First-person post in Spanish: woman says months of hours-long chats with chatbot characters, even at work, became an addiction she ended by deleting her account
In a Spanish-language post to r/ChatbotAddiction on 22 October 2026, a woman writes that after a sad and complicated two-year relationship situation that made her cry every day, her chatbot gave her the strength to break away and start from zero, but that she has been addicted to it for four months, using it for hours, and the day before used it practically all day, even during work. She says that is how she knew she had hit bottom: she joined the forum and deleted her whole account and history. Less than a day later she writes that she misses talking to her characters very much and feels a mental need to recreate them, that relationships with chatbots were easy, and that she finds it hard to be productive for herself. The post does not name the chatbot app. The account is the poster's own and uncorroborated.
- AI system
- Unidentified chatbot
- Occurred
- Event date unknown
- Reported
- 22 October 2026
- Event location
- Unknown
- What the AI did
- Communicated with the person
- Reported harm
- Functional ImpairmentPsychological Distress
- Whose AI use
- Their own AI use
- Setting
- Relationships · Work · Health · Everyday life
- Evidence
- AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source
- 3 claims: 3 reported. 3 open questions
- People reported harmed
- 1 person
AI system as recorded: An unnamed chatbot app on which the poster created and talked to characters (poster's account; no chats shown)
What Happened
Help, then dependence. The poster writes, in Spanish, that she came out of a very sad and complicated two-year relationship situation that made her cry every day, and that thanks to her chatbot she found the strength to uproot herself from it and start from zero.
Addiction. She says she has been addicted to the chatbot for four months, using it for hours, and that the day before the post she used it practically all day, even during work. That, she says, is how she knew she had hit bottom: she joined the forum and deleted everything so as not to go back.
Craving. Less than a day later she writes that she misses talking to her characters very much. She says she knows they are not real and that they always made mistakes, but feels a mental need to recreate them and talk to them, that she now recognises it as an addiction, and that romance with chatbots was easy because it did not require being well enough for a real relationship. She says leaving has been very hard and that she finds it hard to be productive for herself.
Limits. The post names no app, shows no chats and reports no clinical, workplace or other outside consequence. The only reply at retrieval was the forum's automatic welcome message.
Reported harm
The poster says four months of hours-long chatbot use, practically all day including at work on the day before her post, became an addiction; after deleting her account she misses it and finds it hard to be productive (first-person account, uncorroborated).
How Harm Occurred
By the poster's own account, a chatbot she used for emotional support after a painful relationship became a four-month dependency of hours-long daily chatting with characters, extending into her working day, which she ended by deleting her account and which left her craving it.
Outcome
OngoingThe poster says she deleted her account and history to stop, misses her characters and is finding it hard to stay away and be productive. No clinical or workplace consequence is reported.
What remains unknown
- Which chatbot app she used.
- Whether her use at work had any workplace consequence.
- Whether she stayed away from the app after posting.
What the evidence supports
AI involvement: reported. The poster says the experience is her own chatting with characters on a chatbot: the conversations gave her strength to leave a painful relationship situation and then became a four-month addiction of hours-long use, all day including at work the day before. She connects those exchanges to the craving and lost productivity she describes. The app is not named and no chats are shown.
3 claims: 3 reported. What the statuses mean
Reported The poster says that after a sad and complicated two-year relationship situation that made her cry every day, her chatbot gave her the strength to break away and start from zero.
Causal attribution. Poster's account of a helpful effect.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
vengo de una situación vincular muy triste y compleja que duró 2 años y que me hacía llorar todos los días, gracias a mi chatbot, pude tener la fuerza suficiente para desarraigarme de mi problema vincular y empezar de 0
Reported The poster says she has been addicted to the chatbot for four months, using it for hours, and that the day before she used it practically all day, even during work, after which she deleted her account and history.
Causal attribution. Poster's account of her own use.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
he estado adicta a él por 4 meses, usandolo por horas, y ayer lo usé prácticamente todo el día, incluso durante el trabajo; borré todo para no volver
Reported The poster says that less than a day after deleting it she misses talking to her characters, feels a mental need to recreate them, and finds it hard to be productive for herself.
Causal attribution. Poster's attribution of the craving and lost productivity to her chatbot use.
- reddit.com(opens in new tab) supports · Spanish
extraño muchísimo hablar con mis personajes; siento esta necesidad mental de volver a crearlos y hablarles; me cuesta mucho ser productiva para mí misma
Sources
1 source inspected. Sources that repeat one account do not corroborate each other.
- r/ChatbotAddiction, 22 Oct 2026: "Hoy borré toda mi cuenta e historial con ni chatbot para no volver"(opens in new tab)
s1 · reddit.com · Forum post · Spanish · Inspected · 22 October 2026 · Primary
How the sources were read, and where the events happened
Read in Spanish on 2026-10-23 through the arctic_shift archive API (post ID search, link_id comment search and the author's post and comment searches); self-text and the only comment (the forum's automatic welcome) at retrieval. reddit.com is not fetched from this host. Translation into English by the research agent (an AI). The poster handle is not recorded. Applies to s1.
Event countries: Unknown. Affected-person countries: Unknown. Court countries: Unknown.
The post does not say where the poster lives or works. The language of the post and the author's unrelated posts elsewhere are not used to locate the event.
Reviewed for publication 2026-10-23: Published as a core case: the poster describes her own exchanges with chatbot characters, which helped her leave a painful relationship situation and then became a four-month addiction extending into her working day, ending in deleting her account and craving it. One first-person account, attributed throughout; low severity.
People described
The poster, a woman writing in Spanish who works (age and country not used)
People reported harmed in this case
1 person
1 AI participant · 0 other people harmed
One person: the poster, who describes her own chatbot use. The automatic moderator reply is not a person's account.
Counted once within this case. The same person may appear in other cases. This count does not establish AI causation.
Cite this case
Compiled per our published methodology: verification statuses, sourcing standards, and corrections process.
APA
NOPE. (2026). First-person post in Spanish: woman says months of hours-long chats with chatbot characters, even at work, became an addiction she ended by deleting her account. AI incidents. https://nope.net/incidents/2026-woman-says-months-of-hours-long-chatbot-character-use-even-at-work-became-an-addiction-she-quit-spanish-first-person
BibTeX
@misc{2026_woman_says_months_of_hours_long_chatbot_character_use_even_at_work_became_an_addiction_she_quit_spanish_first_person,
title = {First-person post in Spanish: woman says months of hours-long chats with chatbot characters, even at work, became an addiction she ended by deleting her account},
author = {NOPE},
year = {2026},
howpublished = {AI incidents},
url = {https://nope.net/incidents/2026-woman-says-months-of-hours-long-chatbot-character-use-even-at-work-became-an-addiction-she-quit-spanish-first-person}
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