NoFap is the rat pack for PMO users

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by ILoathePwife, Aug 30, 2016.

  1. ILoathePwife

    ILoathePwife Fapstronaut

    Wow. This really caught my attention.

    Although this article, The Likely Cause of Addiction, first published in 2015, doesn't mention PMO addiction and mostly focuses on chemical addiction, I do think it has applications here.

    To summarize, basically, rats that are in isolation and with nothing interesting in their cages, become drug addicted quickly. Rats with nice cages choose drugs less. Rats that are drug addicted for 57 days and then are placed in a cage with other rats, the "rat pack," they come out of their addiction.

    So maybe that's why NoFap works. Interacting with others with the same goal. Getting encouragement. Coming out of the isolation and shame, at least partially.

    "Professor Peter Cohen argues that human beings have a deep need to bond and form connections. It’s how we get our satisfaction. If we can’t connect with each other, we will connect with anything we can find — the whirr of a roulette wheel or the prick of a syringe. He says we should stop talking about ‘addiction’ altogether, and instead call it ‘bonding.’ A heroin addict has bonded with heroin because she couldn’t bond as fully with anything else. So the opposite of addiction is not sobriety. It is human connection."

    The article also talks about drug decriminalization in Portugal, which happened 15 years ago. The country decided to use the money it "used to spend on arresting and jailing drug addicts, and spend it instead on reconnecting them — to their own feelings, and to the wider society. The most crucial step is to get them secure housing, and subsidized jobs so they have a purpose in life, and something to get out of bed for. I watched as they are helped, in warm and welcoming clinics, to learn how to reconnect with their feelings, after years of trauma and stunning them into silence with drugs."

    What happened? "An independent study by the British Journal of Criminology found that since total decriminalization, addiction has fallen, and injecting drug use is down by 50 percent. I’ll repeat that: injecting drug use is down by 50 percent. Decriminalization has been such a manifest success that very few people in Portugal want to go back to the old system. The main campaigner against the decriminalization back in 2000 was Joao Figueira, the country’s top drug cop. He offered all the dire warnings that we would expect from the Daily Mail or Fox News. But when we sat together in Lisbon, he told me that everything he predicted had not come to pass — and he now hopes the whole world will follow Portugal’s example."

    I can't help but see this as a very strong argument for addicts sharing their struggles with others. Getting out of the isolation and secrecy that contributes to addiction. I also see it as a strong argument for PMO addicts to not keep their addiction secret from their SOs. (But, of course, as an SO who was lied to for 5 years, I am biased. In my defense, I am today an important and active part of my husband's recovery, which shows the positives it can bring.)

    I'd love to hear other people's thoughts on this.
     
  2. ILoathePwife

    ILoathePwife Fapstronaut

    Of course, the other obvious application is the importance of society being able to talk about sexually related addictions, like @alexander has been working toward. The shame and secrecy is so strong and so damaging.
     
  3. Yes I wonder if porn addiction is really more of a function of our globalized, independent, isolating society than just an industry's greed to make a cheap buck.
     
    ILoathePwife and Awakeatlast like this.
  4. xedger

    xedger Guest

    I think we are conditioned from a young age to expect things that we may realistically never be able to have. This conditioning happens through TV, film, social media etc. It is getting progressively worse. Everyone is meant to be thin, beautiful, rich, happy, and we are all meant to have amazing sex lives.

    The trouble is that we're not movie stars. Many of us are rats that have to live in tiny, boring cages. Suppliers will always be there (and have always been there) to sell us drugs and porn to make us feel meaningful even if only for a short time, and it is an incredibly powerful illusion. The challenge is to work out how to develop real connections in an increasingly diverse but fragmented society. One of the good things about the internet is that it can facilitate this even if you never meet people in the flesh.

    I will almost certainly never knowingly meet anyone who has supported me on this forum, but the sense of bonding and connectedness I have got from being here has been far more powerful than I could ever have anticipated. I have shared things I don't think I will ever feel able to share with real life people, and others have likewise shared with me. By sharing in others' sense of achievement, pride, happiness but also frustration and disappointment I have reawakened empathy in myself that I had almost completely lost because I just sat in my cage pretending that the rest of the world didn't exist.
     
  5. Star Lord

    Star Lord Fapstronaut

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    Yes...to me my PMO addiction has been a huge weight on my chest, my family don't know about it, like at all. I've been very very secretive thus the weight on my chest. Since joining nofap it's like we can all share the combined weight amongst us all and it's less of a burden. Plus the site is a constant reminder of the goal we all want to achieve so, whenever we relapse we then think of nofap again and try again, and whenever we think of nofap we think of why we hate our pmo.
    I really like the nofap moto too, "get a new grip on life" it's very clever.
     
    xedger likes this.
  6. willem20

    willem20 Fapstronaut

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    I find this post very intriguing, but I must spoil the fun a bit. NoFap is not the nice rat cage where we are less easily drawn towards porn. We're rather the third cage where rats are being put that dont want to use the drug but obviously still is there. Connectibg with ithers that dont pursue the same goals (abstaining from PMO) will vanish your desire for porn.

    Atm Im the only student left in my house (houselord doesnt want any new renters because he wants to sell it) and its time I should move on, to get connected with new people. It'll make this pursuit far easier
     
  7. recoome

    recoome Fapstronaut

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    i watch porn because there i can degrade myself. i can watch most degrading porn n fulfill all need of corrupting myself. no pretense of being virtous n proud or having some self respect.

    cause when i see porn i think 'we all die once' go have all the pleasures of life.
    it just shows how unhealthy my thoughts have become.
     
  8. TheFutureMe

    TheFutureMe Fapstronaut

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    That's neat @fupornwife , and I dare say that we might not have the scientific tools/knowledge to fully understand what exactly is going on in that cage. Is that behavior modification by observation of others? Is that idea/mental bonding that we can just observe in awe? Like the menstruation syncing that happens when mammal females are put together for extended periods of time?

    In any case I feel it fits the NoFap setup, where our behaviours are posted on a wall for a concerned community to comment/counsel/see/help, and in return we can see/talk/ask/help fellows at different stages of their own changes/recoveries/introspections. As @xedger said, even if we're not meeting in the flesh, it has that "rat pack" effect on many (maybe not all), and in a way I think it's even more efficient than having people dragging their skins to a physical meeting (which has to be scheduled, justified to SOs, etc etc)!

    On the topic of Portugal's war on drug (that they won by stopping the war on drugs), the fantastic achievement it represents was only possible by redirecting the monstruous amounts of money they were spending on surveillance/equipment/training/justice/prisons to the general help and support of the drug user population. Just like that, they went from "isolated addicts harming themselves and society and should be shamed for that and cured" to "a citizen like any other with an issue we can help with by hearing and supporting them". Can any of us here try to switch their own perceived status from the former to the latter?
     

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