Confusing indeed. Didn’t anyone in their marketing point out that maybe “4o” and “o4” are way too similar?

Yes, 4o can be quite wordy, but the voice chat model is much more brief. The voice chat model also is more than just text-to-speech; it correctly uses intonation to signify meaning.

Some of the o4 variants do stick to the facts. They are quite annoying sometimes, because they resist correction. It's almost as if admitting wrong requires empathy.

But I like it as GP used it. It's like a portmanteau of psychotic sycophancy

> Have my healthy living behaviors jeopardized my studies, finances, or career?

I have met people who are so deep into healthy living that it becomes unhealthy, and their hyper focus on what is healthy - often, these days, fed by TikTok influencers, but when I was younger, fed just as much by books - leads to obsessing over what they can eat to the point of malnourishment.

So the answer to this question very much can be "yes". Humans can get addicted to all kinds of things. Healthy eating is only a few steps away from an eating disorder, in the same way that going out for drinks with friends is only a few steps away from alcoholism. Most people will never take those few steps, but for those who do, it can become a serious problem.

Whoa. I've never heard anyone put the flow state in this category.

On the one hand, it sounds preposterous - a bit like saying you're addicted to consciousness, or meditation. On the other, I can relate to how my enjoyment and pursuit of it strains my relationships with others.

It's a fascinating suggestion. I'd like to hear more about why you feel that way.

Are you rich at least?

You are not alone! I used programming flow state as pain management for a decade.

Its one of those "paid for your mental disorder" situations that are a lot more common than people realize.

Okay, but the therapy industry is also a total grift. So I guess the trick is to reinforce your external locus of control by blaming your trauma, so that you go to a pseudoscience practitioner who will fix the problems that were created for you? That way they've got a lifelong customer!

That sounds like basic woo-science.

You're right. For substance additions the cause could be something like a toxic relationship or job stress.

As soon as I put my smartphone away I realise I'm confronted with challenging feelings: the fear of engaging with the people around me, worrying what they're thinking, looking stupid if I'm not doing anything, or just plain boredom. So it's "avoiding psychological difficulty" that is the fundamental factor.

The idea of repressed memories is very popular with untrained general public, but it’s not a substantiated research topic.

Like the comment above said, many “repressed memories” are actually false memories or, in rare cases, false stories that get constructed and encouraged by a misleading therapist who is convinced that some repressed memory exists and pushes too hard to get the patient to “remember” something. When the only way to satisfy the other party is to come up with a story, many people will eventually come up with a story and even believe it themselves.

The same thing happens with false confessions.

> Trauma only appearing in super-deep going therapy sessions can often be False Memory Syndrome, which is an entirely different can of worms and extremely problematic

It is problematic, but not in the way that you think. While memories can be suggestively altered or created by questioning, the evidence for doing so for traumatic childhood sexual abuse is anecdotal and those anecdotes were pretty heavily cherry picked by the clearly biased FMSF, which was run as a support and advocacy group for parents accused of abuse.

That said, my understanding is that in general, dwelling on traumatizing experiences isn't beneficial to recovery. There are times they may need to be confronted and processed, but generally if it isn't causing a problem, don't go digging it up and spending a lot of time thinking about it unnecessarily.

Man, you're being disingenuous as can be. Not all addiction is the same, and some are much easier to break than others. However, sugar addiction can lead to some very traumatic experiences at the dentist.

The therapy industrial complex at it again /s

IME, there's usually not a moment of absolute clarity where I know what's wrong with me. Instead it's a lot of wandering, digging, and, very occasionally, finding little nuggets of info and wondering, "what the hell do I do with this knowledge?" Gradually, what happens is the process of doing this helps you understand yourself, which, over time, can change perceptions and actions.

The clarity usually comes in retrospect for me.

But what if the addiction isn't rooted in trauma? My mom smoked a few cigs when she was pregnant, which probably caused some mild ADHD symptoms, so when high school rolled around and I began experimenting with drugs to quell those symptoms, the ADHD medication felt best. If that medication felt good, I wondered what the others would feel like, so it started me down the path of addictive behavior during my formative years.

Where is the trauma in that scenario? The brain damage from the cigs? I can hardly get over that 'trauma' since I've never known a world without it. The trauma of repeatedly getting addicted to things? I DON'T hold that against myself, I just like how they feel. Where is the trauma in that scenario?

It’s actually not very helpful, because it entirely externalizes the problem.

It can get people started on therapy because it uses therapy speak and therefore feels like therapy is an obvious solution. However, it also makes the person into a victim of external trauma while minimizing their own role in the choices that led to the addiction.

It’s really appealing for people who need something external to blame, but it’s less helpful in getting at the root of behavioral issues that aren’t really external.

For the narrow slice of patients who actually have severe trauma response issues, it can be helpful. For everyone else it’s becoming a big distraction.

This tends to be a really frustrating conversation because it's different for different people. Some find the trauma framework as useful in recovering, other find it useful because it allows them to blame other people and sink deeper into addiction. Others yet find that it doesn't really apply to them.

I don't think it's a good framework, because trauma is about the past. Whereas for addiction or other avoidant or self-destructive behavior, the tigers are often still around.

Do you have a reference for that?

That's awesome, just please don't tell other people that its the only way. Which has been my experience with 12 step people.

Its the most unscientific method of treating addiction we have, one of the least effective, yet the government literally uses it as its ONLY tool (in a lot towns) to fight addiction in their communities, partly because propagandists of the 12 step methods have ingrained the idea that its the only thing that works into society (USA), when in fact, it is the opposite. My guess is, they like or don't care about recidivism also.

I think the decentralized community-based nature of 12 steps programs is cool though, and we do need more stuff like that.

Please don't confuse evidence-based therapy like CBT with evidently badly working acts of pseudo-psychology such as psychoanalysis (Which, interestingly enough, isn't even much of a thing in most of the world, just the US seems to have continously kept it as accepted form of therapy despite all evidence to the contrary).

CBT in particular is about learning to cope and fixing problem-inducing behaviours and thought patterns. Not about talking about the deepest pieces of problems, since that doesn't aid healing. Often, it does quite the opposite.

You seem to have quite a few opinions others want left internal, but you dont seem to consider that here. Some of the things you imply are quite monstrous. I go to therapy because I dealt with years of physical abuse and starvation. The monster lurked in others with bad impulses, not me.

I think this might be the saddest take I’ve ever seen on hacker news.

My guess is you had a bad experience (or multiple) when seeking therapy and you’ve elected to write off the entire exercise as useless as a result. Or maybe it’s ideological underpinnings - I’ve seen a lot of that with some of my more conservative associates who think it’s about taking charge of your life and simply making the necessary changes - driving your skepticism. I can’t say but I can tell you that this is terrible advice and nobody should listen to it.

> Accepting that we are just the result of random thermodynamic processes in a cold and uncaring universe that provides no evidence that there is any form of "higher power" than uncaring entropy could very well be the definition of modern atheism.

and then your further rejection of the response:

> The person I am talking about chose their child's well-being and safety as their "higher power".

i understand you see the universe as uncaring, but there is care right in front of you. i hope the sunshine breaks through and you find it, too.

> The rejection of any "higher power" is precisely what being an atheist is for a lot of us.

The person I am talking about chose their child's well-being and safety as their "higher power".

The higher power has nothing at all to do with religion unless you want it to.

Sounds like those thermodynamics processes are your higher power then? You're overthinking it.

> The rejection of any "higher power" is precisely what being an atheist is for a lot of us. Accepting that we are just the result of random thermodynamic processes in a cold and uncaring universe

I’m somewhere between atheist and agnostic. My mental model is a bit different. While I don’t believe there is a god or some “divine entity”, I do see “the stuff of primordial existence” as some kind of “higher power” to the extent that I’m a product of it, and its laws — discovered and yet to be discovered — govern my existence. Not some anthropomorphic entity.

Put another way, those thermodynamic processes and whatever factors of existence that enable/govern them are the “higher power”, and I don’t think that is incompatible with atheism.

Then your higher power is logic and reason, and the question:

"Why are you doing this?" Give it the old 5-whys.

Your thermodynamic gubbins know how to enjoy the entropy while they're temporarily in this configuration without booze too.

Or just die in pain when your liver gives in, all good options.

> uncaring entropy

So then if you were to consider a higher power in that case it could be the set of all permutations of stochastic possibilities in the universe, or something like that. The system itself is powerful, and is "higher" than the individual.

Isn't atheism a rather big umbrella term? There's things all the way from secular humanism to agnostic atheism to new atheism to nihilism. There's many atheists who find purpose in a higher calling, such as taking care of the poor, or wonderment of the universe. Would those not be considered a "higher power"?

EDIT: one more thought: you can even think of a higher power as emergent behavior of individual parts.

the rejection of a higher power is insane - how do you rationalize anything coming into being? How do you rationalize there being a world at all in the first place?

A higher power isn't a man in the sky building the world in 7 days. A higher power is admitting that you do not know reality, that we are barely more intelligent than a monkey, and that the universe is much vaster and more mystical than what can be defined in a physics textbook.

> It seems strange that one of the steps is admitting you have no control over your addiction. I feel like the first step should be deciding that you do.

If you do, you wouldn't be addicted, now would you?

Admitting you have no control is how you stop having “just 1 drink”… because you don’t have control.

You are taking the “no control” thing too literally.

I agree.

Seems like the first step should be understanding that you CAN have control over it, even if you don't currently; and that you have the agency and strength to do that without appeal to some higher power.

The admitting you have no control sounds fatalistic to me and robs you of agency/responsibility. Then you're reliant on some externality or higher power instead of finding it within yourself.

Even those who go for the higher power are ultimately doing it themselves, they've just kidded themselves something else is involved, and if that helps you find that you can have some control over it, then great, I guess?

Part of taking control is first admitting that you are not currently in control. Believing you are in control leads to the classic "I can stop anytime I want to" or "just one drink won't hurt". Recognizing that you can't control it is how you recognize that yes, that one drink will hurt.

“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>.

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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.

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edit - i’m not into the whole jeebus thing FYI

You read these comments incorrectly

A lot of people don't see religion as a self replicating cultural program that benefits its biological host. It provides answers for the unanswerable. It is like L_2 norm based regularization in machine learning. You need an answer and there are many solutions, so you have to have a criteria for picking one.

Turns out in the last few centuries a lot of unanswerable questions have found answers rooted in scientific progress and the new answers conflict with the previous answers, which by their very function as placeholders could not have been correct.

> It's like seeing atheists as a bit disabled

They are seen as disabled, i.e., lacking the moral core. An atheist, the thinking goes, can't be a moral person. The US political (if not cultural) mainstream has been anti-secular for quite some time. Remember George Bush Sr? He had a memorable exchange with a reporter during his presidential campaign, where he made his views clear[1]. He was only mildly exceptional in being very direct, not in the way of thinking.

[1] https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/George_H.W._Bush_and_t...

AA is less anarchic in practice than is principle.

AA being used by the justice system puts it at odds with anarchy, as anarchy is whatever you and your group want it to be, which is somewhat incompatible with state-mandated fill-in-the-blank.

Bill W. wanted to introduce LSD to AA in order to help folks understand what he meant by higher power, but the centering of Judeo-Christian ideology by other early AA members almost pushed Bill W. out of his own group.

AA was subverted long ago from within by the status quo it attempted to break free from. Whether or not it functions as an alcoholic support group is a separate issue.

I’ve written more about this before on HN:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44294352

Proper (most) of the facilities which do this require people to stop drinking for at least few days before procedure, and some offer paid service isolating patient for a few days under supervision, and then do a block. In cases when patient is already delirious from intoxication these facilities can force one to go cold turkey, but at the same time put patient on the IV with some supplements and issue anti-psychotics (by doctors of course).

So in general the system is well equipped to not allow patients die from abstaining.

If you get DTs after drinking for months, you will get proper medical treatment as in any other country. The "coding" is usually performed after you have been sober for some time and "stabilized", so to say.

There wouldn't be any evidence that these groups, specifically AA have embedded themselves into the government and law system of the united states in particular and have used their influence to force non-religious people to join their little cult meetings, right? It's all optional of course!

Anyway, here's a list of court cases/news articles where it wasn't:

https://www.courthousenews.com/atheist-fights-court-ordered-...

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/08/alcoholics-ano...

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/1995/jul/15/aa-probatio...

https://aaagnostica.org/2014/10/17/atheist-punished-for-reje...

I'm sure you can find 20 more easily. Glad i'm not american.

I have been. There is plenty of God and God adjacent talk. This constitutes pushing.

Its Christianity with the serial numbers filed off. Pass.

My sobriety has its roots in not drinking. Not some higher power.

>While some have members who aren't religious, the 12 steps are a religious doctrine.

I found groups that weren't religious, but if you go to an AA meeting you are participating in religious rites masquerading as addiction therapy. The placebo effect makes it work for some small number who keep going to meetings, and attributes magical healing powers to those groups and their rites, as cults do. The folks I met there were mostly really nice, and they were usually trying to downplay the fact that the 12 steps and all the structures around it are an embodiment of Protestantism.

Like Higher Powers, the Disease Model of AA is also religious doctrine, and particularly pernicious. The system (regardless of the group or their intents) pushes learned helplessness to keep people in the cult where they all see themselves as inherently deficient in a way that forms a group identity, attributing participation in the group and it's religious rites of confession (sponsor) and penance (the resentments business) to spiritual healing.

Personally I find it a repugnant organization that preys on the vulnerable to get them to join a cult rather than deal with their problems.

Anyway, I'm doing great thanks. I don't have a disease, and things are going well, I use some drugs in moderation when they're fun, and don't attribute liking the sensation with any kind of narrative about that being a spiritual disease. Liking drugs is just part of being a normal healthy human, moderation is the key.

All the best to you as well, good luck out there.