T
TheNewMe
Guest
(My philosophy of how to live a new life to the full and overcoming my addiction is based on TheUnderdog's post 'My thoughts on Rebooting' over at YBR) If you haven't read it, I recommend you do so! It can be a life changer!
For my REDEFINING PORN ADDICTION post, see below under the dotted line.
Introduction
Hi, I'm a 31 year old porn addict who's been struggling for the last couple of years after discovering my addiction and trying to recover from it. I've had a lot of ups and downs the past couple of years and after a few years over at YBR, I needed a change of scenery as I attempt to make some big changes to how I try to overcome my addiction.
A little bit about myself; I'm a film student (it took a long time before I finally figured out what to do...). I've been married for 7 years and we have no kids and 1 cat. My interest in anything porn related started in my teens and I can't even begin to fathom what kind of effect it has had on my life. I don't want to dwell too much on the past or what could've been as it's not helpful. So instead it's time to work towards a better tomorrow.
As mentioned, my new approach to recovery is based on a long and very good post by TheUnderdog (thanks mate!). He made me realize that I wasn't recovering, I was abstaining which doesn't help. So here are some points that I believe in and that I hope will help me finally be able to recover. It's about time.
1. My addiction is not the problem; it's a symptom
For the last couple of years I've focused on staying away from porn for as long as I could, using sheer will-power, waiting for my brain to reboot so that I could be 'healed' and get on with my life. That's like stuffing paper tissues up my nose to fix a cold. It's not addressing the problem. I would always relapse after no PMO for x number of days; sometimes only 3-4 days, sometimes 20-30 days and every once in a while I would make it to day 60 or day 80. But I wasn't addressing the problem; I was just trying to treat the symptom and it always ended in yet another relapse.
This time I'm not going to focus on the sympton. In fact, I hope to keep 'porn' or PMO off this journal entirely (after this post obviously). My main problem is that I'm not leading a satisfying life in a satisfying marriage and a satisfying outlook for the future. I'm frustrated not really knowing where I'm headed or what I'll end up doing after my studies (with my degree no one is lining up job offers to put it that way). After moving to a new city I have no friends nearby. I've been sitting inside waiting for my stupid brain to overcome the addiction so that I can go out and meet some people.
That's the wrong way around I've now (finally) realized.
I need to go out and start living my life NOW. I need to figure out what my future holds, what my dreams are and if I'm heading in the right direction. I need to figure out my Life Vision and start moving and working towards it right away. I've realized that when I'm busy doing things I like, like studying movies, writing (I write short stories, novels and articles) or listen to my favorite music, I don't offer porn a single thought. And that's exactly how it should be. Porn shouldn't occupy my mind at all but to keep it away I can't sit at home staring at a counter and hoping I have the will-power to close the web browser. I need to start living my life and let my new life replace porn.
I have a typical male brain; I can't focus on more than one thing at a time So, if my mind is occupied with other things, it won't think about porn.
2. Recovering, not abstaining
This is the 'life changing message' for me in TheUndedog's post and I've already written about it above. If you're abstaining, you're not recovering. There's a huge difference. Abstaining is focusing on the symptom, trying to reach a certain number of days since your last relapse while letting the real problem sit there unresolved. Recovering is forgetting the counter, because it only reminds you of your addiction, forgetting about porn and focusing on solving the problem, not the symptom. I'm not sure I'm getting my point across here so seriously, read TheUnderdog's post. It's great!
3. 'The "No Arousal" Method''
I have had a similar method for a while before reading that someone else had come up with a term for it. The main purpose of this method is that not only should you stay away from porn, you should divert your gaze from any woman whether she's on TV, in a film, on a poster or walking by on the street. How is my brain suppose to reboot if I'm constantly thinking about sex, looking at hot girls' bodies even though they have clothes? The whole 'male gaze' is a huge trigger for me and I would assume many porn addicts. Looking at women's bodies is exactly what we're doing when we watch porn and even though you're looking at someone with clothes on, your brain still makes that connection. It's still a trigger and triggers leads to relapses. Follow the link above if that didn't make sense in my words
The 2nd reason why this method is so important for recovery is that it focuses on a new way of viewing women. Not as objects in a porn movie or subjects for my fantasies, but as human beings, people with thoughts, feelings, dreams and goals. I think it's a sign of respect and it helps my brain realize that woman aren't objects for my pleasure but friends, people I should interact with in a new way, a more 'human' way. Also, I see other men stare at my wife when we walk by and I hate it. I find it disrespectful and it makes me angry. I don't want to be that guy anymore.
4. No More Counter
First of all, let me say this. If the counter helps you recover (not abstain), I have no problem with it. I'm not here to judge anyone or tell anyone their 'doing it wrong'. I don't know you personally and I'm no expert so I'm in no position to do so.
Now, I've deleted my counter and I'm never getting it back. Here's the problem with the counter as I see it.
1) It encourages you to abstain, not recover, as it focuses on 'staying away from porn' rather than fixing the problem and start living your life.
2) No matter how many days you make it to, when you relapse, you reset the counter to 0. That often encourages binge-watching porn because you had to reset the counter anyway and it also tells you that you're back to square one, which isn't true either. If you've gone from watching porn twice a day for five years to once a week, that's huge progress, but the counter doesn't recognize that. Whether you had a relapse after 90 days or 2, you're still back at 0. That's extremely demotivating, at least for me, and it's just an effective way of telling me I'm horrible and doing terribly. I don't need that.
3) A counter is often combined with a goal; the number of days you want to reach. I don't know how many days I want to reach because I don't know how many more days I have on this earth. My focus is not on reaching 90 or 120 days because that's some kind of magical number that's going to solve anything. My focus is that I'm done, I'm never relapsing again so I have no need of keeping track of how many days it's been since my last relapse. Again, that only draws my attention back to PMO and I don't want that.
You can use a spreadsheet instead, but again, I feel like it's still focusing on the addiction rather than focusing on living (and fixing) my life. In 'My New Life' I don't want porn to get any attention what so ever in any area of my life. I don't even want a spreadsheet because it reminds me of the addiction. TheUnderdog addresses this in his post as well. (Seriously, read it! )
So, how easy is this going to be?
This is going to be very hard but I don't think it's more difficult that what I have been doing for the past couple of years, which yielded no noteworthy results. I'm going to struggle with lust and triggers but hopefully I can now start to fill my life (and thoughts) with other things that can push those triggers away. The other thing is that I only have this life to live so I'm going to start living my life NOW instead of waiting.
Anything else?
Not that I can think of at this moment, but I'll be sure to share if I think of anything. I will try to update often and as stated in this post, I will focus on living my new life, not PMO or porn. Please feel free to share your thoughts on all this. Any support is appreciated!
---------------------------------------
The following was written as a new post January 4th, 2016. I decided to paste it in here as it's part of my whole philosophy on reboot and recovery.
For a porn addict, that might sound like a stupid question. But think about it for a second; how do you define porn? Why is a picture of a naked women by Playboy porn but a picture of a naked women from an art photographer isn't? Why is a nude scene on a porn site porn, but a nude scene in a movie isn't? How do you define 'porn'? If you say you're addicted to it, you should know what you're addicted to, right? How can you recover if you don't know what you're recovering from?
Reading posts on this forum and others I've come to realize that defining exactly what we're addicted to is more difficult than I thought. "It's porn, it's self-explanatory, right?" Not really. The good news is, the definition is also completely irrelevant.
Do you need porn to MO? Not really if you think about it. You can MO to nudity in TV shows, movies or magazines that are not classified as porn. I think most of us could MO to a girl in a bikini or tight yoga pants as well even though there's no nudity.
Here's my point: Defining what's porn or not doesn't really help us. If you MO to Game of Thrones or an online porn video doesn't really matter ? your brain gets its fix either way. If you're aroused by both and MO to both, just staying away from porn doesn't help your recovery, right? Other non-addicted scholars can argue about what is and what isn't porn because that's not the point, it's not something we need to figure out. What matters to us is what we're addicted to and how to recover from it.
2. Understand your situation
As a porn addict I'm in a very different situation than other people, and I have to accept that. Just as an alcoholic has to accept that he can't enjoy a beer with his mates or a glass of wine with his wife, I have to accept that not every TV show or movie is fine for me to see. I've already given up Game of Thrones, Californication and a bunch of other shows because they were hurting my recovery and put me dangerously close, or lead me directly, to a relapse. If you haven't noticed already, wanting to recover from addiction requires a lot of sacrifices and if you haven't realized that yet, I hope you do soon.
I know I'm in a different situation than friends that aren't addicts and I have to accept that. They can watch shows with nudity with no problems or thoughts of porn or jerking off. I can't. Does that feel unfair? At first, yes, but then again, I put myself in this position so I can't blame anyone else but me. And if I want to recover I have to face the consequences of the position I've put myself in. I have to make the sacrifices necessary to ensure my recovery. It's not about being harsh or beating myself up ? I put myself in this position and I'm ready to do whatever I have to to get myself out of it. I don't expect to recover unless I'm ready to do whatever recovery dictates. It's about going all in because I want to recover, not 50% because I want to get a little bit better but is not ready to sacrifice some of the things I like. An alcoholic can't recover while continuing to drink, even if he drinks less than he did ? all you're doing then is keeping the addiction alive until you relapse. I can't recover if I keep finding nudity or hot girls and am aroused by what I see, even if it's not technically porn. All I'm doing then is keeping the addiction alive and keeping my brain away from a proper reboot.
Again, is it too harsh? All I'm doing is what's necessary to recover, to give my brain a proper reboot. I'm all in, doing this 100%. Otherwise I don't see the point of the struggle.
3. Triggers
If you're trying to recover and you haven't heard about triggers yet, it's about time. If you have, then skip ahead or read for repetition
By triggers we mean anything that triggers our reward system that drives our addiction (this is a very simplified explanation by the way). When you relapse it's probably not because of the last porn videos you saw. Something turned you on and made you go look at porn. Whatever that 'something' was, is the trigger that triggered the relapse. The problem is that a trigger can be almost anything; it can be nudity in a TV show, a hot girl in a bikini, a babe in yoga pants at the gym or just wanting to test out a certain google search. Basically, anything can be a trigger and it's different for everyone so I can't tell you what your triggers are.
So, here's a top tip: If you relapse, make sure you think back and try to figure out what the trigger was so that you can be aware of it the next time you see it.
Okay, let's get back to the main story.
4. Addicted to visual stimulation
I would like to suggest a new term for our condition: 'Addicted to Visual Stimulation'. I find it much more helpful in my recovery and in understanding my addiction than porn addiction. I can't even define 'porn' properly which makes it impossible to define and understand a 'porn addiction'. So, how do I define 'Visual Stimulation' then?
Whether you're aroused or turned on by the girl at the gym, hot girls in a TV show or a movie, certain video games or a google image search, I define them all as visual stimulation. Porn is obviously Visual Stimulation as well and is included in the category, but other than that, what we call Visual Stimulation differs from person to person. We are all different people with different tastes or turn-ons.
With the term Visual Stimulation I try to capture them all and at the same time be flexible, meaning that what turns me on and is included in my personal definition of Visual Stimulation isn't necessarily part of your definition. I.e. if I find hot girls in yoga pants highly arousing, that's part of my definition of Visual Stimulation, but if you don't find that arousing at all, it's not part of your definition. Get it?
I would argue that anything you can put into the category 'Visual Stimulation' is problematic and part of your addiction. Can you tell the difference between a lesbian porn scene and the famous love scene in "Blue is the warmest color"? Can you tell the difference between a nude picture from Playboy or an art photographer? Whether you can or not is not the point. The point is, they're all visually stimulating, giving your brain visual cues (see point 6) and keeping the addiction alive.
5. Finding your definition
So, what is your definition of Visual Stimulation and consequently your definition of your addiction?
That's a difficult question to answer because it's highly personal and varies from person to person based on what turns you on. But I think triggers is a great place to start because I think triggers tells us something about what we find arousing, in other words, visually stimulating. And every time you find a trigger, be honest with yourself and add it to your definition.
6. What's so bad about visual stimulation as long as it's not porn?
Short answer; I would recommend you read about 'The "No Arousal" Method'' or read this article from The Independent. The point is that visual cues light up your brain's reward center and will be stimulated, just like an alcoholic who sees an ad for alcohol. In my opinion visual stimulation keeps the addiction alive because you're constantly giving your brain visual cues that triggers the reward center. As an addict, our brains are already messed up, they're not wired properly and instead of being wired towards real physical women and sex as we're supposed to, our brains only rewards us when we find visual stimulation. That's why we need a real reboot and during that reboot I believe you need to get rid of any visual cues.
Conclusion
I've already started to use 'Addicted to Visual Stimulation' rather than 'porn addiction' and VS-MO (Visual Stimulation-Masturbate Orgasm) instead of PMO. I don't expect to revolutionize the world here and I don't expect my new term to be used rather than 'porn addiction' in general. But I do hope that my definition can help you understand your addiction a little bit better and hopefully help in your recovery as well.
For my REDEFINING PORN ADDICTION post, see below under the dotted line.
Introduction
Hi, I'm a 31 year old porn addict who's been struggling for the last couple of years after discovering my addiction and trying to recover from it. I've had a lot of ups and downs the past couple of years and after a few years over at YBR, I needed a change of scenery as I attempt to make some big changes to how I try to overcome my addiction.
A little bit about myself; I'm a film student (it took a long time before I finally figured out what to do...). I've been married for 7 years and we have no kids and 1 cat. My interest in anything porn related started in my teens and I can't even begin to fathom what kind of effect it has had on my life. I don't want to dwell too much on the past or what could've been as it's not helpful. So instead it's time to work towards a better tomorrow.
As mentioned, my new approach to recovery is based on a long and very good post by TheUnderdog (thanks mate!). He made me realize that I wasn't recovering, I was abstaining which doesn't help. So here are some points that I believe in and that I hope will help me finally be able to recover. It's about time.
1. My addiction is not the problem; it's a symptom
For the last couple of years I've focused on staying away from porn for as long as I could, using sheer will-power, waiting for my brain to reboot so that I could be 'healed' and get on with my life. That's like stuffing paper tissues up my nose to fix a cold. It's not addressing the problem. I would always relapse after no PMO for x number of days; sometimes only 3-4 days, sometimes 20-30 days and every once in a while I would make it to day 60 or day 80. But I wasn't addressing the problem; I was just trying to treat the symptom and it always ended in yet another relapse.
This time I'm not going to focus on the sympton. In fact, I hope to keep 'porn' or PMO off this journal entirely (after this post obviously). My main problem is that I'm not leading a satisfying life in a satisfying marriage and a satisfying outlook for the future. I'm frustrated not really knowing where I'm headed or what I'll end up doing after my studies (with my degree no one is lining up job offers to put it that way). After moving to a new city I have no friends nearby. I've been sitting inside waiting for my stupid brain to overcome the addiction so that I can go out and meet some people.
That's the wrong way around I've now (finally) realized.
I need to go out and start living my life NOW. I need to figure out what my future holds, what my dreams are and if I'm heading in the right direction. I need to figure out my Life Vision and start moving and working towards it right away. I've realized that when I'm busy doing things I like, like studying movies, writing (I write short stories, novels and articles) or listen to my favorite music, I don't offer porn a single thought. And that's exactly how it should be. Porn shouldn't occupy my mind at all but to keep it away I can't sit at home staring at a counter and hoping I have the will-power to close the web browser. I need to start living my life and let my new life replace porn.
I have a typical male brain; I can't focus on more than one thing at a time So, if my mind is occupied with other things, it won't think about porn.
2. Recovering, not abstaining
This is the 'life changing message' for me in TheUndedog's post and I've already written about it above. If you're abstaining, you're not recovering. There's a huge difference. Abstaining is focusing on the symptom, trying to reach a certain number of days since your last relapse while letting the real problem sit there unresolved. Recovering is forgetting the counter, because it only reminds you of your addiction, forgetting about porn and focusing on solving the problem, not the symptom. I'm not sure I'm getting my point across here so seriously, read TheUnderdog's post. It's great!
3. 'The "No Arousal" Method''
I have had a similar method for a while before reading that someone else had come up with a term for it. The main purpose of this method is that not only should you stay away from porn, you should divert your gaze from any woman whether she's on TV, in a film, on a poster or walking by on the street. How is my brain suppose to reboot if I'm constantly thinking about sex, looking at hot girls' bodies even though they have clothes? The whole 'male gaze' is a huge trigger for me and I would assume many porn addicts. Looking at women's bodies is exactly what we're doing when we watch porn and even though you're looking at someone with clothes on, your brain still makes that connection. It's still a trigger and triggers leads to relapses. Follow the link above if that didn't make sense in my words
The 2nd reason why this method is so important for recovery is that it focuses on a new way of viewing women. Not as objects in a porn movie or subjects for my fantasies, but as human beings, people with thoughts, feelings, dreams and goals. I think it's a sign of respect and it helps my brain realize that woman aren't objects for my pleasure but friends, people I should interact with in a new way, a more 'human' way. Also, I see other men stare at my wife when we walk by and I hate it. I find it disrespectful and it makes me angry. I don't want to be that guy anymore.
4. No More Counter
First of all, let me say this. If the counter helps you recover (not abstain), I have no problem with it. I'm not here to judge anyone or tell anyone their 'doing it wrong'. I don't know you personally and I'm no expert so I'm in no position to do so.
Now, I've deleted my counter and I'm never getting it back. Here's the problem with the counter as I see it.
1) It encourages you to abstain, not recover, as it focuses on 'staying away from porn' rather than fixing the problem and start living your life.
2) No matter how many days you make it to, when you relapse, you reset the counter to 0. That often encourages binge-watching porn because you had to reset the counter anyway and it also tells you that you're back to square one, which isn't true either. If you've gone from watching porn twice a day for five years to once a week, that's huge progress, but the counter doesn't recognize that. Whether you had a relapse after 90 days or 2, you're still back at 0. That's extremely demotivating, at least for me, and it's just an effective way of telling me I'm horrible and doing terribly. I don't need that.
3) A counter is often combined with a goal; the number of days you want to reach. I don't know how many days I want to reach because I don't know how many more days I have on this earth. My focus is not on reaching 90 or 120 days because that's some kind of magical number that's going to solve anything. My focus is that I'm done, I'm never relapsing again so I have no need of keeping track of how many days it's been since my last relapse. Again, that only draws my attention back to PMO and I don't want that.
You can use a spreadsheet instead, but again, I feel like it's still focusing on the addiction rather than focusing on living (and fixing) my life. In 'My New Life' I don't want porn to get any attention what so ever in any area of my life. I don't even want a spreadsheet because it reminds me of the addiction. TheUnderdog addresses this in his post as well. (Seriously, read it! )
So, how easy is this going to be?
This is going to be very hard but I don't think it's more difficult that what I have been doing for the past couple of years, which yielded no noteworthy results. I'm going to struggle with lust and triggers but hopefully I can now start to fill my life (and thoughts) with other things that can push those triggers away. The other thing is that I only have this life to live so I'm going to start living my life NOW instead of waiting.
Anything else?
Not that I can think of at this moment, but I'll be sure to share if I think of anything. I will try to update often and as stated in this post, I will focus on living my new life, not PMO or porn. Please feel free to share your thoughts on all this. Any support is appreciated!
---------------------------------------
The following was written as a new post January 4th, 2016. I decided to paste it in here as it's part of my whole philosophy on reboot and recovery.
REDEFINING PORN ADDICTION: 'ADDICTED TO VISUAL STIMULATION'
1. What is porn?
For a porn addict, that might sound like a stupid question. But think about it for a second; how do you define porn? Why is a picture of a naked women by Playboy porn but a picture of a naked women from an art photographer isn't? Why is a nude scene on a porn site porn, but a nude scene in a movie isn't? How do you define 'porn'? If you say you're addicted to it, you should know what you're addicted to, right? How can you recover if you don't know what you're recovering from?
Reading posts on this forum and others I've come to realize that defining exactly what we're addicted to is more difficult than I thought. "It's porn, it's self-explanatory, right?" Not really. The good news is, the definition is also completely irrelevant.
Do you need porn to MO? Not really if you think about it. You can MO to nudity in TV shows, movies or magazines that are not classified as porn. I think most of us could MO to a girl in a bikini or tight yoga pants as well even though there's no nudity.
Here's my point: Defining what's porn or not doesn't really help us. If you MO to Game of Thrones or an online porn video doesn't really matter ? your brain gets its fix either way. If you're aroused by both and MO to both, just staying away from porn doesn't help your recovery, right? Other non-addicted scholars can argue about what is and what isn't porn because that's not the point, it's not something we need to figure out. What matters to us is what we're addicted to and how to recover from it.
2. Understand your situation
As a porn addict I'm in a very different situation than other people, and I have to accept that. Just as an alcoholic has to accept that he can't enjoy a beer with his mates or a glass of wine with his wife, I have to accept that not every TV show or movie is fine for me to see. I've already given up Game of Thrones, Californication and a bunch of other shows because they were hurting my recovery and put me dangerously close, or lead me directly, to a relapse. If you haven't noticed already, wanting to recover from addiction requires a lot of sacrifices and if you haven't realized that yet, I hope you do soon.
I know I'm in a different situation than friends that aren't addicts and I have to accept that. They can watch shows with nudity with no problems or thoughts of porn or jerking off. I can't. Does that feel unfair? At first, yes, but then again, I put myself in this position so I can't blame anyone else but me. And if I want to recover I have to face the consequences of the position I've put myself in. I have to make the sacrifices necessary to ensure my recovery. It's not about being harsh or beating myself up ? I put myself in this position and I'm ready to do whatever I have to to get myself out of it. I don't expect to recover unless I'm ready to do whatever recovery dictates. It's about going all in because I want to recover, not 50% because I want to get a little bit better but is not ready to sacrifice some of the things I like. An alcoholic can't recover while continuing to drink, even if he drinks less than he did ? all you're doing then is keeping the addiction alive until you relapse. I can't recover if I keep finding nudity or hot girls and am aroused by what I see, even if it's not technically porn. All I'm doing then is keeping the addiction alive and keeping my brain away from a proper reboot.
Again, is it too harsh? All I'm doing is what's necessary to recover, to give my brain a proper reboot. I'm all in, doing this 100%. Otherwise I don't see the point of the struggle.
3. Triggers
If you're trying to recover and you haven't heard about triggers yet, it's about time. If you have, then skip ahead or read for repetition
By triggers we mean anything that triggers our reward system that drives our addiction (this is a very simplified explanation by the way). When you relapse it's probably not because of the last porn videos you saw. Something turned you on and made you go look at porn. Whatever that 'something' was, is the trigger that triggered the relapse. The problem is that a trigger can be almost anything; it can be nudity in a TV show, a hot girl in a bikini, a babe in yoga pants at the gym or just wanting to test out a certain google search. Basically, anything can be a trigger and it's different for everyone so I can't tell you what your triggers are.
So, here's a top tip: If you relapse, make sure you think back and try to figure out what the trigger was so that you can be aware of it the next time you see it.
Okay, let's get back to the main story.
4. Addicted to visual stimulation
I would like to suggest a new term for our condition: 'Addicted to Visual Stimulation'. I find it much more helpful in my recovery and in understanding my addiction than porn addiction. I can't even define 'porn' properly which makes it impossible to define and understand a 'porn addiction'. So, how do I define 'Visual Stimulation' then?
Whether you're aroused or turned on by the girl at the gym, hot girls in a TV show or a movie, certain video games or a google image search, I define them all as visual stimulation. Porn is obviously Visual Stimulation as well and is included in the category, but other than that, what we call Visual Stimulation differs from person to person. We are all different people with different tastes or turn-ons.
With the term Visual Stimulation I try to capture them all and at the same time be flexible, meaning that what turns me on and is included in my personal definition of Visual Stimulation isn't necessarily part of your definition. I.e. if I find hot girls in yoga pants highly arousing, that's part of my definition of Visual Stimulation, but if you don't find that arousing at all, it's not part of your definition. Get it?
I would argue that anything you can put into the category 'Visual Stimulation' is problematic and part of your addiction. Can you tell the difference between a lesbian porn scene and the famous love scene in "Blue is the warmest color"? Can you tell the difference between a nude picture from Playboy or an art photographer? Whether you can or not is not the point. The point is, they're all visually stimulating, giving your brain visual cues (see point 6) and keeping the addiction alive.
5. Finding your definition
So, what is your definition of Visual Stimulation and consequently your definition of your addiction?
That's a difficult question to answer because it's highly personal and varies from person to person based on what turns you on. But I think triggers is a great place to start because I think triggers tells us something about what we find arousing, in other words, visually stimulating. And every time you find a trigger, be honest with yourself and add it to your definition.
6. What's so bad about visual stimulation as long as it's not porn?
Short answer; I would recommend you read about 'The "No Arousal" Method'' or read this article from The Independent. The point is that visual cues light up your brain's reward center and will be stimulated, just like an alcoholic who sees an ad for alcohol. In my opinion visual stimulation keeps the addiction alive because you're constantly giving your brain visual cues that triggers the reward center. As an addict, our brains are already messed up, they're not wired properly and instead of being wired towards real physical women and sex as we're supposed to, our brains only rewards us when we find visual stimulation. That's why we need a real reboot and during that reboot I believe you need to get rid of any visual cues.
Conclusion
I've already started to use 'Addicted to Visual Stimulation' rather than 'porn addiction' and VS-MO (Visual Stimulation-Masturbate Orgasm) instead of PMO. I don't expect to revolutionize the world here and I don't expect my new term to be used rather than 'porn addiction' in general. But I do hope that my definition can help you understand your addiction a little bit better and hopefully help in your recovery as well.