Chapter 3
Why is it difficult to stop?
Reading Time: 4 minutes
All users feel something evil has possessed them. In the early days, itโs a simple question of โI will stop, just not todayโ. Eventually we progress to believing we havenโt got enough willpower to stop, or that thereโs something inherent in ๐๐๐๐ we must have in order to enjoy life. ๐ฏ๐๐๐ addiction is like clawing our way out of a slippery pit: As we near the top, we see the sunshine, but find ourself sliding back down as our mood dips. Eventually we open our browser, and as we masturbate, we feel awful.
Ask a user, โIf you could go back to the time before you became hooked, with the knowledge you have now, would you have started using ๐๐๐๐?โ
โNO WAY!โ would be the reply.
Ask the confirmed user, someone who defends internet ๐๐๐๐ and doesnโt believe it causes injury to the brain or downregulation of dopamine receptors: โDo you encourage your children to use ๐๐๐๐?โ
โNO WAY!โ is again the reply.
๐ฏ๐๐๐ is an extraordinary enigma. As said previously, the problem isnโt explaining why itโs easy to stop, itโs explaining why itโs difficult to stop. The real problem is explaining why anyone does it after getting insights on neurological damage. Part of the reason we start is because of the other tens of millions already into it, yet all of these people wish they hadnโt started in the first place, telling us itโs like living life in second gear. We donโt quite believe theyโre not enjoying it, as we associate it with freedom or being โsex-educatedโ, and work hard to become hooked ourselves. We then spend the rest of our lives telling others not to do it and trying to kick the habit ourselves, often thinking weโre unique in this.
We also spend a significant proportion of our time feeling hopeless and miserable. โEducatingโ ourselves with the supernormal makes us prefer and long for these cold images, even when warm, real ones are available. Through the constant surge and fall of dopamine induced by PMO, we sentence ourselves to a lifetime of isolation, irritability, anger, stress, fatigue, and sexual dysfunction. Using ๐๐๐๐, with its absence of the best parts of sex and connection, we end up feeling miserable and guilty.
In fact, reading about internet pornographyโs addictive and destructive capabilities here and on other sites makes us even more nervous and hopeless! What sort of hobby is it that when youโre doing it, you wish you werenโt, and when you arenโt, you crave it? Users despise themselves every time they read about hypofrontality and desensitisation, every time they use behind their trusting partnerโs back, and every time they canโt bring themselves to exercise after a daytime session. An otherwise intelligent and rational human being spends all their days in contempt. But worst of all, what do users get from having to endure life with these awful black shadows at the back of their mind? Absolutely nothing!
You might be thinking โThatโs all very well, I know this, but once youโre hooked on these things itโs very difficult to stop.โ But why is it so difficult? Some say itโs because of the powerful withdrawal symptoms, but as youโll soon come to learn, the actual withdrawal symptoms are very mild in fact. And this is evident when you consider that many PMOers have lived and died without realising they were addicts.
Some say internet ๐๐๐๐ is free and hence humankind should claim this biological bonanza, but this is untrueโitโs addictive and acts just like any drug. Ask a user that swears they only enjoy โeroticaโ like Playboy magazines if theyโve ever crossed the line to โunsafe ๐๐๐๐โ. And if they are completely honest, they would confess about the times they had rationalized crossing that line, rather than not use anything at all.
Enjoyment has nothing to do with it either. I enjoy crayfish, but I never got to the point where I had to have crayfish every day. With other things in life, we enjoy them while weโre doing them, but we donโt sit around feeling deprived when weโre not.
Some say:
โItโs educational!โ So how has it made you grow as a person? โItโs sexual satisfaction!โ So why does it isolate you and make you feel insatiable cravings? โItโs a feeling of release!โ Release from the stresses of real life? Ok, for an hour, before it all comes crashing back on you? And what stresses has it solved? โIt helps me sleepโ So why can others sleep just fine without it? There are many scientifically demonstrated methods to fix sleep, and more so.
Many believe that ๐๐๐๐ relieves boredom, but boredom is a frame of mind. ๐ฏ๐๐๐ will habituate you to novelty-seeking in no time, causing you to become increasingly bored until you finally participate in that wild-goose chase for just the right clip, becoming increasingly wired to seek anything that evokes novelty, strong emotion, and eventually, outrageous shock value.
Some say they only do it because their friends and everyone they know does it. If so, pray that your friends donโt start cutting their heads off to cure a headache! Most users who think about it come to conclude that itโs just a habit. This is not really an explanation, but having discounted all the usual, rational explanations, it appears to be the only remaining excuse. Unfortunately, itโs equally illogical. Every day of our lives we change habits, some of them very enjoyable. Weโve been brainwashed to believe that PMO is a habit and that habits are difficult to break.
Are habits difficult to break? Drivers in the US are in the habit of driving on the right hand side of the road, yet when travelling overseas they break the habit with hardly any aggravation whatsoever. And when you get a new job you take on a different routine, so your habits change. These may take some getting used to, but it is nothing like breaking a life long struggle with ๐๐๐๐ addiction. We make and break habits every day of our lives, so why do we find it difficult to break a habit that makes us feel deprived when we donโt have it, guilty when we do, one that we would love to break anyway, when all we have to do is stop doing it?
The answer is that ๐๐๐๐ isnโt habit, itโs addiction! Thatโs why it appears to be so difficult to โgive upโ. Most users donโt understand addiction and believe that they get some genuine pleasure or crutch from ๐๐๐๐. They believe theyโre making a genuine sacrifice if they quit.
The beautiful truth is that once you understand the true nature of ๐๐๐๐ addiction and the reasons why you use it, youโll stop doing it, just like that. Within three weeks, the only mystery will be why you found it necessary to use ๐๐๐๐ as long as you have and why you canโt persuade other users how nice it is to not be a PMOer!