So is there any evidence of long term neurological change due to a period abstinence from PMO? At this point many PMO addicts have a decade or more of addictive behavior which have modified neural structures. I know about neuroplasticity, but it seems like 90 days is paltry in comparison to a decade or more of porn addiction as far as the effect on reward centers/dopamine/etc.
All I can say is when I abstained for longer than 90 days I felt attracted to real women and not porn. Also I didn't have ED like I did when watching porn.
I don't think the studies on this have been done because there is so little research on pmo addicts to begin with. But I think you can look to studies on other addictions and recovery to see that yes the changes happen. 90 days by no means says you are fully recovered but it's a start! Most people who are clean from drugs still have cravings certainly after 90 days and many for the rest of their lives. So I've read in some discussions on here that years in pmo addicts do not crave it anymore but some do. I suppose it all depends. I have several friends that are ex smokers and some crave smoking quite frequently even 10 years out but others of the same time period want to get sick when they smell smoke. I think you feel some benefits immediately but the others may not come for years. I'm a SO and what I saw with my ex addict partner was that he needed to know with certainty that if he stopped that he would see results quickly and permanently and when he did not that gave him a reason to use again. Or he wanted some reassurance that once in recovery he could look at just a little bit of porn. So while I agree that the research is interesting and would be helpful I guess my question is why does it matter to an individual addict in the long run?
Thanks for the thoughtful response - "So while I agree that the research is interesting and would be helpful I guess my question is why does it matter to an individual addict in the long run?" In a word because of hope, otherwise it seems like a very 'spiritual' / personal process, and the alternative to recovery is really dark, still it would be great if there was evidence. I guess a parallel is weight loss, even though most people fail at keeping off weight, there is also research that shows it is possible and what strategies are successful and unsuccessful.
That's what I figured. The only thing I can say is that there is no guarantee even if the research was there. Like you said research shows it's possible to lose weight and keep it off but many people still struggle with that. You can look around on here and see many many men who have been able to do it. So it's possible. Honestly I think anything is possible if you put your mind to it. It's certainly not easy though and it takes a lot longer than most think it should.
