Newbie - Intrigued Mental Health Professional

Hey, all!

As recommended, just posting my own situation as I join the movement I'm a 29-year-old guy in a relationship (recently engaged). I'm also a therapist, and super intrigued by the claims that many on here make about the outcomes and the science behind it. I'm not shouting it down...kind of the opposite. A lot of what is said on here COMPLETELY jives with what we are taught (about addiction, disassociation, mindfulness, etc), which makes me more curious about the parts I am less familiar with. Things I'm especially curious about:

- sex vs no sex while No-fapping:
- I've read many posts on here, so I know what most of the advice and/or suggested differences would be. My thoughts are more along the lines of healthy relationships + healthy perspectives/views of sex; namely that refraining from having sex may have some of the benefits mentioned, but I am skeptical of viewing (healthy) sex as something to be avoided.
- Also hesitant towards the notion of relationship benefits being weighed against the physiological and psychological benefits.

- neurotransmitter manipulation:
- I see some people talk about abstaining from activities which produce high levels of dopamine/endorphins/whatever as though they have been desensitized by the high amounts. This doesn't make a whole lot of sense, or at the very least it's a little backwards. The difference between behavioral addictions and substance addictions is that the organic chemistry is merely a mechanism. You are not addicted to dopamine. You are addicted to activities which you have conditioned yourself to pursue because of a dopamine-response. SO...withdrawing from the heightened levels of necessitated sexual arousal makes sense, but it should not in any way be related to the nominal AMOUNT of neurotransmitter activity (as in that same amount should not yield any negative consequences in other conditions, naturally attainable without substances).
- for people who do view it as a sort of "endorphin/dopamine cleanse," I'm curious if you avoid other similarly stimulating activities (going to the gym, drinking coffee or beer, etc)

- addiction replacement:
- I love that the site talks about focusing energy on new hobbies/activities. Addictions are more than just "things" we come to need...they develop literal roles in our lives. If masturbation is a comforting activity for you + you take it away, you often either need some new coping skill or a new comforting activity to replace it, for example (THIS part is VERY similar with substances).
- Curious if any of you all have found yourself going overboard in any way with some other area of your life or a new hobby around the time you got into NoFap
- Also curious about some cool success stories of new things people have started up with their new time and energy

I suppose there's more, but this is already longer than I expected. I hadn't read much about nofap before, but the concept was never foreign to me + I will say that I've gone through periods of my life where I consciously avoided porn at the very least, and masturbation occasionally (often when I was very sexually active already). That was never done with any kind of day counter or self-analysis, but I do feel like it had positive effects, so I'm excited to really give this a go!

 

Thanks, man! I figured there might be a better place for that part of the post, just didn't know if people read these intros thoroughly and respond to them also (I figured some parts of this might be typical for newbies to ask). Liked reading through your post as well.

Seeya around the community