I am not a slave to my thoughts

nothing

Member
Great strategy. One thing that helps me a lot is to seek the company of others. It grounds me immediately.
That's a good idea! I think participating in social activities on weekends usually reduces PMO cues for me. Unfortunately I work from home and hence don't really get to be around people most of the time.
 
D

Deleted member 26092

Guest
That's a good idea! I think participating in social activities on weekends usually reduces PMO cues for me. Unfortunately I work from home and hence don't really get to be around people most of the time.
Of course, I understand that. I even mean it on a very basic level. Just going to the supermarket and being in that moment helps me, as stupid as it sounds.
 

nothing

Member
I ended up relapsing on Tuesday. Interestingly it wasn't the sudden autopilot effect that I've usually had happen to me when I've relapsed in the past. It kind of creeped up on me, starting with YouTube videos and slowly escalating. But I think the cue that led to the relapse came much earlier. I'd had a very stressful couple of days with my apartment partially flooding due to burst copper pipes. This and the lack of water tempted me to skip things like shower, prayers, gym and walks which are usually things I use to de-stress.

This really goes on to show that "well-adjusted" people intuitively practice destressing in a healthy way. The rest of us destress using alcohol, smoking, overeating, porn or some other unhealthy crutch. I think the key for me going forward is to be more mindful about what I am feeling and then taking actions to reduce stress and anxiety in a healthy way LONG before it leads to a relapse.

I am disappointed at only being able to go only 4 days without PMO. I am starting again tonight and hope to finally free myself from the absolute energy and mood sink that is PMO.
 

Fappy

Respected Member
Everyone relapses. It’s part of the process actually, in a sense you need to relapse to learn how to overcome it for good. It’s all a process to learn from and you’ve got a good strategy so stick to it
 

Blondie

Respected Member
I ended up relapsing on Tuesday. Interestingly it wasn't the sudden autopilot effect that I've usually had happen to me when I've relapsed in the past. It kind of creeped up on me, starting with YouTube videos and slowly escalating. But I think the cue that led to the relapse came much earlier. I'd had a very stressful couple of days with my apartment partially flooding due to burst copper pipes. This and the lack of water tempted me to skip things like shower, prayers, gym and walks which are usually things I use to de-stress.

This really goes on to show that "well-adjusted" people intuitively practice destressing in a healthy way. The rest of us destress using alcohol, smoking, overeating, porn or some other unhealthy crutch. I think the key for me going forward is to be more mindful about what I am feeling and then taking actions to reduce stress and anxiety in a healthy way LONG before it leads to a relapse.

I am disappointed at only being able to go only 4 days without PMO. I am starting again tonight and hope to finally free myself from the absolute energy and mood sink that is PMO.
You got this. Don't be too hard on yourself. You seem to have a good plan so stick with it. Remember, mistakes happen. Just learn from it and keep moving on.
 

nothing

Member
Had a pretty stressful day when nothing really went my way. Had some urges in the evening but managed to remind myself that I am not a slave to my thoughts and looked at myself from the outside as someone trying to find an easy way to forget stress. Day 1 done. I commit to not engaging in PMO for the next day.
 
I imagine a lot of new journals are opened on here around this time of the year. This is me jumping on the wagon! (Trigger warning since I'll be describing my history with PMO.)

Problem

I am a 25 year old physics graduate student who has been trying to quit PMO for about a year and a half. I started watching porn when I was about 13. Found some clips on my dad's computer and eventually started looking more regularly when I got my own laptop a year later. I can't think of any traumatic experience that I was coping with via porn. For a long time I didn't really consider it a big deal mostly because I was interested in what others would consider soft porn (Playboy shoots and the like). I am a practicing Muslim so there was always a sense of guilt surrounding it. But the guilt wore away very quickly after a session. I never dwelled on it.

However, halfway through college I started experiencing the first signs of ED where I couldn't get erections at will and the erections didn't last all the way to orgasm. Things escalated when a couple of years ago I a) started developing fetishes that disgusted me b) got hooked on camgirls. The transition from college to grad school was a difficult one for me and definitely contributed to this escalation. I also started a long distance relationship (which I am still happily a part of) around this time. The real wake up call was the camgirls. As of today I've spent >$10,339.55 on camgirls which means on average about a quarter of my income has gone to feed this addiction. Naturally I've racked up some debt. I've recently consolidated this debt and should be able to recover financially in a year or two given that I stop immediately.

I have observed that I still have issues with erection when watching fetish videos or camgirls. And when I stay away from porn the physical craving goes away fairly quickly. But a few days later, usually when I am stressed or bored, the thought of porn or camgirls will poke into my mind and from then on my body acts as if on autopilot. From all this I conclude that PMO is not helping me relieve stress or boredom even in the short term since not being able to get an erection is more frustrating than anything else. Instead I relapse because I wrongly believe that as soon as I've had the thought I will end up relapsing soon anyway. Perhaps I'll be able to ignore the urge for a while. Perhaps I'll even be able to go to sleep that night and wake up the next morning without relapsing. But eventually I will relapse. So I might as well give in.

Strategy

I should note that I am fairly good at making it hard for myself access both regular porn and camgirls (with browser blockers and such). I am also very good at tracking my progress, have good relationships with people and live a healthy lifestyle minus some work related stress. Therefore, what I want to add to my approach is the following protocol for dismissing urges: As soon as I get an urge I will

1) Remind myself that "I am not a slave to my thoughts".
2) Notice the urge from the outside, with curiosity and without judgment.
3) Find something in the urge to break the fantasy. For instance, remembering that camgirls are like real life women I know who are likely putting up a facade of being confident nymphomaniacs to earn money. They have family, siblings, perhaps even kids.
4) Try to destress via breathing. Two breaths in, one long breath out.
5) Go for a 20-30 min walk.
6) Pray.

Each action kicks in if the previous one is insufficient. The entire protocol is designed to counteract the "autopilot" effect. The first action is meant to counteract the misbelief I mentioned earlier. I believe if I can go long enough stretches without PMO this misbelief will start to fade. Another thing I am going to do to weaken this misbelief is to understand that relapses are a part of the process. In case I do relapse I want to make sure that the relapse doesn't last for long. Therefore, I plan to offer prayers after each relapse (much like Catholics do confessions) and hope that doing so will allow me to get back on track as quickly as possible.

I also plan on offering prayers 5 times a day since I've noticed from my tracking that periods when I am praying regularly coincide with fewer relapses, perhaps because my days have a more rigid structure when I pray and the prayers serve to relieve stress at regular periods instead of letting it build up. I'll also post on this forum every night, even if it is a single line stating whether I have relapsed or not. Hopefully this will keep me accountable. I also plan on looking at the other posts to provide encouragement and extract advice and hope that others will do the same for me.

Let's have a wonderful PMO-free 2022 everyone!
I am new to this forum but I really want help as I fail to stop porn. What are the site blocker software you use. I like can access through my desktop and twitter even with xporn blocker on. I even deleted twitter due to this. I want to get past the Autopilot moment so how long should that relatively take?? Thanks for the info
 

Poliop

Member
Instead I relapse because I wrongly believe that as soon as I've had the thought I will end up relapsing soon anyway. Perhaps I'll be able to ignore the urge for a while. Perhaps I'll even be able to go to sleep that night and wake up the next morning without relapsing. But eventually I
This is too relatable
 

nothing

Member
I am new to this forum but I really want help as I fail to stop porn. What are the site blocker software you use. I like can access through my desktop and twitter even with xporn blocker on. I even deleted twitter due to this. I want to get past the Autopilot moment so how long should that relatively take?? Thanks for the info
I use cold turkey on my laptop. It has an option of blocking a large number of porn sites automatically and is quite difficult to disable. I can describe how to use it in more detail if needed. I also have safe search turned on in my browser and restricted mode turn on in my iPhone. Altogether these screen out most of the obvious cues for porn. However, as a lot of people here will tell you it can be a bad idea to be too militaristic about blocking cues. Because a) it's hopeless because cues are everywhere b) using blockers might awaken a kind of competitiveness in you about wanting to find a way to bypass the blockers. I have definitely fallen victim to this latter issue. So I'd recommend not depending too heavily on blockers.
 

nothing

Member
Ended up relapsing again. The stress finally got to me. But I am keeping with my commitment to cleanse and offer prayers after the relapse to prevent a binge. It seems like progress requires taking a few steps forward followed by fewer steps backward!

I have a question for the more experienced members on the forum. I've read the Easy-Peasy book (and similar approaches) where you convince yourself that porn really does not bring anything into your life and that you are not giving anything up. You are freeing yourself from something weighing you down and you should be happy to leave it behind. I agree with all this and that's evident in my approach. But the book also seems to claim that once the dopamine withdrawals go away in a few days it will be smooth sailing. Has that been the experience of anyone here who's tried the method? Any advice on how to get it to work if you have? It seems to me that just rationalizing about the "porn monster" would not really change the neural pathways that need to be changed to truly walk away from PMO.
 

Blondie

Respected Member
I've never read that before, interesting. I convince myself that porn doesn't exist, not on my computer, the internet, or anywhere! and for most of history, that statement is true. I read this method somewhere and it seems (though not perfectly) to work pretty well.

Let's be honest, us porn users live in fantasyland, so we might as well use a fantasy that helps us in the long run! The mind plays tricks on us all, I figure we might as well play tricks on it.

You got this.
 

nothing

Member
I've never read that before, interesting. I convince myself that porn doesn't exist, not on my computer, the internet, or anywhere! and for most of history, that statement is true. I read this method somewhere and it seems (though not perfectly) to work pretty well.

Let's be honest, us porn users live in fantasyland, so we might as well use a fantasy that helps us in the long run! The mind plays tricks on us all, I figure we might as well play tricks on it.

You got this.
This is potentially very helpful. I think ultimately that is the goal, right? To have improved so much that we don't even think about porn. This is like a fake-it-till-you-make-it strategy.
 

nothing

Member
Two days in now. After interacting with Blondie on a different post I've decided to go for a week long streak just to prove to myself that I can do it. I will of course continue the reboot far beyond that. But for now having a fixed short goal might be helpful.
 
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