> My addiction to quitting started in seventh grade, when my teacher read some meatpacking excerpts from Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle out loud in class.
It's impressive to me that this book was read in a 7th grade class. The Jungle is a pretty hardcore read.
Though I do respect the author exercising such self control, I wonder where their limit lies. Avoiding addictions can end up being an addiction in itself, and lead to things like orthorexia where one is so careful to avoid harmful substances that they end up eating an insufficient amount of nutrition. I've also known people who have gotten into a new age or spirituality kick, decided that even an hour of video games a day is an hour a day of time wasted, went minimalist, and then came away looking to fill that void with other things that are just as surrogate as video games are.