Do 'blockers' work?

I honestly wouldn't recommend them, you will feel better when you resist and choose for yourself not to go looking on the internet. When we rely on blockers we arent really progressing. This is just my opinion, iam sure blockers helped a lot of people to quit but from my own experience it just made the addiction worse.

 

If you want a blocker, it means you are doing well. But no, they don't work.

 

Sounds like you've already answered your own question. The thing is there are a lot of people savvy enough to bypass anything like that. There's a reason why accountability partners is a thing, there's this social aspect and it's ultimately on an honor system/honesty basis, because even the software that just reports where you've been but doesn't block anything can be bypassed.

What you DON'T want to happen is for some automated software process to bypass your psychological process, then it gets into YOUR mind. If people spent half as much effort working at their mind as they do with the tech then they will have far more success.

 

It depends what you mean by do they work. Do they keep you off of porn? Do they cure your porn addiction? Do they cure PIED?

I have a blocking system in place that is very difficult to bypass, and I have put my self in a situation it is near impossible to access anything that would cause me to relapse. So does this work? It works in the sense it is keeping me off of porn and artificial sexual stimulation most of the time, and for longer periods of time. I couldn't count the amount of times this system has stopped me from relapsing. I believe it could help with PIED recovery. Because if your not PMOing then this is going to help with PIED recovery. But from my own personal experience I don't believe it helps with recovering from porn addiction, I actually think it makes the porn addiction worse. Because when I do get the chance to access porn again after being restricted from it for so long, what I have noticed is I want porn more than ever by this point, and when I do get on it the pleasure and enjoyment I get from it after being restricted from it for a while is completely through the roof. So in a way it actually feels like it doesn't help me get over the addiction. As the pleasure I get from porn after being restricted from it for a while is through the roof. When I get the chance to see it after not being able to see it for so long I am on it rapidly, instantly flicking about loads of different content, and before I know it I am PMOing and binging, experiecning much greater pleasure and enjoyment from it than when I was PMOing reguarly.

So if this pleasure and enjoyement is much greater, if this edging and binging is much longer, then this must mean the dopamine and other pleasure neurotransmitters and chemicals are much higher. Which would indicate in this moment I am much more addicted and causing much more damage.

It's because the time away from it has made me more sensitive to it. So when I do end up on it again it is much more enjoyable, as it is releasing higher levels of dopamine and other chemicals.

This is why someone who drinks alcohol all the time doesn't get much enjoyment from it. But say that person stays off alcohol for a few weeks or a month and then drinks again. It is likely the pleasure they get from the alcohol when they drink again will be much greater than when they were drinking all the time, and it's the same thing with porn.

 

I think starving your brain of that sort of stuff for a while and then going back to it after a while makes it extremely enjoyable and pleasurable. It does for me anyway. This is your dopamine receptors becoming more sensitive, which is actually what you want to do. But it's just frustrating how much more this can make you want porn and enjoy porn.

Another thing I notice this with is alcohol. If I am drinking multiple days in the week I get more and more bored of the alcohol. If I stop drinking for a few weeks or a month I become very excited at the thought of drinking and get much greater enjoyment when I drink.

This can happen with many things in life.

I was actually watching a video about dopamine recently, and it said in the video addiction is actually wanting something more but enjoying it less. This does sound correct to me.

 

Hey guys,

I am new to this nofap website, but this is the post I am most interested in.

I have had a few "mini successes" over the last few years with the help of some systems, I just relapsed back into old habits. The things that worked were:

- I bought a non-smart phone and didn't have a lap top other device. Instead I just went to internet cafes when I needed internet. This was great for not watching porn, but it was just so impractical not to have a smart phone. Work ended up requiring me to take my laptop home, hence...
- The second was when I used a kitchen safe. This is a "lock box" with a timing device, which stops you from accessing the box until the timer runs out. I would get home from work, and chuck my phone, laptop charger, and laptop battery in the box. I would set the timer for 6am the next morning (just before I get up), so that I could grab my stuff out of the box and go to work. The problem is that you still need your phone for other stuff all the time. BUT, it is extremely good for just putting your stuff in before you go to bed, because it is the boredom of going to sleep that personally is when I am most vulnerable. I broke it while travelling and haven't gotten round to buying another one. NOTE: THIS WAS NOT A GOLDEN BULLET. I STILL RELAPSED WHEN I GOT HOME FROM WORK AND DIDN'T PUT MY DEVICES IN IT STRAIGHT AWAY, OR WHEN I WOKE UP AND HAD TIME TO WATCH PORN BEFORE GOING TO WORK. But, it did help a lot.

I feel a bit bad for having to rely on stuff other than my free will to stop watching porn. But I talked to my therapist about it, and she said that porn is exactly the same as a drug. But this is a drug that is always in your pocket lol If you were to ask a cocaine addict to quit cocaine, but they had cocaine in their pocket all day, and slept with cocaine beside their bed every night, then they might struggle to give up. For me it is not necessarily the "high" from porn which makes it so addictive, but the accessability.

I hope I haven't ruffled any feathers there by contradicting anyone too harshly!

Good luck,

Joe

 

I believe blockers are useful. Personally, I have blockers installed on my phone. The way I see it is, my brain is getting used to NOT searching for porn when I am bored or something. Repetition is the key for myself - the longer I keep off porn, my brain will rewire itself.

 

Its a good extra step. They aren't bulletproof, but they give you extra time to think about your actions before doing something stupid. I would say, I would rather be stopped with a blocker than to relapse. Eventually I wont need this extra step ofcourse. Some of them can even block accidental triggers which you didnt search for.

 

For me blockers that can be easily bypassed don't work. However blockers that can't be bypassed or are extremely difficult to bypass do work for me.

Any blocker is easy to bypass if it's just a case of signing in to it and turning it off. I wouldn't even call that blocked.

 

I agree, walking around with vodka in a flask is the same as unblocked phone. At some point though, the addict must be in recovery long enough that the blockers really are no longer necessary. Just as an alcoholic will need to learn to be around alcohol without relapsing. I think in the very early stages of recover, they are a useful tool. However, it’s still the addicts responsibility to make choices that lead him toward recovery. If you are spending time trying to outsmart your porn blocker, you need to really ask yourself if you actually want recovery? My husband has a saying “ I’m either working towards relapse or working towards recovery, but I’m never standing still “. He likes the blockers, not because they prevent him from getting to porn but because they give him that extra time to “ think” about what he’s doing as opposed to just click and go.