Great presentation by Gary Wilson

Hi everyone,

I'm sure most of you are aware of Garys TED talk. But here's a video I want to share of Gary giving a lesser known, longform presentation

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZLtSoWrEplM

Here are my takeaways:
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Four C's of addiction:

* Cravings
* Control loss
* Continued use despite negative affects
* Compulsion

* Addiction is pathological learning. It teaches your brain a behaviour is NECESSARY for survival. - Necessary for survival, clearly an illusion.

* Sensitization - Hyper-reactivity to cues and actions
* Desensitization - Numbed pleasure response to everyday things, with partial-exclusion to the specific stimuli (greater need for novelty)
* Hypofrontality - Weak impulse control, increased craving. Decreased ambition related behaviours and self discipline, procrastination
* Stress response - Amplified and amplified reaction to general stress. Also accounts for withdrawal

Stress systems:
*CRF1, Reduced arousal, increased anxiety, disruption of sleep.
*CRF2, Slow adaptive recovery (nervous system, probably strongly effects gym gainzz), appetite supression.

* Quantity/frequency =/= addiction. Infact there are specific changes which occur only with 1-3 week relapse reboot cycles which ARE WORSE for ones sensitization. This perfectly explains why after 6 years of reducing exposure from daily to day-week binge/abstain cycles my tastes are always increasing. I never figured out why after 6 years of drastically reducing use (relatively speaking) my tastes never returned to vanilla girls.

* Withdrawal 'truly' starts after week 1. Strong cravings 'truly' kick in around 2-3 weeks.

* People who reduce porn use exhibit more executive control (marshmellow test), ability to delay gratification. That has huge implications.

Yeah I've watched this like a dozen times. Everyone needs to watch this asap.

This is the quality content I like to see being shared!! Bravo peeps... bravo.  8)

Does that mean when you're stressed, the neural pathways of PIED is still maintained?

I assume you're referring to these:

"Stress systems:
*CRF1, Reduced arousal, increased anxiety, disruption of sleep.
*CRF2, Slow adaptive recovery (nervous system, probably strongly effects gym gainzz), appetite supression."

It essentially means addiction, particularly withdrawals (acute and post acute) are very stressful times for our physiology and mind.

Besides having poor wiring to real Women and having desensitization (reduction dopamine & dopamine receptors) which both directly cause PIED. The stress of withdrawal also indirectly can cause issues for libido and erections

I learned so much from this presentation. Probably Wilson's best work so far. I can't wait to read his next book, assuming he writes one.

Tyr said:

I assume you're referring to these:

"Stress systems:
*CRF1, Reduced arousal, increased anxiety, disruption of sleep.
*CRF2, Slow adaptive recovery (nervous system, probably strongly effects gym gainzz), appetite supression."

It essentially means addiction, particularly withdrawals (acute and post acute) are very stressful times for our physiology and mind.

Besides having poor wiring to real Women and having desensitization (reduction dopamine & dopamine receptors) which both directly cause PIED. The stress of withdrawal also indirectly can cause issues for libido and erections

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So basically there is more  than one pathway that's getting in the way of a healthy sexuality.

This seems so utterly hopeless.

Is your signature still true?

No porn since 2017 and no M since late 2018?

Not quite, unfortunately.

No Porn since August 2017 - yes. (no temptation for it whatsoever)
But MO is quite different. I've been MOing recently. I  did go through 2 or 3 spells of 3 months hardmode and most recently a 6 month spell hardmode.

Unfortunately during the 6 months spell, I experienced negative effects that made me go back to MO. For example, I feared my testosterone level were reducing due to the lack of sexual 'action' (ie,  even eradicated sexual thoughts during that time). I felt too feminine. Plus, my fat levels around the hips, buttocks and legs are increasing day by day now - usually it is women that have fats on that area, not men! So it's seems being on  NoFap has made my brain more female! And, frankly, I hate it - not lease because of this bizarre condition that I have at the moment were unexplained fat gain in the lower body is happening everyday.

DepressedAndOut said:

Not quite, unfortunately.

No Porn since August 2017 - yes. (no temptation for it whatsoever)
But MO is quite different. I've been MOing recently. I  did go through 2 or 3 spells of 3 months hardmode and most recently a 6 month spell hardmode.

Unfortunately during the 6 months spell, I experienced negative effects that made me go back to MO. For example, I feared my testosterone level were reducing due to the lack of sexual 'action' (ie,  even eradicated sexual thoughts during that time). I felt too feminine. Plus, my fat levels around the hips, buttocks and legs are increasing day by day now - usually it is women that have fats on that area, not men! So it's seems being on  NoFap has made my brain more female! And, frankly, I hate it - not lease because of this bizarre condition that I have at the moment were unexplained fat gain in the lower body is happening everyday.

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DepressedAndOut when you gain fat....you gain fat all over your body. Nofap doesn't have the power to change your hormones that much, that's nonsense.

Well, it's not true for me. I'm gaining fat in the lower body, mostly concentrated at the buttocks, and my upper body is lean - veins showing.

And this fat gain is not related to diet or exercise. This is because when I do overeat, the fat gains happens on my stomach. (like a usual male)

If you watch YouTube videos like by Dr Berg, you will find numerous clips of him talking about the different kind of fat gain and its description (some of which entail only getting fats at one region of the body; ie, fat from stress usually accumulates around the belly in order to protect the vital organs).

Unfortunately, as of yet, I haven't found any clips about the type of fat gain that  I'm experiencing.

So did you get your testosterone level checked recently? You really must confirm/refute your theory rather than just suspecting/fearing it. Even if you had it checked 2 years ago, you still need to check it again if you think something has changed. Maybe have all your hormones checked, including prolactin.

I think you are right  regarding the down-regulation of desire when you are living completely sexless. I think the body reacts to your disinterest by becoming less switched on/less ready for action, so to speak. This was my experience too. People like us who need to stay away from porn really have to either accept this, or get into a relationship so that sexuality has a natural and positive outlet. Being a career masturbator with a porn problem really only points in one direction - and that's eventual relapse.

I had my testosterone level checked last week and all is 'normal'. Same for cortisol and a full blood test.

But this doesn't mean anything, it could mean that the testosterone is converting to something els.

DepressedAndOut said:

I had my testosterone level checked last week and all is 'normal'. Same for cortisol and a full blood test.

But this doesn't mean anything, it could mean that the testosterone is converting to something els.

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Clearly what I said is possible.

Regarding the fat thing: It's probably just middle age, man. It gets to most of us. Fat gets harder to shift. You might be type 2 diabetic, or pre-diabetic too. That can have big implications for your health and body composition. You might want to have a blood glucose tolerance test if you haven't already. If you've only done fasting tests, you would have no indication of this. But if your body is becoming resistant to insulin, your body will up-regulate insulin production and this makes it near impossible to lose weight, and can make gaining weight very easy. You should be on a "ketogenic" style diet if that's the case. In fact, you should be on that anyway if you want to lose body fat. Carbs are your enemy in a situation like yours.

I suspect the sexual component of your problem is largely a psychological one. You identify as profoundly depressed - that has huge implications for anything with a psychological component - which sexual arousal certainly does. Are you on antidepressants? They can nuke sexdrive on their own - I remember that when I tried them for a short time 20 years ago. Terrible things - for me anyway.

Of course I'm depressed, I''m 35 and I've never even shared any intimate moment with a female - extremely soul shattering.

Yeah, of course psychologically I'm affected now, but I would say PIED is more of a problem.

I don't think I have prediabetes, I eat healthy foods, do exercise and maintain a healthy weight - and this has been happening for the last 15 years or so.

DepressedAndOut said:

Of course I'm depressed, I''m 35 and I've never even shared any intimate moment with a female - extremely soul shattering.

Yeah, of course psychologically I'm affected now, but I would say PIED is more of a problem.

I don't think I have prediabetes, I eat healthy foods, do exercise and maintain a healthy weight - and this has been happening for the last 15 years or so.

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Your use of language is interesting: twice your response was "of course". Why do you think you attach those devices to your sentences? Let's have a look at that without "of course":

"I'm depressed, I''m 35 and I've never even shared any intimate moment with a female - extremely soul shattering."

"Psychologically I'm affected now, but I would say PIED is more of a problem."

I think these statements suddenly sound more open-minded to investigation when "of course" is omitted. There is a certain level of arrogance attached to those two little words - like, "Don't tell me about my life! Don't you think I've already thought of everything you said? I've already evaluated all that and determined that unrelated to my situation, or useless as a line of enquiry."

In my opinion, this attitude is bad for you. For somebody who is in the dark about what's happening and what to do, you can't really be shutting down any line of enquiry because you might be shutting down the wrong one. I have my doubts whether what you describe is classic PIED because you are saying that it has been there for 15 years (actually pre-dating the high speed internet age, which is unusual for PIED in itself) and is completely unresponsive to the giving up PMO. Rather than concluding maybe this isn't PIED at all, you are concluding that it is, but that some people just can't recover from PIED. Do you not see any problem with this logic?

I think your case might be a tricky one because it's composed of more than a single culprit. There might be 3 or 4 things that are contributing to your symptoms and all of them need to be treated simultaneously.

Possibilities:

1) You didn't answer my question about anti-depressants. They are erection killers. I'm not saying you should just bin them if you're taking them - only that they may be contributing to your condition.

2) Maybe there is a physical issue that hasn't been uncovered. You can't exclude something like diabetes at any age - even if you are living an exemplary life. It's genetic for some people. Substantial weight gain around the middle is associated with diabetes. You would need to have a glucose tolerance test to exclude this. Also insulin levels can be tested.

3) Depression can change physical responses. Maybe sex as a whole is so laden with negative thoughts and feelings, your brain doesn't want to engage with it fully any more. If that were the case, you probably wouldn't experience improvements around sex unless you had a substantial improvement in your anxiety and depression levels.

4) Social skills with women. Probably stands to reason that if you feel useless with this, it will have a negative affect on your brain's response to sex. If it feels there is no prospect, it will down-regulate the sexual response. Healthy sexual response involves lots of parts of your brain lighting up together. I suspect you are trying to get your sexual response from very little arousal in your brain as a whole. Even for a fantasy during masturbation, the ability to imagine a scenario requires a well functioning brain to pull together a simulation of sex. Maybe years of avoiding women has dulled important parts of your brain that are crucial to sexual response. How would you even know how much of a factor this is unless you had experienced intimacy with a woman? I'd say you definitely need to spend more time relating to women and enjoying their company - allow them to impact your brain in a positive way. At the moment, women probably represent anxiety and depression more than anything. You will need to ease into this, but I suspect this is a huge component of what you need to work on. Anticipation of pleasure with a woman is paramount to your sexual functioning - and it's part of what initiates dopamine. I can tell you, it's different to the porn response. It feels different in the brain. A much more complete and multi-dimensional experience. Even though as addicts we trained our brains to exchange sex for PMO, they are still different in nature. I think this is why you can exhaust your brain's response to porn, but not to actual sex.

5) PIED. There still might be some of this going on, but I don't think it's all that's going on.

6) There are studied links between dopamine and anxiety. Anxiety affects dopamine and dopamine affects anxiety levels. There may be an interplay between your history of porn abuse and your anxiety/depression, which then feeds back into your brains response to dopamine. This is speculation of course, but it stands to reason that any time you spend being anxious is extended such a problem. If I were you, I'd be doing all I can to reduce anxiety levels. Meditation is a skill that is proven to affect this - it can remodulate the brain and restore neurotransmitters to healthier levels. The only problem is that most people with severe anxiety usually struggle to concentrate well enough to do it well. Still, might be worth introducing it to your health program and try to extend the session time gradually until your brain has a high degree of mastery over anxiety and rampant overthinking.

I can't say which of these apply to you or to what extent - I'm just throwing them out there for you to consider because I really want to help you in some way. But I think you need to start thinking of yourself as a complex whole in which multiple streams of improvement are necessary. It's certainly better than putting all your eggs in one basket and having them fail one at a time. If you've tried one at a time, you need to try all at once. And don't assume anything. Assumptions from the past can be very misleading. Try to eliminate "of course" and other such weasel words from your enquiries. They don't help you keep an open mind.

Anyway, have a think about it. Try not to shut it down prematurely. Even if it sounds irritating at first! Good luck, mate. I'm here for you if you want to discuss anything.

6) is very interesting. I've recently skimmed through a book about meditation and it mentioned dopamine as a stress hormone. That was the first time that I came across the term stress in relation to dopamine. I always thought dopamine was the "go-get-it" hormone or even falsely declared as a happiness hormone. But it makes total sense the more I think about it. Anxiety per se is not a bad thing. Quite the contrary because it puts your system in a state of watchfulness which can be ultra helpful in a life or death situation or a situation where you need to perform on a maximum level. It obviously becomes problematic if the frequency of stress becomes too high or if you switch into alert mode way too often and easily and you develop a general anxiety disorder.

Pete McVries said:

6) is very interesting. I've recently skimmed through a book about meditation and it mentioned dopamine as a stress hormone. That was the first time that I came across the term stress in relation to dopamine. I always thought dopamine was the "go-get-it" hormone or even falsely declared as a happiness hormone. But it makes total sense the more I think about it. Anxiety per se is not a bad thing. Quite the contrary because it puts your system in a state of watchfulness which can be ultra helpful in a life or death situation or a situation where you need to perform on a maximum level. It obviously becomes problematic if the frequency of stress becomes too high or if you switch into alert mode way too often and easily and you develop a general anxiety disorder.

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Yeah, one of the things I learned from this particular Gary Wilson video was that dopamine isn't necessarily a pleasure hormone, it is more a seeking thing.  Anxiety and seeking aren't the same thing, but I'd say there is a pretty big overlap between the two.  I'm glad Gary's work pops up from time to time, because when we don't get the professional perspective, we're left with an impoverished version of the science.