Thank you for the kind words i-did-it, and thank you for being active in my thread. It is really great having someone to talk to.
Day 9,
I still do not have any urges. I have money that I could use for purposes other than eating or necessities, but I just don’t even want to think about opening another site online. I’ve opened probably 20 accounts in the past, and the funny thing is I have never withdrew any money. I might exclude myself from some sites today just to be safe.
I have been doing a lot of research on addiction and brain chemistry, and it seems that dopamine is released when the outcome of an event is greater than the expected result. That line right there shows how sinister gambling is. We all expect to lose (maybe not on the surface, but deep down, we know the odds are against us). So when we win, we get a massive dopamine hit. And the brain is actually quite stupid with this, because the reward system is a survival mechanism. Anytime it finds something amazing, it releases dopamine to get our attention. “Hey! Remember this because this is important!”. However, our brain is really bad at processing the same activity and giving it a negative score for every time we lose. Our brain literally told us this is important to our survival (when we win), but it totally ignores the fact that we are hurting our survival every time we lose. Funny how that works. The brain is an amazing organ, but it does have it’s flaws. A primitive reward system is one of them.
If you guys are like me, you might also suffer from low dopamine receptors. This leads to depression. The brain was not conditioned to get massive spikes of dopamine like you do with gambling or other drugs. I read that cocaine spikes dopamine levels by 600%…600%! And the amount of time it takes to hit you is based on how it is consumed (injected, snorted, etc). I am not sure how much gambling gives off, but I do know that healthy habits (such as exercising), gives off a max of 250% dopamine, and that is gradually over time. No wonder people with low dopamine receptors can get addicted so easily.
And you guys want to know the most addictive substance on Earth? You may have guessed it, and yes, it is sugar. Sugar is 10 times more addictive than cocaine. That’s why there is sugar in literally everything in a super market (almost everything). Sugar is also closely followed by Nicotine. This is why it is so hard to quit smoking. It can be done, but it takes a lot of work.
My point is, everyone is fighting their own battles, but we may have a common theme under the hood. I feel like many of us have low dopamine receptors. The good news is that when you introduce healthy dopamine producing activities into your life (exercise, healthy diet, produce), you can create more connections and receptors. It just takes time, but do know that everyday you say no to your urges, those bad connections begin to unplug themselves, and the urges will get weaker over time. Keep going everyone, I believe in you all.
–Nick