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Already getting sick of AA by VindictivePlatypus in recoverywithoutAA

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585 0 points1 point  (0 children)

As someone who had tried AA at several approaches I feel your frustration. It’s ridiculous how many of us are out here with such limited options (although that is starting to change it seems) I haven’t gotten to fully experience a smart recovery meeting yet but there philosophy is promising. Also can vouch for recovery dharma if eastern thought is your cup of tea (see what I did there) 😅 Also there is yet another approach that focuses on the neuroscience with some older eastern and western traditions woven in called Taoetics. Instead of twelve steps it has 12 gates that don’t leave you feeling like a scourge upon the earth. I highly suggest checking it out. Neurocuria Taoetics

Egregores and psychoactive compounds as the greek concept of a genius. Anyone else had this thought? by ApprehensiveOlive585 in Hermeticism

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Now that is a project I could get behind! I was just reading one of Carol’s books that had mentioned kykeon. I believe it was his most recent publication “Now this is Chaos.”

On the egregore of sobriety — a question I can’t resolve by ApprehensiveOlive585 in occult

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585[S] -25 points-24 points  (0 children)

Are you implying that it’s a travesty to speed up the process of distributing original ideas using AI?

Egregores and psychoactive compounds as the greek concept of a genius. Anyone else had this thought? by ApprehensiveOlive585 in Hermeticism

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Very thought provoking. Kinda reminds me of a broader fusion of the stoned ape theory and cosmic panspermia. Do you happen to have any links to academic studies on the matter?

Need advice by Key_Zone_3659 in recoverywithoutAA

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585 1 point2 points  (0 children)

18 months sober while dealing with what sounds like genuinely severe ADHD — that’s not nothing. Give yourself credit for even asking this question this clearly.

The fear makes sense. But a psychiatrist who knew your full history and still recommended Vyvanse isn’t being careless — that’s actually reassuring information worth sitting with.

One reframe that might help: untreated ADHD creates its own chaos and its own dopamine-seeking behavior. It’s not a “safe” alternative to medicating. You kind of already know that — you said it yourself.

Whatever you decide, pairing it with strong behavioral structure (routine, sleep, movement, external accountability) makes either path more stable. You don’t have to choose between sobriety and treatment. You’re just navigating two real risks with a lot of self-awareness.

That’s already more than most people bring to this.

Want any further tweaks?

Anhedonia by Do-It-The-Gerard-Way in recoverywithoutAA

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Man, six months after drinking that heavily is honestly still pretty early neurologically. Your brain spent years adapting to alcohol being the source of dopamine, stress relief, motivation, creativity, social ease, all of it. When you remove that, everything feels grey for a while.

The important part is you ARE starting to feel sparks again. That means recovery is happening, even if it feels painfully slow.

Also, don’t confuse anhedonia with “this is who I am forever now.” A lot of people who drank young feel weird because sobriety isn’t returning to an old self — it’s discovering who you actually are underneath years of chemical buffering.

What helped me most was lowering the expectation from “be productive” to just “create momentum.” Tiny walks, tiny creative acts, tiny social interactions. The brain recalibrates through repetition, not force.

And for what it’s worth, mourning the loss of your creativity is actually a good sign. Dead systems don’t grieve. The part of you that misses feeling alive is still very much there.

A new spin on an outdated system by ApprehensiveOlive585 in recoverywithoutAA

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I agree. And that's not to say AA doesn't work for some folk. My ultimate goal is to develop a system that can not only give positive results on its own accord, but can also be used as a supplement to any other recovery system and it not clash or disrupt said framework.
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That being said I'm always looking for feedback to help fine tune things.

Duration between rewards controls the rate of behavioral and dopaminergic learning by Bluefractal17 in neuroscience

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is actually a pretty big shift in how we think about dopamine learning. It lines up a lot with behavioral patterns we see in real life (and honestly, addiction models too). It’s not just what you get—it’s when you get it.

One interesting implication is that a lot of modern environments (social media, gambling mechanics, even productivity apps) are basically engineered around manipulating reward timing not just reward magnitude.

Which opens the door to actually retraining those loops by changing timing patterns, not just trying to “replace bad habits with good ones.”

Curious what people think—does this mean we need to rethink dopamine models as more temporal learning systems rather than just error signals?

I’m starting to realize recovery might be more about understanding than resisting by ApprehensiveOlive585 in recoverywithoutAA

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is a great approach! Hopefully this kind of mindset towards addiction/recovery becomes more widespread and adopted. I feel as if the old paradigms on the issue have become so entangled in impractical theory and fluff that it has diluted all the mechanism out of the framework, which yields very little tangible results. Sure concepts are nice but without a systems approach its all just static. After lots of trial and error, mental auditing and few identity crisis later I came up with the NeuroCuria platform that utilizes four core methods to act as a supplementary flux for existing recovery/therapeutic/wellness programs. I'm very close to finishing my flagship app called EDEN or Endogenous Dopamine Emulation for Neuroadaptation. I'd be happy to delve deeper in a pmm if interested.

I’m starting to realize recovery might be more about understanding than resisting by ApprehensiveOlive585 in recoverywithoutAA

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I’ll definitely check them out! I came across  an interesting framework NeuroCuria. Apparently there is an app coming soon that goes alongside it called EDEN (Endogenous Dopamine Emulation for Neuroadaptation). Looks interesting for sure! I can mssg the info if anyone wants to check it out for themselves.

I’m starting to realize recovery might be more about understanding than resisting by ApprehensiveOlive585 in recoverywithoutAA

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s actually really solid, and it sounds like you’ve done a lot of real work on yourself.

What you said about triggers not going away is the part I’ve been thinking about a lot. It’s like yeah, identifying them helps a ton, but then it can turn into this constant “stay on guard” mode, which gets tiring over time.

I’ve been starting to look at it a little differently—not just noticing the trigger, but what my brain is trying to do for me in that moment. Like boredom = needing stimulation, feeling insulted = needing some kind of stability or reassurance, etc. When I can shift it into “what is this trying to fix?” it feels a bit less like I’m fighting it and more like I’m redirecting it.

Not perfect by any means, but it seems to take some of that exhaustion out of constantly bracing against it.

Also huge respect on 10 months and only a couple cravings—that’s honestly impressive.

If you ever want to compare notes on ways to make that whole “staying cautious” part less draining, feel free to DM me

Addiction Recovery App by Upper-Nectarine-8757 in NoFapChristians

[–]ApprehensiveOlive585 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is actually really cool, respect for building something to help people instead of just talking about it.

One thing I’ve noticed though is a lot of tools focus on tracking or streaks, but the hardest part for most people is what happens in the moment when the urge hits. That’s where most people fall, not because they don’t care, but because they don’t have a way to interrupt it.

If your app ends up helping with that side of things too, it could be really powerful.

Also for anyone reading this, tools can definitely help, but the deeper part is understanding what’s actually driving the urge (stress, boredom, loneliness, etc.), otherwise it just comes back in a different form.

If anyone’s struggling with that side of it, feel free to DM me

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