This is a very, very long post, Read it slowly. Some are my ideas, but many of them originated from yourbrainrebalanced poster Underdog and a lot of others sources i don’t remember, I’ll be fixing speling errors and always improving the content. thanks for MlohavaCuna for inspired my to do this.
Thanks for all the warriors from nofap.org.
I separated this in 3 parts :
- Where you are. The true nature of the problem and the foundation of a proper reboot.
- Why. Create a purpose and vision, and give urgency to it.
- How. Readjusting sexual expectations and applying the “no arousal method”.
The true nature of the problem and the foundation of a proper reboot.
Porn Addiction is Being Severely Underestimated
Most people in the community believe that in order to get rid of this addiction, all they have to do is keep trying over and over again, until eventually things will just ‘click’ and their brains will finally become rebooted.
Very few are treating this as a true addiction. They just see it as a habit they want to break.
This is evidenced by the stubborness of many, relying purely on willpower for months, only to constantly reset their counters and beat themselves up for not making any progress.
Most people don’t realize how incredibly difficult it is to completely remove artificial stimulation (of any kind) for the rest of their lives. We’re talking about years and years of brain conditioning here. Many of us here have been in this community since 2010 and we’re still struggling in one way or another. That is almost 4 years of trying to quit for good. 4 years of trying to get to 100 days or whatever. We’re dealing with some powerful stuff here, but it is not treated seriously enough, probably because it’s widely accepted by society and is not a substance like heroine or cocaine.
I cringe when people relapse, reset their counters, and proclaim This is it, I’ve had enough, I’m going to do it this time.
Stop kidding yourself, really
This is an addiction that has to be attacked from many different angles. You need a full arsenal of tools and strategies, as well as a proper mindset. Willpower alone won’t do shit, abstinence is NOT recovery What people usually try to do is go as many days clean as they can. That’s all they do. That’s all their goal.
They achieve a certain amount of days, then for whatever reason they relapse, so they start over and repeat. That is abstaining, that is not recovering. It is extremely common for people to achieve a certain milestone, such as 30, 90, or 100 days, relapse a few days later, and then find themselves unable to get momentum again. They go back to the beginning and they feel like they lost all their progress from their run. There is a constant frustration for lack of progress, people are feeling overwhelmed and discouraged, trying the same thing over and over again without success.
This is because very few are addressing the real roots of their problems. Very few. Everyone is focused on how many days they have managed and if their symptoms are either present or gone. They judge their progress by measuring dick hardness, spontaneous erections and morning woods. They are “trying to quit porn” so that they can “get rid of their ED”. So they abstain for as long as they can, hoping that this can cure their symptoms. This is the wrong approach
If they don’t see ED improvements, they get discouraged. If they see ED improvements, then maybe a porn session or two won’t hurt, right? f there is no woman around, they justify watching a couple of times. After all, they are not having sex anytime soon, so whats the point? They delay dating until their ED is cured or they have managed to go 100 days. But they never achieve this in the first place precisely because of this incorrect mentality.
The same applies to other symptoms such as social anxiety, energy levels, motivation, etc. They try to quit porn, so that the symptoms can go away, and so they can finally live life. People are focusing on the wrong things, they are not changing the way they think. They are not changing the way they live, they are not changing the way they view sex and women. They are just trying not to masturbate, while everything else remains the same That, is called abstinence, not recovery.
The Foundation of a Proper Reboot
Porn is the symptom, not the disease Porn addiction is not the cause of your shitty life. Read that again.
Of course, it’s difficult to improve your life when you’re having intense porn sessions every single day that drain your energy and make you a zombie. But porn is not the reason your life sucks. Please, this is very important to understand, you have to stop blaming porn for your problems.
This mentality of “life awaits me after recovery” is destructive. Porn is not the reason you’re a procrastinator, porn is not the reason you’re depressed, porn is not the reason you’re lonely, porn is not the reason you haven’t been able to lose weight or gain muscle.
You watch porn to escape reality, you watch porn to manage your emotions, you watch porn because you’re bored, lonely, stressed, depressed, angry, isolated. You watch porn to feel good for a moment, to replace uncomfortable emotions and situations in your life.
Managing Your Emotional Life
Porn addiction is much more than just getting cravings and relapsing. One of the reasons we become addicted is because of our inability to manage our emotional lives. You have to remind yourself that quitting porn is about growing up and becoming a much more mature person. We’ve been using porn for years as a method of handling our emotions. We need to stop hiding away from uncomfortable life situations. We need to stop using porn in order to escape from reality. We must learn how to handle life and emotions without the need of porn.
A common motivator in recovery is the hitting of ‘rock bottom’ or, in realistic terms, hitting the point where the pain of the addiction can no longer be numbed by the addiction itself. When the emotional pain of the addiction’s consequences have grown too great, the motivation to end the addiction kicks in as the addiction is no longer capable of serving its purpose. Although this is a significantly more powerful motivator than the first, it too, is ultimately doomed for failure in long-term recovery. Or, more accurately, it is doomed for a long-term recovery/relapse cycle.
What happens is this: when the emotional pain becomes too great to temporarily manage with compulsive behaviors, the decision to recover provides an intense emotional boost that helps to manage that pain. The person feels good, that feeling may last for weeks, it may last for months, but eventually, inevitably, the emotional intensity that came with the commitment to recover wanes, and the person finds themself, once again, lacking the ability to manage their emotional life and a return to the addiction (or another addiction) is the only emotional management strategy that they have. This, followed by a re-commitment to recovery, followed by another relapse…f and so go on… The cycle will not end until the motivation for ending it has changed.
Those who are motivated by a desire to end the pain of their addiction fare much better than those who are recovering for the sake of others. Such individuals can generate sustained, long-term recovery efforts. However, in order to make a true transition to health, the key will be found in their ability to move past the initial stages of recovery and begin to adopt healthy life management skills that will allow them to achieve emotional maturity.
So, in preparing your road to recovery, you will need to prepare yourself for a time when you might feel empty inside. It will come after the euphoria of beginning your recovery, and it will come after you have put an end to your desire to continue your life the way that it is. This period may last a few days, it may last a few weeks. Rarely, will it ever last longer than that. And in those few weeks, your goal will be to recognize this emptiness, and begin to fill it with the values and the dreams that you believe in.
We need to understand that one of the reasons we relapse is because we’re pussies that can’t handle negative emotions. We use porn as medication, we use porn to hide away from life, we use porn to temporarily relief anxiety, stress, loneliness, boredom, anger, etc.
Learn how to manage your emotions without using porn and you will be achieving long term success .Embrace all your emotions, negative or positive.
How you will get rid of this addiction
You don’t focus on quitting porn so you can finally get to live life after you’re recovered. You focus on learning how to live, how to manage your emotions, how to change the way you think and view the world. You put all your energy into building the life you want, this will naturally lead your mind away from porn, because success is not measured by how many clean days you’ve managed, It’s measured by how much your life has improved since you started rebooting.