There’s one nagging trigger in my life. I’m a loner, hardly any close friends and they’re all out of town. When I go to visit those friends I have a great time. They live 300 miles away in a rural area and I love it out there, so relaxing. The problem is when I come home from those trips. I get so down/depressed that I slip into the dreaded DGAF zone and end up giving into porn. Only one plan works to avoid this after return from those visits. It’s when I go straight to work from their house after the visit. After that the temptation goes away. My house seems to be a huge culprit in my stumbles. If I can avoid my house I avoid the PMO. But unfortunately I can’t always go straight to work after a visit and end up at home. It’s not 100% of the time that I have a relapse but it’s been too many times. Anyone relate to this in some way?
I would suggest that you aren't taking active steps to incorporate your new lifestyle into your old environment. Typically, our brain feels a certain way around a certain environment. If you aren't actively changing your thought pattern your old brain might be slowly chipping away at the mindset you've worked so hard to achieve. However, if you aren't just letting this happen but, in fact, are pursuing a better lifestyle internally and externally, then this occurrence might be due to things that happen during your trip to your friends' houses. Either to, during, or from the trip, something is going on that is triggering a destructive thinking pattern. Just be attentive as to what's going on in that noodle of ours. My guess- traveling may be a reason for bad eating habits which lead to feeling bad. I know its weird, but if our bodies aren't getting what they need, our primal brain might take over. There was an experiment on rats who had a button put in their cages that was linked to giving them a dose of dopamine (not sure how). These rats would continually press the button even unto starvation as long as it felt good (tasty and salty foods). These rats ended up starving themselves to death. This could be alluding to how fast foods and processed foods may quell that stomach gurgling for a while, ultimately it leads to malnutrition. I've actually read about how PMO causes imbalance of the adrenal system, allowing cortisol to wreak havoc on our dopamine receptors, must like the rat being addicted to pressing the button, until death. My suggestion- as per this article: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16162447 massage therapy helps rebalance this system, as well as correct eating habits. Maybe all of the travel time could be closing off key functions of your body that massage can help with. (Deep tissue, hot stone, etc.) Hope this helps! With prayer, Anthony (AJ)
Outstanding input! Thanks very much. One thing that immediately came to mind reading the first part of your message is new lifestyle choices haven’t really happened dramatically at home. When at home I waste time on the computer. Before it was with porn, now it’s primarily with non-sexual videos. Still it’s wasting time. Going to change that now! Get good goals for the house and stick with it. Thanks so much for these inputs.
