I just finished reading "The Power of Habit" and it was life changing. It was a very simple idea that can be translated to porn addiction. In short, the author said every habit we develop is the same loop Trigger > Trained Mechanism > Reward. So for instance: The trigger is you are hungry. Your trained mechanism is to go to the store and buy food. The reward is nutrition and survival. Porn is the same way. The trigger is lonliness/boredom. The trained mechanism is watch porn. The reward is a huge dopamine hit. The bigger the reward the harder the habit is to break and the more ingrained it is. It's very hard to leave a high paying job even if it is shity because the money reward is so high. It's hard to leave a shitty relationship if the person is very attractive even if they are assholes. So with porn, we have to put something in it's place to change the habit. For me, soccer and guitar have done things. When I am bored or lonely I just go play soccer or jam out. It's not as big a hit as the dopamine of porn, but because I have multiple trained mechanisms built in (Guitar, gym, soccer, etc) I am able to groove those into habits and still get rewards that are palpable and valuable.
Too bad this post can't be stuck to the top somewhere with the title: "If You're Not Doing This, Failure Is Likely To Happen". I think it's one of the most important things in getting away from porn. The most important, in my opinion, is having a change in our attitudes. Having something that replaces the porn is number 2. For me it's been climbing, photography, and traveling. I do those things or I'm thinking about when I'll do them next.
Hey man, i'm currently reading The Power of Habit too. Because of this book i know i can fight this PMO habit. I think it said in the book that habit is never gone, but it always can be change. Thank for sharing!
I agree. In my time of my self improvement I have done many methods of trying to cure my addictions. White knucking was good for a while but always crashed. Running from it with adrenaline activities and highly risky sexual encounters with non attractive women. That only fed the fire. Reading and watching every motivational video and book also added some info, but didn't really cure it. The only thing that really feels "full" is this method of habit replacement. Porn will ALWAYS be an option to cure boredom, just like heroine is also an option and slapping my balls against the wall. The thing is I have the CHOICE about which options to let in and groove and which ones to avoid.
