Is it normal to feel shaky during reboot?

Man, woke up this morning extra tired, no boner, cold and shaky. My brain is telling me look at porn and it'll all go away.

The shakes from porn withdrawals? Is this normal?
 
W

William

Guest
Weepy Willy said:
Man, woke up this morning extra tired, no boner, cold and shaky. My brain is telling me look at porn and it'll all go away.

The shakes from porn withdrawals? Is this normal?

Hi Weepy, I don't know where to start on this one.  The lack of libido is generally referred to as "flatline".  That feeling that your brain is telling you to look at porn and the bad feelings will go away is a rationalization, it is a withdrawal symptom.  Both are very common in rebooting scenarios. 

I have to ask, how much have you studied the problem, how much have you planned on experiencing these things, what are your goals? 

Let's start at square one.  Take a moment to study what is going on in your brain.  Understand that porn is just a button all of us push to get a dopamine rush.  Dopamine is a brain chemical, best drug in the world.  Heroin is synthetic dopamine.  It is released in response to sexual thoughts, which is how we seem to become hooked on porn, porn provides an opportunity for endless, new, sexual thoughts that that part of our brain rewards with dopamine.  In real life it does not work that way of course, in real life dopamine is released in healthy doses in response to our thoughts about real women, but porn provides something real life never will, 24/7 availability of hypersexual thoughts.  You have to get porn out of your life to over come the addiction, but the addiction is actually to dopamine.  Take a moment to understand the problem.  Watch this video, which is actually found here on Gabe's homepage under the first link on the right, titled The Great Porn Experiment. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_RIm9ZMN1I

This explains the relationship between porn, dopamine, sex, and addiction.

Next, get some outside help.  Install porn blockers. Put obstacles between yourself and the problem. K9 seems to be the gold standard.  I used it myself for a long time.  I don't anymore, I turned off my filters at 7 months clean, but in the beginning filters were huge for me.  You can always get around them if you are determined to access porn, but if you are determined not to they are a huge help.  The thing about porn addicts is, in my opinion, we are a bit OCD, meaning we compulsively search for porn.  In the beginning of quitting I found that I could and did search for porn almost without thinking about it.  It was never more than 2 seconds away, it was almost thoughtless when I looked it up, I just looked it up without thinking and then I thought "damn, I searched porn."  The blockers slow that down, and the thought becomes "damn, I searched porn, but I got blocked, I don't really want to see porn I want NOT to see porn," and in those moments of reflection I could remind myself I was a guy quitting the porn viewing lifestyle. 

Last, and this is where someone should write a manual on the topic of porn withdrawal, you are going to experience withdrawals.  You have pushed the porn button for years, every single day, for years.  Many times a day.  That has repeatedly spiked your brain's primitive reward center to give you a dopamine fix.  We love dopamine, best drug in the world, and we miss it when it is gone.  A porn addict will withdraw when that drug is removed from the brain.  Withdrawals are physical, mental, and emotional pain.  You feel shaky and cold, you might get the sweats, a lot of guys report sinus pain or pain in their teeth, or little odd pains throughout their body.  This is the addiction trying to talk you into using again, you did not know that before, but you know it now.  The addiction will reason with you, will whisper in your ear that you should use again, it will give you reasons, it will tell you using is no problem, that it is a good thing, that it is necessary to use again.  You need to be aware of this. 

My advice, plan on a 90 day reboot with absolutely no porn and no porn substitutes.  The purpose of the exercise is to lower your dopamine levels.  It will hurt.  Let me say it again, it will hurt.  You are going to have days, often back to back, where you feel like you are dying.  Why?  Dopamine feels fantastic.  It feels like life times 2.  When you take it way it feels like life minus 2, that feeling sucks.  That feeling does go away, but between 0 and 90 days you are going to have plenty of days when you feel like hell.  You have to anticipate it, know it is going to happen.  The fact that it is happening is a good thing.  That is your dopamine levels dropping.  Once you get back to normal you will feel great and you won't need porn to do it, but between here and there, you are going to be challenged. 

My thread, if you care to read it.

http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=1256.0

Peace.

 
Thanks William!

To answer you, I have studied it a lot. I absolutely know I'm in flatline right now, and oh how does it suck and I'm sure it'll get worse from here.

And given the dopamine-Parkinson's connection, I'm sure it could explain my shakes. Afterall, that's the mechanism behind Parkinson's, low dopamine.

You know, what's interesting is I work in the medical field and when I was in school we learned how science discovered the mechanism behind shaking and low dopamine. Antipsychotics were being used in people with schizophrenia and the drugs worked through a fairly well established dopamine-lowering connection. When people were taking the drugs, their mania, euphoria, crazed wild eyed behavior stopped BUT they started trembling. Now they were too low in dopamine.

William, I see you've been clean for awhile now. Back when you were in porn withdrawal and flatline, did you ever feel shaky? I mean, I'm not visibly shaking or anything but I feel shaky, like I have the chills. In the past, when I've tried to quit porn, sometimes I get shaky, hands even trembled a bit. Of course, as soon as I'd look at porn, it all went away.

I'm sure this is to be expected, but I'm wondering if others went through it as well.
 
W

William

Guest
Hi Weepy, yep, I felt it all.  The jiters and shakes are part of it.  Withdrawals are why we often fail in quitting, we just cannot take that feeling and for those who have not studied the process of getting clean, the nightmare scenario is that they might feel that horrible forever.  From studying you know withdrawals are only temporary, as in weeks and months, and eventually to away forever, so long as you quit pushing whatever button is pushed to get a dopamine fix.

The thing is, you are not having withdrawals because your dopamine levels are low or too low.  You have having them because your dopamine levels are too high, and don't want to come back down to normal levels.

Here is a great link to page about withdrawal symptoms on yourbrainonporn.

http://yourbrainonporn.com/what-does-withdrawal-from-porn-look-like

I like it because I am quoted about 20% down from the top; my post starts with the words "Withdrawals suck." 

Peace.
 
Oh OK, very interesting! So it's not low dopamine per se, but only relatively low compared with the rocket highs I induced in myself for years?

Man,thank you so much for providing the link to all those withdrawal symptoms! Those all sound spot on!
 
W

William

Guest
You are welcome.  Right about the dopamine.  If normal dopamine levels are in the 0-1 range, then porn induced dopamine levels must be in the 10 range.  Once you get back to normal for a bit the withdrawals should go away, and they certainly become much more manageable and less distracting. 
 
Goddamnit, I feel shaky today! I woke up feeling like I have the flu, chills, but also shakes. William, you said you felt all that. How long were your withdrawal symptoms for?

Oh man, these withdrawal symptoms are as bad as a lot of hardcore drugs! Never been addicted to those, but know some people who have. The challenge with us is that our drug dealer only lives down the way in a zipper-gated community for which we have the 24/7 access code.

I'm battling shakes and pains en route to sobriety with a booming meth lab in my pants. Tell me it gets easier!
 
W

William

Guest
Weepy Willy said:
Goddamnit, I feel shaky today! I woke up feeling like I have the flu, chills, but also shakes. William, you said you felt all that. How long were your withdrawal symptoms for?

Oh man, these withdrawal symptoms are as bad as a lot of hardcore drugs! Never been addicted to those, but know some people who have. The challenge with us is that our drug dealer only lives down the way in a zipper-gated community for which we have the 24/7 access code.

I'm battling shakes and pains en route to sobriety with a booming meth lab in my pants. Tell me it gets easier!

It gets easier, but here is the thing you have to wrap your head around, the thing most of us hate and reject and fight:  those feelings are necessary to the reboot, it absolutely critical you go through the withdrawals.  Those are one thing and one thing only, your dopamine soaked brain coming back to normal.  It is fighting it, it does not want to come down, it wants to stay high.  It is telling you you need to relapse.  Before you get clean your addiction will come up with 10 great reasons why should relapse, it will tell you you don't have a problem, it is healthy to relapse, everyone does it, etc.  Withdrawals are physical, mental, and emotional pain.  The shakes, the jitters, the odd pains.  Dude the encouragement I can give you is this:  though it does not feel like it, that is you getting better.

How long?  Different for every guy.  90 days is the gold standard.  You won't like this, but I say be prepared to feel it 90 days.  Will you?  No.  You will have days beginning around 8-14 out (guestimation, not science) where they lessen and even go away completely.  They will pop back up again before 90, but they do begin to lessen.  You will lessen them much more if you can keep sexual thoughts outside your head as much as possible.  By day 45 you may be putting days back to back with no withdrawals.  You may be hit hard with withdrawals on day 85, but most guys say by 90 the withdrawals lessen or go away.  The main thing is after a while, you will have a withdrawals here and there, once you get out a while they won't be very bad and most importantly, they will not seriously tempt you to relapse.  At that point, you will be in control, not porn. 

Hope this helps.  Keep going.  Porn is not an option. 
 
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