In the past nearly 10 years of trying to quit, extensive research, talking to counselors, online services, books, tutorials, and forums like these, I have never made it past 12 days of abstinence and most often no more than 7 days at best. I feel like there is a macro concept I am missing here, something I subconsciously refuse to attempt or something I have yet to learn that might be right in front of me. For anyone who has broken two weeks abstinence, were there things you changed to get you there? Would love to chat with anyone here on the topic.
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Never reached past 12 days
- Thread starter Legend
- Start date
Dude im honestly in the same boat. My reboot started in 2013 I haven't been able to go past 3 weeks until 2017 then after that it was only until last year that was I was able to go over a month long. I tried everything as well. Research, Counseling, Medication (never again) but despite all this I still seem to remain one of the more addicted cases out there. I know for a fact the missing link here is internal. if it were external there would be no way that I could've gone over a month during quarantine.
I have a good idea of what the missing link might be though. I think the biggest thing that changed me was initially during the 2 month long period of no PMO I took a trip to boston. When I came back I felt so grounded in reality that I realized that to some degree our addiction is some kind of trance. Out of the myriad of experiences and activities we can be doing we unknowingly seem to tunnel vision in on porn. Its almost as if it's seeped into all avenues of our brain to the point where we're unconsciously gravitating towards it even during abstaining/recovery.
This is an illusion! Our urges are an illusion. the mental gymnastics we say to ourselves to justify pmo is an illusion. It's as if we lose all self awareness of our surroundings and the deeper in we are all roads lead back to porn. That trip made me more grounded in the present I think. I remember this exerpt from a joe dispensa book I don't remember it exactly but basically it said a lot of us are always living in the past even when we think we're living in the present. We're trying to cure our past selves instead of looking towards newer horizons. We have to will ourselves out of our comfort zones.
So to summarize I believe the issue for people like us is not that our addiction is more "severe" than other people but the amount of validation we give to it is. We make it out like it's some big monumental giant and that lack of faith in ourselves manifests that illusion.
I have a good idea of what the missing link might be though. I think the biggest thing that changed me was initially during the 2 month long period of no PMO I took a trip to boston. When I came back I felt so grounded in reality that I realized that to some degree our addiction is some kind of trance. Out of the myriad of experiences and activities we can be doing we unknowingly seem to tunnel vision in on porn. Its almost as if it's seeped into all avenues of our brain to the point where we're unconsciously gravitating towards it even during abstaining/recovery.
This is an illusion! Our urges are an illusion. the mental gymnastics we say to ourselves to justify pmo is an illusion. It's as if we lose all self awareness of our surroundings and the deeper in we are all roads lead back to porn. That trip made me more grounded in the present I think. I remember this exerpt from a joe dispensa book I don't remember it exactly but basically it said a lot of us are always living in the past even when we think we're living in the present. We're trying to cure our past selves instead of looking towards newer horizons. We have to will ourselves out of our comfort zones.
So to summarize I believe the issue for people like us is not that our addiction is more "severe" than other people but the amount of validation we give to it is. We make it out like it's some big monumental giant and that lack of faith in ourselves manifests that illusion.
That is powerful. I agree with you 100% here. It is interesting that research suggests the prefrontal cortex is essentially blinded when an addict is triggered, preventing them from seeing the future. Despite planning ahead, there appears to be a sense of despondency in the moment we are faced with this revolving issue.
Since you mentioned internal factors affecting recovery, have you personally tried having outer eyes on the situation? I have yet to attempt in person therapy, (only online counseling) to look inward on emotional ties and find potential answers, but it seems to be the next step aside from traveling to create momentum.
Since you mentioned internal factors affecting recovery, have you personally tried having outer eyes on the situation? I have yet to attempt in person therapy, (only online counseling) to look inward on emotional ties and find potential answers, but it seems to be the next step aside from traveling to create momentum.
E
escapeandnevercomeback
Guest
fofojo said:Dude im honestly in the same boat. My reboot started in 2013 I haven't been able to go past 3 weeks until 2017 then after that it was only until last year that was I was able to go over a month long. I tried everything as well. Research, Counseling, Medication (never again) but despite all this I still seem to remain one of the more addicted cases out there. I know for a fact the missing link here is internal. if it were external there would be no way that I could've gone over a month during quarantine.
I have a good idea of what the missing link might be though. I think the biggest thing that changed me was initially during the 2 month long period of no PMO I took a trip to boston. When I came back I felt so grounded in reality that I realized that to some degree our addiction is some kind of trance. Out of the myriad of experiences and activities we can be doing we unknowingly seem to tunnel vision in on porn. Its almost as if it's seeped into all avenues of our brain to the point where we're unconsciously gravitating towards it even during abstaining/recovery.
This is an illusion! Our urges are an illusion. the mental gymnastics we say to ourselves to justify pmo is an illusion. It's as if we lose all self awareness of our surroundings and the deeper in we are all roads lead back to porn. That trip made me more grounded in the present I think. I remember this exerpt from a joe dispensa book I don't remember it exactly but basically it said a lot of us are always living in the past even when we think we're living in the present. We're trying to cure our past selves instead of looking towards newer horizons. We have to will ourselves out of our comfort zones.
So to summarize I believe the issue for people like us is not that our addiction is more "severe" than other people but the amount of validation we give to it is. We make it out like it's some big monumental giant and that lack of faith in ourselves manifests that illusion.
Extremely well said. I agree with the trance for sure. Now I have another problem with another type of trance when I wake up and start edging to porn from my memory. I've relapsed twice already this way and I don't know how the fuck to stop this.
Legend said:That is powerful. I agree with you 100% here. It is interesting that research suggests the prefrontal cortex is essentially blinded when an addict is triggered, preventing them from seeing the future. Despite planning ahead, there appears to be a sense of despondency in the moment we are faced with this revolving issue.
Since you mentioned internal factors affecting recovery, have you personally tried having outer eyes on the situation? I have yet to attempt in person therapy, (only online counseling) to look inward on emotional ties and find potential answers, but it seems to be the next step aside from traveling to create momentum.
I have a pretty extensive history with counseling. Personally I haven't found it to be as fruitful as others. My biggest issue has been that the counselor either seemed to lack the understanding of internet porn as a super stimuli and how it could be addictive so they were usually not very helpful. One of them even seemed to express the exact opposite of empathy towards me in one of his comments. I still remember it I actually think that one did more harm than good. Other counselors were very regressive in their methods. It felt like I was just wallowing in my problems instead of finding solutions. It felt like so long as I was seeing those counselors I would always be nothing more than a addict at square one. I did have one really good one who genuinely seemed to care about me. Our visits were fun and light-hearted but something seemed to come up for her so we just stopped seeing each other. All in all Id say the one thing I realized about counselors and psychiatrists are that their methodology is extremely varying. You would think it'd be more consolidated but there's so many approaches like behavioral, cognitive, Humanistic, etc and even they aren't on the same page. At the end of the day I think the best counselor is yourself. Although it is good to talk to other people because you can get a different perspective on your psyche which I think is very helpful but you don't necessarily need a counselor for this if anything it's more important that you find an empathetic person to talk to
escapeandnevercomeback said:Extremely well said. I agree with the trance for sure. Now I have another problem with another type of trance when I wake up and start edging to porn from my memory. I've relapsed twice already this way and I don't know how the fuck to stop this.
yeah Im having a similar issue where I wake up from a wet dream and get strong urges. I honestly don't know what to do about it. It's scary because it feels so uncontrollable. I could have an awesome recovery streak but just one dream could jeopardize it. currently Im trying to practice lucid dreaming and falling asleep to the wish fulfilled ideally lucid dreaming. The wish fulfilled method is essentially attempting to influence your dreams during rem sleep Im working on both simultaneously If I actually find success with this I can dm you my findings
fofojo said:escapeandnevercomeback said:Extremely well said. I agree with the trance for sure. Now I have another problem with another type of trance when I wake up and start edging to porn from my memory. I've relapsed twice already this way and I don't know how the fuck to stop this.
yeah Im having a similar issue where I wake up from a wet dream and get strong urges. I honestly don't know what to do about it. It's scary because it feels so uncontrollable. I could have an awesome recovery streak but just one dream could jeopardize it. currently Im trying to practice lucid dreaming and falling asleep to the wish fulfilled ideally lucid dreaming. The wish fulfilled method is essentially attempting to influence your dreams during rem sleep Im working on both simultaneously If I actually find success with this I can dm you my findings
It seems like we're all in a similar situation here. Virtually all of my setbacks occur within a few moments of waking up. The closest I've come to succeeding is setting my alarm across the room and then doing some exercises after turning it off.
E
escapeandnevercomeback
Guest
Legend said:fofojo said:escapeandnevercomeback said:Extremely well said. I agree with the trance for sure. Now I have another problem with another type of trance when I wake up and start edging to porn from my memory. I've relapsed twice already this way and I don't know how the fuck to stop this.
yeah Im having a similar issue where I wake up from a wet dream and get strong urges. I honestly don't know what to do about it. It's scary because it feels so uncontrollable. I could have an awesome recovery streak but just one dream could jeopardize it. currently Im trying to practice lucid dreaming and falling asleep to the wish fulfilled ideally lucid dreaming. The wish fulfilled method is essentially attempting to influence your dreams during rem sleep Im working on both simultaneously If I actually find success with this I can dm you my findings
It seems like we're all in a similar situation here. Virtually all of my setbacks occur within a few moments of waking up. The closest I've come to succeeding is setting my alarm across the room and then doing some exercises after turning it off.
I have a very long history of edging to porn from my memory in the morning, since when I was a kid. This was how I always started my day, getting the fix like the junkies. And I guess it got so much ingrained in my brain that I wake up and do it on autopilot, like I'm not even myself. It's been stressing me out because I've already relapsed twice like this in the past 2 weeks or so. Worse is when I wake up after sleeping too little, being tired and having less control over it.
escapeandnevercomeback said:I have a very long history of edging to porn from my memory in the morning, since when I was a kid. This was how I always started my day, getting the fix like the junkies. And I guess it got so much ingrained in my brain that I wake up and do it on autopilot, like I'm not even myself. It's been stressing me out because I've already relapsed twice like this in the past 2 weeks or so. Worse is when I wake up after sleeping too little, being tired and having less control over it.
I woke up before my alarm and didn't experience any issues starting the day the way I intended. Maybe prioritizing sleep quality/duration would help us all.