Promise, my experience is my answer. I didn't wake up one day in the middle of porn addiction and say to myself "this is day one, I am quitting." Rather, I began trying to quit before I acknowledged I was addicted, before I believed porn could be addictive, before the concept of porn addiction was accepted, and it has only really been accepted in the last two years. I really did not begin trying to quit; I began by trying to "cut back." When I talk about the group of guys who want to keep porn in their lives but control it...that was me. This was well before I had heard of dopamine or the Coolidge Effect, sensitization, desensitization, ED, DE, rewiring, etc. I just did not like how heavy my porn consumption had become and I wanted to cut back. Like many guys I did not actually think of porn as harmful in any way. I considered myself a fairly liberal kind of guy and I felt most limitations of sexual activity to be somewhat prudish, and that included porn. It was free, I thought it was harmless, I looked at like a private little amusement park that I could go to relieve stress every day, and I did go there--every day. On some level I even told myself I am a liberal kind of guy, unlike the prudes, because I did use porn every. I guess I felt a little rebellious using it, a little bit like a bad boy, and I liked being a bad boy.
But then came the moment when I realized that quitting porn was not going to be like, I don't know, learning to close my mouth when chewing. It was not something that I decided to do, and then did it. I did not know what a withdrawal was, but I found myself wanting to bounce off the walls a few days in, say days 7 to 12. I did not know what a "relapse" was, but I found myself relapsing constantly. This pattern of going a few days, going a couple, three, weeks, then relapsing because it relieved that overwhelming feeling of anxiety and stress--I did that for 14 months before I developed this approach. I developed this approach in response to two things: The Gary Wilson TED talk, and the porn addiction forum on NoFap. Like a lot of guys I hung around and read in that forum before I joined it and began posting. Once I read Gary Wilson I understood I was addicted, and I was not addicted to porn, I was addicted to dopamine. Once I understood I was addicted to dopamine I suddenly understood I was having withdrawals; until then I did not have a word to describe them, I just felt like hell. One of the frustrating things in the forums, for me, was seeing guys going one, two, three weeks and relapsing, and not understanding why. It was then I developed my method to quitting which is Get Educated (study the problem, understand what is going on in their, why you like porn, why you hate giving it up==dopamine and dopamine withdrawal), Get Tools (don't quit with will power alone, find tools to help, like porn blockers and writing in the forums), and Learn to Love Withdrawals (they are inevitable, they are why we fail, they are a good sign actually because it means your brain is rebalancing--it is fighting that due to the addiction, but it is happening).
Promise, I don't believe in suspending your life to quit porn. I did not suspend my life to quit porn, my life went on much the same way it had before, but without porn consumption. But, I bumbled around for 14 months before I developed what jkkk has described as a system, and then I went "hard mode." I did not invent hard mode but many have said it is the best, most efficient, quickest way, to overcome this addiction. By going hard mode I quit trying to fix my life and started to fix my addiction. I know, Promise, you indicate you have had some success, but, that said, you are here in your fifth month and if I recall you have seldom, if ever, gone much beyond two weeks without relapse. Had you gone hard mode from the beginning, and managed to sustain it, you would have been 90 days clean in the firsts half of September. You might have been rebooted, for life. I see your motto, and respect it, but I think you might want to alter it a bit, because I could not live until I quit porn, and once I quit it, I am indifferent to it. All I am saying is, if you want to get cured, get cured, take the medicine, do it now, put it behind you, and live porn free for the rest of your life. I don't wake up everyday and struggle with porn addiction anymore. I did, for the 14 months I was stumbling around in the dark, and I did on many days during the reboot, but for a long time now I am indifferent to it. I will say to you the same thing I would tell anyone who asked my opinion: You can continue to stumble through life with this problem on your back, maybe making two, three, four week runs and relapsing, or, you can take the hard medicine, go hard mode, kill the addiction by starving it to death (the only way to kill it), and then, for the rest of your life, never be bothered by it again, never be controlled by it again, never be afraid of it again, never struggle with it again, never be adversely affected by it again.
Promise, there is no easy way out of this addiction. I wish there were, I wish meditation or life improving hobbies or religious texts or worship or sports would take the addiction withdrawals away. They won't, those withdrawals are simply something that must be experienced to get to this side of clean. When you relapse there is only one reason--you are self medicating yourself with a dopamine high to push the withdrawals back. Dopamine is the only reason we watch porn and become addicted, it is not 99% of the problem, it is 100% of the problem. While there are tools and methods we can employ to beat the problem, ultimately there is only one way to beat the problem for life and that is to reboot and rewire and that takes, most say, 90 days hard mode. You won't get it by adding up streaks, you won't get it by doing 80 days, relapsing, then doing 10, you can't do 45 and 45; you have to set that goal and achieve it. During that 90 you won't be abandoning your life, you will just be abandoning porn. I know that due to the withdrawals it will feel like you can't make it, but you can and I promise you, it will not kill you. It will feel like it, but it won't. Porn addiction can be starved to death but the smallest amount during the reboot feeds it, keeps it alive, so you need to keep it out of your life. I think that if you can get to the hard mode 90 you won't be asking if you can beat porn addiction easily or while improving your life in other ways because I think that by then you won't need to, you can just go about your life improving your life without porn addiction being a bother. I hope you do not take 14 months to understand this, like I did.
Peace.