You know what I disagree with? Sponsorships and 'Alcoholics Anonymous' type of 12-Step groups. These tend to disempower us, and place all the blame on outside forces like 'triggers' and some kind of 'disease'. But, hey, we all have our different approaches, right?
I don't agree either with the idea of "disease" in the 12 steps based recovery groups. It's easy to say "I have this disease man, that's why I do what I do" instead of say, "I wasn't loved the way I should've been loved as a kid" or "My social life was shit because I was bullied all the time and told I was a loser". I believe addiction is a brain conditioning that comes with longer periods of using a substance or doing an addictive behavior and it usually happens because of a (normal actually) desire to escape pain, but done in a bad way. I don't believe I am "sick", I believe I am traumatized. I am a traumatized guy who has not resolved his internal life.
However, I like the 12 steps themselves. But not exactly how they actually are, not because I'm some atheist, but because, in the past, I could never understand how to use God to help me quit my addictions. About half of the steps have something to do with God. Now I can understand why some people may be reluctant to go to 12 steps. Some are atheists, some are mad at God (like I used to). But here is the thing: I've learned from Russell Brand that you can make the steps work in your favor. This might go against the 12 steps groups' ideology (maybe, I don't know), but I believe that if it works for you to reinterpret the steps, then why not? Russell Brand, for those who don't know, was a hardcore drug addict and alcoholic. The guy who helped him is Chip Somers who is an open atheist and who had a hardcore drug addiction (he did armed robberies to make money) and who got clean through 12 steps. So I believe that if an atheist can make the 12 steps (seemingly over religious sounding) work for him, it can help us see outside the box.
I used to say around the forum that the way I (and Russell Brand) interpret the first 3 steps are: Admit, Believe, Seek and accept help. After this there comes probably the hardest step: "Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves." Maybe step 9 is hard as well. In step 9 you need to make amends to all the people you've hurt through your addict life. But until then, you need to make a moral inventory of all the things and people who have bothered you over the years. You need to stare the pain in the eyes. However, until you get to step 4, you need to finish the first three. And it was easy for me to Admit I was a wreck, but it was not easy for me to Believe I could become the person I want to become. About trying to find help, I didn't try hard enough here either. Unfortunately, in my country, we don't have a physical 12 steps groups for sex and porn addiction. There is only an online group. I've attended a few times. I should try to attend more. However, it was a little more complicated because of my working schedule, which didn't really give me the chance to be on video with those people every time. Anyway, I should try to attend more, whenever I can, I still have the founder of the group in my phone. He has over one year of porn/sex addiction sobriety. So something must be working for him. I want the secret sauce.
Escape has studied all kinds of ways to quit, and has tried several. It's up to him to see what works best for him or not. Heck, it could be 'Twelve-Step', or it could be something else... However he finds help the better.
It's true. You never know what could help you, you need to try them all. You can't disregard something based on what people are saying. Some of the criticism I've heard regarding 12 steps groups is their idea of having a "disease" and the idea of "always an addict". And some say the percentage of people quitting and remaining sober is not too high. But anyway, if it's
you who can stay sober through this, who cares anymore.
'Putting the brakes on' is just another way of saying, 'resist', but resistance just makes the behaviors 'sticky'. The most beneficial thing any of us can do in that moment (of binging) is to neither feed nor fight it, to simply not respond.
Yes, I hear you. Ironically, this is included in my "Dopamine management", which I've abandoned like an idiot long ago.