Why is it so so so hard to not relapse?

Because it is so easy to relapse. Most of us can access porn in under two seconds, without much thought. For me, porn blockers were helpful. They won't stop someone who is committed to accessing porn, but, if you are really trying to quit, they give a moment of pause to consider whether you really want to get to it. And, yes, of course, you REALLY want to get to it, but to quit you have to want to quit more.

 

I think anxiety and depression are not 100% attributable to the porn, but indicative of a separate problem porn is used to treat.

Think of it like radiation and/or chemotherapy. We use them to treat cancer, but they make us nauseous and our hair fall out, there’s fatigue, it’s generally not a good time. A person could quit cancer treatment, but they’d still have cancer.
Porn is like a treatment for another ailment, but we like to use it. It’s not a perfect analogy. But we recognize it causes side effects, we want to get rid of the side effects so we try to quit porn. Well, there’s still anxiety and depression to deal with, so we want to escape and we use porn, which exacerbates the depression and anxiety over the long term. A lot of us like to blame all of the depression & anxiety, or whatever mental issues, on porn but that isn’t accurate. If we stop using porn, we have to treat the other issue through a different means. If we don’t, we’ll keep feeling the pain of the root problem & eventually relapse, because living by willpower alone isn’t sustainable.

It is so so so hard not to relapse; because our problems are more extensive than just porn. Porn makes us feel something we need, but don’t get enough of from other sources. Discover and address the need, and the desire to look at porn goes away with time.

 

I think the root cause of the PMO cycle is rooted in secularism/nihilism. The only deterrent is understanding the severe consequences of our actions, especially ones that relate to morality. If you don't have strong convictions then its basically impossible to quit, because there will always be a way to rationalise to yourself to use PMO.
- Side note all videos regarding this on Youtube are useless, they are all masturbatory they never get to the root cause/solution. The only external information that can be useful are books, which can give you an opportunity to re-frame the issue in a new light and understand it from the perspective of the most influential and smart people from history. (Greek philosophy, Saint Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, Saint Basil)

 

I heard a theory that I agree with and it is that, the withdrawal symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and all similar things, they go away completely after 90 days, if you still feel something after 90 days, it's not a withdrawal symptom, it's something in you that you have been trying to run away from by using porn

 

One of the things I learned when I quit was that the brain is fascinating. This problem is 100% a brain problem, totally between the ears and above the belt. Our brains evolved a long time ago, tens of thousands of years ago, in an environment we no longer exist in. We have altered our environment to be, in many ways, far more comfortable and friendly than the environment in which our brains evolved, but we have not altered our brains. So, interestingly, anxiety. We hate anxiety; anxiety makes us feel horrible, we hate it. But, in the environment we evolved in, anxiety was a successful survival trait. Anxiety helped us anticipate and look for dangers in our environment then. Now that we have eliminated many of those dangers, we still have this successful survival trait that is no longer nearly as helpful as it used to be. Understanding the brain, studying it, will be helpful to overcoming this problem as it is, and only is, a brain problem.

 

Why is it so so so hard to not relapse?...that my friends is a million dollar question ?.....

 

Porn Induced ____ goes away after 90 days, I do think that is a good rule of thumb.

Technically most of it is brain problems. I don’t think we understand the brain all that well, though. Just like we barely understood germ theory in 1869, we barely understand brains and mental illness now. Our great grandkids are going to be mortified by our standard practices today. I bet we find half the medications we take actually make things worse, and another third of it is virtually useless.

 

Hi Comrade,
I mostly agree with your interpretation of porn addiction. I suffer from fibromyalgia, asthma, NAFLD, hypertension, high cholesterol, morbid obesity and clinical depression.
I use PMO to take my mind off these long- term health issues. But more importantly, at least in my case, is that PMO is a form of procrastination. I need to make many lifestyle changes to alleviate the results of my plethora of health issues. But multiple failed attempts to do so result in a great deal of stress for me. PMO gives me a reason to delay yet another failed attempt at coping with my infirmities.
Viewing images of supermodels and hardcore porn, then jerking off, relieves this tension for a brief time. Only to increase it afterwards. This is the essence of all addictions. IMO. Whatever the addiction may be it allows the addict to escape their dull and painful reality for a time.
Good luck!

 

We relapse for many reasons, but the biggest reason is we don't change enough in our life besides not watching porn. Porn needs to be replaced with positive activities or our brain will drift back to a relapse.

 

For serious rebooters: pmo shapes your brain more then you think yeah. I see alot of misinformations here and honestly what helps is reading the book Gabe deem recommends:
The Brain That Changes Itself
&
Dopamine nation.


Read about soaring eagle
https://rebootremedy.github.io/


Yes we all share the same neurotransmitters.
My tips: education. Goodluck

 

It's hard to refrain from engaging in our addiction because it's what most of us have known to be our first outlet for most or all of our lives. Stopping the one thing that makes us feel good despite horrible past (or current) circumstances is NEVER quick or easy. It takes work. A LOT of work, and a lot of time. Dedication is the way to fight this addiction. (Or any addiction for that matter.) We tell ourselves that porn/sex is the only thing that will make us feel better, so that's what we do, and we do it for so long, for many of us, it's the only thing we do that makes us feel better. And again, when that's all we do in bad times, it feels impossible to change that.

 

I think a big help is getting "outside" the box and outside ourselves. Finding an AP, reading books, attending meetings, coaching, etc. I think a big problem is many of us have tried to quit through "pure will power" but that does work. It takes trying new things to see what sticks and helps keep ya sober.