1. Welcome to NoFap! We have disabled new forum accounts from being registered for the time being. In the meantime, you can join our weekly accountability groups.
    Dismiss Notice

To be free from porn you need to watch porn (in a different way)

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by ultrafabber, Jun 7, 2019.

  1. The hard mode is tough no doubt, and that it has a very low success rate is also true. But that also means that a small percentage of guys have still managed to beat this addiction.

    OP's approach however hasn't been tried by many people - so we don't know if it would work.

    So yeah, for those new to PMO- I would also recommend trying the hard mode as followed by the majority in this forum.

    However, my current success with nofap is a direct result of something somewhat similar. I am at day 97 now, but wasn't even close to this number when following the usual "hard mode" approach.

    Another surprising result was the effortlessness and ease with which I was able to avoid urges this time around. I am calling it my "normalization process" :p, which is as follows:

    1. Pick any of my triggers, excluding porn. Something that currently acts as a trigger, but shouldn't because it's something normal.
    2. Looking it up on Google and open the link whether it's a website, image, video or whatever. For example, yesterday I chose a photo of a sports personality I find attractive from her swimsuit photo shoot.
    3. Keep looking at it. Keep staring.
    4. Two commandments to follow here: I can't touch yourself, and I can't fantasize sexualized thoughts.
    5. Slowly, try to see/appreciate her beauty, and sensuality.
    6. Keep looking, and repeating this process for about 10 minutes.
    7. Once done, being careful not to entertain the urges to look at more images or videos for now. Just closing the browser, shutting down my laptop and go to some other place in my home.
    8. Repeating this process daily, picking a new trigger the next time.
    9. The end result in a couple of months being a total rewiring of my brain, and how I see/react to the opposite sex instinctively.
    This has worked extremely well so far for me:

    • No edging
    • No binge sessions
    • No relying on will power
    • Saying "yes" to something (healthy outlets), instead of saying "no" (to PMO)
    • Longest streak in 20+ years of PMO habit.
    • But most importantly, I can really feel the "healthy" view or neural pathways being formed in my mind.

    You need to understand & cure the root cause of your urges - or else it's just a cycle which would keep repeating itself in an infinite loop.

    On the same topic, I also gained some valuable insights from @ZenAF 's thread located at:

    https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/fearless-of-triggers.217806/
     
    winningover and need4realchg like this.
  2. SuperFan

    SuperFan Fapstronaut

    The difference is that I don't consider my opinions here to be the absolute truth of the matter. Ultrafabber acts not only as if he's solved the problem if PMO addiction, but that his solution is the way everyone else needs to be doing it.
     
    Last edited: Jun 11, 2019
  3. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

    1,339
    1,633
    143
    I stated what i am because it's relevant to the discussion, not because i want people to believe me. For all I care, if nobody believes me i don't mind, I wrote what i wrote for the ones willing to believe or at least consider this possibility.

    I was a very severe case, no matter what you believe or not.

    There's no contradiction if you read the OP carefully and if you try to get out of the paradigm that "long streak = recovery". You are not an addict if you can control a behavior (and if the behavior doesn't give you pleasure), not if you abstain from it. Abstinence essentially implies that "i love that behavior and i want to do it but i won't do it." The goal is to stop loving that behavior and stop wanting to get pleasure from that behavior, not to abstain from getting pleasure.

    Not talking about masturbation here, because masturbation is an abnormal act that should not happen in the first place. The point is that you should NOT get aroused by porn and that you should be able to control your arousal and not cave to it.

    I know i don't have an alcohol addiction not because i had a long streak of not drinking alcohol (had a drink last week), but because i can stop whenever i want and because i don't like to get drunk in the first place. And because i don't use alcohol to regulate my emotions, which is a huge part of addictive behavior.

    I made a recent topic wanting to find out how long have people been trying to quit PMO and a staggering 50% had been trying for over 5 YEARS. And 30% for over 1 YEAR. (yes, these are skewed results because the ones that did indeed quit left the forum and didn't respond but anyway it shows how hard it is to quit). If you go to "reset and relapse reports" at the bottom of the forum you'll see dozens of relapses even after the "90 days reboot".

    Of course i can't "experiment" on 15-17 yo boys, they're first of all under aged.

    People can convince themselves they like a lot of things, that doesn't mean they want them (most porn addicts will defend their pmo use and will say that it's their choice and that they love doing it for example). This is particularly the case for a man that doesn't have sex with other women but allows his woman to have sex with other men. No matter if it's swinging or not, that's not a marriage, that's just a joke of a marriage and everyone participating denigrates the meaning of marriage. Be pissed off on your own actions, not on me for calling you on them.

    Of course i may be wrong, however i do believe i am correct. You are free to believe otherwise. My point was, since the beginning of the topic, that long streaks don't matter much and i explained why. You can read my reply to @need4realchg for more details.

    Many people trying to quit, even if they can get to 90 days or more, end up relapsing and BINGING. A person that does 90 days then 1 week relapse with 2-3x faps per day and fapping for 2-3 hours can be in an even worse state than someone that had 20 days streaks, masturbated quickly once and then went on to have another 20 day streak. A person that has a 30 day streak and then masturbates once for 3 hours is likely to be in a worse state than a person that had 7 days streak and masturbated once for 5 minutes.

    The marker for severity of addiction should be a combination of streak lenght / binging behavior / time spent masturbating and other factors.
     
    Last edited: Jun 14, 2019
  4. SuperFan

    SuperFan Fapstronaut

    I do believe otherwise. I believe your suggested method of recovery is foolish and dangerous. It completely ignores the brain chemistry aspect of addiction, which has been thoroughly validated by addiction experts and researchers. But if anyone wants to give your method a shot, be my guest. You can't fix your brain chemistry by exposing yourself to the very thing that's been hijacking it. It's like saying you need to quit heroin by taking just a little hit of it every now and then.

    No, that's your opinion.
     
    Last edited: Jun 16, 2019
    need4realchg likes this.
  5. Thats like saying that an opiate addict should just have an pinch of heroin, or an alcoholic to just have one drink.
    Doesnt work abstaining is the key.
     
  6. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

    1,339
    1,633
    143
    I'm not really sure why you, @Merlio and so many others in this thread have such strong opinions on why this doesn't work, especially since, i assume, this is not your field of expertise.

    There is already research showing exposure therapy WORKS... guess on what group... opiate users.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17230050 Cue exposure therapy for the treatment of opiate addiction: results of a randomized controlled clinical trial.

    Cue exposure therapy = CET

    Yes, relapse rates were significantly higher and that is to be expected in the first stages of CET, but the metric that is the most important - the arousal to drug use - significantly decreased.

    No, that's literally what marriage is. There's no such thing as "open marriage" or "cuckold marriage" or whatever degenerate terms have been recently invented. The basis of marriage, in all cultures, is to "forsake all others". Sure, a different term for people engaging in this can be invented, like "sex partnership" or "life partnership" or whatever, but a marriage where they have sex outside of marriage is no longer a marriage.
     
    Last edited: Jun 18, 2019
  7. Cool I aint buying it.
    Great if it works for you though.
     
  8. This may not be our 'field of expertise', but we do know a thing or two about our own addiction. You can't come here and claim that your opinion is somehow more valid simply because you have a certificate in whatever it is you practice. Unless a clinical trial has been conducted, and there is evidence that this approach works, your opinion as an expert in your 'field of expertise' is nothing more or less than an opinion which isn't any more valid than ours. :rolleyes:

    You want to talk about strong opinions, what about your opinion? You seem to be voicing the strongest opinions here.

    No, that is an opinion. :emoji_thinking: You specifically called terms describing a marriage that involves extra-marital sex 'degenerate'. Is that not an opinion? And you also stated that 'a marriage where they have sex outside of marriage is no longer a marriage'. Maybe you could tell me where exactly, outside of a religious context, it says that not only is a marriage a union between two people, but that to have extra-martial sex is an invalidation of that marriage?! o_O That fact is new to me.
     
  9. SuperFan

    SuperFan Fapstronaut

    Thank you for linking to a scientific study that confirms exactly why I think your method is a horrible idea.

    "However, dropout and relapse rates were, contrary to our expectations, significantly higher in the CET group." The authors of the study--like yourself--expected CET to lead to fewer relapses. Instead, the relapses were higher. "Significantly" higher.

    Your entire argument against abstinence is that you think it leads to higher relapse rates. There's nothing in the study you've provided that suggests CET leads to lower relapse rates. Nothing.
     
  10. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

    1,339
    1,633
    143
    It's not about my own expertise. It's about their lack of expertise while at the same time expressing very strong opinions on how this can't work, how this is like opiate addicts going through exposure etc. It's like me having very strong opinions in optics, even if i have 0 clue about optics. In a discussion about optics (that i have absolutely no knowledge on), i'm mostly sticking to asking questions, not telling people how optics works.

    The CET study on opiate addicts nonetheless shows that exposure therapy works and that the CET group did show a significant decrease in physiological reactivity, which is an objective measure for addiction.

    No, that's what marriage is, regardless of religious context.

    You're inventing things i did not say. To the contrary, i said that random relapses, even at lower rates, can actually increase the addiction because random rewards reinforce a behavior stronger than fixed ones. The vast majority of people starting and doing nofap pmo significantly less than they did before nofap, yet they are still addicted (and usually binge).

    My argument is that abstinence only doesn't work, as it doesn't address the cue>behavior link. In case you haven't noticed, i made a recent topic on how long did people try nofap. Yes, the results are more biased against shorter time frames because people that managed to quit didn't sit around on forum anymore (and other reasons), but even so, a staggering 45% percent have been trying to quit for more than 5 years. 24% for 1 to 2 years and 5% for 3 to 4 years. That's a combined 75% people trying and failing for over 1 year. https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-long-have-you-been-trying-to-quit-pmo.236364/ . Or you can go to "Reset and Relapse Reports" and see how many people relapsed even after completing the "90 day reboot".


    I didn't expect fewer relapses, i was actually surprised to see that the researchers did. It is obvious to me that during the exposure more people will relapse but like i said, it's not the relapse that matters most but breaking the association of cue>reward, which is what objectively happened with CET. If you're willing to ignore actual scientific results then i'm afraid there's nothing more i can say or do.
     
    Last edited: Jun 19, 2019
  11. @ultrafabber I am a bit confused with your methodology here. it seems like there are some major variables not being properly controlled.

    As I understand it, cue exposure therapy does not see the subjects consume the highly stimulating substance in question, it only introduces ques related to the substance in order to minimize the sensitization that occurred to the nueron pathways

    "in Cue Exposure Therapy, an alcoholic may be directed to hold a cold beer or smell alcohol. Initially, the exposure to these triggers prompts the brain to “expect” consumption. However, according to proponents of CET, frequent exposure to these triggers – without drinking – will lessen the likelihood of a trigger-induced relapse in the future by desensitizing the brain’s reaction." source
    This is in line with not only your reference, but also additional CET studies and meta-analyses on alcohol and nicotine addiction. [source I] [source II]

    So if we were to apply the methodology of these CET studies to porn addiction, we should be introducing porn related ques to our lives in order to rewire the nueroplatic que>behavior process you talked about.

    From Gary Wilson's book Your Brain On Porn:

    "During evolution, the ability to react to cues worked in your ancestors' favour by helping them not to miss valuable opportunities. For an alcoholic a cue to use might be walking by a pub or the smell of beer. For a heroin addict it might be a syringe. For a porn user it might be seeing his smartphone or the name of a porn site. When cues are activated sensitised neural pathways blast the reward circuit with a spike in electrical activity creating hard-to-ignore cravings to use."
    So my question is, why does your hypothesis advocate for the direct exposure to a superstimulus (porn), while peer reviewed CET studies do not? In my mind, if cue exposure therapy for porn addiction were to follow the methods of other CET studies, it should incorporate actual que exposure, i.e. typing a porn website into your phone, or looking at a porn website logo, or open and close an incognito tab (as you suggested for initial exposure).

    Some of your techniques seem plausible and in line with CET studies, but direct exposure to porn is taking it too far imo. porn is disproportionately more stimulating than the harmless ques exposed to CET subjects in previous studies, and I think that rightfully gives the members a bad impression of this method.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jun 20, 2019
  12. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

    1,339
    1,633
    143
    Thank you for your post, i agree with most of it. Perhaps i should have made it clearer that looking at porn and not getting aroused (basically porn being neutral or even distasteful) is the final goal rather than something one just does in the first day. That could work as well but will most likely lead to relapse.

    My reasoning for insisting on "watching porn to be free of porn" in the OP was to present the method and the logic behind it rather than listing the actual steps which i mentioned i will write in another post.
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  13. I look forward to reading it. I think if the cues are innocuous and have a logical sequence, it'll be well recieved.
     
    ultrafabber likes this.
  14. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

    1,339
    1,633
    143
    Thank you, we'll see how that goes.

    One more thing i didn't have time to address in the initial reply - the PMO problem isn't as straight forward as drinking/smoking/heroin and the fundamental and incorrect connection is not the arousal to porn or sexual cues but rather that arousal leads to masturbation. It can be argued that it is similar to drinking/smoking/heroin because the initial cue for those is still a type of arousal but it gets more complicated with PMO.

    The act of actually watching porn is the cue for masturbation, not only the behavior that needs to be unlearned.

    What you were addressing is the first part of the link - and you are correct, however that is incomplete. Watching porn (engaging in any self arousal action/thought) is both the undesired behavior AND the cue for masturbation.

    Writing this i realize i need to break everything down in smaller and better defined steps and that the first cue that needs to be addressed is gradual desensitization to sexual arousal and then address the porn as cue for masturbation.

    In short, we are dealing with two overlapping problems: "what should be arousing?" and "what should i do when i'm aroused?"
     
  15. MONSTER MONK

    MONSTER MONK Fapstronaut

    723
    12,501
    123
    My Journal
    A Better strategy would be to get CASTRATED
     
  16. LeHso

    LeHso Fapstronaut

    53
    65
    18
    Dude, I'm not trying to be offensive but your opinion lacks scientific proves. and it doesn't go well with common sense either!

    Let's take a look:

    1- Open porn clip and go make a sandwich then close it, or do sit-ups (This is not silly, this is nonsense and may be identified as a mental disorder, not addiction).

    2- Abstinence is not enough (where is your evidence? the word "impossible" is not enough, many people "including me" tried abstinence and it worked "it actually called the hard mode", dig dipper).

    3- I agree with you that porn is evil and destroying (But you can't trick your brain by opening a tap and closing it just by that, you can trick it by using different healthy activities that give you joy and dopamine).

    4- You can't tell a heavy drinker who wants to stop (Just open the bottle and then throw it away or sniff it and then throw it away or a take a small sip and when you feel drunk stop immediately!). On the other hand, he should immediately stop and go thru all withdrawing symptoms to be cured.

    5- You actually repeating that your thread should not be used to a do porn/masturbation. but the title says you "NEED" to watch, it's not a desire anymore, it's a need according to your opinion.

    6- Maybe you did try hard mode and failed many times (Which is fixable), maybe you think using a little is easier than none at all and this will lead to complete freedom. But I assure that this is completely wrong and there will be a time when you know that.

    Good luck in your recovery, recovery is consisted of abstaining from PMO, your counter should be based on that to feel the benefits and it's up to you.
     
    Bombadil and Deleted Account like this.
  17. SuperFan

    SuperFan Fapstronaut

    Bro, you're talking about a survey that was answered by 38 people. Calm down.
     
  18. SilentG

    SilentG New Fapstronaut

    3
    1
    3
    Great read. Nice to see a different perspective and some good debate.
     
    ultrafabber likes this.
  19. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

    1,339
    1,633
    143
    Thank you, i wish people were more open minded about this. I plan to write a mode in-detail version of it soon.
     
  20. Robinthehood

    Robinthehood Fapstronaut

    Hahaha
     

Share This Page