Get educated, get tools, and learn to love withdrawals

Hi vik, Dude, talking and looking at attractive girls is what you are supposed to be doing. Especially at your age. You are not supposed to be looking at porn, and by that, I mean, looking at porn is totally bad for you and distracts you from the real deal, aka, real girls. Do your self a favor and quit looking at porn completely. If you want to get infatuated with reality, THAT is OK!

Peace.

 

11 Months Clean. No porn. No PMO. No MO.

In one month I will be one year free.

One of the hardest things for people quitting is the concept "I am quitting." It is terribly difficult for any of us with the problem to look ourselves in the eye and state, I am quitting porn, and I an never using it again, ever again. To be honest, most of us have a hard time wrapping out hearts and heads around the concept that we will, by our own choice, never watch porn again. Many here do not even believe it is possible, and many look at porn only as an annoying little habit, that they wish to control, but keep in their lives. It is inconceivable to some to live a porn-free life, they feel that porn in moderation is not only acceptable, but a good thing, that it is insane to quit completely, and unnecessary. I have had discussions, in this forum, with men, who are clearly porn addicts, on the benefits of porn. Friend, there is no benefit to watching porn, unless you believe that getting a dopamine high is a benefit. I ask anyone reading this to ask yourself one question: in what way does watching porn benefit me? Ask yourself how your life is bettered by being on a 24/7 dopamine buzz, so much so that if you don't fix every day, sometime multiple times, you feel like you are going to climb the walls. Porn does not help, it hurts. I am here to tell you that, if you have the problem, there is no grey, middle ground; if porn is a problem in your life the only solution to the problem is sending the problem away, as in good bye forever, and not until next time.

That is hard to do. Once we have, by porn use, conditioned ourselves to love the dopamine buzz it gives us, we don't want to give it up. I could say the same thing about heroine addicts and heroine. For a lot of us, porn becomes our comfort zone, our comfort food, it is an escape that is always there, quick and easy. In reality it is just a button we push to get our dopamine fix, but that has only been understood recently. We are not taught that in school. And, culturally, porn is accepted. It is simply accepted that at a certain age we are going to become very interested in sex. Well, becoming interested in sex is one thing, basically a good thing, but living your life in a closed dark room, behind a locked door, with just you, your computer, and the pixels that set off a dopamine fix is not sex. Becoming that infatuated with the screen is just...pathetic.

When I first started this thread it was to help me stay clean, and it still does, but now I keep it mostly to help the ones who are here quitting porn, the newbies who are here, some of whom do not really know why they are here, but are here because porn has become a problem in their lives, and on some level they know they do not want that problem anymore. Now, if that is you I could say the obvious: in order to fix your porn problem you must quit watching porn. But, if it was just that simple, it would not be a problem, would it? When I first began dealing with the problem I was not certain it was even possible to quit, and on some level I really did not want to give up that comfort zone. If you are trying to quit I promise you, you can quit. Take a look around here. In addition to me, at 11 months (and never going back) you will find a number of us who have quit. They are not shooting for some goal a few days out, just so they can relapse as a reward, they are quitting. Completely. But you have to know, it is going to be difficult. You are going to have to get out of your comfort zone. It is not enough to know that you are going to suffer or even know what the suffering is; you have to want it.

Many ask: what is the point? The point is, I am free. I am on a trip now. I was alone in my hotel room last night, with my lap top and high speed internet. You know what I did not do? I did not watch porn, did not PMO, did not MO, did not edge, and never was tempted. I wake up in the mornings and I feel great; I don't feel like I have to plan to fix. Back in the addiction I did not call it a fix, I called it relaxing, a reward for a hard day, a distraction, a diversion. Porn was an amusement park ride that made all my problems seem miles away, for a moment, until the moments became hours and what once was a comfort became a disease.

Porn is a chain we wrap ourselves up in one link at a time. If you are a slave to porn I have something to say to you, and I say it with love and with hope:

Slave, wake up, WAKE UP!--TAKE OFF YOUR FUCKING CHAIN!

If I don't post before, I will be back here in one month announcing one year clean. I have absolute confidence you can get clean too, but you have to want it. Don't be a slave. Get free. Like anything worth having, freedom will cost you, but you can do it, it can be done, I promise you.

Much love.

Will I AM.

PS: If you read this and take anything positive from it, leave a positive comment at the end. It is how the thread stays relevant, and it helps. How do we help ourselves? We help ourselves by helping others. Thanks for all the kind posts and thanks also to the men and women here who have taught me by your example. You know who you are.

 

Shai, great question. The answer is: I NEVER relapsed. Now, let me explain that.

In the midst of the addiction, I would PMO 10 times a week. Some days, if I was alone, I might PMO 4 times a day. PMO, watch television. PMO, play game. PMO, study. PMO, work out. That was when I was an active user.

About 14 months before I quit I decided I had a problem. I decided to control the problem. I was where you are now, I had decided to "take control." With what I know now, that is laughable. This was before I had ever heard of Gary Wilson and yourbrainonporn. What I did not understand, then, was that porn addiction cannot be "controlled." The addiction can be fed or the addiction can be starved to death, but feeding it, even just a little, permitted it to stay alive and as long as it was alive, it controlled me. Whether I wanted to admit it or not, it controlled me. In that phase I pulled way back on PMO. In that phase I eventually pulled back to PMOing; let's say once a month. I still looked at porn daily however, not as much as before; minutes versus hours. But, I was still totally ignorant that looking at porn is, for those with the problem, the same as PMOing; it is a means, unwittingly for some of us, to raise our dopamine level. Looking at porn causes the same brain reaction as PMO, no difference.

Then, about 11 months ago I saw the Gary Wilson TED talk, and the light came on. I realized, finally, the chemical changes that were happening in the brain.

Shai, the difference between you and I is very simple: I am not on a "streak"; I am not trying to control my porn use, I have completely abandoned porn. I am no longer "seeing how long I can go without it", and I have completely deleted it from my life. Now, that was a process because when I was where you are, my dopamine was still high, and my brain did not want it to come back down. But now, 11 months clean, my brain does not crave it anymore, does not punish me with withdrawals for not feeding the addiction. Shai, if you really want to fix your problem, you need to quit thinking about how long your streak can be, and you need to own the concept of "quitting it completely."

You cannot starve your pornography addiction to death if you are feeding it, even if you are only feeding it a little. There is no way to beat pornography addiction and keep porn in your life; to beat the addiction porn has to go completely, meaning you have to quit looking for a good streak and embrace the concept that you are giving porn up completely and never using it again.

I hope this answers your question.

Peace.