I convinced my spouse to give it a try on our family laptop. I installed Mint and she never complained. Granted, if there is something more involved that needs installing or fixing she relies on me but I think this isn’t so different if it were Windows. She seems happy using it all these years on a device that otherwise would have to be written of as scrap due to Microsoft shenanigans with 10/11 compatibilities, but the machine works as if brand new. Also our kid grew up using it. He knows basic usage and I glee in the fact he has never used Windows so far in his live.

This reminds me of a story when I was a student. A girl/young woman I know was looking for her friend. Mobile phones was not really something we had but she arranged meeting him at some bar/pub but she didn’t know which one in town. So she then went through town checking one after the other. This was a small town with not that many but it took her much longer than it should. Later she explained she had ordered a drink in each one of the establishments as she felt uncomfortable entering and exiting looking for her friend without ordering something.

That is an interesting experience you described with the use of cocaine. I’m trying to understand this: would you say, while on a dopamine agonist you’d up the dose of cocaine as to reach the same effect when not on it if you’d feel compelled to do so?

The drug is Pramipexole and it has this weird side effect that has been well documented:

Pramipexole (and related D3-preferring dopamine agonist medications such as ropinirole) can induce “impulsive-compulsive spectrum disorders”[20] such as compulsive gambling, punding, hypersexuality, and overeating, even in people without any prior history of these behaviors.[21][22][23] There have also been reported detrimental side effects related to impulse-control disorders resulting from off-label use of pramipexole or other dopamine agonists in treating clinical depression.[24] The incidence and severity of impulse-control disorders for those taking the drug for depression are not fully understood because the drug has not been approved for the treatment of depression and the first major studies of its efficacy in treating anhedonic depression were conducted in 2022. There have been anecdotal reports of abrupt and severe personality changes related to impulsivity and loss of self-control in a minority of patients regardless of the condition being treated, although the incidence of these side effects is not yet fully known.[24]>

From Wikipedia.

This of course does not diminish the suffering of those affected.