Weepy Willy said:
Man, woke up this morning extra tired, no boner, cold and shaky. My brain is telling me look at porn and it'll all go away.
The shakes from porn withdrawals? Is this normal?
Hi Weepy, I don't know where to start on this one. The lack of libido is generally referred to as "flatline". That feeling that your brain is telling you to look at porn and the bad feelings will go away is a rationalization, it is a withdrawal symptom. Both are very common in rebooting scenarios.
I have to ask, how much have you studied the problem, how much have you planned on experiencing these things, what are your goals?
Let's start at square one. Take a moment to study what is going on in your brain. Understand that porn is just a button all of us push to get a dopamine rush. Dopamine is a brain chemical, best drug in the world. Heroin is synthetic dopamine. It is released in response to sexual thoughts, which is how we seem to become hooked on porn, porn provides an opportunity for endless, new, sexual thoughts that that part of our brain rewards with dopamine. In real life it does not work that way of course, in real life dopamine is released in healthy doses in response to our thoughts about real women, but porn provides something real life never will, 24/7 availability of hypersexual thoughts. You have to get porn out of your life to over come the addiction, but the addiction is actually to dopamine. Take a moment to understand the problem. Watch this video, which is actually found here on Gabe's homepage under the first link on the right, titled The Great Porn Experiment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_RIm9ZMN1I
This explains the relationship between porn, dopamine, sex, and addiction.
Next, get some outside help. Install porn blockers. Put obstacles between yourself and the problem. K9 seems to be the gold standard. I used it myself for a long time. I don't anymore, I turned off my filters at 7 months clean, but in the beginning filters were huge for me. You can always get around them if you are determined to access porn, but if you are determined not to they are a huge help. The thing about porn addicts is, in my opinion, we are a bit OCD, meaning we compulsively search for porn. In the beginning of quitting I found that I could and did search for porn almost without thinking about it. It was never more than 2 seconds away, it was almost thoughtless when I looked it up, I just looked it up without thinking and then I thought "damn, I searched porn." The blockers slow that down, and the thought becomes "damn, I searched porn, but I got blocked, I don't really want to see porn I want NOT to see porn," and in those moments of reflection I could remind myself I was a guy quitting the porn viewing lifestyle.
Last, and this is where someone should write a manual on the topic of porn withdrawal, you are going to experience withdrawals. You have pushed the porn button for years, every single day, for years. Many times a day. That has repeatedly spiked your brain's primitive reward center to give you a dopamine fix. We love dopamine, best drug in the world, and we miss it when it is gone. A porn addict will withdraw when that drug is removed from the brain. Withdrawals are physical, mental, and emotional pain. You feel shaky and cold, you might get the sweats, a lot of guys report sinus pain or pain in their teeth, or little odd pains throughout their body. This is the addiction trying to talk you into using again, you did not know that before, but you know it now. The addiction will reason with you, will whisper in your ear that you should use again, it will give you reasons, it will tell you using is no problem, that it is a good thing, that it is necessary to use again. You need to be aware of this.
My advice, plan on a 90 day reboot with absolutely no porn and no porn substitutes. The purpose of the exercise is to lower your dopamine levels. It will hurt. Let me say it again, it will hurt. You are going to have days, often back to back, where you feel like you are dying. Why? Dopamine feels fantastic. It feels like life times 2. When you take it way it feels like life minus 2, that feeling sucks. That feeling does go away, but between 0 and 90 days you are going to have plenty of days when you feel like hell. You have to anticipate it, know it is going to happen. The fact that it is happening is a good thing. That is your dopamine levels dropping. Once you get back to normal you will feel great and you won't need porn to do it, but between here and there, you are going to be challenged.
My thread, if you care to read it.
http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=1256.0
Peace.