How Do I get rid of porn urges

Joshuar

Member
I stopped watching porn for over a month and but then I relapsed and watched porn. I?m getting extreme urges. What can I do to distract myself from these urges or get rid of them.
 

King Leer

Active Member
The neural pathways in your brain, formed from habitually watching porn, are like ruts. Think of a wagon wheels in a rut in the road. It's hard to get the wheel out of the rut.  So what you need to do is find a new rut for the wheels to turn into.  Next time you have an urge to watch porn I would try looking up your favorite funny youtube video or putting on your favorite album, even if you don't feel like it. You just have to form new ruts and it may take a while.  If you are religious pray if you are not religious pray anyway, you are addicted to porn what do you have to lose. And prayer has been found to have therapeutic effects even in non believers. Anyway that's the best I got. If there was an easy surefire way this site would not exist.
 

Phineas 808

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Joshuar, this will take practice, but learn to dismiss urges by ignoring them. If your heart is racing, and breathing shallow, take some deep breaths until you feel calmer.

Above all, do this non-judgmentally. If you start shaming yourself, become angry, or other strong emotions, you're responding to the urges.

Not responding to urges doesn't mean you're actively fighting them, or avoiding them. Have you ever had someone come around that you didn't like, and you just ignored them until they got the hint? Do this with urges, and do this consistently, and you will have changed your habits.

Distractions help, too, like King Leer and Capo said, but think of it more like habit change, which means consistency- not simply reacting in the moment to urges.
 

Aussie_85

Active Member
when an urge hits - froce yourself to think about the things in your life porn has impacted.

Loss of interest in things....pretty much life if your addicted long enough.
PIED - i don't have it, although my erections could be much better.
Lethargy
Anxiety
Depression
Missing out on life...and opportunities.

Wasting your precious time on this amazing planet abusing your brain with fake dopamine hits that fuck with your whole purpose in life...

The other replies are useful as well,distract yourself...but always be on guard because this addiction (your brain) is a master trickster that'll use any excuse to get it's fix

use your own way of thinking, remember how shit it feels to relapse - and the things that you've lost due to porn...whatever they may be.

Good luck.
 

WoundedSparrow

Active Member
Cravings are a natural part of addiction. Withdrawal is very real. Good job on making it to a month, that's solid progress. I've found that relapse tends to happen when you let your guard down. For me, physical exercise is key to staying sober, but it isn't always convenient or easy to stick with a routine. But when I do, cravings are reduced and I feel 10x better as a whole. Exercising releases dopamine and other chemicals that make the brain happy, like a natural antidepressant.

Above all, remember that when cravings hit, it's your brain trying to draw you back in. You don't want porn, you want to be rid of it. Your brain creates powerful feelings and illusions to lure you back. Stress can also be a factor. When you feel stressed or depressed, your brain starts craving happy chemicals even more. SO if you have a bad day, be extra vigilant. Keep telling yourself that it's all in your head, because it is and you can overcome it.

As some have stated, relapses make your brain weaker and more susceptible to more relapses, much how eating a single potato chip often leads to ten more. But the metaphorical bag of chips here is endless and the metaphorical chips are much more unhealthy. One relapse can't undo all the progress you've made in a month, you brain HAS recovered a decent degree. But your progress is dependent on your ability to rebound. You will be weak, disoriented, and vulnerable after a relapse. You will want to give in again. Focus on getting your head back on straight and moving forward. Avoid relapse like the plague because if you don't, God only knows how long it'll be before you're able to go another month. Good luck.
 

Aussie_85

Active Member
WoundedSparrow said:
Avoid relapse like the plague because if you don't, God only knows how long it'll be before you're able to go another month. Good luck.

Great post.

I went 94 days hard mode 6 years ago...here i am on day 20 - the longest streak since then.

Look at it as a battle for your life, quite literally.

Time flies.
 

Phineas 808

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
WoundedSparrow >
Avoid relapse like the plague because if you don't, God only knows how long it'll be before you're able to go another month. Good luck.

Aussie >
I went 94 days hard mode 6 years ago...here i am on day 20 - the longest streak since then.

Look at it as a battle for your life, quite literally.

Time flies.

Sound and sage words! What great motivation, especially when you can look back (like myself), and find that years have gone by, even decades, battling this stuff. Find out what works, and what doesn't work, as your post is intending to do.

Great comments here!
 

WoundedSparrow

Active Member
King Leer said:
If you are religious pray if you are not religious pray anyway, you are addicted to porn what do you have to lose. And prayer has been found to have therapeutic effects even in non believers.

I've recently got into the habit of praying more than I used to. I'm a Christian who's been very distant from God for years, largely to feeling unworthy due to my addiction. But every human is inherently unworthy of God's love and it's important to remember that God's love is inherently unconditional. In the past, my prayers were mostly related to my porn issues. I realized that I was praying for God to make ending my addiction easy, but that's not exactly how prayer works. Now I pray for something new.

I pray that God may forge me into a better, stronger man. One who can conquer my addiction and become worthy of a woman's love and a joyful life in general. I can't remember where I read it, but it's a popular proverb (though I don't think it's in the Bible): "Sin gets to us when we stray from God. Therefore, the way to defeat sin is to walk so close with God that it has no chance." I'm paraphrasing, but you get my point. If you're religious, prayer can only help you. If you aren't, this likely won't be helpful. But I'd try reaching out anyways. You never know if you'll get an unexpected reply.
 
I found it really helpful to remember that urges are purely biological - they are just your brain craving the stimulus that it is used to receiving but haven't been for a while because you've been resisting. They aren't a sign of weakness or failure or anything of the sort, just your brain doing its thing as you recover from your addiction.

I find it really helpful, when cravings come, to imagine myself standing outside and looking in at them (so to speak) and saying 'right now chemicals in my brain are working in a way that my mind is interpreting as cravings. This is a purely biological process and will pass in time. They are annoying but I am not required to act on them in any way, and they will go away eventually on their own."
 
Maybe try a physical activity. Some say reading a book is helpful, but for me, that isn't the case. If I'm alone reading a book, the thoughts and urges usually win, so I have to move my body or find others' company to forget the thoughts and urges. Try to limit your YouTube and social media use. As I said before, I have signed off my YouTube account on my phone and enabled "Restricted Mode" to reduce any triggers that might pop up. Sleep without your phone in the same room. Cakecrocodileshrimp said something helpful as well; try to look at your urges objectively and say out loud to yourself, "This is a trigger." or "This is a natural urge that will pass." Sometimes if you call it out loud to yourself, you can snap yourself out of it before the chemicals really start to work and you have all the familiar physical sensations. 
 

Joshuar

Member
Thank you all so much for your responses. These have helped me so much you have no idea. All this advice is amazing and now I know what I will do when I get another urge. Thank you
Good luck to all of you, stay strong.
 
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