Taming Your Computer and Phone

Taming your computer and phone to remove porn temptation is wise.  When porn is available at a click, its looming presence can produce intense inner conflict. The stress from this inner conflict makes relapse more likely. On the other hand, when porn is not available, the brain seems to relax and find other ways to feel good. In short, most of those who reboot successfully, figure out a way to tame their computers.

Here are comments and suggestions from forum members for taming your computer:

(See childpages below this page for more tips on other devices.)

Keep it at a distance for a while. Said one guy:

I’m on Day 10 now, maybe Day 11, not sure. But it’s been the longest I’ve ever gone without P/O, so it’s nice to finally see some concrete results. I reckon I would have relapsed at least 3 times if my computer wasn’t 50 minutes away at my parents’ place. It’s made all the difference, so I’d urge anyone that could realistically do it, to just do it. Even on a shared computer you can create a different user account and choose a porn filter.

Clear your computer for a fresh start. Said a guy:

A few days into my first week of no PMO my computer crashed because of frequent power surges. I had to actually totally “reboot” my computer. Something else that really helps me stay on path to no MPO is knowing my computer hasn’t had any new porn on it at all. Thinking about going to view porn makes me think about wanting to keep my computer “CLEAN” or porn-free.

Another guy:

I have only one addiction site that I tend to write to the browser from the muscle memory, so I set the browser to redirect back to nofap for daily reminder instead. URL Redirector Browser Plugin

Browser Plugins

If you’re a Redditor:

http://redditenhancementsuite.com/ Once installed, click the gear icon in the upper right corner. Then click Settings Console. Under Subreddit filter, just type the titles of the subreddit(s) that you want to filter.

Block your access:

Get someone to keep your password for you, AND be the email for changing said password. If you’re really hardcore, k9 has an option to send the admin reports of your activity – so no proxy servers. Again, works best if you have a person you can trust and who isn’t going too easy on you. This is absolutely necessary, and even though I’ve heard a lot of people complain about how annoying it is – here’s what you have to do. Make ABSOLUTELY SURE that your blocker does not block secure traffic, aka “https” otherwise, you might as well not even have internet.

Or, this guy:

I also installed StayFocusd, which has a nice little nuclear option to manually shut down your browser if you feel yourself slipping.

Another way of taming your computer is to block:

Just wanted to share a little trick I use to block Internet sites. Now obviously you can unblock yourself but it does provide those vital few seconds to rethink what you’re doing and to choose a different action.

http://screencast.com/t/75rgnzIi

Go to ‘my computer’

Open ‘Local Disk (c:)’

Open ‘WINDOWS’

And open ‘system32’

Open ‘drivers’

Open ‘etc’

Then open file ‘hosts’ with a text editing program such as notepad or wordpad.

Add the line –> 127.0.0.1 www.blockthissite.com

make sure you include the variation without the www

like this –> 127.0.0.1 blockthissite.com

Click on ‘File’ and choose ‘Save’

That’s all there is to it! You will need to close your browser and reopen it for this to work. This works for Windows XP and I’m assuming the process for the other windows versions is pretty similar but I’m sorry I don’t have the other versions to confirm. Personally I have YouTube blocked which is the real killer for me.

Get a Web Filter for taming your computer or phone (some are free). At that link, are instructions and important tips for free ways to filter out porn and erotic images. Almost everyone who recovers successfully uses this tool for a while (eventually), so save yourself some time and use it immediately.

Use a web filter. Don’t give your addiction excuses, because it will give you enough on its own without your help. The program can also be customized in about every way it needs to be for your preferences. So there is no excuse to at least giving it a try. Do this and see how easy it will be to go 30 days without porn. The M and possibly O might be more difficult, though without the porn, masturbating won’t seem as enticing over time.

ALERT: For a minority of guys, a filter actually impedes recovery. They just can’t resist the dopamine buzz of trying to crack the code and jump through the filter. For them, filter-breaking becomes the equivalent of a video-game addiction. If you cannot filter for some reason, try something creative like this method of wiping out your motivation to watch.

One the most effective tools to employ is an accountability partner. X3watch is a free accountability software program suggested by a few brave men who have had enough. A guy explained it:

Whenever you browse the Internet and access a site, which may contain questionable material, the program will record the site name, time, and date the site was visited. A person of your choice (an accountability partner) will receive an email containing all possible questionable sites you may have visited within the month.

If you don’t want to share, here’s a free robotic accountability partner called “HabitForge.”  Here’s what one user said:

Willpower and perseverance will go a long way…however a little technology can help too! I found a free site that helps track and motivate you to reach your goal. It helped me to quit smoking and be PMO free. What you do is setup a goal for 21 or 30 days. An email notification is sent to you daily asking if you kept up with your goal. It’s amazing that it has helped me keep up my goals. And here’s an Android app to track your daily mood/progress.

Block your access to the Internet temporarily with “SelfControl” (http://selfcontrolapp.com/) or www.getcoldturkey.com Various site members said:

If I have an urge to look at porn, I set SelfControl to 15 minutes and it blocks the Internet until the urge subsides. Or I set it so that the Internet is blocked the entire night so there is no way for me to go online if I get an urge to look or assuage the withdrawal-insomnia.

As for the cell phone I use a free app lock that locks the browser on my phone. I also set it to a password that I will never remember.

Anyone using Ubuntu and wants to give “Self-Control” a try, you get the package for it here: svn.jklmnop.net/projects/SelfControl/selfcontrol_0.9-1_all.deb

Cold Turkey is a productivity program that blocks sites for up to seven days using the free version. I found that opendns is too easy to access and change the settings to unblock, so I’ve set opendns to block all porn and nudity sites and then set cold turkey to block my access to opendns. You can also buy cold turkey for five dollars and that gives some extra features like blocking certain programs from running on your computer and blocking for up to a month. I think it’s worth the small investment and I’ve done this so I can block [my habitual chat site] from running and block my access to opendns for longer. The website is www.getcoldturkey.com/

I’m also using cloudacl on my phone to block all porn sites on my phone and again, access to opendns.com because without it I can easily access opendns on my phone and unblock it that way. This of course is not bulletproof but should I feel an urge it means there’s several layers of blocking to get through, this means I have more time to stop and think about what I’m doing rather than just clicking the mouse button twice and having instant access to porn.

I have a system worked out for the weekend regarding my phone. I already use the SelfControl thing for my computer, and I basically lock myself out of my phone internet and email the password to a yahoo email address. Now I can’t get the password because yahoo isn’t whitelisted on SelfControl, which I turn on before I start to drink. The password is also basically 4 random digits that I can’t remember at all. It’s a little tricky and roundabout but it seems to be working fine.

Taming your computer or phone – Block it block it! block it!

  • One guy recommended this blocker (giving the password to his partner): http://www.tueagles.com/anti-porn/
  • easiest way to prevent relapse: block it! Use K9(+k9safesearch) and OpenDNS like described on ybop (i wrote the password down but burned it, so no way back)
  • uninstall adobe flash!! (and block the adobe sites in the host files (get.adobe.com) this kills ALL p-streaming sites at once! It’s much easier to overcome cravings and to notrelapse if you know (or at least tell your self) that there is no way to get videos or images on this computer!
  • Block your browser (leechblock in mozilla) or Internet connection at certain times (times when you are used to PMO). I blocked all sites (except a dating site and ybop) from 2 pm till mid night, so I had to do all other browsing activities in the morning (I  never PMOed in morning times).
  • Block the keywords you tipped into google to find the things you liked.

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