Long but helpful read people! If you are not willing to read a long post, you are probably not dedicated enough to this to succeed. Rethink your priorities. Read post 4 down if you wish to make your own opinion on it! let me start by saying that this post will support both sides if you read through it all, no masturbation and people who will continue to masturbate in their "reset". Almost all of the current respected science on recovery from sexually compulsive behavior (I.E. porn addiction, or sex addiction) supports retraining your thoughts during the process of orgasm or masturbation. Not avoiding and villainizing a natural human function. It is important to find recovery through healthy means, studies done by reputable scientists in this field show that Sexual Anorexia (avoiding any sexual encounter or action, even if it is specific, like avoiding only orgasm or masturbation) actually usually aggravates the addictive cycle and follows many of the same patterns, mainly preoccupation with the thoughts, shame, and relapse. (this works for some, but is destructive for many more) You need to find your balance and get back to a place where your sexuality feels pure and clean. To achieve true recovery, you need to retrain yourself to go back to your healthy and untainted sexuality. Many on here will have you believing otherwise, and give you advice that will be counterproductive to most people, like to abstain and associate normal sexual human behavior with negativity. This is putting masturbation and sex on a pedestal, this can cause yourself to become even worse off in the context of relationships. Very Few women want to date a man who is associating masturbation and sex with negativity! As for porn and abnormal behavior when compared to your culture, yes, a lot of women will frown on that. This bad advice is personal to the people who give it, and it may have worked for them! But chances are, if they are presenting it in an absolute fashion, (like "do this and it will be better" "it is not that hard, just don't masturbate", etc. etc. etc.) the information is not applicable to you! It is their personal journey, be open to suggestions, but do not be so desperate to try them, only to find they don't work, and then fall into shame because you failed! This can lead to a shameful and stress fueled relapse! Find your own thing that works. You need to learn how you are going to forgive yourself! You need to find the root of your problem! DO NOT IDENTIFY WITH YOUR STRUGGLE! You are not porn addiction, you are not depression! You are a human, and regardless of how far gone or f***ed up you believe you are, you deserve love, compassion and kindness! You have inadvertently conditioned yourself into perversion. Your motivations for doing so are probably very pure and relatable, I.E. loneliness, boredom, etc... You are worth more than any of us know! I believe in you, and I know your struggle! We all have made mistakes, and if we judged everyone on there mistakes, we would all be horrible people! Please don't go all Rambo or Hulk on yourself. You will make your recovery process much harder. (getting really motivated, only to bite off more than you can chew and then have your motivation fizz out because you did not meet your expectations, possibly causing relapse.) Avoid any sort of negative conditioning, it can do massive damage on your psyche. Do not fall into a cycle of shaming your natural functions. If we think about neuroplasticity and what not, if we associate a negative feeling with an action enough times, the negative feeling will become involuntary. It would delay true recovery by many years if you successfully conditioned yourself to associate orgasm with negative feelings. Affecting your ability to carry on with healthy relationships with those you love intimately. I doubt most can even engage in any sexuality without triggering an episode of despair and dread. That's why you are here! Avoid double hijacking your brain, by porn, and now by your negative affirmations in regards to sexuality! Another problem created to deal with! This of course depends on your religious background and beliefs, I am coming from a purely scientifically supported standpoint. Perhaps your journey is truly different and it is not my place to correct you. although there are quite a few sexual disorders that can come from sexual shaming, and religious persons (among others) can be effected by theses things immensely. Unable to carry on healthy sexual relationships with their husbands or wives due to the amount of shame they feel associated with sexual activity. that doesn't shut off instantly when you get married. Many on here expect it to shut off when they do get into serious relationships. There are hundreds if not thousands of posts with people married ON THIS SITE describing a form of this issue with their significant others. Do not fall into this trap! (many issues are much more complex than this presentation, with multiple sources for the trouble, this problem I am speaking of will definitely contribute) Many people will not be able to instantly separate their sexual response cycle into two distinct cycles, (one being your porn problem, and the other being physical intimacy) like some will lead you to believe. This process takes time! For some though, abstinence is a healthy tool to utilize in order to "reset" their brain. although this is far more complex and personally ambiguous process (best led by a professional) than many people here will lead it on to be. There is a reason why many people relapse on here. Hulk moments of defeating the evil do not work. Attempting another cycle of the addiction (sexual abstinence) does not work for most. I will also add that a 90 (or so) day reset can be helpful, however, it depends on what you do during the 90 days, and for many, hard mode is not a realistic option. MO can be healthy if you can condition yourself to avoid porn for any MO experience. Fantasy and otherwise. This again can get ambiguous, as there is a healthy amount of fantasy, and an unhealthy amount. However, for those recovering from self diagnosed porn addiction ("sexually compulsive behavior" or “Hypersexuality” if you ask majority in the mental health field) it is best to avoid fantasy and strive for building a healthy sexual behavior. There is no easy way to do this, but it is very possible and I believe you can! Keep in mind we are not talking about drug or alcohol addiction. We are talking about something that would happen naturally regardless if you were introduced to it or not. From psychologies standpoint, masturbation, orgasm, and sex is not the problem. Your attitude about masturbation, orgasm, sex is the problem. It is about re-educating yourself and finding your recovery in the way that works for you. Not one simple plan that is solidified like "just stop masturbating period." masturbation is not the problem, alcohol is not the problem, drugs are not the problem, they are coping mechanisms. The problem is what is motivating you to do those things. Choose to treat the symptoms, and you will not recover from the problem. It is a combination of restructuring coping mechanisms and dealing with the internal strife that leads you to recovery! There is a problem here above porn when you have weak moments, ask yourself, Do you want it that bad? What at this precise moment is encouraging you to consume. What are you running from? Define that feeling, do not let it be ambiguous, put it into solid terms. maybe write it in a journal. "I am running from feeling..." and come back and post on the forums, look up how to deal with the issue you have described, maybe message me what it is you are running from (I would be glad to give advice), or address that problem head on! Think of yourself in 10 years, who is it you want to look in the mirror and see? Is the suffering from not consuming porn worth being that person? How about the suffering porn will put you through, is it worth delaying you becoming that person? The problem here is many wont strive to be accurate, or actually find the truth, They are so bent on finding recovery, they will latch to one idea that makes sense to them and take it to hell and back because they are afraid of being wrong. Because if they are, they won't succeed, And that is scary, I relate to that! But it is a sign of an educated man to entertain a thought he does not agree with. So what are you? educated? or a sheep that wants the problem to fix itself? Cause it won't, and chances are you will fail if you run with one idea. Collect all the ideas you can! This is a complex issues that needs to be addressed in many complex ways! Many would prefer to run with one thought and hope, pray, and bank on it being the correct one. Do not be one track minded. I promise it will delay recovery! Perhaps you will find a way to address your issue in a simple way! Good! Great! Celebrate! But to many of us, it is not this simple, but do not be discourage! If you work hard, It will work itself out! Some general applicable advice that takes effort but actually works: In regards to masturbation, Try to focus on the feeling of the orgasm or masturbation in your body. Avoid any thoughts of porn or excessive lust. fantasizing about previous partners can be healthy if the relationship was healthy. This is getting in touch with your true self. If you find yourself lusting or sexualizing others during, then stop masturbating and move on to a new activity (there could be a time when this is healthy, but wait for fantasizing about your hot friend until you recover more. your brain will reset if you are diligent). if you find yourself thinking of porn, then stop. This takes immense discipline, perhaps you don't have that kind of willpower, GOOD Another thing to improve as you journey to the BA Awesome person you are striving for! Google how to train your willpower! This recovery will have a cascade of effects on yourself! ALL POSITIVE In a sexual context, If you find that the girl does not live up to comparable expectations (think hard, is the porn creating the standard that you are striving for?), or you find that sex reawakens your sexual appetite for PMO (I.E. you go PMO after sex), or if you have any issues climaxing unless you indulge in a more extreme activity, then no, you need time to "reboot" still (I mean reboot as in abstaining from sex and porn). One night stands usually come from a very lustful place, a trigger for most, you have to have some fantastic discipline to be able to indulge in that kind of anonymous gratification and not have it play into your cycle. try and go into it focused on your partner's reactions to what you are doing, try and focus on how your body feels with your partner. Try and go into sex wanting to learn something, whether that's about what you enjoy, or how to please someone better or anything else is really up to you. The more educational and positive motivations you put behind the experience, the better the outcome will be. If you have any other questions or comments feel free to ask, I will elaborate on any advice and provide citations if you would like to read the studies yourself, If you look 4 posts down, I have already posted some! Remember! You do not have to subscribe to someone elses ideal of a perfect recovery, including mine! You will delay your process if their way does not work for you! The goal is to feel pure and unashamed of your sexuality, to get back in touch with the you that was before porn! This is one of many ways to do that
getting really motivated, only to bite off more than you can chew and then have your motivation fizz out because you did not meet your expectations, possibly causing relapse.
The circle of insightful people on here keeps getting bigger and bigger and I was hoping it might get smaller so I could get in. With regards to another addiction I tackled, someone told me "I hope you have a slow recovery". Didn't get it at first, but it's exactly that hulk idea you're talking about.
For fun (a sick definition of fun on my part, haha) I will post some sties and bloggers (most of which will have a PhD) who do research from reputable journals researching the above information. Some will be cited and others will not. Unfortunately, with most medical research, unless you want to pay for a subscription to a the medical journal it is written in, you will not be able to read anything except for the abstract of the research cited. And even then, you will need to understand statistical language used in current medical science. This is unless you attend a school, then your library will most likely have a subscription to most medical journals that you can utilize to read the entire study. The problem you will run into is that there are many ways to address one disorder, it is highly personalized to the individual. My goal here is to help people find a positive view on their sexuality. To reset themselves to the sexuality they had before porn. Not to condition people into shaming natural functions as many inadvertently strive for. Depending on your educational background, religious beliefs, motivation, the level to which you are letting fear dictate your decisions, and general demeanor when doing such research, your personal biases will influence your opinions on it. Some people outwardly refuse the validity of science and believe there own beliefs. (this can be healthy, as it is important to have faith, personal identity and whatnot, however can be infuriating and make it extremely difficult to treat someone with well documented successful treatments) (I say these things as a christian, I am not an atheist scientist if that carries any weight to your opinion of me.) I make no claim not to be influence by my biases, and in some cases, my advice will be wrong for the individual. It all depends on the positive standard you are striving for. If you wish to continue to use negative influence as motivation for your recovery, that is a personal choice, and can motivate some to find balance. However, using positive motivations will almost always lead to a more stable, enjoyable, and healthy recovery. 1. http://nextchapteraddiction.com/sex-addiction-and-sexual-anorexia/ this will explain the two in a concise manner. You will notice that both disorders usually follow a shaming cycle. Many find that anorexia is just as unhealthy, and plays into addictive cycles. Many people going back and forth between the two due to intense emotional negativity that comes from both behaviors. It is an addictive pingpong, one that does very little to lead to recovery. 2. https://www.iitap.com/wp-content/up...e-for-Sexual-Anorexa-144-patients_PCarnes.pdf This study is a full report, It is long and complex and I will be surprised if the normal individual does not find it "before bed material." (it makes you tired with how dry it can be) This discusses the co-morbidity (the simultaneous presence of two chronic diseases or conditions in a patient) of sexual anorexia with sexual addiction. this one will describe to you the problems of both, and how they play into each others cycles. This had a large enough sample size to avoid any type one or two errors (basically avoiding misdiagnosing and irrelevant application of treatment), and strives to clarify the definitions of both disorders. 3. If we follow the basic ideas of the field called Functionalism (a dated but highly relevant field of psychology), we can see that human response conditioning is a highly documented thing. In this context we are focusing on whats called "Context-Based Reinforcement." From Pavlov's dogs, to little albert (google both, little alberts story is quite demented but an interesting read), and the thousands of studies done after those up to today, we can not ignore the fact that we are highly capable of destroying our own recovery through following misinformation as if it were factual and applicable to us. This is rooted in good thinking, but ultimately, leads to destructive behaviors. Conditioning ourselves to follow a set rise and fall of emotions in correlation with our actions. Please look up functionalism and its fathers and people who help solidify the school of thought in order to comprehend more of what I am saying. For this application, a basic understanding is enough. 4. https://reclaimsexualhealth.com/Masturbation/physical-effects-of-masturbation.html This one explains the science of Context-Based Reinforcement in an accessible manner. It also shows the basics of a cycle of porn addiction (hyper-sexuality, or sexually compulsive behavior, I'm really pushing for people to be aware of the proper terminology). You will find that we can use this information to support either side, as he does from a religious context, but the main point I want to focus on here is the fact that bringing negative affirmations into the bedroom is bad. as for "Resetting the brain" through avoidance of masturbation or orgasm, there is no science I am aware of that this will be helpful, abstinence for porn is though! (let me clarify, find something that works for you, if abstaining from masturbation works, then do it! this is your journey!)If you were to engage in positive affirmations during sex with a wife, girlfriend, or simply use the above mentioned masturbation techniques, your neoplastic brain would be able to disassociate your sexual negativity in the context of your sexuality. This is a hard process, and best lead by a professional. However, it is possible in the context of a safe, trusting, and deeply intimate relationship (with a wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, or yourself). I appreciate seeing other individuals who do not want to run with one thought, people who wish to educate themselves before making controversial and potentially damaging decisions. If you wish for more please ask, I will continue to compile evidence for you.
Thank goodness that I found this thread. I had a few nagging thoughts that maybe abstaining from masturbating might be a little too far, except for the fact that right now, I'm not able to really enjoy masturbating without porn or doing something silly like hump my pillow. And even when I decided to stop masturbating for 90 days because it didn't feel good, I told myself that hopefully I will be able to enjoy the occasional masturbation session and without porn. I don't try to suppress any sexual thoughts and have learned to have better control over my urges as to not go into excessive masturbation out of boredom or stress. I also do enjoy somethings that aren't porn but are really sexually charged (think fanservice anime or music videos) because I like sexy things. I just want jacking off to be fun again.
I feel ya, who doesn't, Make sure you define the line between appreciating atheistic beauty, and triggering yourself sexually. This all depends on your personal struggle though! Don't let anyone else define that for you! Honesty with yourself is the most valuable tool you will need with your recovery.
One thing I have found that has help is slowly finding things I considered sexually triggering and make them non-sexual. For example, while a little TMI, I trimmed my pubes today. Normally I would get aroused and masturbate afterward, but this time, I could control myself and not masturbate even though I was touching my dick. This is in major contrast to me doing something clearly sexual, like thrusting my hips in a sexual manner or thinking about sex, then I will sometimes be triggered sexually, like I will start breathing heavy and feel my heart racing a bit. And I really feel the tension whenever that happens. I do feel like my mind is starting to better sort out what is a truly sexual situation and what isn't. I think I've already found the line, personally. I just find it funny how NoFap is causing me to learn more about my sexuality better than years of porn ever did.
Great post! I do not agree on every standpoint, but this definitely worth working with. Must read for everyone!
Thanks man, Exactly the point I want to get at, Challenging your own point of view through someone elses is important for growth! I am not so full of myself that I cant think about a contradicting point of view and grow from it. Please feel free to do so to me, you may have information that may help me (and others) in the journey.
THIS is the thread I needed. I'm still in the middle of crafting my own unique way of conquering my addiction but I think you're on the right track. When I go weeks on "hard mode" I end up relapsing. The answer for me is to not end masturbation 100%, the goal is to end masturbation to porn 100%. I also agree with what you say about "Hulking out". Make goals, even big ones but don't think you're suddenly all powerful because of your streak. Steady, the word is steady.
That's awesome man! Just knowing my words helped one person is life affirming and helps me with my struggle as well! Keep coming back, if you are interested, made a discord to have live conversations with others on here who are struggling (a few of us are on it!). It really helps me to have someone to chat with in a faster manner when I have a dark moment. Keep fighting the good fight!
Well man I'd love to stay in touch on here with you, I'm sure we could help each other immensely. Yes, your words connected with my specific situation and it was like a breath of fresh air compared to what I read a lot. Don't get me wrong, there's a wealth of great information all over NoFap but your words were the missing link for me. I'm also glad you're being helped through helping me. Helping others is actually quite therapeutic and joyful, unless you're a psychopath of course lol
I agree with you, man. It's nice that some people here are aiming to be realistic and not trying to pin everything on NoFap. With a lot of choices I've made recently, I see that NoFap was more of a slap in the face to do more seeing as you do get more energy but that's mostly because my actions lead me to get better sleep and develop better stress coping skills. I see that I would have gotten to the same place even if I kept the porn in my life only real difference is that I would still have a hard time masturbating without porn if the time came. Well, I thank you immensely for this thread. Some people aren't joking when they say that NoFap can be almost like a cult at times. I like the idea of not making your struggle into your identity. That would save a lot of people from some hard times.
Totally agree. I see a pattern of constant relapse in those who abide by the "never masturbate again" folks. Repression of sexuality in a sexual addict is dangerous and inevitably leads to worsening addictions. The very idea of having to abstain from PMO for months scared me and made recovery impossible. I definitely think a part of my recovery will be retraining myself to MO with zero porn or fantasy. As a virgin with no recent experience with women at all, it's hard to just go without any sexual pleasure. I still have to recover some physical sensitivity and will be using a fleshlight mostly instead of my hand. I never had an addiction to M it was just edging to porn for hours then finding that one video or whatever that put me over the edge. Everyone's different but "doing the same thing over and over expecting different results is the definition of insanity" So if abstaining from PMO is difficult, try to first eliminate porn, then cut back on MO Peace
It looks like this is the gist of what you are getting at. And I feel like this is correct. It is one of the reasons why I don't want to use an internet filter. I need to find why I keep going to porn. I have spent all week, being in front of my computer all day and not looked at porn. But the second my wife goes out on an errand, it's non-stop porn. Why? Why is that a trigger for me? I'm not sure.
most likely you brain has experienced this combination of occurrences enough times to have it be an inadvertent trigger, Context-Based Reinforcement, in this case, we would call it something along the lines of "classical conditioning". Please google the above term, Read about it, for a simple look into it look at this link https://www.simplypsychology.org/pavlov.html we can see this in "the office" with Dwight and Jim's ticktacs if you know what I am talking about. In pavlovs example the dog salivates when a "bell" (actually a tuning fork) is rung, there is not a thought process involved, his brain has developed a path between food and the sound of that bell ringing. Your wife leaves, your junk (your brain actually) gets all "NOW IS THE TIME". same concept you need to undo this process, IT is very possible. One of the easiest way's to do this is called Systematic Desensitization while you will see this is directly applicable to anxiety, the application can be applied to many behaviors. http://www.guidetopsychology.com/sysden.htm Ask for more if you want, I here to help!
Yep. My wife left today, and while it took a while for me to start, boom. Porn, and this time with some unintentional masturbation. So, there goes my streak. Now I got to startover. But I think that's good for me. Now I know for a fact that I have an addiction. That being is still there inside my brain. It has not died yet. And I know he is there because of porn. Now, too, I know what edging is and why and how it is bad. Edging is the addiction itself, not M. I am not addicted to ejaculation, I am addicted to looking at girls. I need to develop a strategy and defeat this.
Great video! you got this man! the LSD stuff he mentions at the end is a fascinating area of addiction, anxiety, and depression treatment. Though it is in a heavily controlled context, don't try to treat yourself with hallucinogenics alone. haha.
