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To be free from porn you need to watch porn (in a different way)

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by ultrafabber, Jun 7, 2019.

  1. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

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    If you time-traveled and showed a caveman a video of a saber tooth tiger charging him, he would get absolutely mortified and hit the screen with a club or run away. That's because he can't discern reality from fiction. That's the same reason he will get sexually aroused to a naked and sexually inviting woman on a screen. Same thing with monkeys.

    That however does not make it normal - the caveman, the monkey or the porn addict all have poor reality testing. They process something incorrectly - there is no predator attacking them and there is no sexual available woman next to them.

    I've explained this in more detail in this topic https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.p...-you-get-aroused-by-women-on-a-screen.241099/

    There is no other way to handle a trigger than to confront it (gradually and systematically).

    You won't be wasting time, you will be working to be free of porn addiction and this takes a couple of minutes per day anyway.

    That's why you don't expose yourself to porn in the acute stage in the first place, which is something i mentioned in the OP. It's all very gradual and it also includes a period of abstinence only, which is also something i discussed in the OP. The abstinence period does not need to be that long as you're suggesting.

    Exactly, that's why exposure to trigger is a must, like i said, abstinence only does not help you acquire any skill in resisting a trigger.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2019
  2. Fenix Rising

    Fenix Rising Fapstronaut

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    All I'm saying, you can only try resisting a trigger after certain abstinence period. If you'd shown me porn 7 months back, said look at it as LCD pixels changing colors instead of women and left a room, I'd be PMOing the moment I'd lock the door. 7 months later I can see explicit material and not care about it. That's because of abstinence and new stress coping skills developed during this period. You can't expose chronic drug user to his drug of choice and expect that he/she'll be able to rationalize his/her behavior. It's mission impossible. It's not how our brains function. Mid-Brain does not think. It's hard-wired, impulse driven, survival mode outside of rational reach. You need "sent" PMO neuropathway to dormant state first, before you can analyze and rationalize it.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2019
  3. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

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    And I agree, it's just that the abstinence period does not need to be that long, especially because people relapse a lot.

    Except I am not suggesting a person should jump into porn immediately, there are other steps i've described that don't show any explicit material (opening and closing incognito window, typing the preferred porn site or actress and then closing the window, watching the logo of that site etc).

    What the OP describes is the endgame (watching porn without getting aroused) and the fundamentals about it. I'm not telling Jimmy, who just relapsed yesterday, to go watch porn.
     
    Last edited: Jul 14, 2019
  4. Fenix Rising

    Fenix Rising Fapstronaut

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    Abstinence period is defined by physiological factors. 6-11 months is not some magical number, it's actual time needed to regrowth addicts shrunken prefrontal cortex, so he can start taking his self control back... -> https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0059645
    https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.p...eeks-of-abstinence-to-cure-your-brain.233726/
     
  5. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

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    I am aware of those, it's just that they don't apply in this case, those were not part of cue-exposure therapy.

    If cue-exposure therapy (CET) worked on 2 week (minimum) abstinent opiate users it definitely works on other addictions including pmo addiction.

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17230050 Cue exposure therapy for the treatment of opiate addiction: results of a randomized controlled clinical trial.

    The CET group showed a significant decrease in physiological reactivity (skin conductance) - this is a very powerful and reliable physiological test.

    I can provide the full study in pm for you or anyone else interested.
     
    Last edited: Jul 15, 2019
  6. backtolife42

    backtolife42 Fapstronaut

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    Havent read all answers yet, but i think there are some usefull ideas to this excercice.
    Ill try to compare it to an alcoholic: the idea is that instead of avoiding every situation where you could come in contact with alcohol (which is pretty much impossible in our culture), you teach yourself to be able to hold a beer in your hand without drinking from it, to be around people who drink without participating in the act of drinking. I think watching porn on splitscreen all the time is definetely going to far, but the idea of exposing yourself to it in small doses and do excercices that help you deal with triggers could be helpful.
    So opening and closing a porn tab to break the habit of starting to binge once you see something arousing might actually be helpful. I might try this just to see whether or not there is something to it.
     
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  7. Abstract
    BACKGROUND:
    Persistent cue reactivity to drug-related stimuli is a well-known phenomenon among abstinent drug users and has been found to be a predictor of relapse. Cue exposure therapy (CET) aims to reduce this cue reactivity by exposing abstinent drug users to conditioned drug-related stimuli while preventing their habitual response, i.e. drug use.

    METHODS:
    127 abstinent heroin-dependent Dutch inpatients were randomized to CET (n = 65; 55 completers) and placebo psychotherapy treatment (PPT) (n = 62; 59 completers). It was examined whether CET would lead to a decrease in drug-related cue reactivity (using mixed-design ANOVA) and subsequently to lower dropout and relapse rates (using logistic regression) compared to PPT.


    RESULTS:
    Both groups responded with a similar decrease in self-reported cue reactivity (craving, mood). The CET group did show a significant decrease in physiological reactivity (skin conductance) compared to PPT. However, dropout and relapse rates were, contrary to our expectations, significantly higher in the CET group.

    CONCLUSIONS:
    This is the first randomized controlled trial showing that CET, compared to a non-specific psychotherapy, might increase dropout and relapse rates among abstinent heroin-dependent clients in a drug-free setting. Caution is warranted when applying CET in this specific context.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 26, 2020
  8. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

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    Yes, caution is required. But even if relapse happens 1/10 times, the person trains himself to resist 9 times. In abstinence, like i said throughout the whole topic, one gains no power to resist because running from something does not train you to resist it. If anything, it gives it more power.
     
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  9. Has anyone tried this method yet??
     
  10. That's not the point! The point is that you told only half of the truth.

    You said
    But you kept quiet about this:
    "dropout and relapse rates were, contrary to our expectations, significantly higher in the CET group."

    Ok, they exposed that group to certain cues and after a while the effect that the cues had on them had decreased. BUT the whole group was worse off than the control group that got "placebo psychotherapy treatment". So much for CET (in that specific setting) !

    No! It's just not true. Their resistance had decreased (in relation to the control group).


    Secondly, these were inpatients. The cue exposure was controlled and supervised by medical personal and scientist. One can't just copy this at home.


    Thirdly, what you're proposing is more than cue exposure. If that study was like your method the scientist would have handed out heroin in small doses to the addicts.
     
  11. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

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    You have to go back a few pages to get the context. The context is that people were saying that cue exposure is crazy and that it never works. This study proved them that it does work and that it generates physiological results (lowered physiological reactivity) to cues, whereas ppt does not. Cue exposure has been a technique used in addictions long before i had applied it here.

    Relapsing does not mean resistance has decreased, especially since the subjects were under significant load tests. A person relapsing once on cue exposure is subjected to higher temptations than one that is not doing anything and to much higher temptations than one who is abstaining. Comparing those groups like you did is like comparing two sheets of paper, one under a pound of load and one under ten pounds of load and saying that because the latter failed and ripped it is weaker.

    People on cue exposure will develop a much stronger capacity to resist cues if they keep with the program, even with relapses.

    I already mentioned that this should be done gradually, it is reckless and counter productive to start watching full blown hardcore porn from the start.

    Like i said in another topic, i am 32, started pmo to hardcore porn at 12 or 13. I've spent almost 20 years on hardcore porn. More than 90% of my "sex life" was hardcore PMO. Just thinking of porn would get me to relapse. Now i can watch it indefinitely, not get aroused and I feel no desire to masturbate. The trick with the silicone sleeve and penis also helped immensely.
     
    Last edited: Jan 28, 2020
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  12. Surely a real woman with a real vagina would work better?
     
  13. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

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    Yes and no, depends on the situation. If one has a partner of course he should not be watching other women as that is cheating. Watching pics of her could be a compromise as sex in two people is different to masturbation/jerking off and the solo part needs to be overwriten.
     
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  14. Doing soft mode reboot with my wife. We used to watch p0rn together and do our own videos at one point! Cleaning up now though...
     
  15. winningover

    winningover Fapstronaut

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    I have read the entire post along with comments. I feel that we all need to be open to different ideas and that is what this forum is for. If people with relapse issue try this and get help, there is no harm. If they fail through this method, its alright because they were relapsing anyways. He is not making it up and CET is found to be very reliable for substance abuse. I am just not sure as to how can this be used to tackle PMO. I definitely find it difficult to agree regarding the suggestion to watch porn as the end goal because watching porn itself is an addiction and not a cue in my opinion. I remember watching porn in my early teens and getting a hard on. My mind was not tied to M or O with porn at that time. I think we should just limit it to cues leading up to watching porn and NOT actually watching porn. Moreover, there are so many cues in daily life whether it be sexual scenes in movie/tv shows or social media which can naturally act as cues if you use them.
     
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  16. ultrafabber

    ultrafabber Fapstronaut

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    The reason you or any other man got a hard on was because of the sexually active woman. The stimulus - very powerful - is the woman and it can override negative stimuli, such as the man (that you lost access to her and that the other man has access etc). You end up discarding a very unpleasant scenario (seeing the woman you want sexually get it on with another man) at the expense of the pleasure you get seeing a sexual woman. You try to ignore the negative stimuli to get more of the positive/desirable one, your brain, and more specifically your young brain not being able to compartmentalize sexual arousal situations properly, which should be:

    1. solo woman = good
    2. solo man = bad
    3. woman with a man = bad (because of #2 and because you just lost access to that woman while the other man got access to her)

    You get a sort of bleeding and mix of stimuli.

    That's the same reason people end up pairing sexual arousal with many weird and unhealthy stuff like zoophilia/necrophilia or even to rape (even if they find rape wrong). Their perception of sexual availability/ sexual woman overrides the constraints.

    That's also the reason men end up jerking off even if the proper response is being disturbed for stroking a penis.

    The "positive stimuli" + "constraint" is a relationship that has two steps - [GO] and [STOP] and looks like this:

    She is a woman in a possible sexual scenario (this is the [GO]) BUT she is (this is the [STOP])

    • your mom
    • your sister
    • your daughter
    • she is having sex with another man
    • unconscious
    • dead
    • underage
    etc
     
    Last edited: Feb 5, 2020
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  17. gingeralan

    gingeralan Fapstronaut

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    This thread just sounds like the alcoholic that only drinks socially. If you are happy watching porn, crack on, but if, as most people here feel, you have a problem. Watching porn ‘in another way’ is a ridiculous suggestion
     
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  18. I found myself peeking at p0rn earlier, only for like 30-60 seconds, had to close the tab. Very dangerous in my books! If it had been any longer I might have relapsed!! Plus, I had a slight headache now.

    Day 47 and onwards...I don't count minor peeking as a relapse.
     
    gingeralan likes this.
  19. gingeralan

    gingeralan Fapstronaut

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    Well done interrupting the cycle, easy slip, but if you notice that you start doing it regularly then you may need to revisit your thought processes
     
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