Greetings fellow Fapstronauts, I want to share some insights I have been having over the past two weeks around the process of rewiring my brain. I am deliberately using the word ‘rewiring’ rather than ‘rebooting’ which I know is popular in NoFappers vernacular. Warning: Long Post (I am writing this out first for myself, but also in the hope that other people might get something valuable from it.) From my perspective, what has happened is that we have simply wired our brains to value and enjoy the incorrect things. Same as a heavy smoker values the nicotine fix, we have taught ourselves to value visual and audio stimulation over real world experiences. Once we've made this connection and got it wired up, it's easier to just keep using this wiring, and reinforce the behavior patterns. Over time, we get so used to thinking and behaving in that way, that it becomes 'normal'. I've read a lot of posts where people say things like ‘I can’t stop myself’ or ‘the urge is so strong right now’. I can relate to this completely. This was my mindset for years. But just in the past two weeks, I am finally seeing things from a different perspective. What I think we are saying when we say we ‘can’t stop’ is that our brains are still responding to old wiring. We might have some new ideals and hopes floating around in our heads, but the old wiring is still running the show. From what I understand about human brains, you can’t actually stop thinking something, but you can replace your current thinking with some specifically different thinking. In essence, you can build new wiring that supersedes the old wiring. I’m using the term ‘rewiring’ to mean creating new wiring. And here's the most important thing I've learned. Even if you've been using a certain type of 'old wiring' for years, by creating new wiring (i.e. rewiring) you can change a lot faster than just trying to ignore the old wiring in the hope it will go away. So far I have had two insights that are really helping me to rewire: 1) Seeing porn for what it really is: pixels and sounds When you break down PMO, we have wired our brains to connect sexual stimulation to a bunch of pixels and sounds. They’re not real, but they are so close to real that we mistake them for something sexually stimulating. This might seem oversimplified, but think about it for a minute: if the porn you are viewing becomes too pixelated, you wouldn’t be aroused as much. And if you lost the sound, or it was badly distorted, it would cease to be appealing either. The pictures and videos we view aren’t real; they are just packets of information we are choosing to identify sexual feelings with. But if you choose to identify them as only pixels and sounds, they start to lose appeal. I have been looping this idea over and over in my head, and I have to say it is helping incredibly to break any urges I feel. I keep reminding myself that with porn, I was never actually looking at nudity or sex, I was looking at pixels and sounds. 2) Feeling strong pleasure about my real world activities Whenever any ‘old wiring’ kicks in and says ‘hey let’s PMO’ it's actually because I am seeking pleasure. So knowing I want some pleasure, I start to cycle through my positive emotions about how great I feel right now already without PMO, and how good the benefits of my real life are. (Note: this requires actually doing things in real life that I feel good about). This is important to understand: instead of feeling negative emotions of denying myself PMO, I actually make myself feel positive emotions about how good my life is already. I let those emotions wash through me for as long as they last. What this does is gives me the pleasure response I was seeking from PMO and sates the urges. I have already got my emotional hit, and it came from the real life activities I’m doing. This might seem strange when reading it, but try it a few times and see if it works for you. Keeping things Objective I know for some people, all this might seem like psuedo-neuroscience talk. And on some levels, it probably is. But I also know it is working for me. I am becoming a different person than I have been for maybe the past 15 years, all because of rewiring this area of my brain. This week is way better than last week, and two weeks ago seems like a totally different world I was living in. Of course, it is still tough not PMO at times. I occasionally forget about the idea of old wiring and fall back into negative emotions. But the more objective I get about this, the more I reinforce my new wiring, the less control it has over me. Hope these ideas help you.
Brilliant. For point number 2, you have totally just re invented what has been happening to me over the past couple of weeks. I am currently on day 69 of 122 without PMO. My main deal was all of the time I was wasting on the puter watching, now I have realized it is so much more than that. I was hiding from things I think I didnt want to see in my relationship and in my life. It is amazing how much more effect positive emotions and affirmations have now that I am porn free and looking at the world through different eyes. It is like a re awakening of my old self, and it is freaking awesome. I used to be the one that lived moment to moment and usually enjoyed myself as much as possible. Did bad things happen, yeah, but the positivity that was, and is becoming again, didnt allow me to be phased and I always came out on top. I see that happening again, and people are responding to me in a whole new way too. This rewiring as you call it is the best decision I have made in years. Now we will just wait til the me is totally back again, and see how everything pans out. Not to worried tho, back to that idea that I will always come out on top. I now do not even feel a need to look at porn, so the urges are gone and dont have to fight anymore, which makes it so much easier to find the pleasure in real world activities. Thanks for the post.
I completely agree with you there Volition, I have been thinking along the same lines. Hey and it's not pseudoscience if it's based on evidence and open to revision after testing!
Thanks guys, I am glad it makes sense and is of use. Triballion, I am glad you liked # 2. This idea about making yourself feel positive thoughts and pleasure is especially hard to articulate, because we often think that the pleasure rush is coming from external sources. But it is actually us choosing to feel pleasure in response. We can turn on this pleasure feeling anytime we want, and in response to whatever we want. Sisyphus, I wasn't sure if this was too esoteric for the forum, but it has helped me greatly the past two weeks, so wanted to share.
Number 1 is the link I've been trying to find. I never could find a way to separate porn and the real sexual feelings we all experience without thinking negatively about the "urges." But telling myself porn isn't real and that feeling these urges is quite okay and is just misdirected kinda helps me organize my mental map a bit better. That is, I can think of porn as something unwanted, but still think about sexuality in a positive light. I don't know if I made sense, but basically number 1 helped me explain to myself how to disconnect porn from the urges. It makes sense in my head, just getting it down in words is a tad difficult.
Thanks for the feedback guys, glad these ideas helped. LuckyDuck - I can definitely relate to what you are saying, I always struggled with feeling bad about sexual urges, like I needed to shut them down. But once I started to look at porn as not real (ie. a bunch of pixels and sounds) it made it much easier to separate my urges. The more clear we get on these things for ourselves, the easier it becomes to change.
Volition point 1 really makes lots of sense when you break porn down to what it is, and it is bunch of pixels and sound waves that we let our brain interpret as real Sex! I think if we can see it for what it is, in its true essence we won't be tempted by it. Its an illusion that we allow our mind to be tricked into believing its reality. I think it wouldn't be a bad idea to reaffirm these words to oneself on a daily basis. Thanks for sharing! Peace, -A.M.
Thank you for posting. I really enjoyed reading the post, and reading posts, and replying, are part of my recovery, so thanks. For me the recovery began with four words: "I am an addict". Am I an addict? I don't know. The scientists are still debating whether porn can be addictive. For a long time I rationalized that since the scientists did not agree there could be an addiction, I could not be an addict. But, for me, my recovery began with those four words because with those four words I could begin to look at my situation as an illness that could be understood, treated, and cured. Once I understood I had an illness, I could begin to study it, understand it, educate myself as to what had happened. Like you I came to understand that my brain's normal, natural, chemical wiring had been rewired by porn. But...I only realized with education. Initially I did what many of us did when quitting; I told myself I did not want to do it any more and said I would stop. And I did stop, for two or three days at a time, over and over. That is a mistake commonly made; thinking will power alone, the decision to stop alone, is enough. For most of us, it is not. I have found we need two things: education, and tools. The education part for me was huge. I began to study and realized my brain's chemical wiring system had become imbalanced through excessive use of porn. Yourbrainonporn.com is a great starting point. What I liked about your post, Volition, is that you pointed out something I took a long time to understand, and that was that for each of us, we have some very specific triggers that release those chemicals. For me, at this point in my recovery, I try and avoid any sexual imagery or thought, but the specific trigger I developed was hardcore vids. Still pictures, Playboy, Penthouse, are not good for me, but the porn video, with moving pics and sound, is what became very problematic for me. Even vids without sound are not a huge trigger, but the vids with sound are what especially triggers my brain to release the chemicals. It's not real of course, but our brain reacts to it just the same. Our brains, well at least for those of us with this problem, do not distinguish between those images on the screen and actual, real, sex. In fact, because with porn our brains believe we have access to limitless sexual encounters, and we are wired for our brain to reward that, our brains pump out tons of dopamine in response to porn, a lot more than with just plain, sexual, thoughts. That's the trap. We don't intuitively know that when it is happening, but with prolonged porn abuse, our brains actually come to reward porn over real sex. When I finally quit "stopping" and got educated, I realized I had rewired my brain with hardcore pornography. That was huge for me because I recognized that I could put a name and definition on the problem, and that the problem could be addressed by employing certain tools to wean myself off the fix. I realized will power alone was not sufficient for me, I needed some help, and this site and others are a big help. Yourbrainonporn has been a great help. The first thing I did in my recovery was to break the PMO cycle. This was trial and error at first, no one said this was a good first step, but it was my first step, and it was helpful for me. I did not quit P for a long time, and the temptation is still there, but I broke the P from the MO. It took time but breaking the P from the MO gradually greatly reduced the MO. I found it very difficult to stop looking at P, but sites like this educated me that certain tools help. Early on in my recovery, back when I thought I could control it and deal with it myself, on my own, I thought porn blockers were ridiculous. I thought that if I did not have enough self control not to look I was pitiful. But, truth it, I was pitiful. Putting on porn blockers has greatly reduced my porn usage. I compulsively looked at porn, but the porn blockers give me that one moment to pause and remind myself that I have a problem, why I put them on the computer in the first place. I cannot say I never look at porn or never will in the future, but my porn use now--well its been a while since I looked, as opposed to looking multiple times every single day. Also, though I cut back significantly on porn, I had to learn not to think about it. Porn is fake sex, but the brain does not distinguish. Thoughts about porn are also fake sex that the brain cannot distinguish, so, deliberately choosing not to engage in or linger on sexual thoughts has helped. In fact, at this point in my recovery, I avoid all sexual imagery, which is quite difficult. It's everywhere, even if not pornographic. I am watching a college basketball game, right now, for instance, and I don't even allow myself to linger on the cheerleaders. I don't think I ever thought about having actual sex with a cheerleader I saw on television, but now that I am aware that any sexual imagery sets off some brain chemicals, I just try and avoid it altogether. When I first began quitting I could not O with my wife. Now, after about 18 months, with about the last 4 being a very serious effort, I only O with my wife (unless I relapse, which has happened, but I am not multiple PMOing every day, which is where it had gotten to). I make a conscious effort not to watch P, which has been pretty successful, and I rarely M, and if I do M, I try seriously not to think about P. I cannot say I have slain the dragon, so to speak, but I am consciously making a serious effort to do with and having some real life changes in those patterns. In conclusion, your words on rewiring are very true, and I think anyone serious about quitting must view the process as rewiring the brain's chemistry, which has become imbalanced as a result of excessive porn. If you have not read about, google the "Coolidge effect and internet porn". It's an education. And thanks again for posting. Reading posts and responding to posts are one of the tools I use to combat this thing, and it helps. I recommend not just reading, but posting as well.
