zaraki888 said:
I was thinking lately. What does it actually mean to be healed from P addiction? Is it just hitting the 90 days? Is it being healed from PIED, PE? Is it being able to have self control and not let the addiction control me anymore? I wonder if the 90 days does not only rewire the dopamine level in the brain, but it also acts as a habit former. Creating strong lasting habits.
I think first thing we want to accomplish is getting rid of the craving for porn and porn flashbacks from our mind. Personally, if I get rid of this, it will be the biggest victory of my life. Not being suffocated by porn anymore. Once I get rid of this, I'm sure the mental chaos that I go through will change drastically or completely. 90 days is just the beginning, we are not done after 90 days we are done after we accomplish the... forever. Never ever going back to porn, this is the dream. All aspects affected by porn will change at that point. And if we could get rid of our porn addiction, I think nothing could fuck us up anymore because porn is a hell of addiction. One day it took me by surprise how difficult it was. I remember I had said to myself: "So porn is an addiction and I'm addicted? No problem, this is easy, it's not heroin, I will start tomorrow and never come back." This was in 2018.
Personally thinking about it now in my reboot, I think MO is a slip up, not a relapse. I think a relapse is if a rebooter falls back to old habits (watching P all day, everyday and can't control himself anymore and gives up, doesn't care anymore)
Sex, MO is human nature not like cocaine. It is what makes us human. We can't deny it and completely remove it I think.
I don't like to think too much about what's a relapse, counters etc. What I like to say about this is that we first need to understand how this porn addiction works: It's pushing a button (porn) and getting a chemical reaction of dopamine that feels amazing. We are addicted to this dopamine pleasure, porn is the button we have to push to get it. Our goal is to not push the button and this means no watching porn and substitutes and not "playing" porn in our heads because both release big levels of dopamine. This is what I like to think about: Did I make a mistake by giving myself a dopamine high through porn? Okay, I should stop this shit and never repeat it. I don't really care if it's called relapse or not, it's definitely something wrong that I did. The more dopamine I give myself, the biggest the damage I do to myself. I also like to think in term of damage, the longer I do it, the worse it gets but the basic idea is that watching porn, even for a little bit, reinforces that part of the brain and we never get rid of porn from our heads. Porn follows us like a dog we feed (shit example, I couldn't find something else. I like dogs but only the dogs that don't want to bite me). When it comes to "playing porn" in our head, this almost always leads to watching real porn because we get the dopamine going and it's very hard to resist (don't get me started, I did this 2 days ago but I didn't watch porn, I edged to flashbacks. The only good thing in this shit is that I didn't actually watch, if I could call it a good thing. Anyway, in terms of what it does to the brain, I need more data to know the difference between watching and "playing" flashbacks in my head. I guess watching is more powerful because of the way I feel after that. Or could be psychological because I tell myself "Don't worry, you didn't watch porn" and when I watch I am depressed about watching?)
However MO can (it will absolutely) give strong urges to do it again and again followed by P eventually. That is the danger for a rebooter. Especially in the beginning when strong habits are not created yet I believe. Therefore any sexual stimulants needs to be avoided at all cost.
I think it's not good if we masturbate thinking about porn. Doing it without porn... I don't know, I always feel like my brain wants me to do this so it could give me chaser effect and push me hard toward porn. I would only use masturbation (if one can do it without thinking about porn) as the last resort, as eliminating the sexual energy without doing it edging to porn. But I feel that doing something physical should be tried first because what happens to me is that I feel those urges like a lot of energy accumulating inside me. When I'm physically tired, I don't really have urges.
About the reset, I don't know. I hate to be on day 1 again. I will personally fool my brain into thinking nothing happened and add a couple of days on top of the 90 days. I added 45 days to my counter. I did made slip ups this week unfortunate on day 82. Then after I worked on methods how to kill urges. It really is as I wrote in my post, the porn cycle continues till relapse but avoiding cue's, triggers and urges is the easiest to keep going.
I hate to be on day 1 too, that's why I've removed the (actually cool) counter I had in my signature. It's too depressing to say "I was at day 21 now it's day 1." Maybe fooling your brain that nothing big happened could work psychologically, make you feel better and minimize the urge for more medication(edging/PMO)? I don't know what to say, I've never being able to do it myself.
Yes I completely agree. P subs is just the mind searching for that dopamine high. Eventually just like William wrote, even just a magazine with a cover of a women can trigger us or even one touch of myself can trigger strong cravings. By the way I orgasm-ed without touch! With just one image photographed in dark and gray color, I saw one art silhouette of a female body that made me orgasm. I tried to stop the ejaculation which I succeed just 10 seconds or so but then that image I saw again in my mind and then I couldn't stop the orgasm anymore.
Therefore we should not watch P or these images and video's stay in our minds. It is not like cocaine which leaves the body. I was lucky I was strong enough not to go to P.
P subs release that dopamine and of course the addicted brain loves that. They must be avoided. Everything happens in the brain. And yes, I am able to O without jerking my dick too, I've done it many times. In the beginning it was just a curiosity to see if I could do it now I wish I didn't.
Of course seeing something gets stored in the brain and it creates crazy craving. This is the main reason why we shouldn't peek and I know it's very difficult. Sometimes I'm in the train and I get an accidental look at someone's phone with a picture and I can't look away, it's like that dopamine that gets released pushes my brain to keep looking there. Everything happens in the brain and it's very strong, unfortunately.
By the way, I'm happy you've mentioned William. His page on Reboot Nation should be read by everybody, in my opinion. I say things that I've learned from reading him. What I've learned from his is this: The porn dopamine is the problem and we must make an effort not to give ourselves a hit from porn. Porn flashbacks also release dopamine. This is number one thing we should do and second, in my opinion, is eliminating the sexual energy because we don't need it by the end of the day when we get to sleep anyway and this could help with urges.