Overcoming porn addiction

[Samuel11]

At a very young age (7?) I started masturbating multiple times a day. Around the age of 12 I discovered porn, and started using it multiple times a day (usually 2-3). It started having a bigger and bigger effect on my life but I didn't seem to find the link between the brain fog and constant tiredness until the age of 16-17 when I discovered nofap and started experimenting with it. Until then I had never had any interest or strong attraction to girls around me and I had already developed porn induced erectile disfunction (PIED).

When I started nofap I my urges for porn became bigger and I thought my PIED was cured, and everything seemed to go well. This was until I went through the "flatline", a term for a common effect in recovering porn addicts where your brain starts to readjust to lower levels of dopamine (compared to the dopamine flooding caused porn). For 18 months I had no sexual urges and felt very depressed. During this period abstaining from PMO was fairly easy (went 6 months without) as I had no urges at all. At the end of this period I started feeling better, and my sexual urges started to return, but in a more organic form than the intense cravings caused by porn. I thought I was cured until I started relapsing, and these relapses started getting more frequent. My usual cycle is now:

1. Sexual urges start returning

2. Relapse(s)

3. Brain fog, no libido or urges for porn

I am getting sick of this cycle and battling this addiction for 2.5 years now, having no libido and missing out on multiple opportunities of having sex and relationships sucks. I really need to get to the root cause of this addiction but don't know what to do.

 

tldr: Went through porn withdrawal but still addicted, need advice for how to fix this for once and for all

[Nickyy]

@Samuel11 Have you tried just cutting masturbation down to once a week?

 

[Lento]

@Samuel11

Do you workout regularly?

Maybe start by something small, like every time you feel an urge, try practicing some breathing exercises and some Swedish exercises as well. And if you feel more energetic you can do some push-ups as well. The point is that you need to replace a bad habit with a good habit, choose something that you enjoy, maybe socializing and going out with friends, maybe following your life purpose or passion, maybe reading books, researching, maybe just working, maybe something else. Find that thing that you most enjoy.

But be careful, and this is very important, don't try to fight your feelings or urges, it's pointless. Instead, pause for a moment, breathe deeply, and then it won't matter what you decide to do. Maybe sometimes you decide that you can't hold back the urge and so you accept that and surrender to it, and most importantly you do it consciously, and without judgement. The problem won't go away in one day. Keep in mind that it's a big project, and that progress is more likely to be slower than you expect. Don't forget how many years it took to get here, so be gentle with yourself. You can do it, with more love. And really contemplate why you have the addiction, use a journal, write down how it all began in details and how every time you tried and failed felt like. Eventually you shall arrive at the conclusion that you only need to spend your spare time doing something else or watching and observing yourself (meditation).

Also make sure that you don't try to solve any other serious problems at the same time. You have to dedicate your focus on one problem at a time.

[Preety_India]

Do not judge yourself 

 

 

 

[Applegarden]

Wow this is so much worse then i had it, the long term way out of it is meditation, its such a delicate thing, it needs right kind of awareness to let go of it, but now its such a lust, i know, if you are determined enough you can list the reasons why it just wouldnt be necessary for you, however it may signal to yourself that you are a bad person that you do things you dont need, and i want you to be careful of shaming yourself, and reminding yourself and staying as clean as possible. I would also explore new things, literally go outside for 10 minutes for a walk and things like that so you cant immediately jump into it and have time to rethink before lust takes over. Also breathing exercises work! Take care, you can and probably will get out of this!

[Aeris]

3 hours ago, Preety_India said:

Do not judge yourself 

 

 

 

One of my friend who fap almost like 3-5 times a day

since decades,

doesn't judge for sure.

 

[Preety_India]

@Aeris

Any addiction can be taken care of. 

 

[Nahm]

@Samuel11 Have you ever thought about starting a dream board? Surely doesn’t sound related, but you might just end up with so much you’re wanting & doing, that you simply don’t have the time for lessor desires. Just a thought. I know it’s a bit out of context / indirect. 

[Samuel11]

@Nickyy I have not, but that might be the way to go once my libido returns. That way I at least avoid the porn.

@Lento I climb 2-4 times a week. I used to go to the gym but got bored and switched to climbing.

This is very good advice, I used to do wim hof breathing when I got urges, it reduced the chance of me relapsing a bit. Maybe I should just go for a run every time I start feeling an urge. The journal and observing myself is also very good advice. I often notice myself going more unconscious before I relapse, so concentrating and trying to stay more conscious should help.

@Applegarden @Preety_India Thank you both for the reminder to not judge or shame myself, often after relapsing the shame feels even worse than the imbalance caused by the relapsing itself. The advice of going outside is very good.

@Nahm Never crossed my mind, but that is very good advice. At the moment I have no direction in my life, I am not working towards anything besides graduating (and getting better at climbing hahah).

@Shiva  Your advice ties directly into this, I am a student and spend most of my days in my room studying and browsing the net. After my last relapse I decided to stop skipping class and start studying at the library instead of at home. I have also been wanting to buy the life purpose course as I am not sure what I want out of life and if the field I am studying is really for me. I think that if I would have a life purpose and other dreams that I would be working towards and would follow the rest of the advice given here for what to do when I get an urge this problem would be fixed.

Thanks for all the advice, I did not expect to get this much feedback

 

[Nahm]

@Samuel11 You’d be pleasantly surprised what a difference it creates. ??

[Samuel11]

@Keyhole  I agree. However when I relapse my mind completely shuts off and I ignore this.

 

I just realised that I only watch porn on my phone, never on my computer. Maybe I should switch to my old school nokia phone for a while, or at least hide my phone away when I am at home.

[Aeris]

2 hours ago, Keyhole said:

Porn is low to high level exploitation of the divinity of human sexuality.  The people that perform these acts for the pleasure of others are desecrating themselves.  These people also have entire lives that you know nothing about.  Try looking at these people as people and not instruments for your pleasure outlet and you might have an easy time overcoming the addiction.

Serious lol though.

There is a lot of porn where the girl talk about her real life before ( a friend told me, of course)

There is truly people that just don't care about everything I guess. Girl that like to think of being the catalyst of millions man's pleasures.

And for some men It's a curse-blessing

Edited November 21, 2019 by Aeris

[Red-White-Light]

@Samuel11 Install blocksite on your phone and then put on adultblock, so that is blocks porn websites.

[assx95]

@Samuel11 You are addicted cause you lie to yourself that you want to stop jerking off. You are in denial that you allow yourself to jerk off. You point the finger outwards as if some external force is causing it to happen. When simply, it is you playing a trick on yourself such that you play the part of being a victim, while the other part of you proceeds to abuse you and enjoy the pleasure. It's your own doing. Your own plan. You are the devil who wants that titillating excitement and pleasure, but who tricks itself into thinking it doesn't want any of it. 

To fix this, Leo once suggested me to find a new healthy habit to replace it, but it could also be karma, so, you'd need more awareness. Awareness alone is curative if you could shine it enough on anything. 

Edited November 21, 2019 by assx95

[Samuel11]

@assx95 I just thought about this and you are correct. When I relapse and go on a porn binge that is what I actually want, and I start justifying it. I really noticed that in my last relapse.

@Keyhole What kind of reward are you suggesting? I am having trouble finding something I could use

@Red-White-Light I just deleted reddit as that is where I get most of my porn from

[Shin]

Like the others said, you need to find some kind of passion and put all your energy in that and your current work.

You won't have time to think about masturbating that much, unless you get unusual long streak of semen retention (which doesn't happen that much because of wet dream).

I noticed too that when I was unfocused with no definite goal that I can "grind" everyday, I usually want to fap once or more per week,
When I have a goal and I focus my energy on it, masturbation doesn't even come in my mind for weeks until the crazy energy comes, but even at that point I'm sure you can get used to it too.

[Samuel11]

@Shin I have been really focussing on my hobbies lately and have noticed an improvement. I think that taking the life purpose course would be really beneficial, I have been on the fence about buying it

[Javfly33]

I call porn addiction really "SLIDING ADDICTION". That means, is not really different than scrolling endlessly through Instagram or Twitter feed, but with a much strong dopamine kick.

What you need to stop porn addiction is first be sure that you can control the most easy ones, which could be for example scrolling in this very forum.

There is A CRUCIAL difference, if you are entering actualized.org or Instagram or Twitter or etc... Because you are bored or any reason that is not actually a true goal (like getting some information or talking specifically with someone) then YOU ARE ENGAGING in the same action that you do in porn.

So basically to stop being addicted to porn you literally have to have a life than you don't decide you spend your time in something numbing as porn is.

The second advice is if you got yourself entering a porn site then you can not unswitch that, so in that case just masturbate with whatever and get it out of the way.

[Ryna]

Check out a form of therapy call Internal Family System. It's incredibly effective. Good luck!

[Samuel11]

@Javfly33 @Ryna Both great insights. Thanks!