Giving Up Cellphones, Computers and Anything Digital

Has anyone ever tried a strategy of locking away their cellphone and computer and going without anything digital for a few months in order to prevent relapsing?

I'm trying to give up porn but I keep relapsing so i think this might be a good way to avoid this, but it would hard living and functioning without technology in modern civilization for a while.

You might recover way faster anyway I think if you do this as you avoid not just porn but anything digital like picture of hot girls on Facebook and anything sexual in a film or tv show.

I went through a phase where I barely ever turned on my computer.  It helped me avoid triggers, because sitting at the computer was how I associated most of my porn time.  I used my phone sometimes, but not too often since my favorite sites worked pretty terribly from mobile.  I wanted a PC, a browser, and a bunch of tabs.  It meant I had to do my finances a bit differently, but that worked out okay in the end.  If I turned it on, it was with a specific purpose, instead of just turning on to see what I felt like doing once surfing around.  Relapsing on my phone did happen, but it was easier to avoid because I just didn't associate it with the good porn.

I wish that a complete digital fast was an option.  Some people are trying it now, calling it "dopamine fasting", so maybe with that trend some good strategies will be arrived at.  Of course, some people downgrade to flip phones, and there is even a cell phone company that makes pretty nice "dumb phones" designed to be used in parallel with your smart phone, so your smart phone can be at home in a desk drawer and when you need to have one with you, you take the dumb phone.  I forget what it is called, though.

Each person will be different as to how much they can practically give up, and what areas are the most potent triggers. 

If you're on Facebook or Instagram, getting rid of those could be a compromise if ditching all electronics aren't an option.  I agree with you that it would mean faster recovery... you're changing behaviors and starving the brain circuits that need to die off.

Hello. I too naturally felt the need to combine the conquest against other "dissipations" with this. It has worked quite well for me. Good luck to you!

Imaginos said:

Has anyone ever tried a strategy of locking away their cellphone and computer and going without anything digital for a few months in order to prevent relapsing?

I'm trying to give up porn but I keep relapsing so i think this might be a good way to avoid this, but it would hard living and functioning without technology in modern civilization for a while.

You might recover way faster anyway I think if you do this as you avoid not just porn but anything digital like picture of hot girls on Facebook and anything sexual in a film or tv show.

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Two things that helped me were turning off my phone and putting it in a different room or in my car at night, and not taking my phone with me into the bathroom.  Baby steps, yes, but they have been very effective.

Parental controls help to some degree...so you don't have to give up everything digital. For me its been Cleanbrowsing, Norton Family, and Net Nanny, plus a lot of persistence closing up loopholes as they're discovered.

good idea man. It would require sacrifice but may be necessary. It's like being an alcoholic who has to recover in a bar, having my laptop and smartphone. It might be good to ditch them completely for a few months. In today's world it would be difficult to function, academically/professionally. But when we consider what we're dealing with and the big picture, it may be worth it. Flip phone only technology.

There will always be sacrifices for what we want to do or change. But it should not be our reason to stop making choices. Just my two cents.

After a long time I am back here, I had mentioned about this from a post check below.

http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=16324.msg164886#msg164886

"Dopamine fasts" like this have become popular recently, where you abstain from things like TV, cell phone, and even food for 24 hours at a time. I haven't tried one, and AFAIK the research hasn't said much on it, but people are raving about it.