Reddit mentions of Man's Search for Meaning

Dude, that's a lot of pain to deal with. The only non-disabled family you have are your parents, and it seems like they are simply overwhelmed. I can't imagine the pain and grief they must go through every minute of every day just dealing with the massive struggle they go through every day.

Sincerely, I hope you can escape this and find a way to not drown. I really don't know how you will do it, but I hope you do.

If it helps to write confessions like this, do it. If it helps to write angry stories and then destroy them, do it. If you can afford a psychologist, go see them. You need every strategy you can find.

This book helped me through a dark place in my life. Maybe it can help you: Man's Search for Meaning

The term "addiction" is kind of loaded. Clearly the brain centers involved in addictions to heroin or cocaine are also involved in normal life. On a purely physiological basis, love is an addiction. So I'm with Seinfeld when he says, there's no such thing as sex addiction. We are all sex addicts, which generally bodes well for the survival of the species.

To take the 30,000 foot view, consider the possibility that addiction and depression share a common antecedent: that both are caused by a defect in the brain's reward system that manifests in adolescence. Causing the patient to have a blunted response to pleasurable things, to the point where it's even hard to imagine being happy. Depression is more complicated than addiction -- in depression you can have a disorder of energy regulation, and a disorder of cognition. But in both cases, the patient is incentivized to stimulate the reward center of the brain directly with drugs. Life itself isn't enough.

Unfortunately, antidepressants don't strike right at the heart of the matter. Typically they improve thinking, they don't directly affect the reward center. Any drug that does will eventually turn you into a rat pressing a bar; eventually the drug is enough; you choose to engage with the drug rather than life.

Well, it's enough until it isn't, which is another facet of addiction. Which is, that the brain resists the drug, does everything it can to resist its action. So in the case of opioids, which stimulate the reward center in the brain, and sedate the anxiety center, over time the reward center becomes even more numb and the anxiety center becomes even more over-activated. You wind up more depressed and anxious than you were to begin with, and plus you're hooked. Meaning, removing the drug at that point makes things unbearably bad.

This is true for cocaine, which stimulates the reward center directly, cutting out the middle-man so to speak. Also true for Xanax, which like heroin gets into both the reward center and the anxiety center, moreso the latter.

Emperor's New Drugs More about antidepressants than addiction but good discussion of the parallels between addiction and depression, and touches on spiritual issues like hope

Mad in America This guy is making hay discussing oppositional tolerance, and lambastes the pharmaceutical industry for putting profits first. The website is an iconoclast's dream.

I've approached the question in a bit of an unconventional manner, partially because addition, like depression, is multifactorial. The bio-psycho-social approach has merit. Clearly there are biological factors having to do with the brain's reward center, what's wrong with it to begin with, and what happens after prolonged drug exposure. I imagine most responses will take this tack. There's a psychology to addiction (which people don't talk about much these days). And there's a social component as well, note the parallel between the burgeoning number of people who have "given up" looking for work, and the addiction epidemic. I would submit that model, while valid up to a point, is incomplete. Both addiction and depression have a spiritual dimension, and we will never wrap our head around those things until we take that into account.

With that in mind, I'll say that Man's Search for Meaning is, by a wide margin, the most helpful book on mental health I've ever read.

ETA

That said, given an individual who is susceptible, what makes a chemical addictive is

- how much the drug stimulates the reward centers, and suppresses the anxiety centers

- how quickly it does so

- whether it induces tolerance

- how it induces tolerance (oppositional tolerance is worse than just not working anymore)

- whether the drug activates satiety centers, directly or indirectly (because of side effects).

So, cigarettes are more addictive than chewing tobacco, because one hits a lot faster than the other. Heroin more addictive than codeine, ditto. Prozac is less addictive than MDMA (what's usually in "ecstasy" or "molly") because antidepressants don't whack the reward center like MDMA does. MDMA is less addictive than amphetamine, because MDMA is more likely to just stop working, whereas amphetamines are more likely to induce oppositional tolerance. Alcohol is less addictive than Xanax, because most people get tired of all the puking. Buprenorphine less addictive than oxycodone; while both stimulate the reward center, the former directly stimulates satiety centers as well (leading to speculation that buprenorphine might turn out to be a great antidepressant)

Thought questions.

​

1. Given this conceptual framework, is cannabis addictive? Don't give me a counter-example, like, "I had a buddy who was a total pot-head." I had one patient who was addicted to water, to the point where he had to be hospitalized, several times. What effect does cannabis have on the reward center over time? Do people become tolerant to cannabis over time? If so, to what effects? Do people "fiend" for it usually? Is it more addictive than cocaine or meth? (The DEA thinks so...)
   
2. Are video games addictive? What about Facebook? The CTO of Facebook says it is addictive, intentionally so. How?
   
3. Is porn addictive? Casual sex? Is love truly an addiction, as we have defined it? If not, why not? (Is sex always just a matter of just pressing the bar? Is it ever?)
   
   ​

You've asked a big question. I would suggest reading something like Viktor Frankl: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009U9S6FI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Man's Search for Meaning. I've just started it, but it started resonating in the first couple pages. My physical therapist recommended it to me, saying he read it several times after his dad passed. It's somehow not as dark as it sounds. It's more about the psychology of what he went through and the philosophy extracted from that.

Also, Way of the Peaceful Warrior has always clicked with me.

• Emotional Intelligence
  
• Leadership and self deception
  
• Man's search for meaning
  
• Taming your gremlin

> I believe it's our responsibility to liberate everyone we can of their mental anguish and suffering.

Just to play devil's advocate for a bit...

I don't think it's possible for anyone to be RESPONSIBLE for someone else's liberation.

In my experience, most people won't even participate in their own rescue — despite how much effort is exerted by well meaning folks like you.

Conversely, you cannot stop someone who is seeking liberation either, because, they will liberate themselves one way or another — regardless of the price.

What we can do is live our lives joyfully and happily and that alone will have a positive ripple effect through everyone you come into contact with.

...and eventually, what will happen is, you'll run into someone who is suffering and in agony (most of which is self inflicted) and they'll get inspired and will wonder if there are any other alternatives than what they've been living.

Since your presence and approach to life is demonstrably more joyful than theirs — a small percentage of people will actually consider it and get on the same path as you.

But, THEY must come to this realization on their own volition — not because someone marketed it to them.

The fact of the matter is happiness is a choice.

We've been lead astray to believe otherwise because our parents (and teachers and culture) inadvertently conditioned us to please them (by being polite, getting good grades, behaving, making our bed etc) in exchange for approval/happiness.

Even Jefferson fucked up by saying "....Life, Liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness....".

PURSUING happiness implies that you're starting from UNHAPPINESS — because the entire reason for pursuing anything is to fill a void.

So, even that is deeply rooted into our culture.

Also, pain is guaranteed in life, but suffering is 100% optional.

Plus, if you don't figure out a way to TRANSMUTE your pain into a greater version of yourself — you will end up TRANSMITTING that pain to someone else.

This is what Freud called the repetition compulsion — and almost EVERY parent I know (unknowingly) does it with their children by passing on their trauma/baggage to the next generation.

Pretty sad.

Go read Man's search for meaning if you want to learn how a master deals with pain.

So, Re: Liberating everyone — don't bother, because it's a full time job that will leave no time for your own life.

Sometimes, people need enough pain to wake them up from this matrix.

You can't heal yourself until you are sick of your sickness.

It's what Eckhart Tolle calls the PAIN BODY — and how he recovered from his lowest point is an excellent (and relevant) example.

See:

There was a young man walking down the street and happened to see a old man sitting on his porch.

Next to the old man was his dog, who was whining and whimpering.

The young man asked the old man “What’s wrong with your dog” The old man said “He’s laying on a nail”.

The young man asked “Laying on a nail?, Well why doesn’t he get up?” The old man then replied “It’s not hurting bad enough.”

Well, I totally get the different lenses you are looking through. I would say that you may be mixing up the terms "happiness" and "meaning." They overlap, but they are different. Some people think they really want happiness - physical pleasure, material wealth, etc. But what they really want is meaning. Your friend has happiness available to him. But on the other hand he probably lacks meaning or purpose. He is disconnected. Just a thought.

The Power of Meaning is a good read that touches on why there is a lot of depression in 1st world countries and not too much in developing ones. Man's Search for Meaning is of course the classic in general.

> Is this just a normal shuffling of life priorities that occurs at this stage of sobriety?

Probably. Hell, I think that's just life. The bottle has a way of clouding things and it can take awhile to re-acclimate facing life directly. If you haven't read it, I found this book, Man's Search for Meaning to be invaluable. (It's by a psychologist who was in a concentration camp during WWII, and how he was able to find meaning in his life even there.)

What I like most about sobering up has been that I actually have to face things in my life that I hid from for years. It's hard and occasionally terrifying, but I feel like it's the only real reason to live in the first place and I'm thankful for the opportunity.

Your friend is not wrong, but he's only half right. He's also framing how one deals with the negative aspects of life poorly. One should do their best to minimize the bad in life, or at least its effects. And, when possible, turn allegedly negative things to one's advantage. One should also do their best to maximize the positive aspects. A lot of it has to do with your perspective and what you focus on.

Everyone has to support themselves somehow. If the only available work is something unpleasant or undesirable, focus on what it affords you and put effort toward getting into a line of work you appreciate more. You can't prevent yourself from ever getting sick, but you can do everything in your power to stay healthy. Healthy eating, an active lifestyle, and getting regular medical checkups all have their benefits. If someone assaults you and you are permanently injured, you're going to have to cope with that, yes. But I'm sure any school worth attending will make accommodations for a student who was assaulted presuming they were made aware of the circumstances.

So, yes, you will have to learn how to cope with the bad things. But you also need to learn how to maximize the positive. Work towards a career you enjoy. Build friendships. Chase your dreams. All that. People tend to write off encouragement and positive thinking, and focus on the negative. But life is what you focus on.

If you struggle with this, I have a few recommended reads for you.

• Victor Frankl's "Man's Search For Meaning". He was a holocaust survivor, and he writes about how even if you take everything else away from a person, they still have the freedom to choose how they react to their circumstances. If prisoners in a concentration camp can find ways to be generous and kind to one another and bring joy and love to each other, so can you.
  
  
• Dr. David M. Burns' "Feeling Good". One of the first books written on Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), it's written in such a way that the reader can apply these therapeutic techniques to their own life. The premise is that our thoughts direct our feelings, and by learning to recognize cognitive distortions and correct our thinking, we can make large headway in dealing with depression. CBT subreddits and posts
  
  
• Seneca "Letters from a Stoic", Epictetus "The Art of Living", Marcus Aurelius "Meditations". Three books by Stoic philosophers. Stoicism was to these ancient Greek and Roman philosophers what CBT is to modern psychologists. These three books contain some of the very best summaries of this school of philosophy. This isn't esoteric, inaccessible philosophy. This is wisdom directly applicable to the very sort of problem you and your friend are dealing with. /r/Stoicism
  
  I know this was an overly long response to your question, but I hope it helps. Learning how to cope well with life is one of the most important things a person can learn. I wish you, and your friend, well.
  
  

Read The Way of the Superior Man or other similar material.

You are a total beta Brad. Your wife doesn't respect you, you don't respect yourself. You have to pull yourself together whether you get divorced or whether you stay together. So start now.

Prioritize doing what you need to do to achieve your potential starting now. If she leaves along the way, so be it. But there is no reason for you to wait to become the man you can become.

Exercise daily. For an hour. No matter what. Lift. Run. Both. Really.

Meditate, go talk to a therapist/counselor. Both. Really. This is a really great starting place. [So is this.] (http://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl-ebook/dp/B009U9S6FI/ref=zg_bs_12621_25).

What is the meaning of life? The universe doesn't give a shit. So go make your own meaning. Really. Make your own meaning--create something you can lay on your death bed and be proud of which made the world a better place for others.

Be the man. Make this your mantra. Be the man. Be the man. Get off your arse and go make the life of your dreams come true. Good luck.

Your marriage will succeed or it will fail, either outcome might be good or it might be bad--and will most certainly be both in some respects. But stop with the fear and uncertainty and go create your best reality. The rest will take care of itself.

PDF: https://www.sonoma.edu/users/s/shawth/mans%20Search

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl-ebook/dp/B009U9S6FI

Try something like this for potential answers related to Meaning of Life:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009U9S6FI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

Try this for joy & happiness https://www.amazon.com/Book-Joy-Lasting-Happiness-Changing-ebook/dp/B01CZCW34Q/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1505429551&sr=1-1&keywords=dalai+joy

I highy highly highly recommend the last book.

I've got 27 years with chronic pain & disability but I don't like to talk to much of my experience as pain is so intensely personal

When those dark dark days and thoughts come to consume you, lay in a darkened room on a bed or as comfortable as you can make it, and try some mindfulness meditation, to help with the acceptance of those thoughts, if only from a moment by moment perspective..

Because really, that is all that matters

Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning is a great place to start (link is to Kindle edition). This book is about finding within yourself your own meaning. It's about self-worth and not defining yourself with a role - like husband or, in Frankl's case, a Jew in a concentration camp.

Hemingway's Islands in the Stream is a good literary treatment of that. It's about a man whose an artist. He's divorced. His three sons come to visit him and it's the outbreak of World War II. Not explicitly MGTOW but I've always thought of it that way.

Mans search for meaning. I didn’t see anyone suggest this so I wanted to share it because it helped me cope with a trauma. So sorry for your loss.



https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009U9S6FI/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

anything by terry pratchett is amazing!

if you're looking for something a bit more life / philosophy related, you have GOT to read man's search for meaning https://www.amazon.com/Mans-Search-Meaning-Viktor-Frankl-ebook/dp/B009U9S6FI it has a very good reason why it's a classic and a book everyone should read at least once.

Richest Man in Babylon

The Road Less Traveled

Man's Search For Meaning

Things are already serious and getting more so but you don't know it. You're going to make decisions that are incompatible with who you wanted to be when you grow up without anyone saying a thing or you noticing. The foundation for being a good man is either solidified now or (as in my case) built amid the chaos of realizing I've drifted far from my self without knowing it in my forties.

All of these books are truly helpful but if you only have time for one make it the road less traveled. The first paragraph may change your life and stop you from being an entitled self-pittying child which, by and large, is how most of us enter our twenties and often thirties

Man's Search for Meaning https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009U9S6FI/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_XmGEAbW592T48

This guy survived 4 nazi labor camps and watched his entire family die. If he can maybe you can too.