Not gonna go it alone

[Rebooter2019]

I've been practicing something new the last few days. I realized that I have been using my walks around school to look at women. There are lots all around, and I've been using my single status as an excuse to look. But I'm not looking because I'm actually going to ask any of them out or anything. They're just strangers on the street. I'm just looking to look.

So, in the last few days, I've been saying to myself, "It doesn't matter," sometimes out loud, when I feel my eyes wandering to a woman that I'm walking by. Because, you know, it doesn't matter. Even if she's the most attractive person in the world, it doesn't matter because it's not a situation where I'd talk to her. It's not like I'd run into her again. It's not like I'm looking at her for any reason other than my porn addiction. So I just tell myself it doesn't matter. I don't have to look.

It's been helpful for me. I'm not missing out if I don't look. It really doesn't matter. Telling myself that a few times every day has helped me realize how much my porn-addicted eyes were active even during the day and even on days when I thought I was staying away from porn-related behaviors. I've spent a lot less time this week staring pointlessly at the women who walk past me every day, and I think that's a good step forward.

That's great that you realise that and thank you for sharing. That make me realise that I'm doing the same thing! It is really compulsive, maybe a mix of needyness and porn-related behavior! Often I feel the need to look if she pretty... but you're right if I'm not going to talk to her what's the point, only to get a dopamine rush. Since for now I can't do much with any women sexually speaking looking would almost be a substitute to P!

Thanks man, you made me realise something!! At the same time I have to be careful not to go to the extreme and don't "care" about women, just that for now it doesn't matter!

Keep at it man you're doing great!

 

[Kaingang]

Hi blue

sorry, man. I was out of the forum last week, but I've been following up on your posts. Sorry cause I might be a bit extense in my awnser but I would like to reflect on some things from your comments that I find very interesting.


1) It's good to be really aware of the little mistakes we made as you mentioned that occurred to you recently so that it does not expand into a deeper relapse. You seem to be already in a more advanced recovery process so I understand that it's a little frustrating when these minor errors occur.

Anyway, remember also not to be so hard with yourself because of it. Learn from this mistake, try to correct and not repeat it and go ahead. You are on the right path.

2) I also got a lot of attention from your comment about having difficulty to find happiness during the day and about facing women on the streets.

I identify with it because in recent months/years I have difficulties finding happiness and other types of pleasure in my day to day. This frustrating feeling makes increase the urges to practices that offer immediate pleasure like porn or bad food. For sure if I was in a better emocional moment it would be a lot easier to deal with this addiction.

About facing women on the streets I think the same. It is a repetition of our behavior with porn. Nothing more. Besides being a disrespectful sometimes. If I put me in their shoes should not be nice someone looking at you from top to bottom just by looking.

3) Finally, you mentioned in one of your posts the idea of ??doing something that you have not done yet. Such as staying for longer than usual without looking at some sexual content or spending a week without looking at women on the street as usual.

I think that in these times of habit breakthrough changes happen. I believe that say no even for a day to small pleasures that leave you some negative mark may be the beginning of a deeper change because we get used to the patterns of our habits and start to believe that it is not possible to live without them. When we break it we can see that it is possible to live another way.

Have a peaceful day!

 

[changemylife]

I identify with it because in recent months/years I have difficulties finding happiness and other types of pleasure in my day to day. This frustrating feeling makes increase the urges to practices that offer immediate pleasure like porn or bad food. For sure if I was in a better emocional moment it would be a lot easier to deal with this addiction.

Well, we all know that PMO is a big pleasure and maybe it feels more intense than anything else we do "naturally". Stopping this feels like everything is empty. This is definitely something that has been bothering me, in both PMO addiction and Internet addiction (but especially Internet addiction). It's like nothing else in my life seems to equal those two pleasures. Reading, talking to someone, playing chess, playing pool etc. What else can a normal human being do? And they feel empty. I remember a time when they didn't so there is hope for reverting back, I guess.

 

[Rebooter2019]

There's always hope to revert back even if you don't remember the time where it wasn't like that. Your brain remember it and even if it doesn't the brain is plastic, so he can learn. Remove something like PMO and he'll reorganize himself to feel pleasure in something else after trowing your mood all over the place, but whatever...

You just have to make sure it is something healthy, otherwise you're not really a "better self" than when you were on PMO. That's why I decided to stop everything that could more easely cause an addiction, like internet, social media, video games, etc...

 

[changemylife]

There's always hope to revert back even if you don't remember the time where it wasn't like that. Your brain remember it and even if it doesn't the brain is plastic, so he can learn. Remove something like PMO and he'll reorganize himself to feel pleasure in something else after trowing your mood all over the place, but whatever...

You just have to make sure it is something healthy, otherwise you're not really a "better self" than when you were on PMO. That's why I decided to stop everything that could more easely cause an addiction, like internet, social media, video games, etc...

Of course the brain wants the PMO pleasure. If you don't give it this, it will do anything it can to make you do it. If you resist, then it will have to find pleasure in other things but we need to make sure we don't get into unhealthy pleasures again. We need to learn from this. I mean, at the moment I am addicted to Internet and PMO, I've said this in my journal. Once I'm done with them, I really need to call it quits with all the artificial pleasures. I just can't get into this again. My brain is fried and I'm tired and burned out. It's a must for me to see what's like "being normal and healthy". Drinking my brains out since 17, PMO since a teenager, MO since I was 5, depression for 10 years etc. I think it's time to see what's like without all these, I guess.

 

[BlueHeronFan]

Thanks, everyone, for your responses! I really really appreciate the support and insights. It's good to be here with you all.

I remember, in the earliest days of my recovery, there were days when the urge to PMO were so strong and everything was so frustrating, that I had to eat candy bars just to get through the day. It wasn't a perfect solution, but it got me started. In the years since, I still haven't completely beaten porn, but I do find pleasure in simple things. Cooking a new recipe, listening to birds, looking at trees. I read a book about porn addiction once, and it had the story of a man who had been porn free for a couple of years, and he said that the world was more beautiful to him than it had ever been before. He had never noticed that trees have individual leaves. By giving up porn, it was like he had new eyes. I know that I've experienced something similar as I've continued my recovery.

I guess what I'm saying is that it took candy bars to feel any sort of pleasure in my earliest recovery. But even the sound of rain can bring me some pleasure now. It's a process, a much slower process than I ever wanted it to be. But there is hope.

It's not realistic, or even really healthy, I think, to say that we'll flip a switch and never look at porn again. That's not how it works. But we can decide to try a little more each day. Maybe we stop looking at certain genres. Then we quit looking nudity. Then we quit using the internet for sexual stimulation at all. And then maybe we stop looking at the women we walk past. Maybe not in that order. But it's all progress, and it's all real. One good decision at a time, we'll get there.

Thanks again for your comments: it really has been a help to me, and I hope I've been somehow helpful to you all too.

Let's all go have a great day tomorrow!

 

[Rebooter2019]

It's not realistic, or even really healthy, I think, to say that we'll flip a switch and never look at porn again. That's not how it works. But we can decide to try a little more each day. Maybe we stop looking at certain genres. Then we quit looking nudity. Then we quit using the internet for sexual stimulation at all.

Sadly, from everything I've read about addiction that's not how it works! Just switching from porn to alchool for the exemple.

You won't tell a heavy drinker to progressively lower his alcool intake. You ask him to control his intake, but he's where he's at precisely because he have almost no control over it! He has to cut it out completely in order to recover otherwise the temptation will be to strong to resist.

After that he can't go back to it ever, because the pathway of that addiction will always be there! The brain doesn't delete it, it just shrink it to the extreme degres when you don't use it for a long enough period of time. So if he drink even one drink, then he have a really high risk of going back into the pit, because that will fire the old pathway. It will start with a drink and, eventually, "ah I'll just take another one"... imagine what happen next.

That the thing with addiction. You can't just lower the dosage otherwise you'll never get out of it. That's why it's called an addiction. Because always remember that when you "beat" an addiction it's always next door even years or decades after ready to creep back in. That's why even out of it you have to be careful. Not paranoid just careful!

Just telling you my understand of everything I've read about addiction!

I wish you a great day my friend!

 

[changemylife]

Sadly, from everything I've read about addiction that's not how it works! Just switching from porn to alchool for the exemple.

You won't tell a heavy drinker to progressively lower his alcool intake. You ask him to control his intake, but he's where he's at precisely because he have almost no control over it! He has to cut it out completely in order to recover otherwise the temptation will be to strong to resist.

After that he can't go back to it ever, because the pathway of that addiction will always be there! The brain doesn't delete it, it just shrink it to the extreme degres when you don't use it for a long enough period of time. So if he drink even one drink, then he have a really high risk of going back into the pit, because that will fire the old pathway. It will start with a drink and, eventually, "ah I'll just take another one"... imagine what happen next.

That the thing with addiction. You can't just lower the dosage otherwise you'll never get out of it. That's why it's called an addiction. Because always remember that when you "beat" an addiction it's always next door even years or decades after ready to creep back in. That's why even out of it you have to be careful. Not paranoid just careful!

Just telling you my understand of everything I've read about addiction!

I wish you a great day my friend!

I'm glad you wrote this. I am a recovering alcoholic. I've said this in my journal. I don't know if you know it. The analogy about alcohol is spot on. I could never quit alcohol by reducing. I just stopped cold turkey. Only like this I could reach this 38th day. If you give me a glass, I will try to get more. You don't give me more? I will go to the store myself. Right now (and possibly never, see Philip Seymour Hoffman who went back to drinking after one glass at the movie party - being sober for 30 years) I couldn't be able to drink like my dad for example. He only drinks a glass. A glass for me is nothing. It's just an invitation to binge. My brain doesn't understand anymore how people could only drink 1 glass. Drinking for taste? What's that? My whole life I've only known how to drink to get drunk. For me, alcohol equals getting drunk and medicating. And maybe all addictions follow the same path, including our beloved P addiction that we're trying to quit around here. Once you "binge" (and the word is "binge" here) something for years, how the hell can you be satisfied with less?

 

[Rebooter2019]

Yes @changemylife I've read you journal. Additionally, I know a couple of previously alcoholic and they all had to stop on the spot on.

That's why I want to warn him. I could just watch a "softer" video one day, but I know that a couple of days later I would end up binging in the extreme I was when I decided that it's too fucked up to continue like that...

 

[changemylife]

Yes @changemylife I've read you journal. Additionally, I know a couple of previously alcoholic and they all had to stop on the spot on.

That's why I want to warn him. I could just watch a "softer" video one day, but I know that a couple of days later I would end up binging in the extreme I was when I decided that it's too fucked up to continue like that...

Yeah, you go back to how you used your drug of choice while fooling yourself that you're reducing to 0.

 

[Rebooter2019]

Yes @changemylife I've read you journal. Additionally, I know a couple of previously alcoholic and they all had to stop on the spot on.

That's why I want to warn him. I could just watch a "softer" video one day, but I know that a couple of days later I would end up binging in the extreme I was when I decided that it's too fucked up to continue like that...

Yeah, you go back to how you used your drug of choice while fooling yourself that you're reducing to 0.

Yep! So I just stop everything and since then I had more progress in 2 month than the 2 previous years

 

[changemylife]

Yep! So I just stop everything and since then I had more progress in 2 month than the 2 previous years

I didn't know the science behind it and still quitting cold turkey felt more right than trying to reduce.

 

[BlueHeronFan]

Sadly, from everything I've read about addiction that's not how it works! Just switching from porn to alchool for the exemple.

That the thing with addiction. You can't just lower the dosage otherwise you'll never get out of it. That's why it's called an addiction. Because always remember that when you "beat" an addiction it's always next door even years or decades after ready to creep back in. That's why even out of it you have to be careful. Not paranoid just careful!

Just telling you my understand of everything I've read about addiction!

I wish you a great day my friend!

Oh, for sure. I guess what I mean to say is that, as unrealistic as it is to lower the dosage, it's also somewhat unrealistic to expect to just quit one day and never have a lapse again. I see what you mean about how it sounded like I was talking about lowering dosages. Mostly, I just meant that, in the years I've been working on this, my involvement with porn and reliance on it has gotten weaker, and I've gotten better at stopping before things get out of control. I haven't conquered the addiction pathway just yet, but it doesn't control me as strongly--and it doesn't lead me to the same stuff as it used to. I think it can be hard to remember that time is as much a part of the healing process as abstinence. At least for me, healing has been more of a gradual process than an event.

More than anything, I meant to celebrate the way our brains can gradually return to normal, responding to simple pleasures without requiring the artificial stimulation of things like porn. I've read a lot of posts about how bad people feel when they're trying to quit early on. I just wanted to say that things can get better, but it also takes time and likely won't be something that happens from one day to the next. Relapses happen, but if they aren't as bad as the last relapse, that's some kind of progress. Thanks for making sure I wasn't misunderstanding/misunderstood.

To brighter days!

 

[Rebooter2019]

I know what you mean, I had the exact same possess and had relapses, but not nearly as bad than before! It took me 2 years to get where I am right now. I'm in a state where I'm sure that I can quit for good. I gained alot of insight, experience and knowledge in those 2 years and that really helped!!

Your sure right about the fact that it's a journey and that it would be unrealistic to hope to be over with it in one shot! Sure it's possible, but not for around 99.99% of people.

For the brain, it sure is a wonderful thing to celebrate! Even if it can be a pain what trick he use to get you when you're trying to reboot, it's a wonderful organ who can adapt, change and get better!!

Well said! One day at a time, we'll slowly get better!! Keep going, my friend, and stay strong!

 

[BlueHeronFan]

Will do!

Another day, another dollar, so to speak.

 

[BlueHeronFan]

Today was a quieter day. I had an intense conversation with a friend about some conflict that we've been having. The only thing I wanted to do was run away, but we got it done and worked some things out, so I think things will be better moving forward.

I've also had a couple of dreams lately about relapsing. More specifically, I've dreamed that I watched porn and then felt terrible and was trying to figure out what I was going to do next. I was very relieved in the morning to wake up those days and realize it was only a dream. So I guess, on some level, my subconscious is also getting on board with this process.

Let's see what this week will bring

 

[blueRaccoon]

I have had similar dreams too. Wondering if it is common among rebooters? ???

 

[Pete McVries]

It definitely is. Very often, I dream about PMO or masturbating.

 

[changemylife]

It definitely is. Very often, I dream about PMO or masturbating.

I had dreams about watching a P scene but not on computer, I was around, like looking at them in the room or something.

 

[Rakses]

I also witness such a dreams sometime but I manage to hold myself away from temptation during a dream. Part of conciousness remains with me