I expect the fact that addictive things wear out their welcome faster thanks to your wife generalizes.
Maybe one defense against new addictive things is to have people with whom you are in close relationships, who are not trying the same things at the same time, and can remind you it would be bad to sink a bunch of time or effort into an addictive thing, because (among other things) it would hurt your important relationships.
If you are relying on your own self-control to deal with something designed to overcome or compete with your self-control, one misstep could be doom. But with someone else whose judgment you rely on, both minds would have to be compromised at the same time.
Doesn’t work for instantly-effective perfect addictors, but for anything you can recover from, a supportive group of people will plausibly help. Maybe as our tech advances, “our friends monitor us for new addictions and help us recover” should become a low-shame social norm. Along with “friends avoid trying the same new thing at the same time”.
I expect the fact that addictive things wear out their welcome faster thanks to your wife generalizes.
Maybe one defense against new addictive things is to have people with whom you are in close relationships, who are not trying the same things at the same time, and can remind you it would be bad to sink a bunch of time or effort into an addictive thing, because (among other things) it would hurt your important relationships.
If you are relying on your own self-control to deal with something designed to overcome or compete with your self-control, one misstep could be doom. But with someone else whose judgment you rely on, both minds would have to be compromised at the same time.
Doesn’t work for instantly-effective perfect addictors, but for anything you can recover from, a supportive group of people will plausibly help. Maybe as our tech advances, “our friends monitor us for new addictions and help us recover” should become a low-shame social norm. Along with “friends avoid trying the same new thing at the same time”.