Escape and never come back

Orbiter

Well-Known Member
Though I understand it's coming from a place of frustration and disappointment (that I know all too well) I don't believe limiting beliefs or thoughts like 'my triggers are me', 'I am my urges' are going to get you out of this. Deep down I know you likely agree.

You're addiction is another, ulterior voice inside you. It may sound like you, it may say things you indentify with but it is not you nor are your triggers and it's certainly not on your side. The sooner we recognise it and separate it from our mind and our identity, the better.

Re the urges - the more attention & thought you give them, the stronger they will get until they're too much to handle. This includes fighting & white-knuckling through them. This is something I've observed from your journal you tend to do regularly leading up to a binge.

So there's an observable pattern of thinking here that repeats itself. That also means you can break it.

So when the 'triggers' or urges start rolling in, do what you can to avoid thinking about them before they snowball into something too big. You're the boss here, you run this show so when those thoughts come, shut that shit down in your mind as quickly as possible.

Watch a (non pornographic) video, go for a walk, think intentionally about something else, make a cup of tea, put an album you like on, do some exercise, breathe through it or something or even just face the urge in your head and say 'no' until you're the one back in charge.

Each battle you win against these thoughts is gonna make them weaker and you stronger. The more wins you get under your belt, the easier it's gonna get. The catch is you're the only one who can do this man, it's ultimately up to you.
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
Though I understand it's coming from a place of frustration and disappointment (that I know all too well) I don't believe limiting beliefs or thoughts like 'my triggers are me', 'I am my urges' are going to get you out of this. Deep down I know you likely agree.

You're addiction is another, ulterior voice inside you. It may sound like you, it may say things you indentify with but it is not you nor are your triggers and it's certainly not on your side. The sooner we recognise it and separate it from our mind and our identity, the better.

Re the urges - the more attention & thought you give them, the stronger they will get until they're too much to handle. This includes fighting & white-knuckling through them. This is something I've observed from your journal you tend to do regularly leading up to a binge.

So there's an observable pattern of thinking here that repeats itself. That also means you can break it.

So when the 'triggers' or urges start rolling in, do what you can to avoid thinking about them before they snowball into something too big. You're the boss here, you run this show so when those thoughts come, shut that shit down in your mind as quickly as possible.

Watch a (non pornographic) video, go for a walk, think intentionally about something else, make a cup of tea, put an album you like on, do some exercise, breathe through it or something or even just face the urge in your head and say 'no' until you're the one back in charge.

Each battle you win against these thoughts is gonna make them weaker and you stronger. The more wins you get under your belt, the easier it's gonna get. The catch is you're the only one who can do this man, it's ultimately up to you.
Hey man, thanks for advice. Good points, man, definitely. I'll see what I can do. Ironically, what you said about stopping the thoughts at the beginning is something that I used to say around here and then I stopped doing it myself. I think it all starts with thoughts, or it starts with thoughts a lot of the time if you are not triggered by seeing something. It starts with thinking about a session and the most you focus on it, the bigger it gets. Same with trying to fight it. Phineas says this very well, we need to coexist with it without judgment or involvement, I know it's easier said than done but maybe it's the best way. I know that the biggest chunk of this is me trying to white-knuckle it and it's not working because my motivation and strength tank are not the same these days, that's probably why my streaks are getting shorter. I definitely need to rethink the whole plan.

Thanks for support. Keep up the good work.
 

Phineas 808

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
...we need to coexist with it without judgment or involvement, I know it's easier said than done but maybe it's the best way. I know that the biggest chunk of this is me trying to white-knuckle it and it's not working because my motivation and strength tank are not the same these days, that's probably why my streaks are getting shorter.

Exactly. If we think of our urges as mere thought, gritting our teeth and trying to resist is simply fighting thought with more thought, which only strengthens the urge.

If we can ignore, distract, or dismiss the urges, then that's what will get us through them.
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
Day 0 Relapse


Charles Freck, becoming progressively more and more depressed by what was happening to everybody he knew, decided finally to off himself.

There was no problem, in the circles where he hung out, in putting an end to yourself; you just bought into a large quantity of reds and took them with some cheap wine, late at night, with the phone off the hook so no one would interrupt you. The planning part had to do with the artifacts you wanted found on you by later archeologists. So they'd know from which stratum you came. And also could piece together where your head had been at the time you did it.

He spent several days deciding on the artifacts. Much longer than he had spent deciding to kill himself, and approximately the same time required to get that many reds. He would be found lying on his back, on his bed, with a copy of Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead (which would prove he had been a misunderstood superman rejected by the masses and so, in a sense, murdered by their scorn) and an unfinished letter to Exxon protesting the cancellation of his gas credit card. That way he would indict the system and achieve something by his death, over and above what the death itself achieved. Actually, he was not as sure in his mind what the death achieved as what the two artifacts achieved; but anyhow it all added up, and he began to make ready, like an animal sensing its time has come and acting out its instinctive programming, laid down by nature, when its inevitable end was near.

At the last moment (as end-time closed in on him) he changed his mind on a decisive issue and decided to drink the reds down with a connoisseur wine instead of Ripple or Thunderbird, so he set off on one last drive, over to Trader Joe's, which specialized in fine wines, and bought a bottle of 1971 Mondavi Cabernet Sauvignon, which set him back almost thirty dollars--all he had.

Back home again, he uncorked the wine, let it breathe, drank a few glasses of it, spent a few minutes contemplating his favorite page of The Illustrated Picture Book of Sex, which showed the girl on top, then placed the plastic bag of reds beside his bed, lay down with the Ayn Rand book and unfinished protest letter to Exxon, tried to think of something meaningful but could not, although he kept remembering the girl being on top, and then, with a glass of the Cabernet Sauvignon, gulped down all the reds at once. After that, the deed being done, he lay back, the Ayn Rand book and letter on his chest, and waited.

However, he had been burned. The capsules were not barbiturates, as represented. They were some kind of kinky psychedelics, of a type he had never dropped before, probably a mixture, and new on the market. Instead of quietly suffocating, Charles Freck began to hallucinate. Well, he thought philosophically, this is the story of my life. Always ripped off. He had to face the fact--considering how many of the capsules he had swallowed--that he was in for some trip.

The next thing he knew, a creature from between dimensions was standing beside his bed looking down at him disapprovingly. The creature had many eyes, all over it, ultra-modern expensive-looking clothing, and rose up eight feet high. Also, it carried an enormous scroll.

"You're going to read me my sins," Charles Freck said.

The creature nodded and unsealed the scroll. Freck said, lying helpless on his bed, "and it's going to take a hundred thousand hours." Fixing its many compound eyes on him, the creature from between dimensions said, "We are no longer in the mundane universe. Lower-plane categories of material existence such as 'space' and 'time' no longer apply to you. You have been elevated to the transcendent realm. Your sins will be read to you ceaselessly, in shifts, throughout eternity. The list will never end."
Know your dealer, Charles Freck thought, and wished he could take back the last half-hour of his life.

A thousand years later he was still lying there on his bed with the Ayn Rand book and the letter to Exxon on his chest, listening to them read his sins to him. They had gotten up to the first grade, when he was six years old. Ten thousand years later they had reached the sixth grade. The year he had discovered masturbation. He shut his eyes, but he could still see the multi-eyed, eight-foot-high being with its endless scroll reading on and on.
"And next--" it was saying.

Charles Freck thought, At least I got a good wine.

- Philip K. Dick
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
Day 0

I relapsed yesterday and today too. I definitely have this pattern: Urges announce great pleasure, I give in to it, start edging to porn but the experience is not as euphoric as I thought it was going to be, the whole thing becomes underwhelming and with the post-nut clarity, the regret washes all over me. I have to figure out a way to stop myself before even started, because once I start, I'm not going to stop.

I guess one thing to address is exactly this: Urges announce great pleasure. Why do I want this "great pleasure"? Why is this an obsession for me? Why anytime I have massive urges, I want to go after the pleasure? There is definitely room for analysis.

Yesterday, after I relapsed, I remembered that excerpt from the book "A scanner darkly" by Philip K. Dick. I thought it was funny. I didn't post it for the suicide plan part (I am not suicidal these days but I'm definitely severely depressed) but for the part where the creature reads the sins, especially because the whole thing included masturbation and earlier he had look at pictures in some book about sex. Pretty familiar, right? I had a quick thought about it, imagining myself dead and being right there, my life going before my eyes and seeing how in my life something was always constant: My porn addiction. I relapsed to porn on Holidays, bro. I was jerking off on Christmas day, on Easter Holiday... Thing is, I definitely don't want to get there, (hopefully) die of natural causes at old age and die a porn addict. It's a horrifying thought. I definitely need to do something about it while I can.
 

Blondie

Respected Member
Hey @Escapeandnevercomeback. I figured as much from reading the except, but I thought I'd say hello just to be sure. I'll have to check that out (the book), it sounds interesting.
Thing is, I definitely don't want to get there, (hopefully) die of natural causes at old age and die a porn addict.
Maybe us identifying as being "porn addicts" doesn't help us. I for one do not identify as a porn addict, and not because I have a year clean, but because it's never helped me. I haven't been a porn addict since six or seven years ago. Sure I still screw up occasionally, but that doesn't define me or who I am inside. If I thought of myself as a porn addict I would be heading right back into the dark room real quick for a quicky, and that's a place I do not wish to dwell in.

Create a new identity of the guy you are deep inside and want to be.

Just a thought,
Love
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
Hey @Escapeandnevercomeback. I figured as much from reading the except, but I thought I'd say hello just to be sure. I'll have to check that out (the book), it sounds interesting.

Maybe us identifying as being "porn addicts" doesn't help us. I for one do not identify as a porn addict, and not because I have a year clean, but because it's never helped me. I haven't been a porn addict since six or seven years ago. Sure I still screw up occasionally, but that doesn't define me or who I am inside. If I thought of myself as a porn addict I would be heading right back into the dark room real quick for a quicky, and that's a place I do not wish to dwell in.

Create a new identity of the guy you are deep inside and want to be.

Just a thought,
Love
Well, yes, I also wanted to make sure people didn't get the wrong idea, I wasn't suicidal or anything, I just thought the scene was funny. And it's one of my favorite scenes from the book.

But I hear you. I guess I identify myself as a porn addict more because I do it too often and I binge, so I definitely must be a porn addict, you know what I'm sayin? I don't know how else to see it. I mean, I understand what you mean, but I guess I need some time until it sinks in, I guess, the subconscious is a bitch.

Anyway, thanks for support. Keep up the good work, you are 1 week away from an unbelievable milestone.
 

Phineas 808

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
That's a very important point for all of us to deeply understand, that, I am not my addiction! This is still true whether one has a bad habit with it, or is addicted to it.

It was important for me early on to understand that this issue was just one part of my life, and doesn't fundamentally define me.

Also, what does this habit or addiction say about us as people? That we're actually normal, that our brain innocently found a way to protect us from uncomfortable feelings, it may not be ultimately helpful, perhaps even harmful, but brains do what brains do. It's really a big misunderstanding. What we're doing here is simply retraining our brain, and learning how to either find more healthy ways to deal with life, or to let life be life, with its sometimes painful and uncomfortable feelings.

Good questions you ask above, Escape!
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
That's a very important point for all of us to deeply understand, that, I am not my addiction! This is still true whether one has a bad habit with it, or is addicted to it.

It was important for me early on to understand that this issue was just one part of my life, and doesn't fundamentally define me.
This is so true man. It can definitely feel like you are defined by your addiction because one day you find out you fit in the description of this porn addiction and then it can become your main focus. At least this is how it was for me. It became my main focus and it definitely felt like me = porn addiction but we have more potential than we think we have.

Keep up the good work.
 

Phineas 808

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Thanks, Escape! It's more often my experience that, even just a day- next day- or a few days out that I feel normal enough to say, "I don't have a problem." And for all accounts and purposes, it's true. I might have habituated cravings that come up, whether or not those are acted out on, but once baseline is reached (hopefully by not acting on the urges), normalcy has been attained.

Its this normalcy that our habits/addictions seek to reach, albeit, draining our dopamine, we reach below baseline. It's truly just a matter of removing all shame and judgment from the equation and allowing ourselves to 'grow out of' the habit by doing something different in response or non-response to the urges.
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
Thanks, Escape! It's more often my experience that, even just a day- next day- or a few days out that I feel normal enough to say, "I don't have a problem." And for all accounts and purposes, it's true. I might have habituated cravings that come up, whether or not those are acted out on, but once baseline is reached (hopefully by not acting on the urges), normalcy has been attained.

Its this normalcy that our habits/addictions seek to reach, albeit, draining our dopamine, we reach below baseline. It's truly just a matter of removing all shame and judgment from the equation and allowing ourselves to 'grow out of' the habit by doing something different in response or non-response to the urges.
Well said man
 
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