Dopamine withdrawal symptoms

I feel your frustrations man because I have the same exact feelings. The same ones- I battle with those thoughts almost every day. It comes down to the fact that we've done substantial damages to our brains. There are 86 billion nerve cells in the brain- a lot of them have been greatly impacted by pmo. Cocaine-like levels of dopamine release in the reward circuitry area of the brain, not to mention the euphoria that impacts many more neurotransmitters. Massive damage that formed our addiction. And it takes more time than we think to heal. The most important thing is patience and time. I've had reflections on how to speed the process up and to better my chances of me not relapsing. Have you heard of monk-mode? Essentially, it's living without artificial stimulation, or at least very minimal. This would rewire the brain in a way to make reading much more enjoyable because your neurotransmitter levels are more balanced and you have a lower baseline. This also takes time to master and see the fruit of. But I firmly believe in it as a lifestyle. I mean think about it. There's a reason why this generation doesn't read anymore. They're always on their phones, watching movies and tv, pmo. Those vices give them supernatural chemical releases. Almost impossible to enjoy a slow and low-dopamine activity like reading while doing that stuff. Take those diversions out and reading becomes much more attractive.

 

I do that, thanks, I cant eliminate it completely because I need to take classes online but I can minimize to the point I dont get hyper stimulus.. Also I feel safe that people go through what I am going through, so thank u for replying... Another thing we need to do is to remind everytime because I get the loneliest depressing feeling sometimes, they come in waves,like I start assessing my feeling and worked out rationally and start to feel great but after some time the wave return and I get back where i was.. It sucks

 

I'm in a similar situation as you- I work in an office all day, so I'm online much of the day. But that's the key right there I think, avoiding hyper stimulus. If we can avoid hyper stimulus activities, it will allow our brains to heal much quicker, while massively decreasing the probability of relapse. Just this past weekend, I sat down and watched my favorite team play college bball and I got pretty substantial dopamine spikes. Not ideal. I've had to deal with increase in pmo urges possibly because of the stimulation of the reward system in that way. Have you experience dopamine spikes from other hyper stimulus activities on your streak and how have they impacted you? I get the emotional cycle. We took the instant gratification lifestyle away, and we're left to deal with our emotions good or bad. Hang in there.

 

Bro I cant say any furthur how similar our experiences are.... One day, I decided to enjoy music videos of a new movie that came out and I was instantly feeling amazing to the point that all plans to avoid pmo urges faded away, but I sat down and started reading a book just to get distracted.. That day it worked....
But yesterday, bruuh... One advice I wanna give to all is dont break your sleep routine any god damn way unless its an emergency ofc, less amount of sleep one night will make ur brain go unfocused on literally everything the coming day....
I had a series of test so I prepared for those untill late night, only to find it hard to focus on questions and when I cane back I started to have unavoidable urges to watch something like pmo.. And I did , Later, I started journaling what happened and I came to reaslise that in the past when I was in low energy, I watched p stuffs to feel great... So I learned why, and how to avoid it again in future... And I started to take sleep very seriously

 

I dont call it a relapse because for relapse to happen u need to be in that dope seeking mindset for atlest 2 or 3 days... One time event and learned from it isnt relapse, its an experience to overcome during recovery

 

Yeah, I don't consider it a relapse since I didn't touch pmo. But I watched basketball again on Sunday because my favorite team was playing and the dopamine releases happened again. I think it was the fact that I watched basketball twice on tv was the killer. What's your thinking on that? Like you said, it needs to be something I learn and overcome in this recovery. I've rededicated to the monk-mode lifestyle with occasional music to get me through the increase in urges this week. I promised myself that I won't let something like that derail me again- need to see this through the fire.

 

Interesting experience you had with the music videos. Sounds like those were a source of dopamine release for you, hence you felt amazing. That's exactly how I felt after watching those games on tv. I just feel that those kind of things offer a short-term aid but can cause a slowing or backsliding of recovery and sparks a higher probability of relapse coming off that activity. Whenever I partake in an activity like you mentioned, then try to read, I can't. Coming down from a high-dopamine activity to a low one is tough.
I hear you on the sleep. Unfortunately for me, I struggle bad with insomnia and apnea during paws, so my sleep is usually bad. It's important for me that I don't allow bad sleep to affect my journey- that's the difficult part. Because like you said, the brain automatically wants to balance the stress of sleeplessness with pmo or high stimulus activities. If you can sleep well bro, definitely get your sleep schedule on point, especially with your recovery. If you can maintain that schedule, it will most definitely help you in your recovery and probably speed it up. On another topic, how often do you struggle with pmo urges? For me, the past four months, I haven't had pmo urges until this past week. I've had some of sexual urges (erections) but not pmo urges. That's why I was worried because the activities I was doing (watching basketball) seemed to have a cause in these pmo urges.

 

Bro... So similar. There is a pressing feeling of need to do something more enjoyable than low and slow activities after coming off the high..
As far as urges goes... Bruh I wasss sssoo close bro.... only if I thought rationally enough I could have got out of the urge trap... but I couldn't cuz I was tired after the test and less amount of sleep... its gonna take some days to get back on course again but it requires a lot of rational and conscious thoughts and actions, I m positive I can do it again and this time I will handle urges far better than I ever did... I promise myself

 

It's ok bro, just don't binge. Move on quickly and establish a new streak right away. You had a 7-8 month streak before this right? If so, I'm sure you made great progress. But yeah man, that's why I'm trying to maintain a low dopamine baseline life at all times, so I don't fall for those traps. I feel like if we can live a simple life without high stimulus, then freedom will much easier and life would be a lot better.

 

I wont and will never call that experience of mine as a relapse because relapse happens when u be in that urges mindset for quite a while even if u musturbated, after a while u do it again, this is relapse. But one time event such as mine especially due to unavoidable circumstances are experiences in the recovery journey, think for a moment if u never have this types of one time event, how can u possibly learn what your boundaries are, we forget something that we dont think of quite often. If we dont think of our boundaries how can we possibly make it a tough boundary?

Experiences like urself on getting dope from basketball, exactly happened to me. My trigger was not pmo, it was not sexual, but I vented with sexual activity thats what u can say...
My streak of 7+months is still intact cuz I m learning, and I get urges NOT from pmo stuffs... Bottom line!

 

Whatever your goals are, I hope you get there bro. I'm just not that way, in that one slip up like that gets me back to the start. But everyone is different. What are your the sources of your other urges? Video games?

 

I didn't intentonally watched pmo, my situation was a real life one, I should call it a relapse but not complete relapse, because for complete relapse u need to go back to the old habits and intentionally watch pmo, which I didnt, I even didn't feel alright searching up P on web, but instead I fantasized a real life girl, and thats how it all started... There is a lesson here: take into account real life events as possible triggers when we fantasize same that we did when we were first getting into this addiction.. And once I can get get a hold of it my journey of quitting it I think will be over.. Because I will be back to where I was pre addiction and start new positive habits instead... Thats my goal

 

That's a great goal. And you had a good realization there with triggers from real life. It's very important that we remain vigilant and not lust after women- control our eyes. And if that helps you move forward, then do it. The last thing we need is some minor slip up to drag us back to the addiction. Keep going.

 

Thank god my concentration and focus wasn't lost completely and getting depressed, it happend for 2 days but on the 3rd day these improved to the level I set before this slip up. Another thing I keep finding looking back all the days of slip ups, I got cold like I actually got flu like cold, symptoms like blocked nose, Cough, sneezing... Everytime I happened to release semen from slip ups, I usually get this, maybe there's a hidden power inside semen for a male body that provides it with huge immunity, ofc it does but I now have real life experience.. Lol.. U have this kind of experience?

 

And I watched a yt video on how to control lust over women (it was a recommendation btw idk how yt finds it) , and not to my surprise, I found the ways exactly similar to what you and I were discussing... we can win brother because we have real life experiences and not ways dictated by someone

 

I'm actually sick right now as we speak, so I hear you. But yeah, that happens to me. When I relapsed in the past, I would always get minor cold-like symptoms for a few days after. It seemed like my body was at a much lower state immunity wise after releasing. I also found that I get sick much more often when I go through paws, like I am now. I've gotten sick twice since starting this streak.

 

Nice man, yeah small compromises like lusting after women are the start of a big a fall. Better to be vigilant at all times. I've read of too many times where rebooters get too comfortable and confident and start compromising. Then they relapse after many months to year+. We must hold the line.

 

Sickness such as? I am having stuffed nose (blockes), dry coughing, again throat caught cold problem came up, shit, I just went through it and again I got it, anyway, its gonna take time, and this time, I m going to report to u directly whenever I go and do something like pmo.. This way I can be accountable

 

Yeah I have about the same thing as you. And same thing happened to me, I got sick then got better, then got sick again. It's been a long time since I've got back-to-back colds. It's crazy. Yeah bro, I'm here for you. Pm me whenever, I'll be here.