Hey! I wrote a longgggg article about overcoming porn addiction, and what you will go through during your journey, as well as a few tips and stuff. I am planning to post this on my website, just want to get some feedback from the community. I will also add photos later on. What do you think? Thanks.
Youth and porn
In our youth we don’t deal with this addiction, we usually don’t find out about pornography until the age of ten to fourteen, would be my guess. I found out about porn when I was around age twelve, through one of my friends, during a sleep over; sounds weird, I know. As we enter our teenage years, we start to experiment with many different forms of addictions, and it changes from generation to generation. Porn is huge on the addiction scale because it is an addiction that every teenager goes through, whether male or female. It is so easy to get caught up in this addiction because access to technology is fairly available to everyone, it’s just a click away.
And I wonder at times, why is it so easy to access porn? And how come we don’t have any warnings about the affects of porn on the brain? Well, there are plenty of websites that expose the truth, and studies are out there ready to be read, but we just don’t take the initiative to read them…. well because we don’t know we’re addicted. If you’re watching porn more than once a day that’s addiction right there. And in my opinion, any amount of porn is too much.
What happens in the brain
The effects of porn on your brain won’t be noticable right away, but continuously watch porn for two to six months and you will start to feel the negative effects. After long-term usage, porn will start to affect your thinking patterns, your pleasure levels, and your will power.
A simple diagram for this is: you watch porn – output of dopamine – pleasure is felt through dopamine and orgasm – association is created through observation and release of oxytocin. This is what happens during your fap to porn experience, and if you’re doing it multiple times eventually your dopamine levels don’t reach the same peak, because too much dopamine can damage the dopamine receptors, and you need more dopamine to feel “happy”. This causes depression because activities that used to be exciting, such as talking to friends aren’t outputting enough dopamine, and motivation for life dies out.
Guilty pleasure
The other horrible outcome of fapping to porn is that you feel guilty after engaging in this activity, because you consciously know that what you just did was pathetic, and is fucked up, but you just tend to ignore that fact or try to justify it. And this creates a psychological re-wiring of your thinking patterns. Firstly you’re lying to yourself, and secondly – this usually happens after you find out about porn addiction, is that you will start to feel guilt around fapping to porn. And even though you still will engage in PMO because it’s not so easy to quit, you will start to feel anxious because you know that what you are doing is totally wrong and you should not be doing it. It’s just like a little kid, eating the cookies out of the jar when he knows that his parents look down upon this behaviour, and so they might not even notice the cookies are gone, but the child will feel anxious around them because he knows he has done something wrong. And yes, if we lived in a society where everyone accepted pornography, than guilt wouldn’t be an issue. But, we live in a society where even the topic of porn is ostracised, so you should understand why watching porn will make you feel guilt.
Here is a more in-depth video explaining this: Harvard Scientist Explains what Porn does to your Brain
Frontal lobe (your will power)
If we keep on giving-in to this addiction, we will train ourselves to be consciously weak. And this will affect our frontal lobe, which is responsible for making decisions, from little decisions, to big decisions. After some period of time things like not eating that burger nor drinking that soda pop will not be a choice any longer, it will be an automatic unwillful action.
Here is a list of drawbacks of masturbating to Pornography in order:
- Dopamine overload
- Association of sexual hormones to computer screen
- Weak will (Decisions based on habit rather than conscious thought)
- Women seen as objects
- Low libido
- Shame, Anxiety, Depression
- Suicide
I don’t want to expand much more on how bad porn is on your overall-self, because YOU KNOW… It’s fucking detremental to your being. So let me help you find a way out, and this way you can slowly but progressively overcome this piece of shit addiction.
The way out
As for the start, you have to be honest with yourself and look at your life from a third-person perspective.
How bad is you actual addiction to porn? And what type of effects is porn having on your family life, social life, and success?
For some people it might not have such a negative effect, and this is probably because they have a stable job, maybe they have a really good family life, raised well by their parents, and have a little social circle. But for those who don’t have their life together yet, and are just starting out in the world, well that’s a different story. I see this very often with friends of mine, and just people in general – who are now entering their college years. They are anxious and depressed about the future and they have no clue that one major factor that causes this is their porn consumption. So really take a step back and view your life from a logical point-of-view. How bad is it?
Here are a few question you can ask yourself:
How is the shame and guilt I feel from watching pornography affecting my interactions with family members, friends and strangers?
How is this anxiety and I am feeling limiting my decisions, from activities like going to the grocery store to taking on bigger endeavours like starting a business?
How have I been objectifying women because of my misconceptions of them just being sex objects, and how is this affecting my development of relationships with women?
Outcome of quitting porn questions:
What little activities would I enjoy a lot more if porn was out of my life, and my brain were to neutralise the dopamine receptors?
How can I use to powerful energy that I recieve from my semen to do something passionate and improve my life?
What would I be able to do if this terrible anxiety and sadness were to not interrupt my decisions no longer?
These are just a few of the basic questions you can ask yourself, and which in-turn you should answer, but most won’t because of laziness. And if you do answer these than pin the sheet that you answered them on your wall, or just keep them as a reminder for the future so you can go back to the reasons if you’re feeling like giving up. These should answer the fundamental questions that need answering, and they should help you figure out your why for quitting. And once you have realised that this is why I should quit you will have more of an initiative to do so.
Setting yourself up for success
Whether it’s productivity or just quitting a bad habit, it is always smart to set yourself up for success. This is why you need some sort of preparation. When I began my NoPMO journey I failed over and over again, and one things I realised very quickly was that preparation is key.
How do you prepare?
First we need to figure out what it is that is allowing the failure to occur. Most likely it is the ease of access to pornography, let’s start with that. You have your phone on you all the time, when you’re in the bathroom, when you’re in bed, and when you’re feeling “off”. So the solution is to get porn blockers. Here are my recommendations:
For all applications:
http://www1.k9webprotection.com/
This software can be downloaded on any device, and it blocks photos, videos and explicit sites. The best one I found.
For phone:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nationaledtech.managespin&hl=en_US
Delete you other browser on your phone and just get this, it will block all explicit content.
Either get K9 for your laptop or delete you browser and get a Safe Browser, otherwise I promise you – you will fail. There is going to be that one day where you’re just like “fuck, I need some porn” and that’s where your downfall will begin. And your phone? Same thing, delete Chrome, delete Firefox, and get a Safe Browser, or the K9 app. That’s how you set yourself up for success.
The withdrawals
Since you’re just starting out on this rebellious act, you will have urges to fap to porn like a crazy man. It happened to me, and it will happen to you. You will be up at night trying to get around these blockers because your hormones will be all over the place. And what do I say to this? Just fap! Don’t watch any porn, but fap, the withdrawals will last around two weeks to a month, so make it easy for yourself and fap until you can control your emotions.
Here comes the power
You made it! You’re a month or two in, and haven’t watched any porn since. Good job! This is where things will start to get more exciting. And obviously a full recovery will not happen within a few months, it might take a year or so, but you will start to notice small changes. Your energy levels will increase because your testosterone levels have increased, you view on the world will change because you no longer have anything to feel shameful about, and you will feel good about yourself because you beat an addiction.
I think for me the first change that I noticed was that my energy levels increased vastly. I tried to keep the fapping to a minimum of once a week, or less, and since I still had all the semen inside my nuts and my testosterone levels were high, I had an adundance of energy. And we could debate whether semen retention benefits you or not, but if a little sperm can create a life form, I think it has significance; plus semen contains proteins and vitamins.
When the energy comes, you need to find an outlet to release it, because if you’re keeping all that inside, you will start to feel a bit of tension. I recommend exercise. And you see how nicely one feeds into the other. Now you have a lot of energy and you need to use it, and therefore exercise is the perfect positive solution. You don’t need to go crazy with the exercise, but just make sure you do something active everyday, and I’d recommend martial arts, running, climbing trees, something that is high intensity.
It only gets better
One big change that you will start to notice after a month or two of quitting porn is that you will want to meet and socialise with your friends more often. I think this is partly due to the fact that you need to satisfy those dopamine receptors, and socialising is the perfect way. Porn was the one thing that gave you instant satisfaction, and a sense of connection, so you need to replace this habit with another one. And as time goes on your biology will take over and will motivate you to go out and seek for women because no longer do you just get pussy instantly. This drive for sex will be visible through the eyes, the way you walk, and through your vocal projection; as your voice should deepen (happens to me every time).
In a general sense, once porn is out of your life, things can only improve. Slowly but surely. You have to trust in the process and keep going, don’t give up because you feel like “it’s not working” when you’re only at the second week. Common, don’t lie to yourself. You know this has benefits, and you’ve seen plenty of videos of other people’s experiences, so don’t bullshit yourself.
Summary
Fapping to porn is a terrible and disgusting habit, and we are not informed of the negative effects it has on our society and on each individual participating in the act. By now you should understand that porn will fuck you psychologically and physiologically, there is nothing “good” about porn consumption. Quitting porn is essential to your well being, it will neutralize your body because now you are not tricking your biology through instant satisfaction, which your biology can not discern from reality. And this will reset the system of your body and will put you in a state where you can function from a neutral standpoint.
The benefits of NoPMO will come, but patience is key! There will be times when you feel “off” and you just want some release but this is why your preparation is key and why porn blockers are essential to setup ahead of time. It will only get easier with time. At the beginning, it will feel like your whole body is against you, but you must just push through the feelings and realize that you’re are doing this for YOU. And if you want to continue living your life with anxiety and dullness – well than go ahead. But change happens when you push past that shitty resistance, that’s when a new layer of you is born, and you can never experience this if you’re living through the same habits and same perspectives
LINK – What Happens When You Quit Porn, and How To Beat Your Porn Addiction For Good – The NoPMO Journey
by takkamil
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