You already know why you keep failing

Well that's true, but its not that easy. I mean you're kind of making it sound like its just sort of a bad habit, and not an addiction. If it really was that easy for addicts to stop, there wouldn't be so much focus on 12 step programs, sponsors, and CSATs. Let's not completely look the other way when relapses and resets happen, but let's not pretend its a simple decision as if someone should have a salad for lunch instead of a burger.

 

The true recovery is when temptation is always near and you don't care about it anymore. Anything else is just abstinence. For that reason I never use temptation safe guards like porn blockers and filters. Your mind must become strong enough to be able to resist any temptation.

 

It worked for me... 25 years binge MO and 17 years of daily binge PMO addiction behind me. I've tried every goddamn filter there is. Cut so many PC cords I stopped counting, destroyed my smart phones… Nothing worked until I simply decided enough is enough and stopped. When pain of addiction becomes greater than the pleasure, you can find strength within you to change or you'll kill yourself eventually. You need to embrace the pain and face it head on, no filter can do it for you. It's that simple. PMO is just our drug of choice, tool to escape our pain. You must grow cojones and be prepared to suffer no matter how bad it gets if you want to face your inner "demons". Abstention is not recovery.

 

This is the ticket. I can't believe it took me 15+ years to tip the scale.

 

What I find a bit disturbing is how the difficulty and suffering of the process of quitting addiction is being emphasized as an inescapable and even necessary evil. Like we're bound by our shared experience of psychological torture, and that - for some reason - that is good, because after enough suffering we will finally be free of our addiction.

I strongly disagree with that.

Addiction works like this:
root cause (attachment disorder, personality disorder, mood disorder, etc... )
-> stress/anxiety/depression
-> drugs
-> temporary relief
-> diminishing relief interval
-> more stress/anxiety/depression
-> more drugs
-> etc..

If you just take away the drugs, it's suffering, I agree with that. But that's not how it should be. Finding out why you take drugs and work on that is key; the root cause. Once you've got that figured out, quitting will not trigger the usual level of stress/anxiety/depression and it will be a lot easier.

The difficulty is not the quitting, it's finding out why you're numbing yourself with drugs. Getting professional help for that part is particularly useful.

Quitting is not some kind of 'number of days free of it and suffering' game. It's about finding peace with yourself (and/or getting treated for a possible disorder you might be having). Once you've figured that out quitting is rather a formality.

Also, will power has nothing to do with your ability to quit. There's plenty of people with a tremendous amount of will power not being able to stop. As a matter of fact, strong people usually have stronger addictions because they are more likely to keep up with the negatives of the addiction. Furthermore, if will power is emphasized as a key ingredient it makes people feel even worse, because it implies they're losers, which is exactly what triggers more drug abuse.

 

I agree 100 %, yet suffering is unavoidable part of any addiction recovery. A lot of suffering. First acute withdrawal phase with insomnia, headaches, joint pains, wild mood swings, flu like symptoms, fatigue you can't escape them if your addiction was long lasting and especially if you indulged in hours long daily binge PMO routine. Then there are PAWS which are very real, especially anhedonia and depression/anxiety (dopamine receptors deficiency) -> Jul 15, 2019. It's all about the time your brain needs to regrowth gray matter in pre-frontal cortex and D2 receptors. Brain scans have shown that this process takes 8 +-2 months on average (60-70 weeks in some extreme cases-> May 24, 2019 ). No professional help can elevate these symptoms caused my biological changes. That's why I said you need to be prepared to suffer to get better. Professional help especially psychoanalysis and CBT are very beneficial and in some cases a must to identify and address underlying psych issues and thought/behaviour patterns that led you to addiction, but you can't avoid the pain in the process of recovery. It's just the way it is. Embracing the pain in advance, abstaining no matter what and facing your fears ("demons") head on is the way to break free.

 

I kept folders of videos "just in case." After so much downloading and filing away, the wastefulness and endlessness donned on me. It is these "just in case" moments that must be replaced with more productive, positive, and possibly pliable, replacements.

The delete key is the hardest key to press, but hardest does not mean impossible.

 

I am convinced most of these withdrawal symptoms are psychosomatic for a large part. I've been addicted to porn for about 20 years, so hour long binges for days on end were standard behavior. I've quit porn for 6 weeks now, which isn't very long, but I don't experience a lot withdrawal symptoms really.

What I do experience is all the emotions that I have suppressed over the years, like sadness, love, fear, shame, etc... Which can feel overwhelming at times, but I don't see them as withdrawal, I see them as being able to feel again since a very long time.

Of course I have learned some techniques to cope with these (rediscovered) emotions, thanks to therapy and a few good books. Without these I might have run back to porn already. For now, I don't feel any urge to do so. It's just too interesting to find out who I am without porn, and to feel what I feel.

I'm at the end of my suffering road. It may have been the necessary evil to get where I am now. But I'm convinced the length of that road can be reduced with help of a good therapist and a different perspective on things, instead of expecting the worst (self-fulfilling prophecy and all).

 

My own experience is very different. I had a back surgery after a car accident and was put on morphine sulfate liquid pain treatment for 2 years (I should stop taking them much sooner, but again my addictive nature and willing doc were excuses to take it for so long) and I can say withdrawal symptoms were very similar compared to going cold turkey with binge MO. Granted, first 9 days off morphine were utter hell (diarrhea, cramps, fever), but when that acute period ended, withdrawals very nearly identical to PMO abstention. I must say that my binge PMO addiction was really out of control when I've finally chosen to stop. I'd say I MBed 5-10 hours on daily basis for at least a year. I was literally numbed and brain fogged all the time, feeling sick in the morning when waking up. It was very similar experience to taking morphine drops every 8 hours. Maybe if I wouldn't go to such extremes with daily binges, my withdrawals wouldn't be so bad, but they were. I had two full blown relapses in the last 2 years and went through the same withdrawal hell twice. Withdrawals were so bad, I'm really afraid to repeat it once more.