Supportive community? Will power? Higher power? Accountability? Sublimating lust into some other creative activity? PMO- proofing your IT? Cold showers and exercise? Investing in relationships?..
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Suffering deeply upon realizing that PMO is preventing us from being the person we really want to be
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Also claim that suffering.
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Beating? None.
I learned this just recently from a therapist. I will never be stronger than my addiction. In other words, I will never be able to hang out in a strip club without giving in. The same is true for you.
But thats not the point. The point is to stay as far away as possible from the addiction by engaging in wholesome activities.
The only way to beat it is to learn to stay away, and when it sneaks up on you, fight off the initial attack but overall get away.
This comes from the AA 12 step program, which specializes in alcoholism, but its principals apply to all addiction:
Step 1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol (pmo)—that our lives had become unmanageable.
Step 2. Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
You are powerless. Don’t try to beat it. Learn to get away from it. That is the most important factor.
To beat it, meaning to rewire and get it out of your system, the most important factor is a higher power.
There are lots of methods, but in my opinion/experience and based on the AA 12 steps, those are the most important.
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As The poet Phillip Larkin said:
We are being pushed to the side of our own lives…
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Thank you for that insightful and honest answer. I went on celebrate recovery 12 step program for 2 years. It was very helpful. I agree with your thoughts. Extract yourself and replace with wholesome stuff.
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The right mindset.
Escaping porn is easy.
There is no physical exertion or other difficulties. The actual physical withdrawal symptoms are in reality, very mild compared to other substance addictions.
The EXACT mindset is what comes difficult and that is where we use trial and error, go through relapses to figure out.
What kind of person should I be to free from porn?
How does a free, successful man think?
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I think intimacy is key for me. Lack of intimacy growing up, and finding an exciting substitute in PMO. The challenge is this: am I prepared to accept the agony of giving up this filthy, familiar comfort blanket, for the hope of joy that comes from real wholesome relationships with all it’s risks and uncertainty?
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What agony, bro ? Are you crazy… It’s just quitting porn and compulsive masturbation 
Don’t be so dramatic!
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I thought you were suffering deeply a minute ago?
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Not because “No PMO”… But because of feeling the gap between my potential and my current situation. PMO is just one factor among many others on which I can work 
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The idea is to defocus from the obsession with PMO to relativize! And being able to act on a multitude of aspects of our life to improve.
What we focus our attention on grows stronger. It is our choice to be in the fight against PMO or in the pleasure of dessigning our ideal life and to focus on that
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Yes, I agree with that generally. Focus on what you want your life to be, not on what you don’t want it to be. To be honest, the time in my life when I PMOd least was when I wasn’t even trying not to. I was so passionate about this certain thing that there was no room for PMO. Need to recapture that.
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Yes, it’s exactly what I want to illustrate!
Hey there @chicken-drumstick-legs.
Well, all that you mentioned in your starting post is relevant. Sure in truth it does help more if you commit with the correct mindset.
Saying you can’t beat this already is proof that you don’t wanna win. As you limit yourself to what you are capable off. The thing is once you relapse with these tipe of thoughts you confirm that what you have thought about being weak or aren’t able to do this and this will continue to manifest and repeat itself and failure will continue to set in.
It is like your brain presses a reset button and the whole cycle starts over. Neg thought= relapse= feel guilty( procrastinating on the neg thought) = restart in the journey = etc.
But don’t factor out accountability partner, higher power etc. As because these become a coping mechanism for beating the addiction in the first place. Once you’ve gotten your motivation or feeling good through a worship session. The main thing is you reprogram your mind to do other stuff with the time rather than to relapse.
But again these all go about thoughts and behaviours. This is what really is most important sure one can acknowledge that you are weak and can fail. But this is what you go through in a learning process to stay away from what ever triggers you.( But again these are concepts of thought, being disciplined, having the will power to stay away from it and redirect the action)
Jim kwik taught me that for every addiction/ behaviour we have a relative formula and we can apply changes with in it
B= MAT
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B= behaviour/Habit
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M= Motivation. What motivates you to do the habit or behaviour? Also what is the motivation to stay away from it? The reason why you do it and wanna stay away from it is the root for every behaviour. It is the most powerful question anyone can ask themselves and soon you’ll learn how to stay away from the habit, because you learn why, when and where you do it and can change the environment, thought pattern to make effective plans to stay away.
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A = Action What you do to stay in or away from the habit? As mentioned it is a key factor in the reason why you do something, because if you plan on commiting to faith rather to fap then you must plan on the when are you going to pray or meditate for example. Basically replacing the habit for a better habit but this must be done Actively to take Action against the negative habit.
-T = Trigger. This is what cause you to perform the habit. It could be a certain place, time and in our case usually it goes hand in hand with the use of porn or our device’s. Time is also is an important factor obviously the longer one stays away from the habit gives you more experience. And to use the time wisely to stay actively away from the habit and know your triggers, you’ll know your weakpoints and work on strengthening them!
Hope this helps. Good luck and stay strong and awesome!!
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I would like to second @Cubenix @FlowForCourage @neetwarrior @keepFighting
Also in my limited understanding
Thr most important factor to kick any bad habit/addiction / etc is GOOD COMPANY (satsang in Sanatan dharma - also called Hinduism)
Let me know what you all feel about this
Like I mentioned it’s just a Coping mechanism no matter how good your company is. The thing is it is just as mentioned with the B= MAT formula.
Here you just influence your behaviour in staying away from porn and masterbation through changing your motivation and being active in staying away from it and avoiding the triggers in fapping.
To simplify the explanation let’s go through it.
So the Behaviour is to masterbate the reward( Motivation is the orgasm. Okay yes in our case the Behaviour = Action
But lets look deeper into the action part.
We can be thinking of doing it. Plan on when where and how to do it. Also if we take time to watch porn to do it too. Action =trigger as well.
So if I change the Behaviour from fapping to not fapping . Look what happens then. Our reward falls away( Thus = no motivation to do it)
But look at this now Our Action= Motivation
So here we avoid the triggers on where we are fapping as wel. So we cut out porn and we cut out planning to fap too.
Now we adapt a new Trigger for this staying away from fapping. Thus we change our action too.
Here our motivation can be a person or article or what ever to brake free from porn and masterbation. So the action for this motivation is the reading the article or talking to that person. This in turn is our trigger on staying on nofap.
It doesn’t matter what Action/motivation you get or take it from being religion, a person or article or good company that is your action for staying on nofap.
Yes you do get better motivation and less triggers for fapping from a good influnce you are 100% correct. But it still falls within the formula.
I can tell you I am on nofap. It is a personal thing where I litterly gotten tired and bored of fapping also realising I am hiding each time when I watch porn and it is shameful.
Thus it is my motivation to stay away from it. I hate feeling guilty from watching porn. I hate being to be protective of what is on my phone and hope my parents or girlfriend or cousins to find out I watch porn.
And i can tell you if you look at my phone you will get a heart attack. Because a lot of guys get up here and say => delete or disable all social media and browser and install a porn blocker
Well I have Insta, I have my browser no parent mode or porn blocker, I have youtube, Spotify and I go on Facebook too.
The thing is yes it is good to delete as you cut out the trigger, but you’ll end up reinstalling it anyways and/or deleting the porn blocker.
So no active blocking is done as you can still tipe porn in the search bar except you wouldn’t get results or have to override the porn blocker with a password or better yet delete.
To easy and yes I a lot of guys say this ain’t true and I don’t delete… But have you ever ask through how many different blockers they went through? Okay sure a guy might answer 1, but how many times did he reinstall it on the same device?
You don’t really actively teach yourself on staying away from it and you weaken yourself and stay weak and never really empower yourself to beat it.
Then what should one do then?
Well, plan and re-orientation and Allocation of apps is needed.
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Plan on how long you are allowed to use your phone a day, when and where also a important factor. As mentioned it is not only the device that’sthe trigger your thoughts and place is also a factor.
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Plan on what your apps do for you. If you listen to dirty music, if you check girls out on Insta etc. You are asking for trouble and just continue on triggering yourself. So this is where allocating and re-orientation comes in.
-Allocate a set task for your apps. Google = research on school projects . Insta = to follow sports( like soccer or the sport you like)
Youtube ( leisure to watch factual documentaries or stuff about your hobbies)
- Re-orientation arranging your apps on your phone and also to get away from your triggers (girls on Insta) your feeds is well where you have to spend time on removing the accounts. Change your searches in stead of girls in bikini’s to the “bundesliga” or laliga or permire league. And to stay away and actively aware on what you do on the app. Don’t change midway back to the girls if you need more do 5 min hacks or follow your podcast team or favourite youtube coach. Options become more the more you actively learn to stay a way and do more on the phone that excites you in hobbies, your job or skills. There is so much to do within these apps.
But this too is in The formula. I changed my porn watching into educational projects on my phone.
My behaviour changed and my motivation reward is now that I learn infinite amounts more than when I watched porn and I feel good as I know more I could do more. See this is motivation building motivation and strengthing the behaviour to cut out the porn trigger. No porn = no masterbation.
Learning more = less time for masterbation.
Knowing more = more pleasure in knowing more than I did yesterday or what I could have felt then just fapping and watching porn.
See this is what the power of the reason WHY is also so important.
Why do I learn more/ talk about nofap/ have good company/ use of will power / having faith / etc. As they keep me away from porn and masterbation and also enriching my life with knowledge/ better relationships/ killing the guilty feeling or depression/ etc. That fap causes and also enhance and better my nofap journey through motivation to continue on doing nofap.
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@Cubenix really interesting posts, can you tell me how long is your streek? Your knowledge about it is above average
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My brother : your post is a must read 
It’s highly analytical and scientific, but anything that comes with a formulae tends to be monotonous and requires stuff to be categorically analysed
Therefore I prefer simpler stuff like a good company as from good company develops good thoughts - thoughts translate into actions - actions into habits - habits into character etc and we all know the rest of the chain .
The above method states simply what you stated in the big and bulky paragraph
The secret to a good teacher is not that he knows a lot and is very meticulous but rather it’s the way he can explain complex stuff in a much simpler way so that eons of simpleton can understand.
This is the way of the gurus and rishis of India who have passed on tons of knowledge simply by singing sanskrit hymes which later on went to become the Vedas, Upanishads, the Mahabharata and Ramayana and other great epics
I hope you got my point
Looking forward to more intellectually stimulating conversation with you
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Yes, I am day 38 now after a relapse of 138 days.
And I am porn free for almost a year.
Well, sure I have experienced alot of this throughout my journeys. I started nofap by accident too as I mentioned I got bored and just wanted to stop. It was more like a habit even though I didn’t have an urge to do it I will push myself to do it anyways. And yeah honestly porn was just when I was like that innocent teen. Gross then interesting like you wanted to know more but then o f@*! I got to hide this shit.
So yeah been on and off nofap for 5 or odd years. What got me here was I just was at ends meet with myself where my porn usage reached a peak and I watched more porn to get me in the mood to fap. As I said I didn’t need to be horny to do it so yeah I’ve gotten even desperate to have a better fapping experience.
So as i was in bed almost a year ago. I made a choice to try and push myself and reach at least 3 months no porn and no fap. If I fap it is okay but if I watch porn then a punishment must fit the crime.
So yeah I thought well maybe I should install a porn blocker and see how that goes. And at this exact moment looking at those app logos I was like : You know you are going to delete this app in maybe a day or two.
Also I think shame was also there as what will some think or say or ask why do you have a porn blocker on your phone.
So yeah this is literally what was going on in my head that night on holiday. At midnight .
So I went through my apps and saw as well I was set up to fail. Look what I did with them, saw girls and thats all I saw, watched videos which ultimately braught me back to porn and all my feeds on the apps just basically kept on feeding me this stuff.
So I made a conscious decision and changed the way I used my apps. I said sure I am actually set up and open towards options of watching porn, but also I can do more that has a better impact and a better purpose. I read up on nofap and saw a lot of nofap video’s and that’s when I decided the following day to try this forum out and truely say goodbye.
So yeah was very sceptical, especially in the beginning and yeah I did notice I felt better with nofap before, but who I am kidding maybe a week or 2 weeks and that was it. Made it to 2 months strangely in the past and it was probably also my driving force to push for 3 months. As mentioned I didn’t really go into detail into how I healed and how it effected my body. Execpt now. Everything feels so different and I know for sure I am healing completely in all aspects.
From when I made that decision I wasn’t really starting in production, like working out etc. I just went on like normal. Spoke with a few guys and yeah things went a bit wonkey like me whining complaining and then I changed my habits start working out on and off not really committed was for 30 or odd days but I bitched and moaned all the way. Had guys who I helped and they asked for passwords of their porn blockers a lot. Did ask why they search though yes everytime. But if they stuck with it I didn’t know.
Sometimes a confession came through maybe a month or what later, but hey it is respect not a my fault. If you can’t google just for your fruit salad recipe that you told me you are going to google then thats on you.
We have to own up to our own stuff and accept that the responsibility is in our own hands. If I screw it up then I am to blame, not porn. I decided to watch porn, to type it in the search bar and search for that specific video.
You know the hardest part of it was accepting that I am the problem and admitting the problem. Sure porn is a problem, but it is just part of a problem you started and admitting it or talking about it isn’t always easy.
As I went further and gone into the 138 day streak where I started working out however I wanted to improve myself more and this was also done here and there. But now however I restarted and feel great about it. I can now truely focus on the changes. The progress I made has shown also the experience in the stuff I like is growing.
Speaking different languages is what I got interested in. Actually specifically german. I love the german language was there in germany and learnt it quick in the 3 months when I was there.
It slowly rusted away year after year. Still remember some basics, but wasn’t as fluent.
Nowadays it is an official part of me and inspired me to start learning french and is a huge help with it too. Not only just this I wanna learn more and quicker too. So german podcast/music is the things my day can’t be completed without.
Other podcast like Jim Kwik’s Kwik brain teaches me to learn faster, also remember more and also teaches me secrets into behaviour etc. And thanks to Spotify and Pocket casts it’s free. Eventhough there is ads, but hey free content so good is worth the ads.
In my studies and exercise Youtube helps me alot with tutorials and animations on say how a engine is running. Cool aspects we don’t see with the naked eye in engineering/Technical work also the understanding is broader with it too.
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