Some help for the struggling

Friends & brethren,

Infrequent poster here but trying to get more active now that I'm walking in victory! Long/short = 53, married 24 years, dad of 3, addicted since a teen. Now 8+ months completely sober & this wretched addiction has lost ALL power over me. I posted http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=16402.0 not long ago & tonight offer a follow up. I hope & pray this will help many.

This battle is 100% with the mind. We want to get clean, we want to walk away....but we want to fail. Many have posted feeling "sad" about leaving porn. We can all relate. One of my biggest struggles was with the thought "I'm NEVER going to view porn again?! Ever??" That's a big pill. We realize we can't 'sort of' keep using, PMO once in a while, etc.  The finality of "I can never, ever get another hit of that wonderfulness again" is damn intimidating. I've made it out, this will help those struggling:

Whether you're given to faith or not, "Everyman's Battle" by Fred Stoeker is fantastic:
https://books.google.com/books/about/Every_Man_s_Battle.html?id=462M-e4u0VAC
It is presented from a Christian worldview but whether you share that view or not it presents excellent, practical, "here's what you can do" tools -- one of those is changing brain programming Pavlovian style.

Our brain has associated the stimulus of viewing porn with a pleasure reward, often times an ejaculation. With a little effort its possible to reprogram by introducing a negative response to stimulus/thoughts we're trying to quell.  We can watch a porn movie anytime we want. Just pull it up & let it run in the theater of the mind. Whether a fap is imminent or not we derive pleasure from the imaginations. One useful tool --& this does work-- is to wear a fairly hefty rubberband around the wrist; everytime an imaginations starts *THWACK*!! Grab that rubberband, pull it out as hard as you can & let it go so it snaps you right on that soft, delicate skin of the under-wrist. You've got to do it hard enough so you feel some discomfort. It needs to sting, to hurt a little. This may sound stupid or self-degrading (& maybe it is) but its the same thing as whacking a puppy on the nose with a rolled newspaper when he pees in the house. You are associating pain/discomfort with a specific activity.

If you're in despair, & I know from surfing the forum some today that some of you are, give this a try.  What have you to lose? (Other than people wondering why you're wearing a rubberband for a bracelet.)  As has been noted many times & as I personally attest - the key is getting that reboot done. I used to sit & watch videos in my mind all day every day.  Fav porn stars, fav scenes, etc.  Y'all know. At about 2 months of sobriety the damnedest thing happened one day - I was sitting in my office, it was 4:00 & suddenly I realized, "Wow! I haven't thought about porn ONCE all day today!!"  Then it happened again the next day. And the next.  Now I have to literally sit & pull up memories/scenes as opposed to them just popping in on their own as was once the case. 

Where the mind leads the body follows. Get your mind under control & your genitals have no choice but to follow suit. This simple trick is one proven and very successful way of winning the battle in the brain. Shut that internal movie theater down, put that thing OUT OF BUSINESS....and you've won.

Remington.22 said:

This battle is 100% with the mind. We want to get clean, we want to walk away....but we want to fail. Many have posted feeling "sad" about leaving porn. We can all relate. One of my biggest struggles was with the thought "I'm NEVER going to view porn again?! Ever??" That's a big pill. We realize we can't 'sort of' keep using, PMO once in a while, etc.  The finality of "I can never, ever get another hit of that wonderfulness again" is damn intimidating. I've made it out, this will help those struggling:

Click to expand...

This definitely touches a sensitive part of me. This is exactly what's going on. Just the thought of quitting this for life is scary. Giving up something that stimulating and pleasurable is nothing easy. I need to get into the right mindset and be prepared for the depression and emptiness that will eventually come from the disappearance of my drugs of choice. Why am I saying "drugs"? I have 3 addictions but since this forum is about porn addiction in particular, I don't know how much I should bring alcohol and Internet addiction into the equation. Maybe Internet addiction is more related to porn addiction in a way? Or maybe all addictions have something in common, I don't know, I can't talk from a scientific point of view. But the idea remains: Just the simple thought of giving them up scares me so much. "What am I supposed to do now with this emptiness and depression?" This is a question I've asked myself in the past after I had been away from any of these 3 addictions for some time. Even removing one and having the others was so hard because it's like each one has its special place and the way it feels is unique. I could give up one of them but it would feel strange. I don't know, man, it's crazy. You never want to be a junkie but then you find yourself one and your whole world gets turned upside down from the realization. I remember a time when I used to blame the addicts and now I'm one.

As a Christian myself, I think something important to bear in mind is the fact that we weren't meant to pleasure ourselves, we're supposed to experience that sort of pleasure with another. Wasting time on the selfish self-pleasure of porn damages us physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. You aren't "quitting porn", you're taking your life back. All the negative effects you experience are brought on by the same thing that brings you pleasure, and the brain's reward system works that way by design. It makes us feel as though we are losing something because we're cutting off our addicted mind's source of dopamine. However, the dopamine released through porn use is exactly what rewires the brain and produces all of the horrific side effects we feel. The momentary pleasure of porn use comes with a laundry list of pain that accompanies you even when you aren't using. The pleasure and pain are a package deal, and one we could all do without.

changemylife said:

Remington.22 said:

This battle is 100% with the mind. We want to get clean, we want to walk away....but we want to fail. Many have posted feeling "sad" about leaving porn. We can all relate. One of my biggest struggles was with the thought "I'm NEVER going to view porn again?! Ever??" That's a big pill. We realize we can't 'sort of' keep using, PMO once in a while, etc.  The finality of "I can never, ever get another hit of that wonderfulness again" is damn intimidating. I've made it out, this will help those struggling:

Click to expand...

This definitely touches a sensitive part of me. This is exactly what's going on. Just the thought of quitting this for life is scary. Giving up something that stimulating and pleasurable is nothing easy. I need to get into the right mindset and be prepared for the depression and emptiness that will eventually come from the disappearance of my drugs of choice.

Click to expand...

Yup. I don't know if "intimidating" is the right word but it'll suffice. There is no 'maybe', no 'just a little', its....FOR LIFE &  giving up pleasure of any sort isn't the kind of thing the rational mind says "YAY!!" to. But change your attitude from one of expecting depression to expecting just the opposite. Anticipate all the wonderfulness that a life of freedom from all that artificial feel good crap will be like. I'm not depressed about my freedom, not in the least. Its a great ride. In fact I get a certain rush of satisfaction from the ease & speed with which I'm now able to shut down stimuli and triggers. No more ..I'll just sneak a peak but not a very long one. Nope. Not having it. I get jazzed over the fact that I'm now able to SLAM that door right in temptation's face and (internally) proclaim -- "YOU NO LONGER HAVE ANY POWER OR CONTROL OVER ME!!!"  Its a feeling I can't even adequately describe.

Sometimes when I turn my head or pass up clickbait, I give a quite shout of victory. It feels good to say no. The power it provides and the way it makes you feel you can do this again. And anytime I sneak a peek, I have longed to look again.

A friend of mine use this phrase as his personal text...

"Cry as it may, the beast doesn't get a cookie."