Why doesn't nofap work?

Transforming Self Requires Thoughts to Change , We have trained our body and mind to do the same stuff.. Take for example any routine we do daily like brushing teeth any other activity if u want to stop that can u do it.. No.. Mind always Chose the Easy and Routine path .. In order to break it.. we need to Take Hard Path ..and Tell our stupid mind.. don't do the mistake again ..

Realization ,Conviction and Ambition are very important .. If we want to achieve something in Life.. Better We Take the Hard Path ..and Tell our mind.. I can change.. I will ...

 

There are many reasons:

1. We are not experts on recovery, and most of the time we don't have an access to professional help.
2. Willpower is limited, it will eventually end, and even if you have enough, it comes at a cost.
3. There is always a chance of simply switching addictions instead of recovering. For example, if one start to take (more) drugs or alcohol then they quit porn, it's not a recovery, it's just bingeing in a different way. If that's the case, old addictions may come back easily, because you leave the door open, so to speak. Addiction mechanism is generally the same for any type of addiction.
4. Addictions are incurable, only remissions are possible. It means that if you were addicted, you'll never be normal again.
5. Addictions are progressive. What works today to abstain, may not work tomorrow, because the disease tends to get stronger and more sneaky. People describe it as running up the escalator that goes down - you need to move constantly even just to stay in your place, let alone going up.
6. It can get worse when you have some other problems, like a break-up, unrequited love, death of a family member, etc.
7. There's always a chance of relapse due to some random external events, like seeing something triggering at a wrong moment.

I know literally hundreds of people with various types of addictions, and even those who abstain from whatever they see as their problem, they often fall into other traps. Addiction is like a hydra: cut one head, it grows the other.

 

This is a wonderful - but really, really painful - question, @karakolt.

I desperately want to believe that addiction - this addiction, specifically - is curable. That one day it will somehow be gone like a whisp of smoke in a strong breeze. What I have seen both in myself and in others suggests the opposite, though. Perhaps supportive of this is the fact that the people I know who have longstanding sobriety from pmo still do this work on a daily basis.

So no answers, I'm afraid. Just an affirmation that, like it or not, we are probably in this for the long haul.

With a heavy sigh...

 

I was on day 150 streak before I relapsed. To my surprise, three things happened: my willpower just ran out, I relapsed hardcore and binged. It took me 2 full months just to stop the binge then finally stopped the relapses.

Addiction can be progressive so I’m full aware that if I relapsed next time, it will be even more harder to quit so my focus has shifted to getting through the day now, not counting the streak numbers

 

I have read books - Every Man's Battle, and Blazing Grace - which are written by men who have overcome the addiction to PMO. I know it is possible and wonder why I can't seem to permanently quit. In my opinion it has to do with our inclination to sin and search for satisfaction/pleasure.

I am a Christian and have never been into drugs, smoking, or alcohol. They have no pull for me as I can see the negative effects. I have friends who struggle with these addictions daily. People are created differently but are susceptible to many temptations.

Porn addiction for me is about insecurity, secrecy, and loneliness. My desire for PMO is equal with my desire to be loved by a woman. I've experienced very hurtful breakups and have turned to PMO for comfort only to be caught up in what seems like a never ending cycle of guilt and shame.

I've realized that I don't have the willpower or capability to stop on my own. I believe God is the only true satisfaction and I continue to seek Him. The journey is difficult, with many setbacks. I've wanted to give up many times but choose to believe that real change/recovery is possible.

I want to encourage you. You are not alone in this. I pray for all who struggle with our addiction and that those who don't know Jesus will seek him and find what they are searching for. One of my favorite songs from my favorite band Alter Bridge says, "I'm cold and I'm so afraid
That I'm too weak and I can't change". It goes on to say "let me breathe again, and show me where I begin, to find the will to change, before I lose everything". It will not be easy but hold on to what you have to gain by quitting PMO - freedom.

 

I agree that chance of relapse occurs more due to external events, i believe we need to stop external events affecting our self . tough days will be there for every person ,it doesn't mean need to get addicted to any substance. Getting Addicted will not solve any problem it only kills Time and character of the person . So Our Behavior must not get affected by external things and Grow Will Power ..
Nothing is Impossible .. Let us work towards making better mind and better world ..

 

you should firstly quit pm and find a girl. trying hard mode if you still masturbate to porn every 6 days is pointless and stupid.

btw, if you really cut off pm from your life like i did you'll 100% find a girl, a assure you this.

 

This is exactly right.


I'll elaborate:

Most people in the industrial world just want to take a pill and be cured. "What to do when [...]?" > Get quick answer from X > Do it > Be cured.
That won't durably work here. And if it does, it probably means that you were one of those whose PMO Pattern wasn't running too deep, and should consider yourself lucky!

Addictive behaviors (not only talking about addiction in the strictest sense here, because most addictive behaviors are a pain in the ass but can't be defined as pathological) are consolidated in our biological structure, and at the end of the day it's not just a matter of instantaneous willpower-laden decision, because the neural pathways that are built around this habit are much stronger and durable than any kind of instantaneous willpower that you can muster. The neural pathways are the hardware of your body and brain information integration and action networks. You build them without noticing with everything you do : Get your hand on a fire twice, and the third time there will be a motor reflex automatically pulling your hand from the hazardous area : It's learning, and it's "written" with your cells. Most of our behaviors (including most of our emotional responses, even spiritual and political ones, cf related studies) can be traced to basic neural networks, which tend to react in the exact same way to the exact same stimuli : it's the reason you shield your eyes from the sun (it hurt before, don't want to do it again), why you can't hear this song again (it revives a strong emotion that you don't want around) or can't change you dad's mind about politics (he's litterally built around those convictions). This exists so our biological selves doesn't have to take the long decision route everytime something new arises : it would be extremely tiring to live like that. Instead, this system makes it easy to integrate (and automate) a large number of things that our body doesn't even have to realize or think about - the behavioral patterns are time and energy and attention savers.

Those are great when you learn a new language or to walk or recognize the faces of your parents after birth, or learn that a fire burns and a blade cuts and oh shit this spoonful of soup is burning my tongue again.

Those are the culprits of the durability of the addiction, not the substance/behavior itself (see below). Their strength is defined by how long + much + often + hard we've engaged in a behavior AND how well + adequate our biology believes this substance/behavior is good for us. We then engage in a repetitive cycle to reproduce the behavior and get something from it, ad libitum.

When it's about eating when hungry : nothing wrong, there's a good chance that you'd fall seriously ill if you decided to stop eating when hungry - just look at someone facing malnutrition issues, it's not pretty. We eat stuff because our body is capable of getting basic building blocks from it, which helps it survive and do it again. So this behavior has a purpose : being able to do it again. Aka PRESERVATION (of the self, in this case).
When it's about getting your copulating organ in order to emit sexual cells capable of creating a new individual, it's about the species preservation, and it's one of our biological bodies' main goal. Problem is, the body doesn't know the difference between a real act and your hand's grip, and whatever excites you at this moment is taken as "good reproductive material, let's watch wome more", and reinforces the neural pathways to do so.(This is summed up, but you get the idea).

Just like when you're hungry and you face this will to open the fridge/pick that apple from the tree, there's a will to make you fuck whatever's around and it's just biological basic needs. (Fortunately, society came around and went "you can't fuck anything, you have to get a ring on it blablabla" but that's another story). Both those needs can be severely unbalanced py psychological issues or unbalanced stimulation : if the food's too good (i.e. the stimuli is way stronger that the most abundant reality), you'll get fat because it's good and you'll keep on eating. I can guarantee that if you had only a few salad leaves and a bowl of rice for meal, you'd stop when the bowl is over. Whereas this cake is so good... will get... one more chunk.... Same for the fucking, if the stimulation (aka' PORN) is too strong (and P really is, compared to the most abundant reality), THIS is what your body will tell you to persue. And this only because it gets a better "high" from it. Which in turn, if your circumstances/education/disponibility/inhibitions/etc allow, can build a vicious circle of behavior seeking, leading to ever increasing amounts of stimulation (Compulsion to use), leading to potentially pathological/dangerous/fraudulent acts (in spite of negative Consequences), etc etc : The 4 "C"s of Addiction. Bottom line is you can't get addicted to drinking petrol, because there's probably nothing in your body that will encourage you to do so.
​

Getting rid of an addictive pattern (pathological or lighter) demands that those neural pathways are put out of order, and since that almost never happens in the nervous system, we must build and activate other networks (it's called reinforcement) which we need to make stronger than the previous ones. This will abandon the previous ones and let them hibernate.

And this is one of the reasons why NoFap and (the initial) abstinence works in getting rid of an addictive pattern such as PMO. You don't use them, you replace those old behaviors with new ones which end up carrying the same function (i.e. compensating for something) with in turn a beneficial cycle that takes place, reinforcing self-esteem and pride of the accomplishments we're achieving etc. If this is preserved long enough (your mileage may vary), PMO will be a bad dream that used to happen to someone you used to be. Although there will always, ALWAYS be the old neural pathways inside your brain, ready to be activated whenever you engage in the same behavior.

This has multiple consequences, and they're the reasons the OP is mentionning in his/her post :

• Consistency is key - if we manage to stay free for 6 months but then relapse and decide to binge, all effort will be instantaneously lost because the old pathways are very quick to regain their strength. Ever heard a saying about picking up bicyle riding? (Hint : you can't unlearn it). Same thing. And it's a hard one, since many people are harrassed in their daily lives and can't push their efforts long enough. This leads to :

• Discouragement is common - People trying and seeing that they never feel "completely free" often fail and stop trying. They're using the "get pill = get cured" approach, which can't work. It's not a disease (i.e. can be cured), since it's using a hardware which is specifically designed to make you more efficient at something and holds the very foundations of you. You can't go against it directly, or remove it without some help - yours (as described before), or something like hypnosis or "low involvment methods", etc etc. So after trying many options they find they can't just focus their efforts on this and leave the rest of their lives hanging. That's right, the complexity of our lives keeps us under, which leads to :

• Environmental factors are shitty - What we do with our lives is too often defined by external circumstances, be it bills to pay, health considerations, economic fluctuations, family issues, security etc etc. And those factors sort of define a space where you evolve (what we call "my life") and pretty much try to do as best we can. This is extremely important : those factors define our reactions/attitudes/efforts to a degree, and our addictive patterns often come as a compensation for the lack of something we experience in this space. Want to get rid of the addictive pattern? Why not try to understand what it can come from, and CHANGE IT. Which leads to :

• Change is the hardest thing, but it's permanent - Old spiritual thinkers have conveyed a lot of things over the ages (I'm not going into the religious side here), and one of them is that change is the only thing that is permanent. Since we're born, we've changed a whole lot, we haven't always been like we are today. Let's take a look at what it took to make us change to what we are today? A family, with a stable economic situation, and building to home all that; and institutions to teach us and structure our nation; and society encounters with their restrictive norms and enabling stimulations; and media industries with their fantasy products that we end up using; etc etc etc. This is a lot to allow us to change from a clueless toddler into a PMO addicted adult. Not to mention the time it took. Changing from the result we found ourselves in today is possible (if nothing else, the Success Stories of this forum proves it), but we need to align this wish to change properly, involve in it and allow for time to pass, small steps to be made, while keeping Consistency/Discouragement/Environment under control.

This is why people fail.
They're not fighting the right enemy.
They're not putting their efforts in the right place.
AND their state of mind about recovery isn't right.

 

Success in Nofap depends on various factors, from how long you've been using, to how much, how far you've gone in terms of gross stuff, etc. A lot of people find out that porn has become a part of their lifestyle, it certainly had of mine. Changing a lifestyle is not the same as abstaining for a few days. It takes an insane amount of effort, and you lose out on a lot of stuff too. There's certainly stuff I miss from my PMO days (not PMO, other stuff), but I made up my mind to never look back and keep on moving forward always.

Also, don't put too much focus on the streaks people have. You don't know what their relapse was. Was it a 5 second willpower fail? Or a week of binging? Even people who have like 500+ may not be doing remarkably better than those with 30. The ONLY thing the counter is meant to indicate (this is entirely my opinion) is consistency. You could be awesome for a week and then binge for the next. But someone with like 200-300 days, nothing but pure respect for those Fapstronauts. They've changed their lives to a point where PMO is off their minds for good.

 

When you find a better way to live, then you don't focus on or have time for relapsing.

The experience of pmo is a result of lower quality pain and problems.

Where and how can I get my next dopamine fix?
How can I gain instant gratification pleasure (especially during stressful times)?
I'm bored and have nothing better to do, so why not?
I don't want to go outside or deal with certain people so how can I make my life easier?

The experience of developing the reality that you want (career / relationships / lifestyle) needs higher quality pain and problems. It means that you can't escape and you have to face difficult, messy, awkward, uncertain, problematic, painful, and delayed gratification situations. The barrier is a lot bigger, but the rewards are a lot better as well.

Being able to handle higher quality pain, problems, and negative experiences leads to higher quality pleasures, solutions, and positive experiences.

So after putting in the work and having some positive experiences, then the lower quality experiences or rewards (like pmo) aren't good enough anymore. So you don't focus or have time for relapsing.

It's hard in the beginning because you don't have any results, it's hard work, and all you want to do is escape reality.

Like i said... The bigger the barrier, the bigger the rewards.

PMO has a very low barrier (internet / searching / privacy) and it offers lower quality rewards (dopamine spike / ejaculation / escape).

So the person that simply tries not to relapse, but doesn't try to change how they live by introducing better pain, problems, and negative experiences won't ever attain better solutions, pleasures, and positive experiences. Thus they just go back to relapsing because there's nothing else to fill the void of those old habits.

Having 100-5000 days free of pmo doesn't matter if you don't actually develop your reality. I would have much more respect for the person that has 1 day on their counter, but is constantly facing better pain and problems in their life rather than the person with 1000 days, but does nothing with their time outside of trying not to relapse.

If my counter were to reset to 0 today, it wouldn't harm me emotionally because it's not the amount of days that matter. It's what you choose to do with each of those days.

 

My experience was very similar to yours. Keep at it and you'll succeed. Take failure in your stride and don't give up!!

 

Instant gratification (low barrier and lower quality rewards) vs delayed gratification (higher barrier and higher quality rewards) can be difficult.

Think of it like planting seeds, cultivating, and harvesting a garden.

Your thoughts, feelings, and action are the seeds you plant and cultivate.

With instant gratification like pmo, you get instant escape / relief / satisfaction, but in a few days / weeks / months you'll see that the garden you've created and the things you are harvesting are the things you don't want for your life.

With delayed gratification (developing the reality you want), you don't get pleasure or solutions right away, but as time goes by you'll be able to create the garden / reality / life that you've wanted.

So when we pmo, it's easy not to see the consequences in the future (the garden you'll be harvesting). All we see is the instant escape / relief / satisfaction and putting off the pain and problems that are necessary for us to face in order to create the life we want.

 

maybe a lot of users are here to justify their "inevitable relapse"
maybe alot of users with the desire and ability to change dont stick around these forums.

i cant answer your questions.
your willpower is never drained
you have it in you to live and behave however you want.
you can do it.