Hello Gentlemen. Now we begin.

MrEd

Member
I think in all the years Ive been dealing with this problem this is without a doubt one of THE best threads Ive seen.

Thank you William. The time and effort you put into this thread has literally changed my life!
 
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William

Guest
MrEd said:
I think in all the years Ive been dealing with this problem this is without a doubt one of THE best threads Ive seen.

Thank you William. The time and effort you put into this thread has literally changed my life!

Hi MrEd, thank you, and you are welcome.  Reading posts and replying are part of my recovery, so thank you.  That is just about the kindest thing anyone has said to me.  I appreciate it.

Peace.
 
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William

Guest
I am a porn addict.  Or, at least I was.  The thought "I am a porn addict," or "I am addicted", are thoughts that were totally alien to me 2 and 1/2 years ago.  I did not even think such things were possible.  I laughed off the concept.  I thought that porn, like sex, was just all American fun.  I was the opposite of a puritan, I believe in sexual freedom, sexual expression, I just saw porn consumption as an extension of that freedom, that lifestyle.  I was wrong. 

Now, 2 and 1/2 years into this journey, just a bit over one year clean, I have learned more about porn addiction and myself than I ever wanted.  I'll tell you something funny that is not really funny, and that is that I have, through this journey, picked up a skill that I can never use anyplace but a place like this, a skill that is taught no where:  learning how to quit porn addiction.  Just as I never thought I could become addicted, I never thought I would be proficient at quitting it.  The do not teach "How to quit porn addiction" in the public schools.

I post here for newbies who want to quit.  Yes, I said "quit".  There is no way to overcome porn addiction unless you totally eradicate porn from your life.  If you are a newbie, reading this, I imagine you are thinking something similar to what I first thought:  "What the fuck, you mean I am addicted AND I have to give up porn??!!  No fucking way!"

Overcoming the addiction is a bitch, no doubt about it.  The thing is, there are two types of guys here and you need to figure out which group you are in because only one group is going to successfully reboot and rewire. 

The first group is a group of totally wonderful guys who have come to accept, reluctantly, still somewhat in denial, that porn is a problem in their lives.  They hate it, but they love it, and giving it up is not their intent or purpose.  They want to control it, but keep it in their lives.  That wonderful group of guys is doomed to failure.  That group of guys, though they may not think it so directly, are really here just trying to control porn.  They have not deduced, yet, that if porn controls them, if they are addicted, it is impossible to control porn and keep it in their lives; if you are addicted you cannot control porn, porn in fact controls you.  Until and unless they understand that they will never regain control of their lives, which is very sad, actually, because porn has absolutely no value, does nothing good, so struggling to keep it in one's life makes no sense.  But then, as addicts, we cannot be said to be thinking clearly.

The second group of guys have come to accept that porn controls them. This is a very humiliating and humbling thought.  We hate to think anything controls us, and we especially hate the idea that our quiet little hobby is in charge.  But this group of guys will succeed, because they know that to conquer porn addiction, porn has to be totally deleted from their lives. 

Now, I see a lot of guys stumble into this forum desperate to overcome their problem.  Many do not know what the problem is, they may not even have put a name to it.  Many have not studied it, most are not willing to suffer to fix the problem, most are not prepared to suffer at all.  They have not prepared to beat the problem.  If you are one of those guys and you are reading this, let me give you some cold, hard, facts.  If you are addicted, you did not get there yesterday.  Most guys who get to this forum with this problem have had the problem for years.  They may not have understood it was a problem until quite recently, but they have been feeding their dopamine pumps through porn consumption for years, whether they understood that or not.  There is a fix for the problem, but this problem is not fixed over night.  You might as well accept it will take a few months, most guys say 3, and you will not fix it without some advance preparation. 

This brings me to an interesting concept, "Mise en place."  This is a French term that has absolutely noting to do with porn addiction recovery, but, rather has to do with preparing to cook food.  It translates literally to "put in place" but can also be meant as "setting up."  If you are a porn addict not only will you not overcome the problem overnight, but you won't overcome it unless you put a program in place, in advance, and set up your recovery.  I have seen many guys come completely clean about 90 days out, but I have never seen a newbie start the recovery process without advance preparation and be successful.  Now, you can learn all this on your own the hardway, meaning start in ignorance and relapse 40-100 times before you start to adopt a successful method of quitting, or, you can adopt a method of quitting that has been shown to work.  Let us begin. 

1)  First, you have to identify your problem.  What is your problem?  Are you an addict or not?  If you do not acknowledge the addiction you cannot and will not overcome it.  So, are you?  Not everyone is.  If you go to Gabe's home page, on the upper left side, you will see a link titled "Road to Recovery."  Click it.  He identifies acknowledging the addiction as the first step.  I know what you are thinking.  "Porn addiction, no fucking way, that is horrible, I am not in that group of freaks."  The first thing to understand is:  It's not that bad, you are not a freak, you are just a guy whose dopamine reward center, through years of porn abuse, became hypersensitive to porn, and probably desensitized to reality.  It happened unknowingly, unwittingly, casually, over time, and was something 100% you did not plan on or intend.  In a sense it is not your fault.  Most of us become addicted almost by accident, but it is important to understand you will only become unaddicted on purpose.

2)  Study the problem, get educated.  One of the things about acknowledging porn addiction is that we tend to blow the problem out of proportion, it seems so horrible, but, actually, the porn addict has a relatively small problem requiring a relatively small solution.  The porn addict has, unknowingly, trained their brain to reward viewing porn with a dopamine release in the brain.  Dopamine is released naturally to sexual thoughts, but in reality, without porn and specifically High Speed Internet Porn, we as a species do not run around high on dopamine.  In reality most of us can expect a handful of sexual partners in our lives.  But our brain's dopamine reward center cannot tell porn from sex and rewards both.  The problem is that, unlike sex, porn is available 24/7, it offers constant newness and novelty--things the dopamine reward center loves.  You could sit in front of a computer for years and never see the same image twice.  Eventually, that reward center comes to like, and reward, porn over reality.  That is when guys start experiencing ED.  I encourage everyone reading this to view the Gary Wilson TEDx talk, a link to which can be found here on Gabe's home page under the title "The Great Porn Experiment."  Under the concept of mise en place, I will say that in the beginning I not only watched that vid before starting, but I probably watched it 40 days out of the first 80 quitting.  I don't watch it so much now, but it helps to understand that you will want to watch porn in that 90 day reboot period, and to plan on watching something else when you want to watch porn.  Gary Wilson's TEDx video was my "alternative vid" when I first began quitting; when I wanted to watch porn I watched it instead, and it was great at explaining why I wanted to watch porn.  Ask yourself, why do you like to watch porn?  What is so fascinating about it?  What is so interesting you can lose hours watching it?  Why is watching porn so much more interesting than, say, watching the ocean, or watching the sun set, or, walking at night under a full moon?  Why is that activity so fascinating for us?  The answer is:  due to our primitive brain being unable to distinguish porn from sex, we get a dopamine rush when we see it.  We don't get a dopamine rush like that at seeing much else.

3)  No porn no porn no porn no porn no porn no porn, oh, yeah, and one more thing, no porn.  If quitting porn was easy we would not have these forums.  You are not addicted to porn.  You are addicted to dopamine.  Porn is just the button we push to get it.  When quitting you have to turn off the dopamine pump, so to speak, and that means you have to quit pushing that button.  Easy to say, hard to do.  My advice, part of getting prepared, is don't bother trying to do this with will power alone.  Can it be done with will power alone?  Yes, but, make it easier on your self and install blockers.  If nothing else they act to remind you you are quitting porn.  That is something we need to be constantly reminded of when quitting because if we are not careful we can constantly access porn.  After years of abusing porn we have become experts at locating it, finding it, we know where it is, and it is easy for us to get to, but if you are going to overcome this problem you must stop pushing your dopamine button.  You cannot push it a little bit.  The addiction will reason with you, but you cannot give in.  I have had all the rationalizations.  For instance, your addiction might say," look, you use every day.  This week just cut out Sunday, next week cut out Sunday and Saturday, the following week cut out Sunday, Saturday, and Friday."  Sounds reasonable, right, just cut back.  The problem or reality is, however, that porn addiction can be starved to death (a good thing) but it cannot be starved to death if you are using porn even a little bit.  You ask "what do you mean by 'using'?"  I mean using it to get a dopamine high.  That is the only reason we use porn, for dopamine.  Understand what we are talking about here--and again this goes to preparation--you need to block 90 days of your life, and for those 90 days you need to become "a man quitting porn."  It will be difficult, but we are talking about blocking a set period of time, and one not that long, one that does not require you quit work or school, to address and correct a learned behavior that took years to develop.  You trained your brain for years to reward porn with a dopamine high, you may not have known it, but that is what you did.  You need to accept it is not going away overnight, and that on average the successful rebooter reports success only after 90 days clean, no porn.  So, back to blockers, put them on your computer and make your purpose in life NOT to see porn or have hypersexual thoughts for that 90 period.

4)  Withdrawals suck.  You are going to have brain fog, an inability to focus, and, really, a lack of desire to focus.  You will have physical symptoms.  "Blue balls" don't exist, it is a myth, your balls are not going to turn blue, they will not explode, you will not die or be injured in any way by not watching porn or masturbating.  You will survive just fine.  A lot of guy report jitters and the shakes, which often manifest as something feeling like a prolonged panic attack, as in hours of a day for many days, some back to back.  The feeling of increased anxiety and strain can also be expected.  There is depression, there is anger, there is self doubt and self blame.  You will have physical aches and pains in weird places, a lot of guys report sinus pain.  You will have hours of mentally kicking your own ass for having got to this place and having to go through it to get clean. 

The point of the above, and this is aimed at and only at newbies, is that there is a method to getting clean.  Although there may have been a porn addict who woke up one day and said "never again" and had no problems or challenges, I have never seen or heard of him.  There are problems in quitting porn, there are challenges, you will feel withdrawals, and unless you know this going in and have a plan on dealing with them, even just expecting them, they can sneak up behind you and clobber you, totally derailing your reboot.  You can see guys in this forum and others like it who continually fail, who continually relapse.  It is painful to read their posts.  Every 3 or 4 days they begin their post with "Oops, relapsed, darn, have to reset the counter, next time I am going to make a real run."  I understand there can be starts and stops in this process, but if a guy is here for 45 days and is still relapsing every few days, that is a guy who has not prepared to overcome this addiction, a guy who has no plan, a guy who is hoping to quit, but is not dedicated to quitting.  You cannot merely cross your fingers, turn on a counter, and hope to quit porn addiction.  Quitting porn addiction takes real effort, you have to know that and plan on it. 

If you are reading this, I do not want to see you be a serial relapser.  Block the 90 days.  Before you start, study the problem, understand what is going on in there.  Don't overthink it; it takes a couple hours at most to understand the problem, and don't let the problem become big.  Keep it simple; you are having an unwanted chemical brain reaction to the sexual visualization through porn.  You don't like the reaction, you don't like the way it affects you, want to quit having the reaction--solution:  end the stimulation that causes the reaction. Get some help with it.  Plan on wanting to relapse, on wanting to view porn when quitting, and plan on what you are going to do otherwise.  Me?  I mixed the education with planning on wanting to watch porn, meaning I planned on watching the Wilson vid whenever I wanted to watch porn.  Again, I probably watched it 40 out of my first 80 days in the reboot.  Get tool, get a blocker, K9is good.  I kept K9 on my computer until month 7.  I really did not need it that long, but, then again, I had absolutely no reason to watch porn, so, no harm no foul.  You can get an accountability partner.  Write here, a lot.  When I first began quitting I wrote on a forum every day, sometimes as much as 10 times a day.  What was I doing?  I was doing anything other than watching porn while reinforcing the fact that I was not watching porn.  Porn addiction is a learned behavior, overcoming it is also a learned behavior.  Porn addiction is a lifestyle, for you to beat it you are going to have to learn a new lifestyle.  It can be done.  Block that 90 days. 

So, why do I write this?  Some part of me likes to think there is a guy out there reading it who was like I was.  Totally ignorant of the process, but desperate to quit porn addiction.  I struggled for almost 18 months with quitting before I understand the process, before I understood there was a method to quitting porn.  Like changing any routine behavior we have and do not like we have to focus on changing the behavior.  Once you resensitize your brain to reality and desensitize it to porn, you will be OK.  Though not hard science, I like to explain it in terms of dopamine.  Once you turn off your dopamine in your dopamine soaked brain and get those levels back to normal, you will be OK.  Those horrible feelings go away and you will not have that burning desire to access porn.  That is called freedom.

Peace.   
 
Great post as always William. You are helping me so much and you had no idea (until now :)) Thank you!
By Understanding the workings of this addiction it gets easier to quit it. Knowledge is power.
Somehow your post always seem logical and understandable for me.

I am not very far advanced in my reboot yet but I hope will get to this point where you are now.

 

Twostroke

Member
I second those sentiments shell shock. William, your posts are truly inspirational, and you have a real talent for expressing it all so clearly. Thank you, i'm sure you are helping many people here.
 
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William

Guest
Thank you shell shock and Travelog.  I appreciate the kind words. I am reading your stuff on here too, and it helps, so than you. 

Hetrix Mex asked a question today on his post and I felt it was important that we all consider it.  It comes down to something everyone quitting must be aware of and that is what I call "porn substitutes."  When quitting, even though we are avoiding porn, we have to be aware that our dopamine starved brain will begin to trigger on things other than porn.  You have to be aware of that and be on guard for it, to avoid something you did not think would trigger to, from triggering you to relapse.  Remember, the purpose of the reboot exercise is to lower dopamine levels and resensitize the brain's reward pathways back to reality.  It is a small window in time in your life to get back to normal, but during that time you must avoid porn and porn substitutes completely.  Porn is not just porn, it is seeing it, remembering it, thinking of it, fantasizing about it, and using any other means to achieve hypersexual thoughts that can produce a dopamine high.  You won't have to do this forever, but if you want to overcome porn addiction you must do it for this relatively short period.  Again, 90 days seems to be the gold standard.  After that, the desire to watch porn is severely lessened, the withdrawals, if not completely gone, are lessened and come far less and are not really a danger to causing relapse. 

Here is Hetrix Mex's question and my thoughts. 

Quote from: Hetrix Mex on Today at 10:30:25 AM

I remember seeing a guy here telling this, but I dont understand why.




It is a great question, and one that every guy who is addicted to porn and is here quitting should be aware of.

When we become addicted to porn, we really are not addicted to porn.  We are addicted to something happening in our brains, specifically the release of dopamine.  Porn is just the button we push to get a dopamine rush. When quitting porn addiction, especially in the beginning, during the reboot phase, if we are doing it right, we are, essentially, starving the addiction to death.  Part of overcoming porn addiction is, during the reboot, avoiding porn completely.  Another way of saying that is we are avoiding a dopamine rush completely.  One of the biggest mistakes guys quitting make, during the reboot, is, consciously or otherwise, looking for porn substitutes.  A lot of guys, by the time they decide to quit, are triggering on porn that is way outside their taste or even orientation.  "Vanilla porn" just won't do it for them any more.  One of the tests for whether a guy is addicted is whether he can MO without porn's visual stimulation; a severely addicted porn addict cannot.  He has become desensitized to anything other than the porn button he pushes to get a dopamine fix.  But just as telling, that guy, the guy who cannot MO without porn also cannot MO with vanilla porn.  Let's say, Penthouse; he can be exposed to that relatively mild porn and still cannot MO.  He has become desensitized to anything but his category of porn.

However, when quitting, if the quitter is quitting right, he totally deprives himself of access to porn.  This is the "starving the addiction to death" part.  Though not hard science, think of it as bringing your dopamine levels back down to normal.  Think of porn as having brought them up, and no-porn as bringing them down.  That is the purpose of the exercise, to "rebalance" a brain unbalanced by years of dopamine abuse.  In that phase, in the early quitting phase, the early reboot phase, while you are starving your porn habit to death, the brain actually begins to trigger on things other than whatever porn category you ended up at.  It does not even have to be porn.  It can be things society does not deem pornographic, such as Victoria's Secret, the Swimsuit issue, it can be vanilla porn, pinups, bikini pics, softcore, PG-13.  But in that early quitting stage, you can trigger on other than visual images or stimulation.  Understand that dopamine release happens in the brain.  It is a response, technically, not even to porn per se, but sexual thoughts.  In the quitting phase, while you are starving your addiction to death, it will eat just about anything to stay alive.  If it can talk you into indulging a hypersexual thought, it will.  Chat rooms are dangerous at that time for the guy quitting porn. Unless you are chatting about how to take apart and reassemble a motorcycle engine, you are probably using a chat room to indulge hypersexual thoughts.  In my opinion, for a guy quitting, adult chat rooms are even more dangerous than porn because they usually involve hypersexual content, chats, quite often the exchange of pics, and involving real people involve novelty at least on par with hardcore porn. 

The purpose of avoiding adult chat rooms is, for the guy quitting, to avoid any artificial sexual thoughts that can result in a dopamine rush, and the dopamine rush is what we are avoiding when quitting porn.  That is part of the reboot, part of the process. 

Hope this helps. 
 
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William

Guest
Porn tip #128....

Porn is not just porn, for the guy quitting, it is anything that triggers a dopamine rush.  And when quitting, a lot of things will.  Be on your guard. 

Porn is seeing porn, it is watching it, it is thinking about it, it is imagining it, it is remembering it, it is thinking about it while MOing even if you are not actually watching it, it is PMOing, it is fantasizing, it is edging while watching or thinking about it, it is having actual sex while thinking of porn, it is porn substitutes, any hypersexualized imagery or thought of that. Porn can be strictly in the brain, or it can be in hard copy, it can be on computers, televisions, and on smart phones, as in apps. Porn is phone sex. Porn is engaging any thought of unreal sex. Porn is chat rooms. Porn is sex toys. For one guy in this forum, porn is a cock ring. Porn does not have to be visual, it can be strictly audio. Why do you think "screaming" is a common porn category?  Recent studies indicate "sex sounds" can cause arousal, i.e., a dopamine release.  Porn can be literature about sex. Porn can be cartoons, drawings, hentai.  Porn does not have to be on porn sites, it can be found on Facebook, Craigslist, Youtube, etc. It can be found on commercial retail sites; Sears, Target, Walmart. For me, when I first started quitting, I told myself I was making progress because I moved from very hardcore stuff to Google images, where I searched vanilla nudes. Bikini pics triggered me. Lingerie models triggered me. Hooters girls triggered me. Just girls on the street triggered me if I let them. I consciously have decided not to let hypersexualized images linger in my head. Before, I was not making progress, I was still feeding my dopamine fix. You have to avoid your triggers, not flirt with them. Let me say this again--you have to avoid your triggers, not flirt with them. Your triggers are not going to be merely the hardcore stuff you are trying to quit watching, they will be much softer stuff than can pop out on you from benign sites like Yahoo, Craigslist, Google. You have know that in advance and plan on avoiding them. You have to get your dopamine levels back down. That will take time.  Plan on 90 days, it may not take that long, but plan on that.  Better to plan too long than too short.  Rebooting requires a total absence of porn in your head. If you are walking down the street in the middle of the day thinking about porn, you are using porn, so find something else to pop in your head if that situation occurs.  As in now.  What are you planning on thinking to distract yourself when the inevitable "visions" pop in there?  I think "no no no no no no no", and I keep thinking that until it goes away.  Sometimes I click my tongue on the roof of my mouth.  It does not take a lot and the purpose of this exercise it to stop a vision of 1/2 second from becoming an indulgence, a fantasy, of minutes, which will spike your dopamine level.  You want to avoid that. 

For addicts, especially when we first quit, and we have not brought our dopamine levels back down, our brains look for any trigger it can find, even things society does not define as porn.

Be aware of this, and avoid those triggers.

Peace.
 
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William

Guest
You?ve had two very serious periods of substance abuse. What caused that?

Ninety-nine percent of the people who go through that are trying to deal with some pain. They will say that when they did the drug, they suddenly felt okay. Then, ?I?m not so good. I need to get back [to the drug] and be all right again.? It builds into that cycle.


From one of Robin Williams last interviews.  If you are addicted to porn you can substitute [to the drug] with [PMOing]. 

It is time for you to quit. 

Porn is not an option.

It is simply time to quit.  Time to quit.  Quit. 

Much love.

Will I AM.   

 
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William

Guest
If porn is your kryptonite, you have to delete it from your life. I am almost 13 months clean, no porn, no PMO, no MO. How do I feel? I feel dangerous. I feel like nothing can defeat me. Like I am unbeatable. Like there is no challenge I cannot face. The brain fog of the dopamine high is gone. I have not felt a withdraw in months.  All my five senses are honed and clear. I look people in the eye now. Food and drink taste better. The wind on my skin feels better. My thoughts are clear. I have no fear, I look forward to adversity now, because I want to be challenged. I feel like a man in full. This is what freedom feels like. I am higher now than I ever was on porn, but now I am high on life, on being alive.

Break the chains.

I am telling each and everyone of you reading this, you, too can be clean. You can beat it. It will be challenging, but you can rise to that challenge. You can find help here. How do we help? We help ourselves by helping others, so...get out today, talk to people, find someone to help.  I don't care if it mowing someone's grass for free, maybe offer to help an older person get their groceries to their car, do something, get out and do something for somebody other than your self.  Porn addiction is the ultimate self indulgence, one of the tricks in beating it is learning to do things, not for ourselves, but for others.  Beating porn addiction is changing your lifestyle for the better. 

For those of you who skipped ahead...you know who you are...jump back to the beginning:

http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=1256.0

Page one contains some useful information you will need to get clean. 

Peace. 
 

jnv

Well-Known Member
Hey there.
I wanted to thank you for this post because Even though I already acknowledged that I was an addict as soon as I started my reboot, reading through all of this gave me  some new insight regarding this problem and kind of boosted my motivation. I'm already educated about it, I'm already using some tools to help me through this but what I think will help me a lot in the future is your approach about withdrawals. I never thought about them that way and I think it will have a very positive effect and role in my reboot. The video about the guy explaining metaphorically (the forest) the whole rewiring process is golden as well.
Good luck on your reboot!
 
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William

Guest
jnv said:
Hey there.
I wanted to thank you for this post because Even though I already acknowledged that I was an addict as soon as I started my reboot, reading through all of this gave me  some new insight regarding this problem and kind of boosted my motivation. I'm already educated about it, I'm already using some tools to help me through this but what I think will help me a lot in the future is your approach about withdrawals. I never thought about them that way and I think it will have a very positive effect and role in my reboot. The video about the guy explaining metaphorically (the forest) the whole rewiring process is golden as well.
Good luck on your reboot!

Hi jnv, thank you for your kind words and you are welcome. 

Fightthefight mentioned posts by both you and I as being helpful to him, and I responded in a post that was largely dedicated to discussing withdrawals.  Here it is, if you care to read it.

http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=1460.0

I will say that I have seen many approaches to quitting porn addiction in this journey.  My personal approach, the one I recommend, is the narrow way.  By that I mean that we all have problems in life and porn addiction is for most of us just one of those problems.  I have seen a lot of guys here taking a holistic approach, meaning trying to solve the porn addiction problem as part of becoming a better more happy human being overall.  I disagree with that approach.  In my opinion the successful person quitting porn here will be here for one reason and one reason only--to quit porn addiction.  Block a limited amount of time in your life to do a very specific then then do it.  Don't hope that quitting porn addiction will make other aspects of your life better.  It will, but the purpose in being here is to quit, and your focus must be on quitting, and not on improving your life overall.  That approach, the "I'm making my life better" approach allows for too many distractions and allows for too many excuses for not succeeding. 

jnv, you are at 18 days today, which is great.  I am big believer in the 90 day reboot.  I myself did not do the 90 reboot.  I just quit P for life.  But I agree with the guys that did the reboot that at about 90 days the withdrawals subside or become tremendously easier.  One thing I have noticed in your approach is that you still continue to MO during the reboot phase.  I will simply say that I could not have rebooted and kept that practice in my life because even without actual porn I still would have used pornographic imagery when MOing, thus defeating the purpose of lowering my dopamine levels.  As I have said before, unless you are thinking of doing your algebra homework while MOing, you are probably using hypersexual thoughts, which gives a dopamine rush.  When we talk about "rewiring" here we are talking about rewiring our brain's reward center to reward sex.  I think it is important to understand that we are porn addicts, and for porn addicts rebooting and rewiring back to sex may require the elimination of any dopamine distractions at all, including MO.  I know of no guy who used MO during the reboot and was successful in the reboot primarily because it was giving them artificial dopamine spikes.  By "artificial" I mean a dopamine spike in response to something other than a real, live, flesh and blood, woman.  I will say that for about 14 months, before I got educated and began this run, I was much like you, and tried to quit.  During that time I radically reduced my P use, meaning where I had PMOed ever day for years, I cut back to PMO perhaps as little as once every 6 weeks.  I did not understand, however, that P itself, alone, just seeing it, thinking about it, could produce a dopamine spike, and consequently I watched P every day.  Not nearly as much, from an hour to a few minutes.  I thought I was making progress, I wasn't, I was still getting an artificial dopamine high.  Indulging in a voluntary dopamine spike during the reboot in my opinion is defeating the purpose of the reboot.  Remember, we are talking about a temporary change of life style.  Only 90 days.  I promise you, you will not develop ED of DE by going that relatively short period without those hypersexual thoughts. 

jnv, at 18 days you are getting close to what I call the tipping, the point where you don't want to watch porn more than you do.  My advice to you would be to avoid all hypersexual thoughts in this time frame.  Allow your dopamine soaked brain to dry out.  We all have to go through that, the withdrawals. 

I can see from your posts you are going to succeed.  I have absolute confidence in you.  Keep writing, keep posting, you are inspiring myself and many others here.  You are being quoted by other members now.  People are watching you, wanting you to succeed, wanting you to over come this.  Why?  Because if you can do it, they have hope that they can too.  This place has plenty of students, we could use more teachers.  I invite you to step to this side of totally clean, and start sharing with others how to do it. 

Peace.

PS:  Your English is outstanding. 
 
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William

Guest
Today is 13 months clean.  No porn, no PMO, no MO, no relapses.  The 18th of the month is when I count one more month.  When I first decided to quit I really did not conceive of it as quitting.  I recognized I had a problem, but I really did not know what it was.  The concept of "porn addiction" had not occurred to me.  In fact, even now, there is debate about whether porn addiction is a real phenomenon.  When I first determined to quit I really did not conceive of it in terms of quitting.  Rather, I decided I was watching porn too much, it was having adverse consequences in my life, and I wanted to be in control.  I cut back a lot.  From every day I went to around once every six weeks.  That is PMO.  What I did not know, though, was that in watching a bit of porn every day, I was reinforcing my brain's reward pathways to porn. Translation:  I cut way back on PMO, but I kept watching porn daily.  I did not MO in that time because like most porn addicts, I could not MO without porn, it was not possible.  At the time I did not know it, but that is one of the signs of porn addiction, not being able to MO without porn.  I did not understand that merely watching porn was the problem.  Porn addicts don't understand this point in the beginning.  Then I watched the Wilson vid.  It's here on page one, the home page.  If you have not watched it, watch it, take notes, then watch it again.  One of the thing I like about Gabe's approach is that he goes straight for the jugular, when it comes to porn addiction.  He does not play with it, it's not about how long we can go without a fap, it is about killing the addiction.  The first step in killing the addiction is recognizing one is addicted.  Once I recognized that, it really became about avoiding the gratuitous dopamine high that porn gives, and that in turn became about avoiding porn altogether.  At this point, way out past the withdrawals, I don't even trigger anymore.  I could watch porn if I wanted to, but I would not relapse.  Does this mean I watch porn?  No, bad habit, quit it 13 months ago.  If you are reading this and you want to quit porn, I am here to tell you, you can.  YOU CAN.  But you have to want it.  Why would any porn loving guy want to quit? It's because it has caused some problem in your life.  I don't know what that is for you.  It may be you have developed PIED.  It may be you have moved through all the "categories" until you have started watching stuff you no longer remotely recognize as having anything to do with how you see yourself sexually in reality.  It may be because your porn use has demeaned the woman you are with, and you don't want her to feel less that all you need.  There are two important things you must acknowledge in order to overcome porn addiction.  1)  you are addicted.  2) it is not a life sentence, it can be conquered.  Accepting the first requires humility.    Humility is not so bad, it just means you are determined to give up a drug, for life.  Understand that porn is the button we push to get a dopamine fix, nothing more.  It's not real, of course, it is a false rush to a false stimulus, but until you eliminate the stimulus, you will be a slave to it.

If you are living on porn, you are rejecting reality.  You are breathing the ultimate counterfeit.  it is not real.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yB-JzPBJalA

It is time you turn off the fantasy and walk in the real world.

It's time. 

I want to see everyone reading this get clean.  I am here to tell you, you can. 

Peace. 
 

jnv

Well-Known Member
Hello William and congratulation on beating 13 months, that certainly is impressive and inspirational.
Thanks for the kind words and I will definitely try to help as many people as I can.

I changed my mind again and reached the same conclusion you stated in your previous post before I even read it which is quite a good sign I'd say. As my second counter reads, I did MO about 4 days ago and, it may be placebo effect of not, the rest of that day and the day after, I literally felt like ****. Since the beginning of the streak, I've felt in awesome shape in general, my motivation was sky high, I was killing myself during workouts and I had some minor urges to watch P but I could easily overcome them. The day after I MO'd I instantly felt the effect as soon as I got up, I was feeling tired and needed coffee (which I didn't need anymore) to stay awake, my motivation was at floor level, I had to take painkillers during the day to make headaches go away etc... I did MO simply out of curiosity just to check sensitivity but it wasn't worth it at all and I'm now convinced that being MO free is better as well.

As for my vision concerning the reboot, I made the decision to quit P. for life as well as soon as I first read the first articles on YBOP 3 months ago, that is not negociable. The reason I still want to beat the 90 days challenge is more for a symbolic reason. As I'm just starting, I don't feel like setting an undifined goal. I just first want to beat the "standard" beginners milestones and when I feel I'm really P. free I'll set my life time goal counter.

Concerning my reason to be a better human being overall, it may be due to my particular situation regarding the addiction. PMO is not my only addiction, I have an other huge addiction which is online videogaming. So one can understand the extend of this addiction, I could spend 10+ hours in front of the screen playing MMO's during my days off without thinking it was weird because I was socialising with "friends". I just came to the conclusion that as soon as I acknowledged myself being a double addict (my Gaming-free streak is 87days as of today) was the best moment to start thinking about what to do with that new free time. I wanted to replace my old destructive and non productive habits by some new and productive ones. So I'm not hoping for noPMO to cure me, to magically make me a better man overall. I'm not wishing that all the areas in my life I want to improve will get better simply by accumulating more and more days on my counter. noPMO and noGaming were both the triggers which helped me take a global view about how badly these 2 problems were affecting me and I decided that I was not going to base myself solely upon quitting these 2 addictions but I decided it was time to actively work on the other areas I want to improve as well.
In my case, this scenario was just simple logic because as soon as I acknowledged myself as a double addict and decided to take actions to fight these problems, I've felt started pleasure in doing simple things like reading, gardening, being consistent in my workouts, socialising. Simply cutting Porn and gaming without structuring the ways I'm going to spend my time would not work on me and would not be beneficial.

Thanks again for your dedication to help others and you can be proud of your long-lasting "cleanliness"!
 
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William

Guest
Thank you for your kind words jnv.  Thankfully, I never developed a problem with gaming. 

For anyone reading this, I would like to explain what jnv and I have been discussing.  If you are a porn addict you probably think "I am a porn addict."  Well, yes, but really, no, you are a dopamine addict.  If you have watched the Wilson vid, found here on Gabe's homepage, right side, titled "The Great Porn Experiment," you understand that the only reason we watch porn is dopamine, we get a dopamine spike, a dopamine rush, whenever we are exposed to the hypersexualism of porn.  If we did not get a dopamine spike we would find porn about as interesting as watching an egg boil.  Porn is just the button we push to get a dopamine spike.

From those of you in the reboot stage I often see the question "can I MO during the reboot?"  My answer is "no."  Why not, you ask.  The purpose of the reboot is to rebalance your brain.  If we say that porn has caused your brain to become soaked with dopamine, the purpose of the reboot is to let it dry out.  That is not hard science but it is a useful metaphor.  On average most guys who go 90 days say their dopamine levels are sufficiently back to normal that the withdrawals are behind them or easily controllable. The thing about MOing during the reboot is that it is doing the opposite of what we want to do, which is to give our brain a rest from the dopamine rush porn gives us and allowing those levels to get back to normal.

When rebooting you must understand that we are not talking "for life," we are talking about engaging in very specific behaviors that have a very specific purpose, and the purpose is overcoming porn addiction.  The behaviors that must be modified in this way don't take forever to modify, only on average about 90 days.  So, if it takes you these 90 days to be porn free for life, and if part of that is no porn, no PMO, no MO, to allow your brain to rebalance, the do that to allow it. 

Peace. 

 

Twostroke

Member
Hi William, i just wondered what your thoughts were on MO after the 90 day reboot period. I see that you are MO free for 13 months. Is that a matter of choice now? or do you think MO may make a potential relapse more likely? I'm asking because i can't imagine being MO free for life. I want to give up porn and pmo and feel that i am well on the way to achieving that longterm, but when i feel horny i am tempted to MO. So my question is not about MO during the reboot, but about whether you think that MO after reboot would still carry a potential risk of relapse? Thanks
 
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William

Guest
travelog said:
Hi William, i just wondered what your thoughts were on MO after the 90 day reboot period. I see that you are MO free for 13 months. Is that a matter of choice now? or do you think MO may make a potential relapse more likely? I'm asking because i can't imagine being MO free for life. I want to give up porn and pmo and feel that i am well on the way to achieving that longterm, but when i feel horny i am tempted to MO. So my question is not about MO during the reboot, but about whether you think that MO after reboot would still carry a potential risk of relapse? Thanks

Hi travelog, great question.  Here is what a guy, a porn addict, in recovery, after the reboot, wrote two days ago:


Relapse after 180 days PMO free


    Hey everybody, I'd like to discuss something here. I was PMO free for approximately 180 days, or half a year, between January and June 2014. I did see results, but it appears that these results were not enough to keep me permanently PMO-free. The moment of relapse was surprisingly simple(at least to me): I just got wasted and jerked off. This was about a month ago. Ever since then I've been jerking off once or twice a week(without porn) and can't really seem to give myself the motivation to stop. I have already noticed that I feel slightly "weaker".
    The reason this is going on, in my opinion, is that I feel quite lonely. I haven't had any sexual relations in the past half year, excluding a one night stand in May. I don't even have any real female friends, like I used to.
Any opinion on this would be much appreciated.


Point of the above, we can relapse, well after 90 days, and only to MO. 

The thing is, for me, I am addicted to porn.  I sometimes find myself saying I was addicted to porn or I am no longer addicted to porn or I have become unaddicted to porn, but at some point in my life I definitely was addicted to porn.  As you know, my opinion is that during the reboot, no MO is allowed.  That is the price we pay to overcome the addiction.  As for now, after the reboot, could I MO and not relapse?  Yes, I could.  But that would still be rewarding the wrong pathways because I could not MO without thinking of porn.  I have scenes, pornstars, scenarios, categories, that are in my head for one reason only:  I saw them when I was viewing porn.  That is me, I have no idea what you would be thinking of when MOing.  I don't think that MOing after the reboot is or must be considered a "relapse", but it is rewarding brain pathways other than those that reward what we are trying to rewire to, as in actual sex.  If a guy was in this forum and said, "hey, for reasons XY and Z I know without doubt, for certain, I have absolutely 0 chance of having actual sex with a real woman ever again, I am addicted to porn, should I quit?", I might even tell him no.  The only purpose for most of us here rebooting and rewiring is so we can have real sex in a good way.  If the addiction had not interfered with that in some way, most of us would not be quitting it. 

As for me, I now have real sex in a good way.  Sexually, I am satisfied.  I could have more O's if I wanted to incorporate MO into my lifestyle, but I have made a conscious decision that sex and sex alone is my sexual outlet.  Put more scientifically, I only allow myself a dopamine reward through real sex, not fake sex, not imagined sex.  I would not consider MO without P a relapse now, but I choose not to do that in order to reward the one brain pathway I wish to reward, sex with the woman I love.  I think, travelog, that addicts can become unaddicted.  But even addicts who become unaddicted must always remember they were addicted and that they fed certain brain reward pathways the wrong thing for years.  If you are saying you are never going to get laid, then I can't say don't use MO to relieve yourself.  But, if you are planning on getting laid in the future, my advice is--for you, me, and any other porn addict--wait and use actual sex, reward actual sex and only actual sex.  As I have said to others who have asked, unless you are imagining you are changing a car tire on the side of the road when MOing, you are probably using hypersexual thoughts during MO, and that is feeding a reward pathway other than the real thing.  This, by the way, is no moral condemnation of MO, just a realistic approach to the brain chemistry involved, as in involved with recovering porn addicts. 

By the way, 136 days is outstanding.  Thanks for writing.  Reading posts and replying are part of my recovery, so thanks.  And in case anyone wants to know--yes, I am fully recovered now. 

Peace.
 

Twostroke

Member
Thanks for the prompt reply William. My situation is that i have a girlfriend, but we live quite a distance apart and so only see each about every 2 weeks. In those periods between seeing her i sometimes get horny and in the past used porn and phone sex to relieve the sexual frustration

I had started using phone sex about 15 years ago when single and looking for a bit of uncomplicated relief. Last year i became concerned that i was no longer that interested in sex with my girlfriend and more interested in porn and phone sex. I think the phone sex was more addictive for me than porn , but they were both very entwined.

It got to the stage were i arranged to meet my favourite phone sex girl for the promise of some debauched sex, and very nearly went through with it. Fortunately i didn't and was so shocked about what i was doing that i decided i had to stop using phone sex. I discovered that it wasn't that easy to stop, i would cut back use for a while only for it to grow again, and i began to realise that i couldn't stop and that i could be addicted.

This started making me feel quite depressed. I didn't like the person i was becoming, and it was this and not any physical issue that was the trigger for taking action. I didn't know at this stage that i could be addicted to such things but i felt that i was and so planned to stop.

I 'm pleased to say that i haven't used phone sex for 233 days and at last feel free from that addiction. i initially continued to use porn, but was also getting increasingly uncomfortable about it and the harder nature of what i was viewing. it was then on on internet search that i discovered ybop.

what i read made a lot of sense and understanding the science about hypersexual stimuli, whether porn, cam, phone sex etc, can hijack the reward system in thr primitive part of our brains leading to addiction. Understanding the science was the easy part, but was essential in my success to date.
The hard part was the withdrawal period, which i can honestly so was awful, and one of the most painful periods of my life. I wish i could sugar coat it and make it more palatable for people just embarking on their reboots, but unfortunately for me it was pretty hellish.

I have got through so far by reading and occasionally posting on this forum, and by being resolute that it didn't want to be the person i was becoming while under the influence of porn/ phone sex. I'm pleased to say that as i have felt the addiction slowly releasing its grip, then i have started to feel better about myself.  I've posted my story as an act of catharsis but also also in the hope that it may be of help for others who may be struggling to know that things can and will get better.

It certainly hasn't been a linear process, and i continue to guard against being complacent, which is why i am cautious now about the potential negative effects of MO, so i will consider your words carefully William, and thank you again for taking the time and effort to reply.
 
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William

Guest
Hi Travelog, thanks for posting.  Anyone here who reads this, please post.  Reading posts and replying are part of my recovery, so thanks for helping.

Wanting to quit is the first step. I took that step a long time before I actually quit. Most of us here do that. We want to quit, we try to quit, but we cannot quit, we do not quit. I have not seen anyone here who simply declared "I am quit", and quit. Before becoming porn free I failed many times. Truth is, I did not want to be porn free. I loved porn, and so, while I wanted to control it, I did not understand that it controlled me. As long as it was in my life, it controlled me. Learning that was the first step.

For me, quitting involved getting educated. I had to understand the problem to quit the problem. Before I understood the problem I was just seeing how long I could hold my breath, in a manner of speaking. I found I could hold my breath for longer and longer periods, but...10 days out, 100 days out, I had to come up and take a big gulp. Then I realized the problem I had was not actually how long I could hold my breath, my problem was air. In a manner of speaking, I had to learn not to breath.

Air of course is porn, to extend the metaphor to the breaking point. Porn is highly addictive. We love it. We cannot help loving it. It is the button we push to get that dopamine rush, which is among the greatest natural highs we will ever experience. That, by the way, is a simple problem, and simple problems have simple solutions. Once I understood the problem narrowly, in scientific terms, as a biological problem, the solution also became narrow. As in small, as in doable, as in not overwhelming, as in something that could be done. Too many of us here are here to improve their lives, which is a huge task, when they should really be here for a very narrow, small, specific, reason: to quit porn. You will find that if you quit porn your life will be improved, but you need to be here for the purpose of quitting porn, and that only.  The benefits of quitting porn will come later. There are other place in the world where you can go to improve your life overall. Use this forum for one purpose--to quit porn--and you will find that fixing that one small problem is something you can do. It can be done.

I'll give you some advice. Don't casually quit, don't passively quit. Urgently quit. There must be an urgency to quitting to quit, a dedication to quitting. For a porn addict, for a while in your life while quitting, you must define yourself as "a man who is quitting porn." That may be for 30 days, may be for 90 days, depends on the person. I usually tell people plan on 90.  You have to actively seek to keep porn out of your life, out of your head. Find tools to help you, get blockers, write here. 

I don't use porn, and I never will again.  When you say that and mean it you will have begun to take off the chains.

Good luck in your journey.
 

Promise

Well-Known Member
Does the Geneva Convention cover torturing metaphors?  :p

Great post as usual William, maybe work on the metaphors though!  I'd just like to add that I don't think people should wait until they've quit porn to start their life.  I used to think like that.  Think I can't go courting, can't go to job interviews, can't go out and do what I want until I'm the man I want to be; a man free of PMO.  I used to think PMO was preventing me from starting my life, but the truth is that a lot of us use PMO to fill a void in our lives.  If you make a life plan and follow through to become the person you want to be with the life you want to live then that's a mighty fine aid that goes hand in hand with quitting PMO.

I've been so busy lately, I've managed to cut down on PMO a fair bit, but now I know I can live a life free of PMO, because I'm filling it with so many wonderful fulfilling things.  Things I can work hard at, things I can love and draw enjoyment from.  Because I've been so busy, even though I've been tired and working hard, I get the occasional flashback, but my cravings are so small they're easy to overcome atm.

tl;dr: Don't quit to live, live to quit.
 
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William

Guest
Hi Promise, thanks for writing.  Reading posts and replying are part of how I stay clean, so thanks.  The cutting back approach never worked for me.  Before I went totally clean I probably went about 14 months cutting back.  That is from daily PMO to once a month maybe, and from an hour of porn a day to a few minutes. What I did not understand was that in keeping porn in my life, I was still abusing my dopamine reward pathways.  It was when I saw the Gary Wilson TEDx talk, that it all became clear to me.

By the way, anyone here reading this, the Gary Wilson TEDx talk is a link on Gabe's home page.  It is the best 16 minutes you will spend if you are trying to over come porn addiction. 

For me, and I recommend this approach to newbies, quitting porn is black and white, no middle ground.  I do say block a limited period of time--I recommend complete and total abstinence of porn and PMO to allow a brain often abused for years to rebalance.  90 days is not science, but it has worked for a lot.  The main thing I focus on is handling the withdrawals because they will tempt to relapse.  In my opinion it takes about that 90 period to get our brains back to normal, normal being where they were before we became addicted.  I would never suggest anyone stop other good things going on in their lives, but to beat this one problem, I do strongly suggest, and believe, it takes approximately 90 days clean from an artificially induced dopamine spike to reach the place where the desire to relapse is not a daily consideration, is not a barking little dog attempting to get our attention, but is largely silent.  Ouch!  Metaphor tortured.  ;)One of the hardest thing to watch here are serial relapsers.  I have seen guys...broken...because they cannot seem to put more than 2-8 day in a row in without relapsing, consistently, for months, and sometimes over a year.  The reason they cannot break the addiction is because they are keeping the addiction in their lives, in some small way, having cut back but not totally eliminated it, thus prolonging the dopamine abuse as opposed to avoiding it completely and allowing the brain to rebalance and reboot.  I think admitting the problem then starting or trying to fix it is only made worse by consistently, over time, over months, being unable to reach the ultimate success. I respect your position that you want to get out and live life now, not wait to overcome the addiction, but I also think that as long as we act on the addiction, it is a cloud on all the other things in life we want to experience and celebrate. 

By the way, the Geneva convention does not cover porn addiction recovery.  I called.  Metaphors can not only be tortured, they can be killed, and I sure I have killed more than a few.  Seriously, when talking about porn addiction and porn addiction recovery, we almost have to make up a new vocabulary at time. 

Again, Promise, keep posting.  It helps.  Helps you.  Helps me.  Helps everyone who reads it.

Peace.
 
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