999th Attempt to quit PMO

Dude....if you've tried 999 times don't quit now. You can def try one more time at least. Don't give up!

 

Hey lee, that is the way I was in the beginning. Then I made a decision that I was going to quit trying, and actually quit. I had to want to experience the pain of withdrawal over the reward of the dopamine release. That was hard, that was like asking the question: which do you prefer to eat, ice cream or shit? Addicts who quit realized (metaphorically speaking) they have to eat the shit and pass on the ice cream. Quitting porn is hard, HARD, and to quit you have to want that pain, not just expect it, not just accept it is going to happen, but seek it out. Everyone who tries to quit knows that pain is going to happen, but those who successfully quit, really quit, understand that they cannot quit without feeling the pain, can't; going through the pain, seeking it out, embracing it, is necessary to quitting. I see a lot of guys here acknowledging that quitting porn involves withdrawals, but what they don't really say is that withdrawals are not just a side effect of quitting, they are a stage of recovery that is necessary to quitting. You have to tell yourself you will never ever do it again and accept you will not use porn again--hard thought for us addicts. I mean never, you will never see it again. Porn is seeing it, PMOing to it, thinking of it, remembering it, imagining it and porn substitutes (non porn imagery that sets off the dopamine reward). You have to embrace how incredibly difficult quitting porn is. By embrace I mean you have to want the discomfort of porn withdrawal over the dopamine reward porn gives, (you have to want the shit, and pass on the ice cream) but not merely want it, in my opinion you should seek it out because you have to know being quit, stopping completely, is a place on the other side of that pain; you cannot get there without going through that, so go through it. Embrace the fact that when you quit you are going to go through withdrawals, have all kinds of nasty unpleasant feelings, have huge temptations that you must plan on having and denying, but understand that is part of the process of quitting, and that until you go through it you can't quit, so go through it. When you quit you can't just plan on not viewing porn, you have to plan, also, on the pain that comes with not viewing porn.

Let's say you live in a house and the sewer pipe breaks. You have raw sewage in your basement. It's nasty, it smells bad, it's gross. You hate cleaning it up, its a horrible chore to do, you have to load buckets and buckets of crap, fill them up, they are very heavy, and carry them outside to dump them, then do it again. For hours. lee, you're going to do it because you don't want to live with that crap in your house, you want a clean house. The bad feelings we have in quitting porn are a lot like cleaning up after a sewer pipe breaks, it's unpleasant, its difficult, and it will not be any other way, but it has to be done to have a clean house.

I wish you peace on your journey.

 

I AM Greg Plitt. OK, seriously no, but you have to quit it. Plan on, expect, the pain of quitting. Look for it, want it. Its the worst feeling in the world, like losing a loved one. Hell, it IS losing a loved one; we have relied on it almost like a friend so long we go into mourning when its gone. But its gotta go.

Good luck.