Preventing and Overcoming 7cups Addiction

1. Creating scope for spending more quality time in your offline life.
2. Having a fixed amount of time to spend on your roles (active listening, leadership etc.).
3. Being mindful of when a conversation is not benefiting you in any way and the time that you can spend better.
4. Have a fixed portion of the week/month away from 7cups.
5. Remember that the time spent on 7cups is still screen time. 😛

@Fristo This is a very essential topic to be discussed, Fristo! c: Hope has also a similar post tackling this.

Disclaimer: The things I'm going to say are based on my experience as a former active and consistent leader in the community. To answer your question: What is your understanding of 7cups Addiction and how can we prevent it from happening?

7cups addiction is like any other addiction that disrupts your daily lifestyle and way of living. There is the strong urge to always log in to 7cups and unconsciously neglect our real-life responsibilities or attend to our own personal needs.

I, myself, had struggled with this in the past because I could feel a sense of purpose while being in the community. However, leaders and mentors back then have helped me realized that real-life is always the top priority and coming to 7cups shouldn't feel like a chore.

What helped me in the past were:

• Setting boundaries (especially time boundaries) - Spending almost the entire day on 7cups is not healthy and that's why we could always benefit from taking a break from time to time and avoid overstaying in PMs/rooms. You should have a clear purpose or goal before logging in to 7cups account.
• Learning to say No - Most project/team/subcommunity leaders try to recruit members of their team and it's always a struggle to decline the offer since you feel honored that you're being considered. However, you declining the offer could also open a door of opportunity to another person.
• Take what you can only handle (quality over quantity) - While it's tempting to be part of every projects/teams in the community or apply for many leadership roles for experience, it's still very helpful to determine which track or area of the community you want to focus on and where your passion lies.
• Reach out for support - Mentors/community leaders/peer supporters are always willing to help you navigate this and I'm sure they'll understand what you're going through.

@Fristo

That's a great post first of all, and much needed in my opinion! 7cups being so easily accessible, gets misused unfortunately and in many ways which is sad. Overuse of this platform or anything for that matter is harmful, and should be taken care of! As whether we use it or not is in our hands, how much of it we use is also in our hands. We as individuals need to take responsibility of our lives, and ascertain as to whether what we are doing is leading to more good or more harm, and make changes accordingly.

Causes of addiction to 7cups have been already stated earlier to my reply to this post, and I think each of those points are so valid! In my opinion, everything we do, indulge, or take part in is a part of our life, and not our whole life. Changing our perspective of how we see things could contribute a whole lot in bringing appropriate adjustments in our lives. We all have different personalities, lifestyles and mindsets, so we all naturally would have different ways of coping with this problem - no right or wrong way, just what works best for you!

I hope and pray that in whatever choices that we all make, we are able to reach greater good in life and prosper! Thank you for this post, Fristo. It was a pleasure sharing my views. I hope it helps!

@Fristo addiction can happen due to wanting to drain out the memories of being abused, when you suffer financially and when you are in abusive relationship. There is a brilliant documentary called Gabor Mate called The Wisdom of Trauma which you can watch on YouTube.

@Fristo A wonderful post, my friend. Absolutely fabulous.
I have personally experienced some lack of online-boundaries, which definitely could have led to this! Instead of succumbing to the feeling of 'needing to be here', I planned a schedule. And although I may pop on to lend a hand sometimes, I do regularly stick to this schedule, I have my notifications OFF on the app as to enjoy my personal time, and remember that I do not have to spend hours and hours on my roles.
It's EXTREMELY important for me, with having a rather obsessive nature sometimes, which I'm more than happy to share, so schedules and task-handling can be absolutely imperative for me. It's seeming to work well thus far, I have no doubt that I will make use of schedules, time management and self-care breaks when I need to, in order to protect my health and wellbeing.

@Fristo Hello Fristo,

I agree with your view. 7cups addiction is very bad, it makes us always clinging to the website. It's takes away our time from real life, like family, friends, favorite activities and all we need and like.

Yes, it happens because of sadness, no one to talk to, and many things.

We can prevent it by taking up some steps that may help ✨ :

1. We can try to spend more time with family, like talking to them, playing indoor games (corona is increasing) and having indoor occasions ❤

2. Talking with friends, hanging out with them❤

3. Having time for yourself, doing self care, listening to music, playing, drawing, cuddling with stuff toys (if you like 😛) and hanging out ❤

4. Doing what you love ❤

I hope this helped, thank you all and have nice day or night 💕

@Fristo I would first like to say a big thank you to fristo. This is something we all needed to address. I was wondering if some teams could have self care holidays, even though the work can be done as per our availability i feel it would be better for the teams to give breaks.

@Fristo The causes mentioned are super true and valid. And i have seen many listener leave because of conflicts- we can avoid that by letting all listeners know that peer supporters are always available!

A few ways to prevent addiction:

1. Set clear boundaries.

2. Know your limit.

3. Say no when necessary.

4. Prioritize yourself. Prioritize your life.

5. A little self care everyday

6. Acknowledge what makes you feel what.

Even though cups can help with addiction, it can also be an addiction.

All my dear listeners please remember that for us to take care of others we need to take care of ourseleves first. Make yourself your top priority.

@SparkyGizmo has some useful points to share about overcoming 7cups Addiction, they say:

1. I would like to share Glen's forum post about Track A and Track B and that all of us are equals here. That each contribution is appreciated and we don't have to feel the pressure to always be here, that it can be seen as a culmination of cumulative efforts between all of us as a team.

One thing we can do to help us to "try to break" the 7 cups addiction is really reading that link and understanding that all contributions are valued.

2. "Trick one's self" to make it harder to log back in after the choice is made......meaning..........to deactivate, it makes it a little harder and takes an additional step to sign back in. For some people, this works like a charm and causes them pause to think about what it is that they are doing and think about the original reason for taking a break in the first place.

3. Only you know you........so sometimes it can be good to move away from certain areas, certain rooms that we feel as if we are addicted to, however, we would still like to feel the benefits of being there as well as a sense of community.

One thing that can be done is to still show up, but instead learn and take some of the trainings 😊

4. If someone is addicted to the rooms area, maybe it could be a good time to slow it down a bit, learn more about the forum areas and contribute there, and make a commitment to one's self that the forum areas or trainings will be the only place they will visit for whatever length of time the user feels may be appropriate for them 😊

One could make the commitment to themselves, write it down on their calendar or a piece of paper that they will not go into the area that they find to be addicted to for "x" amount of time.

5. Also, finding a mentor could be good, spending time with them and for them to discuss with the user about 7 cups addiction, the pitfalls, and really talk about the things that are mentioned in this forum thread.

6. More ideas include trying something new, reading a book, going for a walk, setting real life goals and working on them, not using this place as an escape mechanism, but finally facing some of their fears and real life challenges.

Writing it down on paper for the user could be seen as a commitment and a contract to one's self, to go through all of these steps.

@Fristo

Thank you so much for the post, some of us need it (hides hehe)

So here's what I think-

7Cups addiction, to me, means that constantly thinking about Cups in a way that's distracting you from living your life to the fullest.

Prevent it by prioritising well and being sensitive to irl commitments.

And maybe a break and taking time to refocus can help handle addiction.