This man is having success with a combination of activities to help his brain return to normal sensitivity to pleasure, and a form of exposure therapy to help rewire his porn-use reflex:
As an internet porn addict of over 20 years (an addict since dial-up) I have tried numerous methods of quitting and only now have I gotten relief, and it started with your TEDx talk and this website. I am now over 30 days porn free with only 3 “edging” type relapses. Yet, my daily journaling shows that I’ve spent an estimated time of 5 hours total this month relapsing verse over 3000 waking hours of healing. For the first time in 20 years I’m experiencing days and weeks without cravings.
The reason I’m writing is because I want to share a resource and method that I believe has greatly reduced my cravings and spearheaded a quicker and more productive recovery for myself. My hopes is that this will work for others as it worked for me, and although I know it may not work for everyone, it has worked like magic for myself. The comfort of the knowledge that I’ve found a solution that works consistently and over time is worth the effort of quitting.
The technique comes from a site written by a bio-chemist and deals directly with the problems of brain chemistry and the healing of the dopamine receptors damaged during addictions. The site is Getting Stronger.
It’s a simple plan involving dieting and exercise that I feel greatly decreased my recovery time and healed my dopamine reception. Life seems brighter now and the natural dopamine hits I get from exercise and intermediate fasting is greater than any internet porn sessions could ever produce. Not to mention the I’ve lost 10 lbs. in 30 days and gained more confidence as a result!
Exposure Response Prevention Therapy (extinction) [on Todd Becker’s www.GettingStronger.org website] along with the short, hard exercise, diet and what I call neo-cognative processes: meeting with friends, planning my goals, writing in my journal, counseling, doing research and watching science programs (anything involving learning, and language) has truly changed my life.
Another guy:
Identify triggers. This is extremely important. Personally, browsing imgur was a huge trigger. I willingly gave it up. The great thing about triggers is that they precede the urges. It’s much easier to consciously, rationally avoid the trigger than it is to act rationally once the trigger has been pulled. I also installed StayFocusd, which has a nice little nuclear option to manually shut down your browser if you feel yourself slipping.
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