My Problem with nofap

I can relate to your struggle. I haven't beat PMO yet, so I don't claim to have the secret to success, but like you are describing above, I used to think of beating PMO as a pure struggle of will power; there is so much more to it than that. I think beating PMO, as with any addiction, requires a fundamental psychological shift. I think how you view the problem is just important as your strategy for beating it. Understanding the problem helps you deal with it because it can improve your self-esteem, help you feel less depressed and hopeless, and improve your confidence, all of which are things that contribute to improved self-control and "will power".

I spent the first 10 - 12 years of my PMO habit fighting kind of like you are describing above. I was just trying to will my way through it, which resulted in me being depressed about my problem because I every time I failed, I thought it was because I was too weak or didn't have "will power". It caused me to be hard on myself which just made it even harder to have "will power". In recent years, I have tried to understand the science of addiction better and really evaluate my self worth from an objective standpoint with the new understanding I've gained. It has improved my hopefulness and self-esteem, which in turn has given me more "will power".

Just understanding that there are actual chemical dependencies involved makes me blame myself less. I don't feel like a bad person or a pervert anymore. I feel like someone who is dealing with a disease of the mind. I excuse myself for my failures. This attitude has helped me relapse less often and have a better overall outlook on life.

So I guess my short answer is that, if you don't already have a solid understanding of the science of this addictions, I strongly suggest you look through some of the threads talking about the biology/psychology of porn addiction and check out some of the articles. I would give you some links myself, but I learned most of the science stuff about this from a physical book.

While I think everyone has to find their own strategies that work, and my experience has been that no single strategy is effective at preventing PMO all the time, I do have a couple practical suggestions.

1. Try to create a PMO urge response routine. Try to train yourself so that whenever an urge hits, the first thing you do is offer yourself an alternative. Pick something really easy to do, but that makes you think or become physically active, and then say, "I will not PMO until I do X for Y minutes"--you'll have to discover how long you need to do your escape activity before you forget about your urge. As an example, if you liked reading, you could say when an urge comes "Okay, I'm not going to PMO until I've read [insert book title here] for 15 minutes. The hope is that after reading for 15 minutes (or however long it takes for you) you'll have forgotten about your urge and just keep reading or whatever. It's kind of like trying to trick yourself out of PMO because your not all out denying yourself PMO, you're just saying, "I have to do this other thing first". If it works right, you get distracted and forget you even wanted to PMO. Anyway, that has worked for me often.

2. If you feel the beginning of an urge, try to convince yourself it's not a big deal. This obviously won't always work, but I've been able to stop small urges early on before they become big urges by doing this. Getting panicked about an urge is likely going to lead to PMO. In a sense, the more scared or nervous you let yourself get about it, the more power you give the urge, and the more likely you are to fail. Sometime when I just feel the slightest hint of an urge, I just talk to myself mentally. I just say "This isn't a big deal. I'd rather do something else with my time." Some of my longest runs without PMO have been using this strategy. I find this strategy works better the longer you've gone, so it might not be super helpful if your relapsing daily.

Anyway, I have a lot of little strategies I've tried, but those are the two I can think of off the top of my head.

 

I was struggling with he same thing you are currently going through, I had the drive but couldn't kill my addiction on willpower alone. Although I still struggle, I have gotten much better at controlling myself. As De-bonaire stated above, a huge factor for me was understanding addiction and how it works in the mind and our surrounding environment. I think these articles will help you more understand the addiction and maybe give you some concrete examples for change. I know they have done a lot for me, I have not completely conquered my addiction, but am well on my way. With every failure, I'm stronger.

Here is a great article and also a pretty informative video, hope this helps:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/johann-hari/the-real-cause-of-addicti_b_6506936.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU

 

It's not about the will power. It is about finding better ways to spend your spare time. So instead of focusing only on how to not relapse again, try to develop new , healthier habits that will make you feel relaxed and give you feeling of fulfilment. Do some research, find your passions. Allow yourself to grow as an individual. Educate. You have to shift your whole mindset therefore read more, learn about yourself and world around you. Release your potential. If you surround yourself with healthier and wiser things, you find yourself less vulnerable to urges, because relapsing just doesn't seem attractive anymore. Therefore take a moment and think about other things that you waste time on everyday, then ask yourself are there really bringing you closer to a person you want to become. Altought it was stated numerous time on this forum, i'll say it again-it is about changing your whole lifestyle.

 

Great answer!

Following your advice!