Hey everybody, as a forewarning, this is looooooooong. No need to read it all. I wrote it primarily for myself. I just wanted to post it somewhere i know I will see it again, as it's all my discoveries and research on the topic of stopping PMO. I use a silly analogy as it helps me to remember...Also, forgive the WW2 references, I've been reading a book on it recently so it's on my mind (haha). Thanks for all the support!
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As I'm beginning to see it: the fight against pornography (and company) is not really the fight I should be in at all... In fact, were I taking care of a few, much easier, "little" things...there really wouldn't be a battle to fight in the first place.
Its not like pornography suddenly pulls a Pear Harbor and starts dropping bombs on me when I least expect. pornography isn't a sentient army. It's made up of a collection of images. I should be no more scared of a sneak pornography attack than a sneak Mona Lisa attack (...which would, admittedly, be freaky).
Yes, pornography is bad...but it's my brain that's actually dropping the "you need this" bomb
And here's the thing, my brain isn't some vicious warrior hell-bent on my destruction. It genuinely thinks it's helping when encouraging me to indulge.
Actually, my brain is more like a childhood puppy. I taught it to do many things right...but unfortunately, like a dumb, immature kid...I thought it was funny when it tried to gnaw on my ankle. My puppy [read: brain] picked up on this, and to this day, still thinks I enjoy the experience. Unfortunately now, it's a full grown dog and capable of taking my leg off... And in some ways, it has.
So what's the solution? Commit to an all out, no-holds-barred war against my dog-brain?
Or just try to ignore it altogether?
Neither strategy will work because my dog-brain doesn't understand - at least in this particular area. From years of my personal training, it thinks it knows what I want.
Do I really want to attack my dog?
[And by "attack" I mean essentially viewing my brain as the villain who's evil influence I will rid myself of TODAY!!. Such aggressiveness may feel right, but - much like kicking my dog every time it tries to do me a favor - eventually it (the dog) will ACTUALLY turn on me, like I claim it already has, and start acting like the villain I have made it out to be.
I can observe this happening when I start obsessing over every little thought like it has a swastika painted on the side and I need to hit the bomb shelter STAT!]
No. I shouldn't attack my dog. Because he is MY dog after all. Always loyal - man's best friend.
And for the same reasons, ignoring him won't work either. Brains, like a childhood dog, tend to stick with you. This is the problem with pretending there isn't a problem and just "hoping" everything will work out in the end.
[I'm doing this when I go to the other extreme and find myself thinking:
"Well, I don't really have any precautions in place, but I haven't had any porn related incidents for the past week or so, so I guess....just keep my fingers crossed and hope whatever it is that I'm doing keeps working."]
Pretending there was never any leg biting past is a lot like successfully not thinking about a pink elephant. Quite the feat! But the second I recognize my success - I'm thinking about it again...and in this case, that means a dog that's been trained to bite my leg (cause I enjoy it, right?) will try to give me some of that "joy" next time I seem depressed, or maybe a little bored and hanging around him a lot, etc....
So, to sum up so far:
? I need to stop my dog BEFORE it bites or even TRIES to bite (in other words, I need to take steps to ensure my brain is not in a position to legitimately consider pornography)
? But not too aggressively. (I maintain this balance by recognizing that my brain is more like Old Yeller than a Nazi).
What does that look like?
Two steps, and they both start out as active steps and then morph into passive ones.
Here are the steps:
Step 1: Put a muzzle on my dog.
Unlike trying to hold my dog's foaming mouth shut with my hands, a muzzle, once it's on takes no effort. This is an essential step because once muzzled I can focus all my effort on training the dog to do other things when it decides it wants to play the "let's chew your leg off" game.
[Note: If you have a bunch of activities planned to replace porn - and that's ALL you have - the experience is going to be a lot like trying to hold your dog's mouth shut while at the same time training it to do something else.]
This is an active step at first because (much like trying to put a muzzle on a dog, funny enough) it's not immediately easy. It takes a bit of getting used to, and will only work in the long run if it becomes a habit in itself.
To explain this "Muzzle" here are the facts as I understand them:
When you get a dopamine kick - you get pleasure - which explains why it's directly linked to motivation. Sex and orgasm give our brains the greatest dopamine kick off all (and our brains give us this shot whether we're having the real thing, or watching a fake misrepresentation).
But here's the deal: PMO and sex may provide the strongest dopamine kick out there - but not the ONLY one.
There are plenty of other things that give out dopamine shots of varying dosage: food, exercise and accomplishments, being just a few broad examples. THIS is how you Muzzle you're brain:
? By learning how to give yourself these shots so there's no reason, per my analogy: that the dog will even want to play (at least the "chew your foot off game")
Once you got the muzzle on the dog (aka: have made a habit of giving yourself the necessary, substitute, dopamine kick) you are now in a place to RETRAIN your dog whenever it wants to play.
This is step 2: Retain my dog.
I retrain by strengthening my will (willpower). Research shows that willpower is like a muscle. Therefore, doing things that require willpower at first (such as training your brain to launch into some healthy replacement habit when the dog wants to play) strengthens your will even more (just like lifting at the gym).
The distinction between these two steps is that step 1 involves, not so much a bunch of habits, but the habit of doing a varying bunch of things to keep your dopamine levels up. Whereas step 2 involves one habit, that is only enacted when (regardless of having good dopamine levels) you still find yourself being tempted due to years of bad brain training.
A few more notes on Retraining your brain are:
? Make it fun. Or at least a habit you will greatly value enough to truly enjoy at some point. Remember (like a dog wanting to play a game) dopamine is all about pleasure, so make the habit you choose a reasonable second in the enjoyable aspect.
? Make it 1. Choose only 1 specific habit to replace your porn habit with. This means it should be something as easy to do as porn is for you (as i mentioned, this is the big destinction between step 1: Muzzling the dog...and step 2: Retaining it. The Muzzling is about having and employing a mass of options to keep your dopamine levels in check, whereas Retaining, I believe should only involve 1 replacement habit)
I realize that's not the conventional wisdom on this topic...everybody likes to have options, multiple habits to turn to in case one isn't convenient or desirable (it's harder to go for a run in the middle of the night, etc). But I've come to believe success in step 2 isn't so much about the habit as it is about the response time.
Here's the thing: Research reveals that weighing decisions sap up some of our willpower. Choosing is even more exhausting for our will muscles, and the whole beauty about a habit is that it's done without thinking! Its automatic. If you have more than one option to choose from you have to think and choose. If you've chosen a habit that you aren't capable of doing as easily as porn in any given situation than you have to stop and think ("Is it raining outside? Is it too dark to run").
None of that! Choose 1 habit that can replace PMO any place, any day and practice doing it instantly in the places and situations you know you are particularly tempted. I mean like: sit in your room, pretend you were just tempted, and automatically start reading that specific book you have chosen to read (that is if, like me, you enjoy reading).
[For anyone else that is reading this beside my future self, I came to these conclusions about choosing only one specific habit and practicing it, from this article: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-right-away-when-your-alarm-goes-off/
on how to make a habit of getting up in the morning. Once I tried his method and realized it worked amazingly well, I realized it fit perfectly in the category of retaining (rewiring) my brain]
The only exception to this one habit rule I can think of, is for the fantasizing end of things. You can't exactly "instantly do" anything if one of you're temptation zones is the shower. In this case I would suggest having 2 habits: a mental, shower only habit (some brain exercise or something you choose to automatically do when tempted in the shower), and a physical concrete one that you do everywhere else.
To close (what has turned into a way longer summery of all my thoughts than expected), I have a couple last pieces of advice:
? The whole goal with these two steps is that they might become automatic. Once the Muzzle (of dopamine stability) is on and the Retraining (of making a replacement habit an effortless part of your day) is working, the only remaining factor is Time.
? One other element I personally believe is that I shouldn't be overly focused on the exact day. It's good to have that logged away somewhere, but not always in front of my eyes. Much like it doesn't help when retraining a dog to constantly be showing him the leg he used to bite (At best he won't understand. At worst he'll think you want him to start again), it doesn't help to keep focusing on how long you haven't been looking at porn.
Perhaps way down the road when my new response is so set in stone, no renewed temptation could move it...but not right now.
One day my brain will get it. Like a dog playing fetch with his owner for the first time, thinking, "I can't believe I ever thought chewing his leg was fun. It was gross, harmful, destructive and always left a bad taste in my mouth. This fetch thing is the real deal, better in every way and fun for everybody involved."
Granted I don't think a real dog would get those distinctions, but I do think it would much rather be playing fetch with its owner than chewing his leg off if it knew any better.
And the same goes for real sex. Real love. Real romance. That's where the greatest dopamine kick can truly find a home.
