Anyone tried exposure response prevention therapy (extinction training)?

[Twostroke]

Here's an explanation of it from Gary's ebook:-

Remember Pavlov's dogs? You may not realize it, but Pavlov didn't just teach his dog to salivate at the sound of a bell. He later taught it to stop salivating to the bell by ringing the bell and then withholding meat (repeatedly).

This process is known as ?cue extinction?
. You weaken the link or pathway between a stimulus and a habitual response. Some porn users are able to use this same principle to strengthen their self control:

(Age 16) Every time I was on my PC I would open a porn website.
Once the site opened I would turn it off so I could test how much
willpower I had. Those first 2 weeks were the hardest by far and I still
don't know how I was able to do it. After 30 days clean I could tell I
was forgetting about porn. Today I've been clean for 90 days and I
barely think about porn. I feel like a new person.

I'm thinking of giving this a go. I've been porn free for nearly 7 months and yet still get cravings all the time to look at porn. Maybe if i take peaks but don't follow it up with masturbating, and repeat that process again and again, then maybe my brain will stop associating porn with the reward of orgasm and the desire for porn will then reduce.

Frankly it's seems impossible to avoid porn triggers in today's overly sexualised world, and trying not to think of viewing porn all the time just seems to make me think about looking at porn all the time!! So maybe facing the strongest trigger (ie porn itself) head on and not 'rewarding' that trigger will work? I'm getting no relief from the abstinance method so i feel like i've got nothing to lose.

Any comments or opinions would be much appreciated. I know that the general consensus here tends to be avoid, avoid, avoid...but if that isn't working maybe a change of tack no matter how risky, is worth a try!

 

[William]

My opinion, avoid, avoid, avoid.  Why?  It is Pavlovian.  For porn addicts, seeing porn and getting a dopamine hit is not a learned behavior.  For most of us, if we see porn we get a dopamine spike.  We don't choose to get it, it is not a learned behavior.  It is cause and effect, stimulus and response.  You are correct that we live in a world surrounded by triggers.  I call them dopamine buttons, porn is just a button we push for a dopamine spike.  We can avoid pushing the button but once we push the button we cannot avoid the dopamine spike and we like dopamine.  I don't think I will ever eradicate the cravings for dopamine.  Though, like many of us, I, in the past, when I was drowning in the addiction, wished I could take a drug to completely eradicate my sex drive, having a sex drive is actually quite healthy and natural.  This far out, though, I am in control of it.  The "triggers" don't trigger me; I don't have those cravings constantly tapping me on the shoulder, begging for attention.  It is no longer a struggle not looking at porn. I suppose I trained myself not to trigger, but I did not do that by playing with the triggers.  Porn is a, slippery slope.  My advice, stay off it.

Peace.