Teen w/ porn addiciton (help)

[TheAlchemist]

What was the porn and fapping giving you? It was clearly giving you something, otherwise you wouldn't have consumed it compulsively. Saying it didn't give you anything is denial. 

Maybe it gave you a feeling you craved deep down, met some need. How is that hole being filled now? Dig deep and you can grow from this process a ton.

I'm being straight to the point and not just patting you on the back here because I was in the whole anti-porn/discipline community actively for many years, talked to 100's of "addicts" online, even had a 6 month "streak" and many multi month streaks. But all that never got anywhere near the root of the real issue, which was/is fear of, and craving of deep intimacy for me. Working on that root issue requires a very very different approach than just abstinence.

People say they quit, but 95% of people in that community were fooling themselves, in a never ending cycle of streaks and relapses, supressing their sexuality and never really digging deep to the root causes. 

But by all means, go for the long streak if it feels right, it can be a great experiment to learn something about yourself. And you can develop some confidence from developing that discipline, nothing wrong with that! This message is just in case you are in that 95%, and find yourself eventually relapsing, potentially helping you avoid many years of frustration by getting to the core of the issue.

If you are the 5% that quit porn and fapping for good and don't have an underlying issue/need and find an outlet for their sexuality, come back in 6 months with this same streak still going. I'll be gladly proven wrong in my generalization/assumption.

Edited January 5, 2022 by TheAlchemist

[Ivan D]

2 hours ago, TheAlchemist said:

Saying it didn't give you anything is denial. 

Sorry, I may have been a bit inaccurate with my wording. It was an addiction for me, so of course, as with every addiction, I was getting high amounts of short-term pleasure and stimulation, which was masking my problems.

I'm not clear about the root cause, it has multiple factors for me. Childhood trauma and an unhealthy, messy lifestyle. I saw my life problems which needed fixing, but I was running away from them. I was avoiding doing this self-help work.

I had a deep insight about my addiction and my lack of results. What I meant to say is that it's not giving me anything good. It's solving absolutely nothing. It was perfectly clear that drinking poison is a pretty accurate description of every addiction. If I have a problem, and use porn to escape it, when the pleasure wears off - the problem is still there + all the negative emotions which come from excessive porn & masturbation. It just made everything worse. That was the ultimate insight.

What happened for me is, my mind used porn and masturbation as the default tool to dealing with any problem or negative emotion. I journaled about this, faced my feelings, stopped beating myself up for it, and I had my emotional release and a clear insight about the situation.

So I started actually doing the work, applying the ideas, self-actualizing.

Porn completely lost value for me. I no longer crave it. I do still get an urge to masturbate here and there, but that's just normal sexual energy. I found out that meditating and exercising helps to release it.

[TheAlchemist]

@Ivan D Sounds like you're finding your path, which is great! Really wish you all the best on your journey

[Breakingthewall]

@Ivan D great understanding. in someone 17, impressive. As you say, addiction is something you use to mask a problem. the question is what is the problem. In my opinion, the problem is always anxiety, and anxiety is always a lack of love. in the broadest sense. I don't want to say something like: your parents didn't love you. it is more to feel separated from love, in the metaphysical sense. this creates a very hard feeling of emptiness, very difficult to bear. Understanding why you have separated from love is not easy, you have to put your intuition to the maximum. really how to understand this is to understand the ego, the way of being human, to understand yourself

[Barna]

Whenever you do something addictive, it's because deep down you're okay with this. 

You tell yourself that you want to quit, that you want to spend your time with other things, but those are just lies. The problem is that you've already lowered your self worth so much that now you're simply okay with fact that you're just a regular dude who watches porn. 

We can only change the things about ourselves that we're not okay with. If your hair was on fire, you wouldn't come to this forum to ask for advice on how to quit the fire on your head. You would quit the fire immediately, by whatever means. You would even jump into a lake if necessary. Because you're simply NOT OKAY with your hair being on fire. 

But you're okay with watching porn and just living your whole life with an addiction that wastes several hours of your time every single week of your life... Or are you okay with this? Are you okay with being this type of a person? 

Next time before you start watching porn or do anything addictive, just ask yourself: "Am I okay with this?"

I've learned this from Kapil Gupta, next time instead of watching porn, search for his name on YouTube instead.

[Breakingthewall]

well, a special factor comes into play in porn addiction. the sexuality. You can quit smoking, but you can't stop being sexual. If you try too hard, you may end up reaching out to altar boys in the church. watch out! sex is sex and you have to guide it appropriately. that is, sharing it with another human being, who attracts you,  and whom you love. It does not have to be an exclusive one, of course, could be many. So it is not enough to leave porn, you have to go out into the arena, give to Cesar what is from cesar. Or if you won't rot your mind back in the old patterns

[Yarco]

Congrats on your progress so far. 

You will inevitably have a setback. Don't beat yourself up and let yourself get in a downward spiral when it happens. Just start back over from 0 and don't let it become a habit again.

It's not all or nothing, it's going to be a journey. If you can gradually decrease down from multiple times a day to once a day, then every other day, then once a week, to whatever your goal is... that's already a big accomplishment. Going cold turkey doesn't work for most people and sets yourself up for failure when the willpower runs out.

[hamedsf]

Your porn addiction shows some underlying issue of pain in you, as a matter of fact, it's better to feel into pain than being satisfied with jerking off to pixels! 

the feeling of guilt of being addicted to porn will make you more addicted to porn itself, whenever you jerked off to porn, stop judging yourself, pull up the pant and never repeat the malicious process again. 

don't forget to make a list of the situations (self-deceptions) that trigger you to open the pornhub. review the pitfalls, make them conscious and never repeat them again.

[Danioover9000]

@Ivan D

On 27/12/2021 at 4:36 PM, Ivan D said:

Hey guys,

I've been struggling with a serious porn addiction for a few years, and it's been getting worse and worse.

I can logically list to you all the negative side effects and emotions this addiction causes me, and I logically know I have to quit. But obviously I can't. I don't really want to. It seems completely impossible to quit. Every part of my life is fucked up, and I'm confused and depressed every single day. I don't know what to start doing to just feel a little bit better.

I've been lurking on this forum for a while, I watched Leo's videos but haven't applied anything in my life. The initial motivation for self-development has worn off. It feels impossible to motivate myself. I'm overwhelmed by all the content.

My mind is completely numb, depressed, lazy and rotted away. Every single day I'm anxious, have 0 motivation to do anything, I'm lost and confused.

 

And practical advice to tackle this addiction would be greatly appreciated.

   As a disclaimer, I would say it largely depends on a person's psychological development, where they are at in terms of stages or value systems, their cognitiive and moral development, the trance states and states of being they shift to, the personality typing of a person, and their life experiences so far in other domains of life, which introduces some degree of relativity here to be aware of. I'll reference to these later on.

   Now, the relevant domains of life that are impacted based on your input, is your sexuality and relationships in regards to your potential sexual partners, relationships with people in general, post nut or not.

   Now, briefly talking about how I overcame my addiction to pornography, is that I changed how I tthought about pornography, and see it from a meta perspective of how pornography is in relation to different parts of my life, and how it functions in society and history at large. Seeing pornography from such a perspective took most of the anxieties around it and reduced the feeling to a good degree. I also took action, the good old basic self help principles, for example brute  forcing and self discipline. I also took a stage orange, green and yellow approach to my porn addiction, and over time, as I further developed myself spiritually and emotionally as well I found it easier to manage my cravings.

   A big source to this problem with porn addiction, also comes from the subconscious beliefs from stage blue religious households, having that as part of our indoctrination, and having experienced a past trauma, sexual or not sexual, that is unresolved and suppressed from the conscious mind, which distorts one's view of a healthy sexuality that instead of it being an authentic sexuality, it isn't. It's not that easy to change this in the short term, and these changes take place more long term. I would practice mindfulness, and allow myself to feel whatever I happen to feel.

   One rule I made myself follow, I'd fap only if I had a boner first, not because some hot chick walked past, or I saw a sexy advert, or had a sexual thought. I had to be a morning wood, a genuine erection Independent of thought or external stimulus. This also resulted in a more organic schedule of sexual release for me which is roughly every 3 to 4 days or once a week, depending on my buddy.

   I also have other mediums to fap to, sometimes it's vids, sometimes it's doujinshi, sometimes it's erotica, sometimes it's a chick, and sometimes it's imaginary. I also explore different situations as well and see what's attractive to me or not.

[Ulax]

I'm following Leo's advice re addiction from this vid

 

[Max8]

On 12/27/2021 at 7:36 PM, Ivan D said:

, I watched Leo's videos but haven't applied anything in my life. The initial motivation for self-development has worn off. It feels impossible to motivate myself. I'm overwhelmed by all the content.

My mind is completely numb, depressed, lazy and rotted away. Every single day I'm anxious, have 0 motivation to do anything, I'm lost and confused.

 

get rid of your PC and your smartphone 

stop watching self improvement videos  it's fucking stupid you aren't actually improving my watching videos 

YOU ARE NOT IMPROVING BY WATCHING VIDEOS 

i mean it you never will 

espically leos videos has nothing to do with self improvening anymore 

it's all about spirituality and drugs  it wont help you at all if anything it would fuck up your growth 

 

like i said stop using the internt 

go out and have sex with real people and socialize more and work on your life giviing where you're at 

[Ulax]

I'd personally say fuck meditation for now. And just do breathing techniques.

Do this too:

https://www.uofmhealth.org/health-library/uz2225

And can do 4-7-8 breathing as well:

"Close your lips, inhaling silently through your
nose as you count to four in your head.

Then, for seven seconds, hold your breath.

Make a whooshing-sounded exhale from your mouth for eight
seconds."

Edited February 23, 2022 by Ulax
grammar