksmaxxer that fuels his pain and feeling of worthlessness and never truly ascending, from a looksmaxxer that accepts the current reality and his flaws, and ascends looks-wise and is not a slave of his past self.
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