A different approach to PMO rehab for newcomers (maybe even for experienced folks)

I love NoFap and the NoFap community and what I'm about to write in this post I think will help newcomers to our community as opposed to more experienced individuals.

When I first started NoFap, I used the brute force method. Meaning I was exerting willpower to stay away from PMO and was really seeing it as like a monumental challenge to overcome (which it is and when you do overcome it you'll feel like you've climbed Mount Everest). But recently I've done a lot of reading about habits and other addictions and I've noticed something.

A lot of people who have been successful at PMO have written about how they've picked up new habits and hobbies as a result of quitting PMO. But I think there's a small quirk in this. I believe people have quit PMO because they have picked up new habits and hobbies.

Let's dissect this. PMO we know basically short circuits or dopamine neural pathways in the brain. It gives us an unlimited source of pleasure that our brain just can't handle. That's the reward the good feeling of dopamine. And usually what triggers us to engage in PMO is boredom, or anxiety/worry about life, ______(insert negative feeling). We do it to get away from the reality of life.

But replace PMO with activities that most abstaining NoFap members mention and you see a similar pattern. For example, a very popular new habit NoFappers pick up is exercising. If you feel unsatisfied about life and go workout for an hour (your escape from reality) what'll happen is that you get endorphins which essentially mimic the good feeling you get from PMO except you don't feel drained from expending semen.

And this works with almost every new habit I've seen on the forum (meditating, art, making music, etc.). Replace PMO with some other thing that can help you escape the worries of life and makes you feel good after, and slowly you'll lose the urge to PMO. And that's important.

As long as you desire to engage in PMO you'll never get rid of it. Only by seeing PMO as a meaningless activity that only stands to harm you (when done in excess) and losing that desire will you be successful in ridding it from your life.

The books I've read and highly recommend you read are The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg and The Easyway to Stop Drinking by Alan Carr. The second book I merely picked up because I heard about it in a Joe Rogan podcast and how it made a woman totally quit alcohol by just reading the book once. After reading it, it became apparent that a good amount of logic could be applied to almost any bad habit you pick up. Anyways I hope this helps some of you, feel free to comment below if you want to discuss.