Most People with Addiction Simply Grow Out of It - <AUTHOR> http://www.substance.com/most-people-with-addiction-simply-grow-out-of-it-why-is-this-widely-denied/13017/ <comment><USER2> As someone who struggled with cocaine, heroin and prescription opioid addictions throughout my teenage years, this resonates with me quite a bit, but I'm not sure if I agree with the conclusions the author is drawing. I got clean with no help either - and yet, many years later, I still consider myself "in recovery." I view my recovery as a never-ending process; even though I haven't touched the substances themselves in ages, I'm still dealing with the consequences. Just hearing someone mention one of the drugs in a conversation is sometimes enough to make my mood plummet if I'm taken by surprise. I don't really hang out in environments where they're easy to obtain anymore, but if I ever find myself in one, even though I know on some rational level that I'd never touch them again, part of me is in great distress because I'd have a hard time saying no if they were offered to me. I think these types of articles tend to ignore the longer-lasting, psychologically debilitating consequences of addiction. It doesn't just end with going cold turkey. You need to be able to look at your thought process and identify where you go wrong, and I think programs like AA and NA give you the tools to do that. Obviously, they don't work for everyone, and they aren't foolproof, but I'm of the opinion that they still have some merit.

<comment><USER3> You don't have answer this but I have to ask, did you find some other less severe addiction to cope - like marijuana for example? I ask because, well, your username.

<comment><USER4> You can be addicted to marijuana? It's the first time I read this. Or is it just something I interpret into your comment?

<comment><USER5> Is this an honest question? I mean, really? I'm as pro-legalization as they come, but it is well documented (and well known) that yes marijuana is addictive. For example, you could start at [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_dependence](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_dependence), then [http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=marijuana+addictio...](http://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&q=marijuana+addiction), and work your way through 5 decades of research from there.

<comment><USER4> It's shocking that everybody talks about legalizing but nobody talks about that. Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> I was a hardcore IV heroin and cocaine addict for 10 years. Contracted Hep C, did 2 years in jail, and ruined every relationship that I crossed paths with.

After dozens of detoxes, jail, prison, several rehabs, and a year of homelessness on the streets of NYC for an entire winter, I had had enough.

I moved to Cali and got back to my roots, computers. I picked up HTML / CSS and started learning Javascript. I started doing websites for people eventually I started a consulting business I later sold for a nice chunk. I now have a profitable start-up and was recently offered a CTO position at a Fortune 100 company.

I grew out of it. I don't want to get high anymore. It has been 10 years. I don't drink or smoke weed, and have no desire to. I still have addictive behaviors, but it just isnt an option anymore. Posting from a throwaway obviously this is not something I am ready to share at this point in my life but just wanted to relate for a brief moment.

<comment><USER7> Thanks for your story. It must have been tough, rebuilding a whole life. Good luck.

</comment></comment><comment><USER8> I'm a little shocked that out of 124 HN Comments (at the time of this writing), no one has linked to or referenced the study in any way.

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3227547](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3227547)

Did I read it? No, but I read the abstract and intro. Study was about adults addicted to nicotine, alcohol, cannabis, or cocaine. 43k people total, about 12k people with a real DSM-IV diagnosis of addiction to one of these substances. Eventual remission rates for these things were over 90% (except nicotine, which was 88%).

The study is interesting, so let's start there. The results of the study surprised me, personally. I wouldn't have guessed the remission numbers were that high. I would have liked to see heroin, meth, or, far more pervasive in this day and age: prescription opiates.

It's certainly nice to see good news, and I do consider the study a kind of good news. The study obviously doesn't overstep its bounds or draw any big conclusions. I'm sure the people who actually did the study knew and experienced how damaging drugs CAN be in those 15-25 years before remission.

However, then we get to the article. The author runs the site substance.com and has published a book and several articles with a strong point of view about 12 step programs and the way young people with drug dependence are treated in today's society. I do think she's bending the study a little to her own aims, but I do appreciate her call towards sanity. It's a stretch, but I don't think she's being unfair to use this study to support her approach.

I don't think soft-selling the total life destroying danger of drug abuse is wise, and obviously it would suck if someone started taking drugs because they read an article or study like this, but it's possible.

</comment><comment><USER9> Isn't it possible that the issue is in the difficulty in classifying people as "addicts" instead of concluding that most addicts just grow out of it? The alcoholics in my family do not grow out of it. To a man (or woman) they just deteriorate over the years and it is a very sad thing to watch. It seems possible that what the author had and what my family members have are two different afflictions.

>Moreover, if addiction were truly a progressive disease, the data should show that the odds of quitting get worse over time. In fact, they remain the same on an annual basis, which means that as people get older, a higher and higher percentage wind up in recovery. If your addiction really is "doing push-ups" while you sit in AA meetings, it should get harder, not easier, to quit over time.

Clearly the author is questioning the progressive nature of addiction but not considering the well known issue of defining addiction. Furthermore, to my understanding the "progressive nature" of the disease is not referring to the difficulty in quitting but rather the severity of the abuse of the substance.

<comment><USER10> There _may_ be different fundamental types of addiction but what the author described sure sounded like 'addiction' to me.

<comment><USER11> It is always very dangerous and misleading to argue about abstract categories as if they were real things outside of the minds that make them. "Addiction" the label we use for a category we impose on the objective reality we observe. The OP is questioning the utility of that categorization based on more extensive observation of that objective reality.

In particular: there is evidence that the population we now group into the category "addicts" may in fact include two sub-populations, one of which "ages out", one of which does not. We currently have a "lumped model" of addiction, which associates certain additional features with the phenomenology we use to assign something to the category.

For example, if we find a person who is a chronic user whose use is negatively impacting their lives and who seems unable to stop, we are going to label that person an "addict". But the members of that category also get assigned other attributes for free. In particular, the current model of "addiction is a disease" says that anyone who fits the external phenomenology is also never going to get better without "treatment", or at best is very unlikely to do so.

But that association of "uncontrolled harmful use" and "its a disease" is a purely theoretical construct that may be wrong.

For comparison: I once worked on the genetics of a particular type of cancer that had two very distinct outcomes but which presented identically in a clinical setting. A physician I worked with described it as being incredibly frustrating, because she could literally see two patients in the same day who were apparently in the same condition based on histology, stage of the disease, everything, but ten years later one would be watching his daughter graduating from high-school and the other would have been dead for nine years. Simply because the diseases _looked the same by some measures_ did not mean they _were the same thing_.

So it could well be that the same external phenomenology is present in two quite different conditions. It would be extremely silly to argue that one is "really" addiction and other is not, because "addiction" is just an abstract category we created to subsume different instances of similar phenomenology. We could call one grue and the other bleen, for all the difference it would make.

The possibility of two quite different underlying conditions presenting similar symptoms is one that has been realized often enough to be worth taking seriously, and when it occurs in things like the cancer described above _no one ever makes the argument 'well X sounds like it is really cancer type Y to me'_. Yet when the question of addiction comes up, many people say precisely that, and I am at a loss to understand why.

<comment><USER12> Extremely well-said. I've observed different kinds of addictions in people, and I'll be damned if I'd ever think of classifying them in the same way, even if that's what a typical psychologist would do.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> From my experience and observations, most people don't grow out of being addicted, they simply shift their focus of addiction.

This often goes unnoticed because there are many people who are addicted to things that the majority of society wouldn't consider an addiction. One might give up an "unhealthy" addiction for a socially acceptable one. Or their unhealthy addiction may simply shift, from one substance to another, or one activity to another, or one interest to another.

The more I've observed addiction the more I've realized that we are all addicts. I am addicted to water, yoga, meditation, HN, reddit, coding, etc. I've even come to realize that we are actually addicted to certain types of thoughts or ways of thinking. Addiction to "negative" thoughts is what results in "unhealthy" behavior.

I am currently addicted to observing myself for potential patterns of addiction and have gone so far as to create a simple app [1] that in a way takes control of the decision process away from myself. It produces a simple "yes" / "no" response and I'll ask it throughout the day if I realize I have a choice to make. "Do I go to yoga today?" -> "No".

The process of giving up control of my decisions was unnerving at first, but the more I practice it, the more peaceful I have become.

[1] [http://www.holyspiritsays.com](http://www.holyspiritsays.com)

<comment><USER14> The coin flip decision making is an interesting and fun experiment. Sometimes when going out with friends we'll leave all decisions for the night up to the coin. It is freeing and irksome when a choice does not go the way you want.

<comment><USER13> I totally agree. I actually started out using a coin, but I got too embarrassed walking around the store, standing in front of a bunch of choices, and flipping through options. The was one of the motivations to create the app, since it is much more socially acceptable and easier to use, than catching a quarter over and over.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> FYI: I don't entirely agree with this article. But I posted it in part because I seriously loathe the AA "disease" model.

My dad drank heavily when he was in the army. He fought in the front lines of two wars. I think he did it at least in part so he could sleep because alcohol helps suppress dreams (and, thus, also nightmares). About four years after he left the army, he swore off alcohol and basically never touched it again.

I loathe the taste of alcohol and, for most of my life, rarely have touched the stuff. But I did have a nightcap almost every night for a year at a time when I was very ill and doctors didn't really know what to do for me. At some point in there, it was not unusual for me to have two doubles with dinner -- the equivalent to four drinks. So I imagine I could have been classified as an alcoholic at that time. But when I got some answers and started getting healthier, I was happy to stop drinking. Like my father, I never attended AA, never wrestled with trying to resist temptation or whatever, etc.

In my father's case, I think it helped with psychological trauma. In my case, it helped me survive illness at a time when I didn't have good answers and wasn't getting adequate medical treatment. I have read or heard plenty of other stories that look to me like they fit one of those categories.

So I think the article oversimplifies things in suggesting it is just a developmental disorder, but I am thrilled to see a piece talking about the reality that most folks drink less as they get older, without getting any treatment. I really, really dislike the AA model.

<comment><USER15> > At some point in there, it was not unusual for me to have two doubles with > dinner -- the equivalent to four drinks. So I imagine I could have been > classified as an alcoholic at that time. But when I got some answers and > started getting healthier, I was happy to stop drinking.

2 glasses of whisky a day is not healthy but it's not alcoholism.

This is a bit tricky to describe but I'll do my best: let's assume you had two US doubles per day. Wikipedia says that 89 ml per drink. Let's round that up to 100 ml each drink. English public health has a concept of "units" to describe drinking amounts.

200 ml * 40 (the ABV of spirits) = 8 units per day.

Recommended safe limits are 3 to 4 units per day (without saving up to binge). You should try to have a couple of drink free days each week.

So, 8 units per day is over that level and increases the risks of harm.

Looking at definitions we see "alcohol misuse" which include "harmful drinking" and "alcohol dependency". [http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs11/chapter/development- sou...](http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs11/chapter/development- sources#definitions-and-data-sources)

> The definition of harmful alcohol use in this quality standard is that of > the World Health Organisation (WHO) The International statistical > classification of diseases and related health problems (ICD-10): "a pattern > of psychoactive substance use that is causing damage to health. The damage > may be physical (for example, hepatitis) or mental (for example, depressive > episodes secondary to heavy alcohol intake). Harmful use commonly, but not > invariably, has adverse social consequences; social consequences in > themselves, however, are not sufficient to justify a diagnosis of harmful > use".

> In ICD-10 the 'dependence syndrome' is defined as: "a cluster of > behavioural, cognitive, and physiological phenomena that develop after > repeated substance use and that typically include a strong desire to take > the drug, difficulties in controlling its use, persisting in its use despite > harmful consequences, a higher priority given to drug use than to other > activities and obligations, increased tolerance, and sometimes a physical > withdrawal state".

Looking at the English guidelines for treatment we see that medically supervised withdrawal starts when you're drinking 40 units _per day_ \- that would be a one liter bottle of 40% whisky every day.

Here's the full guideline:

[http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs11/chapter/introduction- an...](http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs11/chapter/introduction-and-overview)

And here's the bit for lower end: [http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs11/chapter/quality- stateme...](http://www.nice.org.uk/guidance/qs11/chapter/quality- statement-11-psychological-interventions-and-relapse-prevention-medication- for-adults)

<comment><AUTHOR> That's interesting. If you or anyone else wants to do the math, the only thing I tolerate okay is Kahlua. So I was generally having either mudslides at Applebee's or Kahlua Cappuccino at Red Lobster (often with an extra shot -- two drinks with an extra shot each is four shots of alcohol).

According to Wikipedia [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahl%C3%BAa](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kahl%C3%BAa):

 _Since 2004, the alcohol content of Kahlúa is 20.0% (21.5% alc. is still available only in Ohio[citation needed]); earlier versions had 26.5%._

This would have been around 2001-2002 in California. So, you should use the 26.5% figure. I don't know what a "shot" is considered to be. I mean as a standard measure. I assume there is a standard measure of "shot" though. So what would 2-4 shots of Kahlua a day be? Is that "alcoholic"?

Just curious. I never thought of myself as an alcoholic. I was clear I did this because it knocked back the extreme physical pain I was in at a time when pain killers did little or nothing for me and doctors weren't being especially helpful. I just wanted to hurt less and I wanted to SLEEP. So, I would have a drink with dinner or before bedtime, because nothing else was doing a helluva lot for me.

<comment><USER15> I was using Wikipedia to get the size of a US shot of 89 for a double and 44 ml for a single.

The sum to get UK units is:

Serving size in litres * ABV value

So 44 ml * 4 shots * 26.5 abv / 1000 conversion from ml gives 4.5 units per day.

A doctor (and obviously I am not a doctor) might ask you to cut back a bit, but that level of drinking is normal.

Did you feel urges to drink other than those shots? Did you experience bad things from alcohol but continue drinking? Did you find it hard to stop? I think some of these things would have been used to assess whether it was problem drinking or not.

<comment><AUTHOR> Like I said, I wasn't struggling with alcohol. I was struggling with a health crisis. I never thought of myself as alcoholic. But I was drinking _daily_ for a while there, which is part of why I say I think some folks would view it as alcoholism.

It was a long time ago. I was also sometimes on medication, I was in a whole lot of pain, horribly sick, etc. So my memory of the details isn't exactly perfect here. Thus, I can't say how often I had the equivalent of four drinks per day vs 1-3 drinks or how long the 4 drinks level lasted (in terms of weeks/months). I do know it started at one drink and went up over time, which is another thing that would make a lot of folks go "Yup! Alcoholism!" I just know that for about a year, it was relatively rare for me to not drink alcohol at some point during the day because when I didn't, I was in tremendous pain and could not sleep. I did try different things, including vodka, and I vaguely recall getting seriously drunk at one time with some ... liqueur of some sort. (Again, I imagine that would look damning to some folks.) But what ended up working for me was Kahlua, usually with dinner.

Thank you for doing the math.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> I don't dispute the article's thesis, but a significant part of the reason why addiction is skewed so heavily to the young could be because the most severe addicts die from it before reaching an older age. As in, you don't "age out", you "survive".

<comment><USER17> That doesn't add up. By all estimates there are many millions of people addicted to drugs or alcohol in the US alone (as many as 20+ million). If we are to assume that the article's premise that addictions tend to have a lifespan of about 15-20 years or so is due to the fact that the addicts are dying then that would correspond to something like a million deaths per year. In the sub-45 year old population that would absolutely swamp every other cause of death.

<comment><USER18> Well, the cause of death for someone dying from their addiction is not always "drug overdose", but things like accident, murder, or suicide, which in fact are the top three causes of death for young adults.

<comment><USER19> Heart attack, respiratory failure, and other organ failure to boot. Tthe math of determining these "average" lengths of addiction are also troubling. When accounting for individuals that may have been addicted for three years, but died at the end of those three years, are we factoring in 3 years as the length of addiction? Are we weighting it in some other way along a point scale? The very title of that statistic is troublesome too: the length of addiction - it is unclear as to whether the lengths being measured and averaged share the same initial and final endpoints: The length of time elapsed between having no drug problem and recovery? Or, having no drug problem and death? Or, as I suspect a combined average, which renders the statistic useless.

I find troublesome that the author of the article (renowned neuroscientist and addiction journalist as cited) suggests that addiction is akin to a habit. The behavior itself is certainly habit, but the addiction lies moreso in the etymology and function of the habit than the actual repetitive behavior. For some, the addiction is distraction, for some escape, for others a sense of identity, and so on and so forth. To prescribe "outgrowing the addiction" as a solution is awfully simplistic, almost suggesting that if an addict could only replace that habit with something else, then all would be hunky dory. Well, in theory, sure. Maybe we can start designing rehab centers like they used to do traffic school - Improv Traffic School, Comedy Traffic School, Bikers' Traffic School - maybe Knitters Rehab: "We'll help you put down that needle, and pick up this one!" or Foodies Rehab: "Stop smoking that joint, and learn to smoke these ribs!" The possibilities are endless. But not likely.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER20> Here is one addiction I wish I could grow out of: benzos and other benzo like drugs such as Ambien (zolpidem). I've been on them for almost 9 years, and they are unbelievably hard to quit. I take them for my insomnia. I don't have to take much (10mg of Ambien for example), but without them I'll lay awake in bed for 8 hours not getting any sleep. I've done all the sleep hygiene stuff such as CBT or forced sleep deprivation, but it doesn't seem to work.

I've been through various doctors, and I'm seeing a psychiatrist right now to deal exclusively with the sleep issue. Apparently my GABA receptors are shot from taking these drugs for so long. Unfortunately I have but two real choices: taper quickly from the Ambien and deal with 3-6 weeks of little or no sleep, or do a slow taper with Valium which only has a 20% success rate.

Not sleeping for days really, really sucks.

<comment><USER21> Have you tried getting an allotment and digging it? All of it, two feet down? Working it from dawn to dusk with three short breaks?

Better still, hard manual labour on shifts in a factory where slacking off stops production and is therefore not possible? Maybe in a hazardous environment where you have to be alert to avoid getting burnt or injured by machinery.

Seriously, put yourself through a few weeks in some industrial job and you will not have sleep problems after that.

<comment><USER22> I agree, I've seen it time and again, people taking multiple medicine for sleep disorder and nothing works. What works is taking a manual job or if you cannot take such a job, put yourself on treadmill and keep going till you fall off, I mean an hour or two. And see how you sleep after that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> As a sober addict I really can't comprehend the "flavor" of addiction the author describes. Most of my addict friends and acquaintances either worked at sobriety or died from using. Actually most died. If someone can just stop, most would simply say the person wasn't actually an addict.

<comment><USER11> I've seen this comment about "wasn't actually an addict" or "not really an addiction" in every discussion of this story, here and elsewhere.

I'm very curious as to why people say this, because it doesn't seem to add anything to the discussion or take it in any useful direction. I'm not trolling here: I really don't get it, and it bugs me a bit because it seems to distract the discussion from things that might be useful (and I've contributed to that distraction here, likely... sorry.)

Consider a similar case: small round blue cell tumours ([http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1867426/](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1867426/)). These present identically in routine histology done on biopsied tissue, but in fact consist of four different types of underlying disease.

Neuroblastoma was identified in the 1800's. Non-Hodgin lymphoma wasn't fully classified until the 1960's. At no time did anyone say, "That's not actually a small round blue tumour" because that would have contributed nothing to the discussion.

If we treat "addiction" as a name for a set of symptoms that may arise from several underlying conditions, some of which can be corrected adequately by an act of will on the part of the individual and some of which cannot, we can start to ask interesting questions like:

1) How do we identify each type of underlying condition?

2) Are there more than two underlying conditions? Is there a more complex, more useful taxonomy?

3) Given the existence of a population that ages out or chooses to stop, are there ways that we can intervene to help them that exploit the specifics of their underlying condition that are different from what has proven to be effective in the population that does not age out and is not able to choose to stop?

And so on. All of these are useful, important, valuable things to say. "Then it's not really an addiction" is not.

<comment><USER24> Ive heard this sentiment most often in 12 step program meetings.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I've noticed that articles like this almost always fall back on implicit "brain as computer" metaphors: "systems involved in love and sex are coming online," "impact of the drugs on the developing circuitry itself." Anyone know of an article that discusses this? It seems to be everywhere in writings about the brain but rarely acknowledged. As for the article itself - I think it has a valid point but is overly flippant about the risks of addiction and relapse later in life. Just because it's statistically less likely than in youth doesn't mean addiction is a "developmental disorder" as the author suggests.

<comment><USER26> It's explicitly named in Philosophy of Mind:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_theory_of_mind](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computational_theory_of_mind)

<comment><USER25> Thanks for the link - although I'm referring more to the (potentially false) analogy with present-day digital computers as opposed to the claim that the brain is a type of computational instrument, which is hard to find fault with. It's interesting how different eras apply their own en vogue technologies to understanding the mind. (I.e. Descartes and other late 17th and 18th c. thinkers visualized mental functions as clockwork-like mechanical interactions, the 20th century witnessed lots of "brain as factory" imagery, and now we're stuck on the brain as a network of computers).

<comment><USER27> Humans best understand systems by analogy to systems they already understand. We best understand systems we have built ourselves. It ends up limiting how we think about problems and which problems we can understand. For example, to model the circulatory system we needed experience with plumbing. You see the same kind of thinking in electronic circuit models.

Brains aren't computers but some aspects are analogous to computers. Some day we may create new systems that further our understanding of the brain and the mind

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Unfortunately 12-step dogma has persuaded a lot of people that addiction is an inescapable fate, an innate disease/magical curse that can only be managed by joining their religious program for life. The worst part of this is that the 12 step myth of powerlessness creates a self-fulfilling prophecy. It's so colored the popular imagination of what addiction is and how to treat it that when the fact that the majority of people who are addicted to some substance do so by spontaneous remission, it seems surprising, even though that's what's normal.

<comment><USER29> I feel the same way about the 12 steps. I sat in on a number of meeting when I was younger and it was clear to me at the time that a many of the people there were really involved with the scene because they enjoyed wallowing in self pity and powerlessness. NA/AA gives people an excuse to be weak, and it's often used as a crutch that further enables the "powerless" in avoiding real responsibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> Is Addiction linked to Environment...?

Researcher Bruce Alexander of Simon Fraser University conducted an experiment called Rat Park, in 1978. From that wikipedia page:

Alexander's hypothesis was that drugs do not cause addiction, and that the apparent addiction to opiate drugs commonly observed in laboratory rats exposed to it is attributable to their living conditions, and not to any addictive property of the drug itself.

To test his hypothesis, Alexander built Rat Park, an 8.8 m2 (95 sq ft) housing colony, 200 times the square footage of a standard laboratory cage. There were 16–20 rats of both sexes in residence, an abundance of food, balls and wheels for play, and enough space for mating and raising litters. The results of the experiment appeared to support his hypothesis. Rats who had been forced to consume morphine hydrochloride for 57 consecutive days were brought to Rat Park and given a choice between plain tap water and water laced with morphine. For the most part, they chose the plain water. "Nothing that we tried," Alexander wrote, "... produced anything that looked like addiction in rats that were housed in a reasonably normal environment." Control groups of rats isolated in small cages consumed much more morphine in this and several subsequent experiments.

<comment><AUTHOR> In pictures:

[http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat- park/#page-1](http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/comics_en/rat-park/#page-1)

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> That's what happened with me. I'm an ex-heroin addict, clean for two years as of August 30th, after being addicted for 7 years prior. I just had enough... Luckily, Australia has a great support network for my situation, and I can't thank Biala enough for their help. Now I'm kicking ass and taking names :)

My only disagreement is that I still think I'm recovering. I think I always will be, and I've accepted that. No rest for the wicked, I suppose. In addition, I took advantage of opiate replacement therapy, as cold-turkey was just too painful at the time (struggling with depression meant that the emotional side of withdrawals was dangerous for me). I'm finishing my taper in two months, after starting on 28mg of suboxone :)

<comment><USER32> Congratulations on 2 years clean. Good luck with the tapering.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> People grow out of it? Seriously? I don't like seeing addiction only in the traditional way of hardcore drugs, alcohol, etc. There are loads of addictions that aren't even recognized by doctors as such, but are quite far spread. Most of all cigarettes (I don't know any person who gets treated for cigarette addiction), sugar, gambling, virtual realities like tv shows or digital games. In Germany I feel over 50% of the people around me smoke. In nerd circles around me over 80% of people are addicted to either sugar, caffeine, or gaming. In my family I even have 2.5 cases of serious alcohol addiction that is neither treated nor recognized by the addicted. And I live in a middle class family. In lower class families it might be much worse. Maybe I misunderstand the article, but I think saying that most people grow out of addiction is way off reality. I'd argue most people on this planet are hooked to at least one thing, and nearly nobody drops their addictions.

I personally are certainly addicted to sugar. If I don't get my coloa/chocolate/icecream, I feel tired, hungry, sad, and am sometimes in pain, can't think about something else but sugar, and sometimes even walk long distances in the middle of the night in the worst of weathers to get to a 24 hours shop to buy something, if I don't have something at home. Telling this to doctors just yields them saying I'll get diabetes (or might already have it) if I don't change my behaviour, which is pretty much what I already know. Requesting general addiction treatment or food advisory training is not covered by my health care, they say.

</comment><comment><USER33> The author asks rhetorically why this is a contentious theory - but it seems like wording alone has quite a bit to do with that. A claim like "many people with addictions simply grow out of them" is already much easier to accept than "most people". Of course, there do seem to be some sorts of addictions, like alcoholism, that if anything correlate more strongly with late adulthood, which makes them resistant to this explanation.

</comment><comment><USER34> > This is one of many reasons why I prefer to see addiction as a learning or > developmental disorder, rather than taking the classical disease view.

I always thought that myself but is the first time that I see an article on it.

Most, if not all, addiction studies/reports/data/whatever doesn't count the people that overcome their addiction on their own, or at least on their own without causing major problems.

I would be really glad if this was discussed more often.

</comment><comment><USER35> I think the author has an important point to make, which could be helpful for those struggling with addiction and find that the model of the disease and total abstinence suggested by 12 step groups doesn't fit in some.

Anecdotally it seems to square with my observations of long time friends.

That said, I do think that there "a thing" that has aspects of a disease. The belief structure was created by folks from e early part of the 20th century, so there concept that the disease was a permanent affliction was probably just not correct.

I tend to look at addictions as a subset of obsessive/compulsive disorders, which has an additional chemical feedback loop enhancer.

Overall, our understanding of mental illness is woefully undeveloped. Most cases are diagnosed by interpretations Of subjective and self reported symptoms. The last time I looked at a discussion of this related to the new DSM, the very low interrator reliability I the diagnosing of mental illness was scandalous. Doesn't mean it's not a real thing though.

</comment><comment><USER36> I smoked a lot of marijuana since I was 23 till about 26.

I experimented with cocaine, heroin, MDMA, crystal meth for about a month when I was 25.

Heroin was scarily addictive. I remember smoking from tinfoil turned black and mixing other drugs.

I stopped because I got asthma and started coughing up blood. It was opiod withdrawl is the worst but I never touched drugs again.

Anytime I think about my experience, it sends cold sweat, thinking how I could've done it. This is also good because I know the cold sweats keep me away from every repeating this. Its bad because I constantly think about the health implications of smoking heroin, crystal meth for about one month, and the rest of year smoking marijuana that smelled like febreeze.

I hope I'm okay I haven't gone to check with a doctor tho.

</comment><comment><USER37> I wonder how much this phenomenon varies from one addictive substance to another. For example, obviously there are a lot of people who remain addicted to tobacco long past their mid 20s.

Also, is it possible that some of these people who are considered to have grown out of their addiction, simply substituted one addiction for another? I've heard that the rate of tobacco use among recovering alcoholics is very high. It's true that they're probably better off being out-of-control smokers than out-of-control drinkers. OTOH, I wouldn't say such people have really grown out of their addiction.

</comment><comment><USER38> I think it is useful to separate out the concepts of substance abuse from substance addiction. If the article just dealt with who experience powerful cravings and withdrawals (the most common definition of addiction, and the most useful as far as I can tell) then it would be much more insightful. Instead it seems to equate addiction with heavy use and recklessness.

</comment><comment><USER39> Interesting point: "The data supports this idea: If you start drinking or taking drugs with peers before age 18, you have a 25% chance of becoming addicted, but if your use starts later, the odds drop to 4%. Very few people without a prior history of addiction get hooked later in life, even if they are exposed to drugs like opioid painkillers."

</comment><comment><USER40> I'm not a psychologist but I've had a pretty fucked up mental state for many years. The same can be loosely said mental illness - for it is just that, an illness.

Having said, I'm still waiting on the day that I don't need to reach for my bottle of Vyvanse (Adderall, only exponentially less shitty and more amazing) every morning.

</comment><comment><USER41> A possibly-related book I've been meaning to read is _High Price_ by Carl Hart.

[http://www.amazon.com/dp/0062015893/](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0062015893/)

The thesis seems to be that the entire concept of "addiction" is misleading and inimical to efforts to reduce drug use.

</comment><comment><USER42> Many people I know that suffer from addictions have carried them through to their later life and continue to function as part of society and generally keep their habits to themselves. I do wonder if they have accounted for this in this study. I am not saying they are incorrect but it is just a thought. =D

</comment><comment><USER43> Does anyone else find the 1 pixel shadow on the text off-putting? I had to see why the text was blurry on purpose. Found the shadow and disabled it.

</comment><comment><USER44> If you grow out of an apparently addictive behavior, doesn't that -- by definition -- mean it was not an addiction?

OK, I know the definition of an addiction is that the behavior is having a significant negative affect, but there must be some notion of lack of control too, I would think.

I know plenty of my friends in college drank quite heavily. Afterward it tapered off. And some of had quite bad grades during that time. But no off us ended up as alcoholics after college. This was 20+ years ago, so one would assume real alcoholism would become apparent in this timeframe.

<comment><USER45> Do you just read headlines and then comment? I mean the author addressed your point within the first few paragraphs, yet you don't seem to be incorporating any of that into your post.

<comment><USER44> I'm believe I'm asking a valid question.

I read the article last night when it came up on /r/skeptic. The author describes a sort of adolescent addiction due to underdeveloped inhibitions of those who having reach their mid-20s. The thesis seems to say that some addictions are situational, like the distinction between a normal situational depression and a clinical depression (one that does not trace to a person's current life situation).

To restate my question: is what the author describes actual an addiction? Perhaps only those addictions that don't resolve themselves are addictions.

So instead of describe the situation as the author does -- some addictions resolve themselves -- perhaps the definition of addiction needs to be refined.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias)

</comment><comment><USER47> Except for nicotine. That lasts a lifetime.

<comment><USER48> Actually nicotine is apparently not the addictive part of smoking, rather other chemicals in tobacco are.

Anecdotally I can confirm I've smoked e-cigarettes quite heavily for a few months then stopped cold turkey and had zero withdrawal or cravings, but I occasionally feel a desire for smoking a cigar quite strongly despite having them at a rate averaging a few a year.

EDIT: Not _majorly_ addictive, rather than not addictive at all.

[ref]:[http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine](http://www.gwern.net/Nicotine)

</comment></comment><comment><USER49> Strangely enough, this is also true of religious cults.

</comment><comment><USER50> _By age 35, half of all people who qualified for active alcoholism or addiction diagnoses during their teens and 20s no longer do_

And half don't. That's still a huge number, and they're not "simply growing out of it" two decades later. "Just wait a couple of decades, you _might_ get better" is a crappy position to take.

And "chronic" means "recurring", not "permanent for the rest of your life". You can have a chronic problem that goes away after a while.

</comment><comment><USER51> Mental illnesses also have this stigma of permanence, and it's also inaccurate and damaging. Plenty of people "snap out" of schizophrenia, or stop having bipolar symptoms, or have a few depressive episodes over a decade and then never again. We don't know why remission happens to some people and not others, but it definitely happens. We just don't understand these diseases very well. (I tend to think of depression and bipolar, for example, as symptoms common to multiple diseases.)

Time of diagnosis has a major effect on how your disease is modeled (the term I would use instead of "diagnosed"). Technically speaking, if you've ever had a manic episode, you're considered to have Bipolar I, the most severe version. If you're 28 and had one at 17 and never again... you probably don't have Bipolar I. That could be cyclothymia aggravated by a hormonal or sleep disturbance. It could be a one-off. Perhaps out of a fear of getting it wrong, the medical assumption is that a person who's had one episode is prone to having more. That might be a good policy for doctors (i.e. don't prescribe certain medications to people with histories of depression, or (hypo|)mania) but it's not a great model of how mental illness actually works. Some cases get better with age, and some get worse, and we really don't know why.

As addiction is a mental illness with behavioral complications, I'm not surprised. An episode of addiction is something one has to be aware of for one's life, but the treatment (don't use the drug) is something that, evidently, many people follow perfectly.

</comment><comment><USER52> I don't know if I'm the only one experiencing blurry font, but it distracts me from reading anything said.

<comment><USER34> Me too.

There is an annoying _text-shadow: 0px 0px 1px_

<comment><USER17> Folks do that because it looks "good" on safari on macs and don't realize it looks horrible elsewhere.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> I liked the "Make us a habit" newsletter signup prompt at the bottom of a story (and website) about drugs/addition.

</comment><comment><USER54> I couldn't agree more. The myth that addiction always needs some sort of intervention or treatment is quite false, yet it is constantly perpetuated by the media, doctors, and groups like AA/NA. There is a huge interest (and sometimes profits) on behalf of these groups to perpetuate this myth, of course, to the detriment of the people who suffer from addiction. I'm glad to see that the conclusions based on data differ from the uninformed propaganda that typically dominates this topic.

</comment><comment><USER55> I take issue with the headline, and I didn't see any support for it in the article -- that people _simply_ grow out of addiction. Treatment or not, we can call that process of reducing one's addictive behaviors _growth_ , but I don't think you can find any addicts -- former or otherwise -- their families, or addiction treatment specialists, who would call that process _simple_.

<comment><USER56> Actually, speaking as a former addict, I would call it simple.

Damned hard, fucking painful, betimes hopeless, ..., but the most consistent memory from my early recovery was the simplicity of the process. There really was only one thing important: stay clean.

In my own case I aimed for staying clean for 2 years. And for those two years that was not "the most important thing", it was the _only_ thing that mattered. Other factors helped too (supportive family was next most important), but I think I would not now be clean without the _simplicity_ of that bright line rule of 2 years.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright- line_rule](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bright-line_rule)

<comment><USER55> Rules may be simple, but adherence to them is not. For some, it may be impossible. Consider the first 2 rules of dating:

        1. Be attractive
        2. Don't be unattractive

The rule for winning is simply to score more points than the other team. Immortality is governed by the simple rule: _Stay alive_

None of these are simple processes, and it diminishes the discourse to treat them as such. I am thankful for your counterexample to my challenge, but I'm not convinced that, if asked sincerely about how you have managed your recovery from addiction, you could possibly sincerely respond: _I simply grew out of it._

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> Yet another HN article that minimizes the perception that drugs can cause harm.

Yes it is true that most people grow out of addiction.

But many do not. In my circle I count four dead, many more damaged by drugs.

<comment><USER58> I can count 7 or 8 dead. I know more that died from things other than drugs, though.

<comment><USER9> Yea but there are a lot more "things other than drugs" than drugs, right? So, your stats make drugs sound very dangerous.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> The author equates "not seeking professional help" with "growing out of it", which I don't think is right. However, he gets a lot right, and links to studies. My personal two biggest problems with 12 step: insistence on believing in a godlike thing and it's dogmatic unchanging nature which ignores science.

</comment><comment><USER60> I think that most people just get bored/burned out with it.

</comment><comment><USER58> This can't be true if we're still going to use the (useless) metaphor of demonic possession to describe every aspect of substance abuse.

<comment><USER61> I've seen some ministries report a 50% success rate re curing addiction for people who join. So social recovery forms of drug treatment are very successful and might include things like exorcism and whatnot as part of belonging to the flock, I suppose.

Sure, we know from science and Occam's razor that devils and gods probably don't exist, but that doesn't mean participating doesn't show proven benefits. Although the studies that show the benefits of religion tend to find attendance means more than believe, so it is more of a network and support effect than anything actually spiritual.

<comment><USER9> The problem with using Occam's razor to disprove the existence of some sort of god or spirit of the universe is that there isn't any explanation. Remember it's "the simplest explanation is usual correct." We really don't have any explanation, ultimately as to origins or what is really happening at a fundamental level. What are photons? What are electrons? What is space-time? This pesky big bang thing. And then you have Goedel's incompleteness theorems which basically tell us that no amount of math or logic will ever fully explain this universe. While there may not be some old fella with a big white beard floating around in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, I tend to think the actual "truth" is far crazier.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_the...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6del's_incompleteness_theorems)

<comment><USER9> BTW, I feel like I always come across as a crazy person when I say this stuff but I really don't see a flaw in this. The basic premise is that there isn't going to be a logical explanation of "the universe." So, that seems to lead to the conclusion that any complete explanation will have to contain some illogical portion. I feel like once you accept that, all bets are off as far as feeling comfortable in our cozy little science bubbles.</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Show HN: Deep Learning Text Recognition - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/s3nh/text-detector <comment><AUTHOR> Text recognition tool using pretrained Craft and Crnn models.</comment>


Facebook's Gmail Killer, Project Titan, Is Coming On Monday - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2010/11/11/facebook-gmail-titan/ <comment><USER3> If facebook can really deliver a rock solid web mail client, I think they will really be a company to watch in the rest of 1996 and 1997. If they play their cards right they may get snapped up by an industry powerhouse like yahoo or excite@home for eight figures.

<comment><USER4> You have lots of upvotes, so what you are saying must be interesting. But I can't seem to get it! Can anyone explain what's this about?

<comment><USER5> back in that era all of the successful players - you know, the REALLY successful players like Yahoo, Microsoft and Excite (!) had web-mail clients that were basically startups they acquired.

It was only Google that really built a killer web-mail client from scratch in- house.

<comment><USER6> and the Google client was made mostly by @paul Buchheit, who just left Facebook for YC.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I will be really interested to see this, because as it stands Facebook's messaging interface is barely any better than 2001's Hotmail (you do get a pretty picture with address autocomplete though).

Going from where they are now to anywhere close to being a 'Gmail killer' is a humongous step.

<comment><USER8> I heard that Zuckerberg locked Paul Buchheit in a closet and told him he couldn't come out until he cloned Gmail.

<comment><USER9> It's being put into 'The Social Network 2: Return of the Lawsuits' as I write.

<comment><USER10> I hear their legal strategy is: "If you invented facemail you would have invented facemail." followed by writing a cheque for a tenth of what they just raised.

<comment><USER11> "In the scheme of things, it is a parking ticket" ;)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I've always thought that Facebook could make a real difference by becoming a central hub to control your "persona" or identity so to speak. Facebook could integrate with every other service and app under the sun, and users would not require to input information (any more then their Facebook uri) to register for anything.

Instead they're trying to undercut Google by keeping them out of the 'shared data' agreement and now they're going into... e-mail and messaging? I'd rather they work on improving Facebook Connect and give me a way to control my data (and usable privacy controls while we're at it). I sure as hell don't want my personal email (and even less any business or corporate email) going through Facebook. Hell I have a hard time accepting Gmail, though it's so convenient I compromise.

Lots of people say that Facebook won't go the way of MySpace. But you know what? Lots of people said the same thing about MySpace too. Everyday I see or hear more and more about people I know just not using their accounts anymore and in some cases actually deleting them; even I don't get much value from it either this days.

I think Facebook is losing direction and just trying to wow users with amazing features that no one really needs. They need to focusing on making what they have better, not adding features and avoiding integration with other services.

<comment><USER13> > Facebook could integrate with every other service and app under the sun, and > users would not require to input information (any more then their Facebook > uri) to register for anything.

Facebook has done exactly this, and there's been quite a bit of backlash, with some discussion on this site itself.

<comment><USER12> Facebook Connect has a long way from being the "identity manager" I speak of, and it's integration with applications as it is now leaves a lot to be desired. There has been backslash because 1) it's a mediocre implementation and 2) the lack of openness on behalf of Facebook and their methods are not in the best interest of either the users or the applications that could use this system.

Facebook could have become the central hub in which you can manage your identity (in an open way of course). Facebook could allow you to easily do anything on the web with fewer clicks by means of integration with other sevices. Instead they rather have you locked in to using their services and implementations and that is what I don't agree on. I wished it followed what I want, but whatever they do I wish it was adding value to the experience instead of just creating a more locked in ecosystem.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I think Facebook has much much bigger goals than silly gmail killing. It's trying to become _the internet_ for all those who don't know the difference between a browser, web site and the internet. Offering email services is just a small step in that direction.

<comment><USER15> A lot of people compare Facebook to MySpace, but isn't AOL also a good comparison?

Remember all the companies that were AOL keywords. Now they have Facebook pages. AOL has a messenger, now Facebook does. It just strikes me as AOL for the 21st century.

<comment><USER16> I actually got to pose the question (live and in-person), "Isn't Facebook the new AOL?" to Steve Case last week.

<comment><USER17> "Actually, it reminds me of Prodigy." - Steve Case

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prodigy_%28online_service%29>

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Zuckerberg is absolutely the man I want to trust with my e-mail.

<comment><USER19> If you already trust Google with your email, then it cant be that bad.

<comment><USER20> Google doesn't have a tendency to change their privacy policy and intentionally release private information, while Facebook does.

[EDIT: Changed "the" to "their," and "rules" to "policy," as this makes my sentence both look better and more accurate.]

<comment><USER21> What about Buzz?

<comment><USER20> My understanding of that was that the individual in question (was there more than one person?) clicked through confirmation screens without looking at them, assuming that everything would be okay. It is not Google's fault when users are idiots.

However, I may be wrong; I only recall one instance of this happening with Buzz, and may simply have missed other ones.

Other times when google violated privacy which I remember: 1) Accidentally logging packets, which they then told people about and found a good way to delete, instead of just pretending it didn't happen. 2) Releasing emails (and other information?) to governments when required to do so by law, which I consider a valid excuse.

<comment><USER19> Google is not evil by nature (though i have my own doubts) and Facebook is also not evil by nature. Facebook simply has a different philosophy on _sharing_. They believe that people should share everything and be more social. If this is not something people are not comfortable with, then those people have no business in signing up for facebook and complaining that everything is shared by default. As far as Google's privacy 'glitches' are concerned, in my experience bugs make it into production accidentally. But pieces of code that are developed specifically to sample wifi packets that might contain sensitive data or code that exposes all my email contacts to the entire world do not make into production accidentally.

<comment><USER22> Both are semi-evil towards end-users by virtue of these end-users being the product, rather than the customers they imagine themselves to be.

Google tries to reach the unevil side, by giving you as full control of your data as they can, and not cross over the creepy line (although they are always near it).

Facebook doesn't, and therefore finds itself on the evil side almost all the time. It's not that they want to be evil that makes them evil; It's just that not avoiding becoming evil makes them that way, and they do not try to avoid it in any way. (Plus, evil is more lucrative).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> If @facebook.com email addresses have a stronger link to real, non-spammy, non-mass-produced identities than other domains, they could become preferred at many other sites -- a broader version of Facebook Connect.

<comment><USER24> Wrong -- your FB email address will likely have the same prefix as your vanity URL. Guess that that means? Spam bots know your email address already.

<comment><USER25> I think he means it the other way: e-mail addresses ending with facebook.com could signal "this is a genuine person, not a spammer".

<comment><USER26> Have you encountered many spammers with @gmail.com addresses?

<comment><USER27> Yes

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER24> The interface'll have the be unbelievably amazing and innovative for this to even make a dent in people's minds. And as others have pointed out, Facebook.com is not associated with professionalism (unless you're a recruiter or tech blogger or something).

All in all, I think nobody will care at the end of the day.

<comment><USER28> > The interface'll have the be unbelievably amazing and innovative for this to > even make a dent in people's minds

I guarantee you that they are going to become the default address between people 16 and under. My brother is 16 and doesn't have an email address, but he does have a facebook account.

<comment><USER29> That's the scariest thing I've read so far today.

<comment><USER30> 1: My daughter just moved into her own house today. 2: Wow, awesome! I should call them to congratulate her! Whats the new house number? 1: Oh, she doesn't have a landline, she just uses her cell phone. 2: That's the scariest thing I've heard so far today. 1: ???...

To the newest generations email is an antiquated technology that has no real use among their peers. Eventually they might get some email address for college/professional use, but that's practically akin to a fresh college grad now getting a fax machine because "its what we use at the office".

Not shocking.

Edit: Unless by "the scariest thing" you mean the idea of email@example.com becoming the default for the >17 crowd, in which case, disregard my nonsense.

<comment><USER31> This is very true. I'm 20 and I've never used my personal email regularly and I'm sure most of my friends haven't either. We've always used MSN or AIM and more recently Facebook to keep in touch.

<comment><USER32> I'm in my 40s and get more Facebook messages from my friends than I do emails. Many more.

<comment><USER33> I hadn't thought about it before, but same for me. The only friends who contact me through email are other programmers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.

\-- Jamie Zawinski

</comment><comment><USER35> Wasn't facebook's justification for not letting you export your friends' email adresses because they weren't an email application? Now that Facebook does email, will they allow an email export?

</comment><comment><USER36> The sad thing is that facebook itself is already somewhat of a "Gmail killer." I have a ton of people that will only contact me through facebook. When I ask why they don't use email they usually don't have an answer. The ones that do mumble something about convenience.

<comment><USER37> I have NO ONE who prefers facebook to email. Then again I'm not a very social person online. I use the Internet primarily for research (self-education, it's like a huge free library on my desk) ... and for business, and business users certainly do not rely on facebook for online communication. I doubt they ever will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER38> I see this as a good thing. As others have mentioned here, FB messaging is more popular than email for a lot of people. This means I'll be able to communicate effectively with my friends who check their FB an order of magnitude more than their email (almost all of them,) using SMTP in any way that I choose rather than having to log into FB with all its attendant awfulness.

How does this news represent anything other than FB rewriting its inbox/messaging tool to operate over SMTP/IMAP? And how can that be anything but good? Okay we all wish they'd used the Wave Federation Protocol, but we can't have everything we want.

</comment><comment><USER39> Personally I really don't want my email visible to Facebook. What would they do with my information? Google already set the precedent for leveraging email data _somehow_. If so, Facebook will probably push the boundaries while carefully marketing it so that users accept something they would not have just previously. I only have a problem with this because they're profiting from data that users would not have allowed them to sell to advertisers if they had known about the terms when signing up. So it's like a bait and switch and that makes me distrust them.

</comment><comment><USER40> I think an interesting case here that will be affected here is how social circles were dealing that one stubborn Facebook holdout.

Before, there were two choices. Either move communication to email, or leave them out of the loop. Now the choice is easy, and it will all happen within Facebook.

</comment><comment><USER41> Aside from the merits of this story, has anything that was branded "killer" by the media actually ended up being even moderately successful?

(The various iPhone killers, Facebook killers, Google killers, and so on come to mind...)

<comment><USER42> Presumably TechCrunch feels some affection for Google, and has decided to give facemail the tech-journalism kiss of death.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Does anyone have any decent info on which free mail service is the most popular? I know a fair amount of people use any mixture of hotmail, gmail and yahoo. Perhaps 'killing gmail' isn't as big as killing hotmail/live/badabingmail.

<comment><USER43> Fairly recent [1] stats seem to point to:

      hotmail:  360m+ active accounts
      yahoo:    275m+ active accounts
      Gmail in 3rd, followed by AOL webmail [2}

Although yahoo! mail seems to have a more active user base as it's ahead on most site ranking systems [3].

Sources: [1] [http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email- statist...](http://www.email-marketing-reports.com/metrics/email- statistics.htm) [2] [http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/14/gmail-nudges-past-aol- email...](http://techcrunch.com/2009/08/14/gmail-nudges-past-aol-email-in-the- us-to-take-no-3-spot/) [3] [http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10133.ht...](http://www.hitwise.com/us/datacenter/main/dashboard-10133.html)

<comment><USER44> This is wild. When Facebook flips the switch, they'll instantly become the largest email service.

<comment><USER45> They'll actually have to get people to use it before being large (the whole "active" part). I'll never use it and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER46> I closed my account few months ago, does this mean I will miss the revolution?

</comment><comment><USER47> Isn't this the definition of feature creep?

Everything devolves till eventually it can check email. [someone more intelligent than me will find the source of that quote... I'm having a tough morning.]

</comment><comment><USER48> The killer aspect of any facebook email project is that your friends are automatically white listed and in your address book.

</comment><comment><USER49> Something tells me that now I am going to get an email in my Gmail for every email that I get in my facemail telling me I have a new facemail.

<comment><USER50> This should actually mean I don't need to visit facebook.com anymore if there is indeed POP3 or IMAP access, because (presumably) they will send full messages to Titan rather than the current "you have a new message NOW CLICK ME", and POP3 access to Titan means that I can get Facebook messaging through GMail.

The catch is probably going to be a lack of SMTP...

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> If Apple announces a new product, the world looks on with curiosity and awe.

If Facebook announces a new product, the world looks on with scorn and distrust.

</comment><comment><USER52> How long till we see cellphones (not the purported FB phone) utilize just one source for your contacts? I just got a WP7 phone and had to merge all my contacts in from multiple sources, if instead MS just piggybacked off FB only, it would make things far easier for the end user. Also FB could claim "portability" to some degree (even if just with their partner MS)

</comment><comment><USER53> Even if the thing turns out to be unbelievably amazing, I doubt companies would like people to be constantly logged in to facebook "for mail" during work. For many offices, a browser tab on facebook could just imply chit-chat with friends, farmville, and many other unproductive pursuits. How could it be a "Gmail Killer" with such a born defect?

<comment><USER54> aren't iphones the gateway from work to facebook?

</comment></comment><comment><USER55> Are there any for-pay gmail-like mail services out there offered by companies who aren't trying to make money by selling their users to their advertisers?

I use gnus at the moment, but it's starting to feel a bit long in the tooth. On the other hand, the thought of having all my email in a marketer's database kind of squicks me.

<comment><USER56> Google apps premier. No advertising

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> it seems convenient within Facebook but I would not like using a @facebook.com email address for serious communication. Imagine applying for college with such an address.

<comment><USER58> Is @gmail.com somehow more distinguished?

<comment><USER59> @gmail.com is no @jdoe.net, but imho it's probably one of the most respectable free email domains.

<comment><USER60> Hi, one quick question: If you use @jdoe.net because it looks more professional, what would you use for the local part of the address? Does e.g. firstname.lastname@example.com look better than email@example.com? I'm thinking when used for job applications and such.

<comment><USER61> email@example.com is what I'd use, or if you have an uncommon last name like me and it's available as a domain name, firstname.lastname@example.com and a blog at john.doe.net.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I usually try to stop myself being overly protective of privacy. But - <USER2> already thought about leaving GMail several times to make sure that I don't rely on a big company that knows a lot about me.

Now Facebook, that would be an alternative. Uhm - wait a minute!

I do think they're going to pull this off though. Lots of people I know are still (happily) using the "older" services around, local free email providers, hotmail, whatever. A sexy webmail client, promoted by the site they use heavily? Sounds like a dealbreaker. Lots of non-technical people don't know Google as something other than a field to type searches into (or even rely on the browser search fields). Facebook could "educate" those to switch quite easily, I guess, given a good marketing strategy and some neat "integrate your mails with your status updates" features.

Ugh..

</comment><comment><USER63> If Twitter is smart they will provide the smart ultra cheap fast answer: mailto:email@example.com with automatic forwarding to your actual email (that they know of already).

No brainer.

I hope that facebook users will use their twitter name to setup their facebook email adress, ie: use it as a very public address.

@jhr

</comment><comment><USER64> Don't you guys think that it makes much more sense for Facebook to allow their users to hook up their email accounts (GMail, Hotmail etc.) via IMAP/POP and just be much better email interface with some extras?

Facebook could give priority sorting (based on your social graph), instant identification (kind of Rapportive features), and really easy to use and powerful address book (your social graph).

</comment><comment><USER65> Now Facebook will have no excuse not to allow exporting of friends email address... well they will probably think of something else.

I doubt they could kill GMail, if there is one thing Google is good at is, fast and efficient interfaces, it may not be pretty, but who cares, it's an email client.

</comment><comment><USER66> Does anyone else think, that this was the main reason behind the "GMail blocks import" story (<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1877845>)?

</comment><comment><USER67> Google try to integrate social network with gmail (buzz) and failed. Now facebook is trying to integrate social network with mail and result would be fail IMHO.

Mail and "social networks" are different need.

</comment><comment><USER68> I wonder if this has to do with the recent back-and-forth antics between Facebook and Google. It would make sense that Facebook wants a way for people to get their contacts out of Gmail...

</comment><comment><USER69> O no, please! Why do they all have to turn into I-completely-want-to-own-your- Internet-life giants? Isn't doing one thing good enough, enough? Who needs yet another email service provider?

</comment><comment><USER70> Another address people will just forward to their gmail. The article claims facebook has "the most popular photos product"... it may be true, but their "photos product" is shit.

</comment><comment><USER16> Facebook is the new AOL

</comment><comment><USER71> Well for me Gmail's killer is the build 1060 of Opera 11

</comment><comment><USER72> called it: <http://twitter.com/#!/savraj/status/2138507508> :)

</comment><comment><USER73> Wow, can't wait to see all my personal contact info publicly available after writing a merry christmas mail to email@example.com

</comment><comment><USER74> "Killer"?

Hard to make an email killer. Hotmail, for instance, is still incredibly popular, and will continue to be.

</comment><comment><AUTHOR> I was thinking about this when they launched username system, without knowing rumors about that.

<comment><USER27> You and everyone else.

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> I don't have a facebook account but idk about this. Will users get another username for their email address or use their vanity usernames? The under 18 crowd will use it because like another poster brought up, my brother also doesn't have a email address. He tried using mine.

</comment><comment><USER76> Well, didn't they buy Drop.io? So obviously they're going after our emails. The interesting thing would be to see if they require people to adopt new email addresses or not

</comment><comment><USER77> Social networking is lame.

</comment><comment><USER78> Maybe I'm biased by having seen The Social Network, but does anyone else get the feeling that Facebook is motivated by hurting other people? I mean, when Google was starting to get big, it seemed like they were driven by their own creativity, by their drive to be awesome. But Facebook just always exudes this attitude of jealousy.

edit: Any of the downvoters care to explain? It's an honest question about two different companies - if you disagree, I'd like to hear what you think.

<comment><USER79> It's just business. They'll do what it takes to get new users and to keep them. The reason they will be giving away @facebook.com email addresses is the same reason why my mother in law won't get off AOL. She doesn't want to lose her email address.

<comment><USER78> Yeah - I get that, but unless I've just been spared from the darker side of business, I've never worked for a company that would have called something "The X Killer" internally. People are aware of their competitors and what they need to do to beat them, but it seems like an unusual focus to focus on "killing" someone else product than coming up with something customers want even more.</comment></comment></comment>


Lavabit seeking investment for end-to-end encrypted email - <AUTHOR> https://republic.co/lavabit <comment><AUTHOR> Does Lavabit even have any trust remaining with users after all these years, having removed customer accounts when it shutdown abruptly?</comment>


A more interesting Gnosis - A Prototype Operating System for the 1990's - <AUTHOR> http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~KeyKOS/Gnosis/Gnosis.html

<comment><USER2> For those who might be wondering, this is in reference to the hacker group who recently hacked Gawker.

</comment><comment><USER3> It's great to see object-capability security being discussed on here! Mark Miller, Ben Laurie, and Mark Lentczner are working on how to apply this 1980s research in a web context at <https://sites.google.com/site/belayresearchproject/> under the name "Belay". They're still in early stages...

<comment><USER4> Doesn't SELinux use an object-capability model?

<comment><USER5> No. The term is defined at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Object- capability_model> which says '(Note, however, that some uses of the term "capability" are not consistent with the model, such as POSIX "capabilities".)'

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> <http://www.cis.upenn.edu/~KeyKOS/> is perhaps also of interest, then.</comment>


Reading Code is Key to Writing Good Code - <AUTHOR> http://stevenharman.net/blog/archive/2009/11/18/reading-code-is-key-to-writing-good-code.aspx

<comment><USER2> After being on the inside, I am convinced this is (part of) the reason why Microsoft seems so disconnected from the rest of the industry: no one here reads anyone else's code.

Sure, you might look at other code in your (probably enormous) project. And if you can swing it, you might be able to look at another group's code. But in general you can't go look at, say, random third party open-sourced code similar to what you're working on, or even better, random code that has nothing to do with what you're working on. (The license, viral or not, usually has no effect on the prohibition.)

There are aspects of serendipity, and of feeling recharged by feeling connected to the greater constellation of developers and projects in the world, and those aspects are stripped away here. I wonder if the Microsoft "culture" attracts people who don't care about reading others' code, or if it creates those kinds of people.

<comment><USER3> Wow, I can't imagine working like that. At my workplace, when working out problems, I almost always go to others' code first to see how they solved similar (or identical) problems.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> I don't know if my code qualifies as good code, but well anyway I want to share that I never read code in my programmer life without the _need_ to read code.

I read code when I've to modify it, or when I'm really curious about how something is working, or when I searched for bugs back in my "security researcher" past life. But it was either needed or fun. To read code as an exercise can be pretty boring I guess, this is not what programming should look like.

I can't see how there is so much value in reading a big codebase that expresses more or less the same style and patterns in many places. Maybe it's better to check for _some_ interesting code in different projects. I bet that reading SICP or an algorithms book and to code _a lot_ is a much better way to spend your time.

A good approach IMHO is to try to write some non trivial code, for instance an interpreter for a simple programming language, and if you have problems try to check what other code looks like and how it address the same problems you are facing. Then it will no longer be a pain to read parts of the implementation of Ruby or Python or Tcl, since you are discovering very interesting things, solutions to problems you encountered.

Another thing that's worth a lot more your time is to learn new programming languages. But there is no point in learning Python if you know Ruby, or the contrary. You should try to learn languages that are _really_ different. For instance SmallTalk, FORTH, Lisp, C, Assembler, Haskell, Joy, Ruby, Tcl are different enough.

</comment><comment><USER5> The only evidence that the author gives for the proposition that reading code is key to writing good code, is indirectly, by analogy to the arts. But music, painting and poetry are completely different subjects. There may be similarities between (say) poetry and code, but it is absurd to say that, since reading poetry is important for poets, reading code must be important to coders.

And there are plenty of reasons to believe otherwise. For one, extensively reading code is rare among coders. All good poets are very well-read in poetry, but there are many good programmers who rarely read code other than what they intend to modify, or as documentation.

Also, unlike a poem, a unit of code (say, a function) has a very well-defined goal. Coders don't need to develop an elaborate aesthetic sensitivity to judge whether their work passes their goals - unit tests and benchmarks will do just fine.

Nor do coders need to read code in order to learn about clever coding techniques. Partly, this is because code, unlike poetry, contains very few clever things per line. Partly, because there are simply better ways to get such information: books, blogs, articles, HN, proggit, stackoverflow, and so on.

It may well be that reading code is very helpful in becoming a better programmer. But I'd like to see some evidence first.

<comment><USER6> You should at the very least be reading your own code.

It's the feedback loop to improvement.

>> " Coders don't need to develop an elaborate aesthetic sensitivity to judge whether their work passes their goals - unit tests and benchmarks will do just fine."

If your goal is "It works", then sure. But some of us aspire to something more than that.

<comment><USER5> Of course you should read your own code. How can you not read your own code?

This is about whether it makes sense to pick an open source project and start reading.

<comment><USER6> You'd be surprised.

People using IDEs for a start, code folding, hiding from the cruft.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> What open source code would you consider worth reading?

Lua is said to have a nice code base, djbdns is probably the most bug free code ever written and TeX is also legendary.

<comment><USER8> I found drupal's architecture to be pretty good. Core, not contributed modules!

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I think there is a fundamental difference between the creative acts of programming and producing artwork. The programmer has a requirement of what the program or piece of it should do, and the creative problem, is how to do express this in code. The problem with reading code, is that the original problem is not present in the code, and the purpose of the code is not to express something to a human viewer, but mainly for a machine to execute. In that way the creativity is a lot more like the mathematicians creativity than the artists. The difference to mathematics, is that in programming the resulting code is usually quite long. What one would need is to condense the code in a way similar to how a mathematician does with his formulas, so that only the most essential ideas remain. Some people are very good at that (Peter Norvig comes to mind), but most codebases for actual software are not at all like that.

<comment><USER10> Many artists have a requriement for what their art should do. For instance, a film composer has to create a soundtrack that enhances the emotional content of a film. They may have broad discretion, but ultimately their goals are largely defined by the existing narrative and pacing of the movie.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Nice post, nothing really new there, but this caught my eye from the comments:

 _Despite this, some in the Lean camp are still trying to pretend that we can use an industrial metaphor to produce software. Why? Because just like in the 1960's that's what the Management classes want to hear :)_

I wonder if that's really true...

<comment><USER12> Absolutely it's true. Programmers in most corporate environments are treated like assembly line workers. Work for X hours, Y amount of work gets done. Programmers should be interchangeable units that can be continuously reorganized to optimize productivity.

In reality, of course, programming is not like manufacturing at all. It's more like creative writing, or painting, or composing. It's difficult to tell how long something will take, what problems you might face along the way, etc. Business people typically do not understand this; getting an MBA will usually teach you about organization, supply, resources, large teams, and other things that are irrelevant for software development (not to mention business connections along the way, which is just as important.)

But software is clearly necessary if you're going to be competitive in almost any field, which is why programmers are needed. Business people usually don't like you; you're just a necessary evil. They'd rather not have to deal with programmers at all. They would rather buy some software package that comes in a carton. A person who works on something all day that they can't understand and can't easily measure the productivity of scares them. "Why are these programmers all so fiddly? Can't they just do their work like everyone else?"

This is one of the reasons most corporate software sucks.

(I've never worked for any extended period in a large corporate/enterprise environment, thank god, this is just the general story I hear from people who have.)

<comment><USER13> I work at _IBM_. You can't get more corporate than that.

I had a co-worker say this to me last week - "I just feel like [our manager] treats people like resources, batteries if you will."

He complains a lot and his department transfer is going poorly, but I couldn't help but agree with him here.

To say that its creative writing, painting, or composing is frankly dead on. I don't have to convince our audience here that is true, especially anyone who has seen a _truly elegant solution_ to a problem.

Corporate software definitely sucks as a rule, I believe, because the passion and motivation for excellence has been sucked out of them. I was discussing design philosophy (as related to a structure/organization question) with my _technical team lead_ and he said something to the effect of (not far from verbatim), _"Yeah, I'm not really passionate about [design philosophy], I usually follow whats there."_

This is a guy that supposed to be leading a group of developers. Over a year and a half I have determined that taking a diplomatic approach to design and programming issues isn't always the best solution. It leads to disconnected and mangled code.

Apple is different in this regard because the CEO was, and at heart (hopefully), still is a programmer (despite app store mayhem - everyone makes mistakes). The market has noticed and felt the difference. _(Also notice how Apple doesn't do a lot - if any - corporate level development.)_

I agree with your stance completely and am willing to make the bold statement that the only person that should lead an organization that produces software as a direct product for consumers should be someone that has developed before and still has the passion about the _art_.

 _(Edit: a quick side note to all of this - I have friends that are in the Silicon Valley area and quit IBM way before I contemplated it. At first I thought they were whiny because they didn't get to write python code but what it comes down to is they understood and accepted the fundamental breakdown between organizational behavior and the art of computer science.)_

<comment><USER14> I'm not aware of Jobs ever being a programmer, what are you talking about?</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Oil drilling: Wrong coordinate system creates lake 1,300 feet deep (1980) - <AUTHOR> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Peigneur <comment><USER2> Too bad the premise for this post is completely uncited:

> the rig was positioned as if the coordinates were in the Universal > Transverse Mercator coordinate system when, in actuality, they were in > transverse Mercator projection[citation needed]

<comment><USER3> And doesn't quite make sense either. Transverse Mercator is a family of transformations, not a particular projection. Seems more likely they got confused between a local projection and some other one. Really easy to do.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> "The resultant whirlpool sucked in the drilling platform, eleven barges, many trees and 65 acres (26 ha) of the surrounding terrain."

It's remarkable nobody lost their life.</comment>


Get Lanyrd (YC W11) in your Gmail inbox with Rapportive (YC S10) - <AUTHOR> http://lanyrd.com/blog/2011/rapportive/

<comment><USER2> Since I already use Rapportive, I tried the Lanyrd integration and I love it. It's really nice to be able to see conferences that the sender is speaking at. I can also view slides and videos of the person. It's a great way to get to know who is emailing me!

<comment><USER3> Yeah - this is a great addition. I get a lot of email from developer mailing lists, it's really great insight!

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Did you mean: "Get Lanyard (YC W11) in your Gmail (PB YC Partner) inbox (xobni backwards) with Rapportive (YCS10)"

<comment><AUTHOR> Hah, yes I should definitely have tried to get PB in there :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting that people are building on top of gmail just as I'm getting ready to ditch my 6.5 year old gmail account entirely. I got fed up with the web- based interface a couple of years ago, the IMAP interface is really slow and broken, and I'm becoming more and more concerned with the privacy implications.</comment>


The Unbundling of Excel - <AUTHOR> http://tomtunguz.com/unbundling-of-excel/ <comment><USER2> The author is right to highlight the adoption of specific vertical solutions to replace Excel by business as they grow, because "the Excel workflow becomes unwieldy and burdensome". That's because Excel based solutions have to be operated manually on the desktop. Vertical solutions can tick over on cloud servers with minimal manual ops. But those considerations ignore the factors that drive Excel's persistent use. Excel enables end users to solve problems for themselves, without reference to vendorware, SaaS offerings or their own IT dept. And that enables business agility. Ergo Excel will never be completely displaced by the new solutions that the author identifies.

<comment><USER3> > Excel enables end users to solve problems for themselves, without reference > to vendorware, SaaS offerings or their own IT dept.

Only because, largely for cargo cult reasons, many IT departments prohibit other tools that may be more suitable for the task but allow Excel, even when Excel and the other tool have similar profiles in whatever aspect (often security) is the normal basis for the policy.</comment></comment>


Ask HN: Email Marketing – Doing It the Right Way - <AUTHOR> Hi all,
Can you describe the do's and don'ts regarding this?
We want to start using this method, based on legit lists such as acquired from Dun & Bradstreet and the likes.
What measures should we take at our end to protect domain from being blacklisted? Assuming we plan to act by the book by all means and fairness. <comment><USER2> Email Marketer here: I really wouldn't use acquired lists, even "legitimate" ones. Assuming they are not full of spam traps or bad data, email is the worst medium to come in cold on. Once someone unsubscribes or blacklists, they are gone forever.

Also, the way email clients work now is much more robust. Even if your emails are not marked as 'spam', the big players (Outlook, Gmail, etc) use machine learning to determine if people are actually reading your emails. Badly performing senders are relegated to a Clutter or Promo folder, which can be just as bad as Spam. So coming in strong with good performing emails is very important to establishing a reputation. (Double opt-in is your friend here, that opt-in email gets a lot of inbox activity for you.)

If you have a list, use that to manually call down or email people individually. If you are going to intrude on them cold, at least do them the honor of being personal with it. Plus, you can really hone down on the messaging and finding what people respond to. This is very much a case where premature optimization is your enemy.

Start looking for an automation platform once you have more transactional emails established. Have all the opt-ins and follow best-practices, yadda yadda.

<comment><AUTHOR> Thank you very much for this informative answer.

<comment><USER2> As an idea, if you have an existing list of emails from former customers or lost opportunities, those are a good candidate for a long term nurture campaign. If there were reasons they looked at your product in the past, there are good odds they may look at it in the future again. Keep them on a quarterly or monthly drip and remind them of new features or platform updates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER3> You should need the user to opt in (although if they opted in to third-party marketing from Dun & Bradstreet then presumably that is legitimate too), and then send them the messages, that do not contain any lies, and do not send third-party marketing from your domain (unless they opted in to third-party marketing too), and then hopefully will not be black listed. Even if they are, some users will black list stuff they do not want using various methods (I set up a different email alias for each thing and delete the aliases that start receiving messages that I do not want).</comment>


How to properly load test Google App Engine - <AUTHOR> http://code.google.com/appengine/articles/load_test.html

<comment><USER2> _... you should ramp up slowly when load testing an application on App Engine. Ramping up too quickly won't give an accurate picture of how App Engine scales; you have to accomodate our load balancing code ..._

The problem with this is that the test is written to accommodate known limitations of the architecture. Performance tests need to take the opposite approach. In this case that means specifically revealing the performance implications when App Engine scales up and down.

That said, I don't expect a Google engineer to reveal App Engine's limitations :]

<comment><USER3> It depends on what your load test is attempting to prove.

Are you attempting to prove you can handle a /.,digg,fark,reddit, etc without a single 500 error in a 10min window?

Or are you attempting to prove that you can handle 2million "transactions" an hour, but have the luxury to ramp up in the real world slowly? (Twitter didn't go from nothing to everything in a day)

I'd say the second case is more likely to be the case 90% of sites would care about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> <http://www.yakeze.com/chat/hacker-news/>

(Powered by App Engine)

<comment><USER5> I don't understand why this is downmodded, a pull-based chat is a pretty good test for load handling capabilities. Seems like this is sending a request every ~2 seconds for every user logged in.

How are you finding GAE so far? BTW are you hitting the daily request # limit?</comment></comment>