On becoming a Patreon of Gabe Deem

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Psyc Ops

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Below is a link to support Gabe Deem as a Patreon, through the Patreon app.

I just got my first Patreon video, sent directly to my email.

Tne of th things I have learned is that we almost ought to have a "test in" doorway, for new members.  New members can use the resources here to learn about the problem, which might better be described as having conditioned, or trained, their brains, via porn (sexual thoughts) to produce a neurological motivational and reward event.  We have been doing that for as long as the species has existed, and that reward event is this species evolved mechanism for encouraging reproduction.  Whether one considers themselves "addicted", or not, if you have a brain, this reward event is a big part of your existence and perception of reality.  But recently, around 2007, we invented High Speed Internet Porn, which is when this problem started being reported, and we are still playing catch up with it. 

We are still early in the study of what it is, how it works, how to "measure" changes in the brain, and, honestly, while this place has helped many people, including me, we are still taking a shotgun approach at how to fix it.  Once we applied the word "addiction" to the problem, it was intuitive that we would use preexisting addiction solutions to fix the problem.  I am not a big proponent of using the AA model for what we call "porn addiction,", because I know the solution to the problem is, essentially, to do the same thing we did to cause the problem:  Make a commitment to training your brain to live without the neurological reward event. Gabe is a fan of the AA model.  He may be right; it may be the best way, but I got clean on my own, with help from forums like this one.

In any event, if you are a person with this problem, Gabe Deem has sacrificed thousands of hours of his time to help YOU.  He does not get paid for this unless we pay him.  I signed up to be his Patreon a while back for a very small fee.  He deserves more, but it is what I could afford.  I urge everyone reading this to click on the link and support Gabe.  It is not much money for us, but if we had a couple thousand people support him, even at a very low contribution, it could make a real contribution in this very good, and honest, man's life.

Much love.

https://www.patreon.com/gabedeem
 

Gabe Deem

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Admin
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Hey Psyc Ops,

Really appreciate this post my man. I've been working on a video on the "Fatline" and I have many more videos coming. Each and every supporter will help me dedicate more of my time into making quality, helpful content.

Now, I wanted to clarify my stance on AA, because you said
Gabe is a fan of the AA model.

To be clear, I know the 12 step model has helped many people recover from addictions, but I'm NOT a fan of the "powerless" concept. I've thought about that a lot, and one could argue that even learning the neuroscience and reading others journals is "being helped by others," because.. it is. However, we weren't "powerless" to do a google search, make an account and start rewiring and rebalancing our brain. I feel the knowledge of the neuroscience "empowers" us to make the necessary changes to recover, once we know what we need to do and what we need to avoid. 

Put simply, I think many of the steps are helpful, but I'm not a fan of it completely.

Thanks again for the support. And thanks for being a guiding light on the forum. Much love, and keep truckin.



Much of the steps I believe are absolutely great and helpful for recovery, but I'm not sure I'd say they are essential.
 
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Psyc Ops

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Below is a link to support Gabe Deem.  Does not cost much, and it is an investment in your future.  Put some skin in the game, and you are much more likely to win the game.  If you are on the sidelines just watching, no pain no gain. 


https://www.patreon.com/gabedeem

This situation can be described as many things.  "Addiction" is the word most of us here use.  I don't like that word.  It carries a lot of baggage.  It implies disease, or sickness, illness; something that must be cured.  It carries some shame.  It was helpful for me, in the beginning, to use the concept.  It put a name on the problem, and I needed to name the problem in order to create the solution.  But I am not for sure the word is adequate to describing the problem.  If you are here, you are not sick, you don't need to be cured, and there is no shame.  Your brain is a computer.  Feed it certain input, and you will get certain output.  Just that simple. 

So, about 2007, we, as in us, as in humanity, invented a super neat tool:  High Speed Internet Porn (HSIP).  HSIP was one of the most efficient tools we have invented to trigger a neurological reward/motivational event that we love, aka a dopamine high.  A dopamine high is sort of like feeling like the best you can feel, the most alive you can feel, for a moment, for those that have the problem.  That neurological event, by the way, is naturally occurring, totally healthy, and absolutely necessary for the survival of the species.  If you are a newbie, one of the most important things you can do to overcome what we call "porn addiction" is to forget and reject everything you think you know about porn.  It's all wrong.  Porn is not addictive, porn is just a depiction of sex.  But, depictions of sex leads to thoughts of sex, and thoughts of sex, naturally, lead to the neurological reward/motivational event that is a dopamine rush.  This happens without porn, but porn is a tool that makes achieving that reward event easy and efficient.  You need to demystify porn, you need to de-romanticize porn, you need to forget everything you thought you knew about porn and realize it is simply a tool.  It is a means to an end.  It is a button.  Your solution is to quit pushing the button, and thereby quit getting high.  Probably the most difficult thing for persons with the problem is recognizing they are getting high, then embracing that they are going to have to give up getting high.  I can tell you this, but you will not believe me, until you do it:  giving it up is not so bad, once you have given it up for a while, and once you have given it up for a while, you will cease to miss it. 

Gabe is going to be posting about "flatlining" for Patreons soon.  This problem is funny in that it is not the same for everyone.  I never flatlined.  I never had PIED.  Those were symptoms of this problem that some experienced, but I never did.  For those of you who have experienced those problems, I strongly encourage you to become a Patreon of Gabe, which costs a few bucks a month, but which gains you a bit more of personal insight from the man who has done so much to bring this problem into focus. 

Much love. 
 
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Psyc Ops

Guest
Just received Gabe's "Flatlining" video.  Found it interesting, and I have seen a lot of people post about the flat line, but, I never had that problem.  If you have that problem, watch the video, and while you are at it, I recommend you sign up for a monthly payment to Gabe through the Patreon app.  This is not a subscription service, so it is totally free to the members, but Gabe has to pay money to keep the site up, not to mention the hours every week he is here trying to support people who develop this problem.  Throw a little love at him in the form of a couple of bucks a month.  More if you can afford it. 

The concept of "porn" can be confusing, and it means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.  Once you understand that it is a tool to cause a neurological reward event, aka a dopamine high, you will have taken a huge step toward fixing the problem.  What is "fixing the problem?"  Fixing the problem is quitting using porn for the noted end AND doing that for long enough you don't miss it anymore.  For some people, there is the terrifying thought that they cannot control their porn consumption.  Truth:  Everyone can, but if you have been reliant on P to get that rush for a few years, it feels like it is in control of you, and not the other way around.  Quitting porn is a process, not an event.  I see a lot of newbies show up here and announce "I quit", only to be back in two days or two hours lamenting a relapse.  It takes time to become reliant on P, it will take some time, months anyway, to cease relying on it.  When I quit I thought it was the most difficult thing I had ever done.  Now that I have been quit for a long time, it amazes me I ever found quitting difficult at all.  What I am telling you is that the struggle you will undergo when quitting is real, but, also, out on the other side, it gets easy.  The struggle goes away. 

Hope this helps.

Much love.

 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
Thanks for the post.
Happy to contribute to Gabe and the site RebootNation.
The community is for me a lovely place with nice and intelligent people. The exchange is of great value for me. Thanks to everybody.
 
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Psyc Ops

Guest
Ok.  I don't give much, but if a lot of us here gave a little, it would be a big help to Gabe, who has done as much as anyone to help people fucked up by the invention of High Speed Internet Porn. 

Is it an "addiction"?  I don't like the word, but it is a word I used for years, because it is the word that is, and has been, available. 

Is it for life?  NO.  Whatever you wish to call this condition, with time and effort, it can be fixed.  We call it the "reboot", but, in actuality, it is training your brain to live without the neurological reward and dopamine high that hypersexual thoughts can produce.  The studies show that brains of porn addicts light up pretty much the same as brains of drug addicts, and that is because, neurologically, is practically the identical thing happening:  We use a trigger, other than sex or food, to get high.  Though you are going go have to give up porn to fix the problem, you need to understand that porn is just a means to an end; the end, the high, is a neurological reward.  That reward by the way is perfectly healthy, and necessary; it is not a bad thing, it is just that humanity has figured out a lot of unhealthy ways to achieve it, and for some, porn is that way to achieve it.  Becoming self aware is very important to fixing the problem. 

This addiction is different from other addictions, while it lights up the same areas of the brain that they do.  We have made the distinction between behavioral addiction and substance addiction.  Not for sure the distinction is all that real, but, that said, no one overdoses on porn, and no one dies from withdrawals. 

If you have the problem you have to first recognize you are not addicted to porn, per se, you are addicted to the neurological reward event porn--and even more exactly--sexual thoughts, create.  Am I saying sexual thoughts are addictive?  No, not normally, but they naturally produce the reward event.  It is just that, via porn, we can turn that reward event from a gentle rain to a tsunami.  Porn is a means we can use to spike the reward event.  Be self aware, understand what you are doing, when you are doing it, and you will have greater success in becoming who you want to be.  Throw out all your conceptions of porn, forget everything.  You have an idea that porn = something.  Forget that, and accept it is a tool you use to get high.

Gabe does not like the idea of AA's "powerless" model.  I completely agree, and, no insult to the many that have benefited from AA, its concepts are approximately 90 years prior to the neuroscience that we currently use to study the effects of AB and C on the brain, whatever that trigger is.  What we know is that the reward mechanisms that result in this problem have existed for millions of years, and are absolutely crucial to our survival as a species, and before the invention of High Speed Internet Porn were not much of a problem except for little things like drug addiction, alcoholism, sexual dysfunction and violence, homicide, rape, depression, anxiety, and war, to name a few.  We were fucked up before the invention of HSIP, it is just that HSIP is yet a new way we have found push a neurological reward button, resulting in some of us becoming fucked up via a relatively new means.  It's OK, it's not tragic, and the very good news, if you find your self in the trap, is that the trap does not have to last forever.  I have been clear for years; I do not struggle at all with not accessing porn.  Unlike some addiction models, this model is not a lifetime model; you can fix it, and then make choices about who you want to be.  My advice is:  Fix it now, forget everything you thought you knew about porn, and just take time to get clean.  Once clean, figure out how much artificial sexual stimulation you want in your life.  We float in it, whether you call it porn or swimsuit mags, it is all around.  It can even be fun, just so long as you are controlling it, and it is not controlling you. 

I have the idea less and less people are experiencing porn in an addictive way, as more and more people understand it can become addictive, or that their brains may become reliant on porn to achieve that neurological reward event.  They told me about drugs in school, and consequently I did not use drugs.  No one told me about High Speed Internet Porn, and God forbid we teach our kids about anything sexual.  Sarcasm by the way.  It is important to Get Educated. 

Now, click on this link, and support Gabe.  I think he is the only person you personally know who is trying to help you with this problem.  It takes a credit card, and I suggest you put $5 a month, which is deducted automatically.  I will spend 10 times that on fast food in a month, so, that equals a couple less fries for this month, which, coincidently, will not hurt your waistline.  Put a little skin in the game of fixing this problem, and you are going to be more likely to fix the problem, and the problem CAN be fixed. 

Much love. 

Click it.

https://www.patreon.com/gabedeem
 
I

Icandoit

Guest
For sure I had absolutely no idea about what effect porn could've had on me. I thought it was the best tool to teach me about sex because my parents didn't talk about it at all and my friends were teenagers. At one point it started making me depressed because I couldn't have the "performances" that I saw at the guys in the videos (which, by the way, are not real, they are enhanced by pills, injections, editing and stuff - porn is not real life sex but I couldn't know). At one point I had a completely limp noodle (to quote Gabe) which was too far away from what I saw in the videos, right? Porn is not sex education. You watch porn and, instead of learning about sex and becoming a sex machine, you become completely asexual. As William used to say, porn is a button we push to get a dopamine high. That's all there is. But our brain doesn't know how to differentiate it from sex and this is where it gets complicated. I have porn fantasies, I crave porn like it's my sex life. I understand it takes time until the brain forgets about all this.
 
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Psyc Ops

Guest
QUESTIONS FOR GABE

Part of being a Patreon of Gabe is getting messages in your email from Gabe with helpful information.  This month it was an invite for a Q and A.  That is helpful, and in fact I would suggest Gabe create a new section on this forum that allows persons to "test" their knowledge of what is going on in their head.  One cannot beat this without knowing those, and a test format might make it more interesting for some.  Most of the people that arrive here arrive without a lot of good science, and they need that to make the most efficient exit from the problem. 

If you wonder what being a Patreon is, it is simply giving Gabe financial support.  I am set up on a recurring monthly payment.  Not a lot of money, but if a lot of us gave a little every month, it would be helpful.  There is a link, higher up on this thread, you can click to join.

So, my question to Gabe is a bit different someone here struggling to quit, because I quit years ago, I don't love the word "addict", and if this is an addiction, it need not be a lifetime problem.  For me, currently, it is no problem at all.  Once I understood I was using porn to achieve a neurological reward event--which we all really, really love--then the solution became apparent:  Quit using porn to achieve the reward event.  That is a very simple solution to a problem that is, if you have trained your brain to expect to get the event daily, often multiple times a day, painful and difficult to implement.  But be aware of what you are.  You are a human, you are a member of the alpha species on the planet.  We eat pain, and often inflict, every single day.

Question to Gabe:  It looks to me like the high water point for what we call "porn addiction" happened a few years ago, and that since then, with more awareness, less and less young people are exposing themselves to porn, or using it unwittingly, to get a dopamine high.  Do you think this site, others like it, and messages like you and Noah Church put out, have had a positive effect on less people using porn to get high, and by extension become what we call porn addicts?

I wonder if Gary Wilson has a sense of this.

Would love your thoughts. 
 
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Psyc Ops

Guest
GABE'S INTERVIEW WITH MATT FRADD

I am going to break down Gabe's interview with Matt Fradd, but before I do want to remind all members that every little bit can help Gabe educate people about how excessive use of porn can alter brain pathways and become problematic for some people.  So, go to the Patreon link, above, sign in, and give a few bucks a month.

This not a report on the interview, but my thoughts on points raised in it. 

I don't know Matt Fradd, nor had I heard of him before this interview, but the first thing he broadcasts is that he is very Catholic.  This makes it interesting, because I am a totally secular individual and believe in no religion.  But, if you do, no haters.

Talks about Thomas Aquainus and lust.  Thomas Acquinas was a Catholic thinker and philosopher who existed approximately 800 years before the brain science that currently supports a porn addiction model existed, before psychiatry, as we know it, existed, before neurology and neurological studies of the brain existed.  One of the big problems in running an analysis of porn addiction through a religious filter is that we have to add additional, debatable, often contested, always complex concepts that are completely unnecessary to an understanding of this problem which is simply use of High Speed Internet Porn to trigger a brain reward event, which many of us call a dopamine high.  Just-that-simple.

Matt is REALLY into Thomas Aquainus.  There are worse hobbies, aka porn.  So, better this than that.

One of the first interesting--I would say problematic--things that Matt does is to equate porn with lust.  Concepts such as lust are loaded, and your recovery will probably be more efficient if you simply accept that a relatively new technology, High Speed Internet Porn, created, again, approximately 800 years after Aqinus's death, is a relatively new tool humanity figured out to use to obtain a dopamine high.  It is a very simple, almost mechanical event.  Watch porn=sexual thoughts, sexual thoughts=dopamine high.  Just that simple, no demons rolling around in there pushing you to do it.  Do it enough and your brain becomes dependent on the high, so much so that when you quit, your brain suffers withdrawals, which is where you have achieve the condition many call porn addiction.  This is a cause and reward event, in your brain, period.  Trying to get clean in the context of morality and religion is for the most part unhelpful in my opinion. I see a lot of guys trying to fix themselves in a lot of ways here, when in fact this place is most efficient if you use it to fix your porn problem.  After that if you want to become a saint, do it, but you will find success most efficiently in this place if you use it as a tool to fix your porn problem.  What is "fixing" your porn problem, what does that look like?  It is quitting using porn to get a dopamine high for long enough that you quit missing the high.  That takes time and effort and is painful.  Just know that going in and know the pain goes away. 

Matt says quitting porn is a way to live a more beautiful life.  Maybe.  I have said it a bit differently in that quitting porn makes having a better life more likely, but quitting it, in and of itself, does not make your life better.  If you have problems in your life, and we all do, facing those problems without compulsive porn consumption makes it more likely you will fix them. 

Matt likes beer.  I like beer.  Obviously we both like to use external stimulation to achieve a dopamine high, so there must be some bridge between us.

Gabe comes in about 4:30 into the show.  Gabe experienced porn at an early age.  Most of us do.  Since the 50s porn has been commercial, open, a money maker, and mass produced. 

Then, around 2007, we invented High Speed Internet Porn.  Before that a lot of us loved porn, or, could use it to trigger a neurological reward event, which is how you must conceive of its use.  Forget everything you think you know about what porn is, because it is none of those things, it is a tool you have been using, unconsciously, unwittingly, without education, to produce a stimulation that is naturally occurring, naturally healthy, naturally absolutely necessary to the survival of the species, but with the invention of HSIP can be triggered in an unnaturally regular and recurring way.

This is a relatively new event, use of HSIP.  Porn has been around forever.  Many of us get a dopamine high from it, and have for as long as there has been human records.  But, HSIP is new, different, unique, and makes the current problem possible. 

Gabe became sexually active at 14.  Porn use competes with actual sex as a brain reward event.  Porn is more efficient that sex in achieving a dopamine high.  This can lead the brain to prefer porn over actual sex, which leads to what we call porn induced erectile dysfunction.  At that point the porn addict can get an erection with porn, but not with an actual partner.  That happened to Gabe.

This was early days in High Speed Internet Porn, and Gabe had no idea what the problem was, so he went out and researched it.  That lead eventually to this site and others coming into creation.

Gabe did not believe porn was a problem.  Neither did I.  I denied porn addiction was a real thing.  Then one day I had to admit it was.  That day sucked, but that thought is a thought I had to have to overcome this.  I have become skeptical about the concept of "porn addiction", but I can report I had to have that thought about myself in order to overcome compulsive porn consumption, which technically is producing a dopamine high over and over, daily, for years.  We likey. 

Gabe did the masturbation test, which is if you can rub one off without porn, porn may not be the problem, but if you need porn to reach O, and cannot with a partner, you have a porn problem.

Gabe talks about neuroplasticity, or the ability to change the brain, the ability of you, an individual, to condition, or re-condition your brain not to miss it.  That is the thing about porn.  It is not so much you condition your brain not to love porn, not to trigger to it, to hate it; the real challenge is conditioning your brain NOT TO MISS IT.  If it was easy to give up, it would not be called an addiction.

Gabe talks about the reboot, or trying to set the brain's pleasure expectations back to a natural level, or a level that would exist in humanity prior to the invention of commercial porn, and, especially HSIP. 

Now, a lot of humans experience HSIP as adolescents, who are especially vulnerable to developing reliance on porn to achieve an artificially produced dopamine high.

Novelty, searching for something new, never seen, never experienced, is also associated with a dopamine reward.  This is in part why pornographers and the tube sites are constantly churning out new porn.  Old porn eventually starts to cause less of a dopamine high, and in order to achieve that higher dopamine high the user must move on to new and different porn.  This will sometimes cause what I call moving through the categories, meaning many users end up watching porn that they do not see as their normal sexuality.  That is where some people determine that there is a problem.

Gabe talks about occasional use, and says don't do it.

Gabe talks about Reboot Nation.  I don't know if Gabe does anything else, but this is one reason why anyone here should support him as a Patreon.  Talking about porn addiction and porn generally may be his main income.

Matt talks about porn as an addiction, and implies it is not, and that calling this problem that trivializes real addictions. 

Gabe talks about behavioral addictions.  For me, it all misses the point.  Addiction or not addiction, if you have problem stopping, you have a problem.  The addiction, if it exists, is not to porn, but to the dopamine high you can use to achieve it. 

Gabes talks about sensitization, Pavlov's dog, desentization, and resensitization.  Gabe believes porn is addictive.  Again, the word is older than Aqinus, and I think we need a more modern language to define this.  Regardless, the brain studies show that the brains of people who get a dopamine high from any trigger light up pretty much the same way and a dopamine high is a key aspect in all behaviors we call addicted. 

Gabe describes addiction as continued use despite negative consequences. 

She who shall not be named is discussed.  She denies porn addiction, but her studies seem to support a porn addiction finding.

Look, porn is used, and ONLY used, by people to achieve a change in the brain.  Without the dopamine reward it would be interesting as watching paint peel.  Think of porn as a tool.  It is not something that is happening to you, it is something you are doing to yourself, to achieve a brain change, a brain reward event, a dopamine high.

Gabe says education is everything, he is absolutely right.  We need to teach kids about how the brain works, about using triggers to achieve a dopamine high.  Whether addictive or not, we can use many things to trigger a dopamine high.  Gabe says big business sells dopamine highs, not just porn.  Gabe is a believer in support communities.  Reboot and Nofap were very helpful for me.  Writing and responding to posts is helpful to the recovery.  Get off the sidelines, get in the porn quitting game.  Totally sucks, quitting porn, because you are denying yourself a dopamine high you have been using for years without knowing you were using it.  But it helps to be with others when going through that total suckiness.  Yes, suckiness is a real word invented to describe quitting porn addiction.  Just made that up.  The solution is to rewire the brain not to miss it.  Missing it is called withdrawals.  When the withdrawals go away, you are recovered.

Gabe talks about replacement activities.  I think that especially in the quitting phase, you have to have them, and need to plan on having them in advance of quitting so that when the withdrawals do happen, and they will, you already have a plan to fill in that time NOT WATCHING PORK, aka NOT GETTING HIGH.

Gabe says to avoid replacement activities that generate a dopamine high.  Very important for a newbie to understand.  You are addicted to a dopamine high, not porn, so trying to replace porn with another means of achieving a dopamine high, such as video games, is just you continuing to use.  You are going to have to consciously avoid artificially produced dopamine highs for about 90 days, and let's be honest, you need to avoid ALL dopamine highs for that time period as well.  Why?  If the problem is dopamine highs, and it is, you need to retrain your brain to live without them for a while.  Did I mentioned this sucks?  It is going to hurt.  Know that going in.  It will be physical, mental, and emotional pain, and you are going to want to use to make those horrible feelings go away, but you are going to have experience those horrible feelings to get clean.  This is easy advice to give and hard to take, but be glad when you feel withdrawals, because that is a symptom of your brain rewiring.  It is not a life sentence.  The worst, and maybe all, are over in the 90 day reboot period, for most people.  But that is if you really do it and do not cheat along the way. 

Gabe talks about using exercise in the reboot and beyond, and Matt agrees.  Let me translate.  Over the last 2 million years the human brain evolved so that certain experiences were rewarded with a dopamine high.  Pretty much, the two most rewarded activities are sex and eating.  But, in both cases, thinking about sex and eating also achieves a dopamine high.  Why?  Because thinking about sex and eating leads to searching for sex and eating, and searching for sex and eating leads, often, to the real deal.  Nature figured out a long time ago that to motivate humanity to do these things is a big step into us actually engaging in these activities.  It is the same in all species.  The most successful species are those that can survive, and reproduce, and neurological rewards are why these activities are engaged in.  So what Matt and Gabe are both talking to is engaging in behaviors that look a lot more like activities humans engage in well prior to the invention of HSIP.  We were a lot more physical then, so it helps to replace porn with physical activities and exercise. 

Gabe and Matt agree about socialization.  Porn is a highly unsocial and solitary behavior.  One of the painful things in the reboot that will help you get back to more or less normal is reaching out to others and interacting with them.  Learning to interact with reality as opposed to pixels is painful, but necessary.  Do it, talk to people, be nice to people.  I am actually a misanthrope, so doing this was difficult for me in the reboot, but I did it anyway, and it was helpful.  Go mow someone;s yard, help the landlady get her groceries in, encourage someone. 

Avoid super normal stimulation.  Translation:  avoid anything not occurring in nature to achieve a dopamine high.  Get your dopamine highs the old fashioned way, which will be difficult, especially at first, because it means living with a lot less highs. 

Matt asks about sex addiction v. porn addiction.  They are not the same.  All addictions involve use of super stimulation to achieve a dopamine high.  Porn addiction requires no sex.  Sex addiction does.  Porn is not sex, sex is not porn.  Sex can be healthy, but porn is not sex, and is unhealthy.  Gabe points out how porn can be more efficient at getting a dopamine high than sex. 

Matt asks about therapy.  This is where, in part, I diverge from the porn addiction model.  One of the big problems we have is that while, in this place, Reboot Nation, porn addiction is accepted as real definable condition, out in the real world, it is not.  The DSM does not recognize it as an addiction.  Part of my problem with calling it an addiction is that addictions are deemed maladies or illnesses, something to be cured, and most addiction models translate that as need to be cured for life.  I now understand that what we call porn addiction is just the result of having used porn to condition my brain to achieve a reward event, a dopamine high.  The cure is not, in my opinion, therapy, but education.  I know of no one who went to therapy for porn addiction and over came it, but I know a lot of people who got educated and quit it.  We will have to see where it goes in the future.  From an evolutionary perspective, the understanding that porn is a tool to achieve a dopamine high, and the ability to measure it, is  about two seconds old.  Placing it in the category of a thing that is an illness that requires treatment to achieve a cure is taking it in a direction that may be premature to take it. 

Nonetheless, Gabe talks about treatment with sex therapists and says they might offer some help.  Gabe says one looking for external help should seek out a Certified Sexual Addiction Therapist. 

Matt asks about relapses.  Gabe says every day without porn aka a dopamine high, it is progress.  He is right.  The most efficient way is 90 days hard mode, but every moment not being high helps bend the brain back a little to a pre-porn brain, with pre-porn dopamine expectations.  My advice is, for the most efficient fix, go hardmode 90 days, and maybe try and go hardmore for as many times as you need until you achieve it.  Once you get clean, once you get to the days where you don't miss the high, I promise you are going to NOT want to go back to it, because quitting it once is hell, quitting it twice is hell times two.

Gabe talks about changing your lifestyle during the reboot.  There are some simple tricks.  For instance, if you can give up internet for the hard 90, do it.  If you have a smart phone, get a dumb phone.  It you must use the internet, get blockers.  If you have accessed porn in a private or secretive manner, put the computer in a public place, and don't access the internet unless people who can watch you are present.  Keep your door open at work, at school, in the dorm, in your house, and move your computer to where people passing can see what you are watching.  Make plans, now, for what activities you are going to engage in when the withdrawals hit.  Develop distraction techniques, means of stopping a two second sexual thought from becoming a dopamine soaked sex opera in your head.  Don't wake up one day and say today is the day I quit.  Make plans for how you are going to quit, how you will fill the time you have been using watching porn with something healthy and non stimulating, and plan on when you have a sexual thought, how you can shut it down.  I have heard some people wear a rubber band and snap it really hard when the thoughts creep in during the reboot.  Plan now for what will happen in the moments when your brain punishes you for not giving it the high you have been giving it, for years. 

Matt asks about sexaholics anonymous.  Gabe discusses the addiction for life model, and disagrees with it.  I agree.  This addiction is not for life.  I don't wake up anymore and plan my day around how to get high.  I don't think about porn or using it to get high most days.  I no longer miss it.  I don't need weekly meetings not to watch it, not to use it.  Gabe says nothing against SA, and there are some advantages, but some of it he does not agree with.  The state of "not missing it" means the withdrawals are behind me, and my brain is pretty much back to normal factory settings. 

Gabe says change how you view porn.  Exactly.  Quit thinking of it as anything other than a tool to get a dopamine high.  Do not romanticize it, do not believe you see your sexuality in it, at all.  View porn as a conditioned bad habit that your life will be better without.  Long term consequences of porn consumption are nothing but negative for your brain. 

Gabe was recently married.  Did not know that.  Congratulations.  He has a normal sex life (implied, not stated). 

Matt talks about pornography being counterfeit.  It is.  It is fake, it is false, it is not real.  You can use it to get high, but if you want to quit you have to intellectually commit not to, as in not getting high.  It is not just in porn, but commercial sexuality permeates society.  Sex sells because it gets our attention, because getting our attention is giving us a dopamine high, which we love. 

Gabe talks about escalation through the porn categories.  If you have this problem, you have almost certainly done this.  Shocking new content helps achieve a dopamine high, once you become desensitized to the porn you first started with, which probably reflected, in your mind, your normal sexuality.  You probably started at vanilla, and are now way outside your initial genre. 

Gabe talks about how this condition is a conditioned condition.  You did it to yourself, it did not happen to you.  You trained your brain without knowing it. 

Gabe talks about Reboot Nation and his Youtube Channel as good sources of information.  They are.

Thanks Gabe and Matt for the video.  It was interesting.

Much love.




 
 
P

Psyc Ops

Guest
Hi. 

Gabe is one of the people who first recognized, and publicized, how compulsive porn consumption can have negative consequences, and how to deal with that.  His first post in this forum was on 3-4-2014.  He, and others, such as Androg and Gary Wilson, have been here since the beginning.

Below is a link to Patreon, a funding site, which you can support Gabe on.  This site does not pay for itself, so if you get something from the site, sign up with Patreon and give a little love back.

https://www.patreon.com/

Today Patreons of Gabe got a youtube link.  Let's break it down.  (A lot of this is my interpretation, rather than an attempt to literally state what Gabe has said).

Pretty common question:  Do I have to stay away from ALL sex in media during the reboot? 

During the reboot you need to make some life changes.  Gabe talks about not accessing your computer unless in public, and avoiding sex in media, such as movies, video games, etc.  Plan now on putting something between you and porn in the reboot.  Don't quit casually, make quitting your purpose.  What you are really doing in the reboot is not just giving up porn, but learning to live without the many and heightened dopamine reward events that all sexual thoughts can produce.  Since visual depiction of sex in media can, and for the rebooter will, result in a dopamine high, avoid it during the reboot.  You are not just not watching porn, you are avoiding all sexual thoughts because they produce the real culprit, a dopamine rush.  It does not have to be avoided forever, but to do the reboot correctly, avoid it. 

I have been clean for years, so that stuff no longer bothers me, but during my reboot, I actually closed my eyes during certain triggering scenes.  During the reboot, avoid things that produce a dopamine high.

In terms of this place, post often, when you are challenged, post here, and respond to others.  During the reboot that interaction is helpful to keeping clean. 

It is important to have a purpose.  The purpose is getting clean, staying clean, and overcoming the desire to use it.  Success here is not coming to hate porn, or no longer being able to use it to obtain a neurological reward event, but, rather, to not miss the reward event once you quit using porn to get it. 

What about people who love porn, how does a rebooter deal with them?  People don't really love "porn", though many think they do.  What they love is the neurological reward event, in the brain, that watching porn produces; a dopamine high.  I think Gabe is saying it is not our jobs to prove to anyone porn is "bad", but, given the opportunity, we can educate about what porn does, the reason people "like" porn, the neurological consequences of porn, and the potential for it becoming habit forming.  Truth is, there are a lot of people that can pick porn up, play with it, put it down, no problem.  If you are here, putting it down is the problem.  Some have that problem, not everyone does.  As for quitting an addiction, you are not going to talk anyone into it; they decide to quit, or they don't quit. 

Gabe is big on sharing your story of recovery.  I, myself, never really have.  I just fixed the problem, quietly.  I have posted here quite a bit, but few people in my real world know I ever struggled with quitting porn.  It is private to me, and though I would not say it embarrasses me, it is simply a problem I had, I dealt with, and I really don't care if the world knows about it.  You have to find your own path.  Gabe talks about telling people the benefits of quitting.  For me the benefit was not being a slave to a habit I no longer wanted engage in.  I don't think quitting gives anyone super powers, but once you are quit, you will have a much better time of fixing other problems in your life with this monkey off your back.  I will say that without using the words "porn addiction" I have educated, in the real world, some people as to why porn is interesting, and how it results in a dopamine high, and I think that has made a difference in some of their lives.  I was not trying to talk them out of anything, just educating them about how porn is a tool than can be used to obtain a dopamine high.  Demystifying it, de-romanticizing it (divorcing it, intellectually, from sex), is a big step into figuring out what you are actually giving up. 

Gabe talks about the "flatline."  Gabe is pretty much an expert on this.  Don't give up hope, the brain takes time to change.  Recovery is bending the brain back to something that looks like a pre porn state.  You have to stay positive. I never flatlined, myself, so cannot give much advice myself on this.  There may be underlying causes, so do not be afraid to seek medical or therapuitic help.  OK, to translate, porn causes known problems, and quitting porn has side effects, some of which are negative, at least initially, until the problem is fixed, but not every problem is a result of porn or quitting it.  Flatlining, PIED, happen with porn and quitting it, but ED and flatlining can happen because of other reasons than porn.  As for therapy, I, myself, am very skeptical, and why shouldn't I be?  Many "therapists" do not really believe in "porn addiction".  Be cautious, as there are therapists who will tell you they will treat you for the condition, when they really don't know what it is, or believe in it, and believe what you describe as a side effect of some accepted malady. 

Our culture sexualizes everything.  Even if it is not porn, sex is everywhere.  This gets back to "rebooting", I think.  I rebooted years ago, and it does not bother me much any more.  Porn is only a problem when it is a problem.  Sex, sexuality, depictions of sex, are everywhere in out culture.  Just be aware of what is around you.  Gabe compares cigarettes to porn, and he predicts the viewing of porn will eventually be treated like cigarettes.  I disagree with Gabe on this point.  We tried to legally control porn at points in the past, for all the wrong reasons, and the wrong reasons are still the reasons most people who want to control it still believe are good reasons.  Most people who want to control porn want it controlled on moral or religious grounds, as opposed to neurological health grounds.  Me?  Quitting porn was incredibly difficult, and in the reboot I avoided anything that would result in a sexual thought.  But, now, after the reboot, I simply don't dwell on the sexuality in our culture, and I would not want it to be governmentally curtailed or controlled.  We like sex, we like sexual thought, we like images that produce sexual thoughts.  I avoid porn, I still avoid some of the more sexualized media (no Victoria Secrets, no softcore stuff), but for the most part even that does not trigger me, and the softer stuff I just live with.  It's everywhere.  Just saw a series, Bridgerton, which could be described as Downton Abbey, but with soft core porn.  It did not trigger me, I understood that the soft stuff had been put on the screen to do what the producers may actually know it does--create an enjoyable dopamine high--but it really did not do that for me.  Point is, there is a before, during, and after of what is called porn addiction, and if done right, the after is not very dangerous for the quitter.  I am not a fan of the lifetime model of addiction when it comes to porn.  I fixed the problem, so now it is fixed.

So, there are two types of porn addicts:  The ones who went through puberty some years prior to the invention of High Speed Internet Porn, and those, like Gabe, who spent a big part of puberty being exposed to porn.  Developmentally, as in mental development, it makes a difference.  It is easier to quit this habit if you had a regular sex life before you got hooked.  That group of people is disappearing from old age.  The question focuses on Gabe's friends who were all into watching porn when they were still in school.  For me it was a lot different.  Porn was always a more solitary act for me, and I am sure for Gabe this was true as for the actual PMO event too.  Not like he was in a room with a bunch of guys rubbing one off--not that that would be gay, or there is anything wrong with that--(Seinfeld reference) but the question is, now that Gabe has become an Anti Porn Prophet, (he isn't, he is an educator, but that is sort of how the question is framed) how does that old group of friends treat him?  Gabe says they are supportive, and great.  Gabe says many of his friends had porn related problems, as in that porn morphed what they came to see as their sexual tastes (common).  Gabe says all his friends gave up porn.  This is one reason Gabe encourages a quitter to share the problem with someone, a friend, in your social circle, your family, a real person.  Yes, use the forums, but a real life conversation can be helpful.  This is Gabe's advise, which he calls the key to his success.  How do we help others?  We help others by helping ourselves.

Don't forget to click on that Patreon link above.  The guy is doing it for you, he could use some help.  I suggest $10/month on your credit card.

Much love.








 
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