Part 1 - Understanding the 3 problems of addiction - The Physical Allergy

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Hey, It has been a while that I have been here but I wanted to share with you that life without PMO is amazing.

After being addicted 38 years, trying to stop for 32 years and finally working on my recovery from PMO for 14 years, I am finally free from the temptation, from the impossible craziness of the urges and pull of lust, from the desire and from the never ending mind-bending desire for the unreal sexual fantasy. How is it possible to be free? What is the solution? For me it started by understanding the nature of the problem, the nature of the lust addiction itself.

There are really 3 problems in any addiction, including the PMO addiction. I needed to know what these problems where and why I could not find any release from my addiction no matter what I did.

It is not that understanding the problem or the nature of my addiction actually helped me to stop acting in my addiction and stopped me from fapping, no it did not! But it gave me motivation to actually try a solution that has the power of helping me never going back. No more relapses, no more just holding on and counting days as if beating my longest streak was going to beat my addiction.

Problem 1: The first problem is physical. I am physically different than others in that I have an allergy to lust. Yes lust - not PMO. The real beginning of any binging cycle starts with LUST. It is like the first drink for those that are addicted to alcohol. This means, IF I let any lust stay within me (if I entertain lust), if I take this first drink, by thinking of something sexual, an image comes in my mind and I really consider it or any fantasy in my mind that involves something sexual, then I have a hard time to stop lusting. Lust leads to more lust and more lust and then the next step for me is I need to fix my lust thoughts on an image to make it more real and more enjoyable. That is when I try to edge and start searching for an image that is lustful but not nudity or sexual (I am trying to stay clean but I just want a little bit and I think that a little bit will not hurt (that is the 2nd problem, but I wll get to that below)). This continues and continues until I am seeing porn and then masturbate and then feel completely disgusted with myself because I have PMOed again. Let me know if you can relate.

This is the allergy it means that WHEN WE START WITH THE FIRST DRINK OF LUST WE CANNOT STOP UNTIL WITH CRASH WITH PMO. That is the allergy. We physically cannot take lust inside our minds without continuing the cycle that ends with PMO and feeling ashamed. Maybe other people can lust and then they can stop, but I CANNOT. I am not able to stop and stay stopped. Once I am triggered with LUST it is only a question of time before I PMO. Like any allergy, I cannot take it, because if I do I will for sure get the reaction.

It is important to understand that this addiction is a physical sickness. It is not because I am not strong, because I dont have the will-power, the character, because I am wicked, not good or immoral. It has nothing to do with these things that shame us into believing that we are bad people, or weak people.

We are sick people. We are sick with an allergy, a physical allergy that when we take our first drink (in my case LUST), I cannot stop taking more and more and more until I am drunk with lust and then I PMO. That is my reality, each time and every time.

I dont have the strength to stop once I start.

I hope you can relate to this because there is a real solution. But we must know more of the other 2 problems first. This is only the first problem, the physical problem. I will stop there for today, and share with you the second problem tomorrow.

But before I go, know that you are a good person, that you have a lot of strength and will power and morality in you. That is a fact. It is just that you are sick and your malady makes it impossible for you to control your lust and sexual fantasies once you have started. That is 1 of the 3 problems.

There is a solution that will make you into someone that NEVER wants or NEVER needs to use lust and PMO ever again. This solution is not with you trying harder, hitting the gym more, being more busy or never having a girl friend or relationship ever again. I am married for 27 years, I have 7 kids and 2 grand kids. Life can be normal, happy and easy with no temptation if you live in the solution.

But the solution if not you trying harder and hitting your head on the computer screen because you are trying to stop an urge. The solution is being in a place where a power much stronger than mine, takes away the need for lust and the urges and the release of PMO and all the craziness of addiction. Have a great day guys and I will post again. Reach out and believeā€¦

Please reply to this topic or up arrow it if you like it and you want to know more.

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What is your experience with PMO addiction? Have you been able to stop and stay stopped once you get your first drink of lust?

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I know that I have tried to manage the amount of lust that I take in. I know that it may sound crazy but after I would search for innocent pictures, like the bikini girls I needed more and I would go to more sexy. Then some of the google images would show some nudity and I would say to myself that if I just covered the nudity part on the screen with my finger then it was ok, it was not a relapse. I know it was a lie, but it just shows to what point my brain deal with the allergy. I was taking more and more lust in, getting more drunk and just one finger away from real porn. This allergy is really real for me.

What are some of the crazy techniques that you have used to justify when you are just moving closer to porn?

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I just posted the 3rd and last problem that is at the core of addication to anything including Lust, Porn and Masturbation. Check it out here: Part 3 - The Spiritual Malady - Debilitating Negative Emotions

I hope this is helping some people to see more clearly into what addiction has been for me. This is the begining of getting better is to understand exactly what is really happening.

If you have not read Part 2, it is here: Part 2 - The Mental Obsession Problem - Meet the liar - #19 by 24hours24

Have a great day and keep believing. This porn addiction does not need to be what defines you for the rest of your life.

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Hello
I too came to this conclusiom that porn isnt the problem for me but lust.
My most of the relapses were without porn.
It starts like at night i m not able to sleep and get some fantasy or some image and then i think its just my thoughts im not watching porn or mastrubating and very soon after that i relapse.

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This happens with me but when i start using youtube.
1st youtube recomends dirty ads
2nd to get more subscribers girls dress in dirty way and then the shorts where they show partial nudity
After the images that i imagine this youtube leads to triggering me to just release the tension

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The reasons i give are

  1. Ill just do today one last time
    Will start tomorrow a fresh and with full on motivation and will power and will never relapse after today
  2. I have already watched partial things and the urges are siper strong and im stressed a lot soet me release the stress by doing those for today
    From tomorrow i wont even see partial stuffsšŸ˜…( this sounds stupid because i give the same reason next time too
  3. When i have my exams i give reason that i cant handle exam stress so let me not do nofap once exams are done and when there is no stress ill start doing nofap and ill succeed for once and all
    But when there are no exam i get thoughts that there is no need to stop let me do in controlled manner

Most of these are stupid reasons but evenrytime they get into me and i fall prey to my own brain

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Exactly my experience. Porn is not always there, though at the end it was, and sometime I would wake up and stop before masturbation, though at the end I almost always masturbated to get the release. But Lust was always there. I think it is important that we understand that Lust not porn is the real issue. Until I understood this, I could not work the solution.

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I hate those dirty ads. I have to be very careful not to let these ā€œinteresting adsā€ get me to lust. We are special types of addicts. We carry our booze, the entire bar, in our heads, everywhere we go we have this endless supply of drinks of lust. We just need to think and it is free. I can lust anywhere and no one will never know.

THe other part is that like you said we can be attacked (hit) by a lustful youtube ad, or anything that is too sexy, in image or in the flesh, and it goes straight from our eyes to our brains and we feel the hit. I dont want it, I am not asking for it, searching for it, I am just trying to live life and BAMā€¦ I get hit by this dirty ad on youtube. It is like a person throwing alcohol straight in the face and mouth of an alcoholic. This is not fair and I needed to develop a very strong routine or action plan when this happened to me, if not the after taste of the lust hit that I got from the dirty ad would linger and lead me to really lust in my mind and searching for more interesting stuff until I relapse.

I do this routine each time I am tempted, or I feel troubled with something.

It has 4 steps and only takes 20 to 30 seconds to do, and the best part is that it works for me. I wrote this email to another guy I was working with.

The best you can do is to surrender one temptation at a time. I forgot if I have shared this with you, probably but here I go again.

Every time, when you feel any temptation, any lust hit, any thought or memory that is sexual (even when you remember having sex with your wife) you need to decide how you will react to that moment - you need to know the choice. A real choice.
You donā€™t just want to stay there and let the lust temptation wash over you like a wave.
You donā€™t have to be a victim of the lust hit. Remember that doing nothing or procrastination is a choice.

As the white book says you have 3 choices:

  1. you can entertain the temptation/lust/memory and give in to it (lust and watch porn), move toward it, believe the lie that it is - that it will do something wonderful for you;

  2. You can raise your fists and plant your feet in the fighting position and choose to fight it - willpower and all. You believe that this time you will be able to resist and not give in to the temptation. Good luck. What that will do is that you will be thinking about the temptation/memory/lust and at the same time you continue to think about lust even if it is to resist it. This is your addiction. I have discovered with time that fighting the temptation with willpower, weakens me and leads me to relapse. To choose to fight is to choose to lose. You might as well just do it and stop wasting your time.

  3. You donā€™t give in to the temptation (#1), you donā€™t entertain it, you donā€™t think about it, your donā€™t even fight back (#2). You just stay there. Not moving and you surrender the temptation to someone else to fight for you. Here is how I do it. As soon as I am able to recognize that I am being tempted with lust in some form, a thought, a curiosity, an image, a feeling, a memory, a beautiful sexy girlā€¦ I immediately start this simple routine:

MY ROUTINE WHEN TEMPTED OR LUST HIT

i) CHANGE YOUR EYES: Because my addiction is very visual and temptations often are visual, I start by changing my eyes. If I had my eyes closed, I opened them, if I had them open, I closed them. This is often quick like a blink. This changes my physical condition just enough to disturb the image or memory. I just need 1 second to cut the hold the image has on me. Just enough time to do the next step.

ii) I STATE MY AGENCY: Next, I state my choice - my agency (def. the ability to take action or to choose what action to take). I say in my mind: ā€œI CHOSE NO!ā€ I say it with real conviction. I have found that most of the time this has an immediate impact on the temptation and it leaves me permanently and sometimes just for a few more seconds enough to do the next step.

iii) PRAYER OF SURRENDER: I then say a prayer to surrender the situation to God and ask for His help. I say something like " God, I cannot deal with this temptation, I need your help, please take it away from me. I cannot do this without you. [ā€¦]."

(Sidenote: If the idea of praying to God is hard, or even impossible for someone, then just talk to any power that is greater than you, talk to your higher consciousness, to the power of all life, to mother earth, to the power of the universe, to the power of all menkind. Just try to ask for help at that moment. It is not about religion.)

iv) I WATCH MYSELF: The final step is to be quiet for a couple of seconds to see how I feel, is the temptation still there or is it gone. 99% of the time it is gone and I can continue to live my life free from lust. If it is still there even a little bit, I start my routine again.

That is what I do. It varies a little sometimes (I am not always perfect at it) but it works for me. Most of the time, God grants me the reprieve and the temptation just leaves me.

What is important is that I have something that I CAN DO. I donā€™t just have to stay there and do nothing. I can physically and mentally do something and that is to follow this routine. If I have to do it 2 or 3 times in a row to get rid of a really bad temptation or if I am just tired and more vulnerable, I can do it 2 or 3 times. I can do it as often as I need to do it.

@DARSHAN2017, I hope this helps. I know it is long but it is what I do and it works for me. Try it. Next time you feel something that you donā€™t want to feel, you are disturbed in any way, try it and let me know if it works for you.

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I can relate 100%. I think the same things. It really is about the problem that I mention in Part 2 - the obsession of the mind - I have a liar in my brain that tries to find all the reasons why I can lust and fap again. Thanks for sharing brother.

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This is actually nice
To remove the temptations
I donot use youtube
I just uninstalled updates and disabled it
So now if i have to watch i need to enable it and then update it
Also i donot use any borwser on phone so no chance of accessing youtube through browser

Earlier this would be a difficult choice to make because my brain would tell me i need it for studies but when i would start using the youtube i study for less than an hour amd the majority is mindless browsing

Making a note here
Im not restricting myself from using youtube because i can enable it and update and use anytime
But the thing is if the app is there in the phone ill open it without any thought

So im just making it a long route for myself if i have to access it

The reason i dont block it is the day the blocker doesnt work ill binge watch when urges hit
But now while i can access it anytime , so when urges hit im not accessing it because it is blocked but i dont use youtube because i dont want to
Because i know ill waste time
Im taking the decisiom consciously
And frankly doing things consciously makes it easy to achieve the things i want to

And yeah ill for sure try the things that u have said blinking eyes

Just 1 suggestion from my side which i have started doing is take a nap and it always works
So yeah thats all

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If you are reading this please continue to read about the problem. It is really important to understand the problem before we jump into the solution. That said, I wanted to let you know that I have finally posted Part 4 - The Solution - 12 steps of Recovery: Part 4 - The Solution - 12 Steps of Recovery

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I just wanted to update you on the routine. I have shared with a few people that I work with as a sponsor, and it is working for them, not just for me. This 4 step routine is really helpful when you feel tempted or attracted to lust. It makes the difference and I dont want to take any chances with my recovery. I cannot take a first dring of lust as it will lead me to move towards porn and fapping. Have you tried this routine and has it worked for you?

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Here is the basics of the routine I am talking about:

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If you have read this much - all I can say is do not stop reading here. This is only part of the problem. Keep going to Part 2 - The Mental Obsession Problem - Meet the liar - #19 by 24hours24

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