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Worse than Heroin

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by thedev, Sep 18, 2021.

  1. thedev

    thedev Fapstronaut

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    I have held a strong belief for some time now that pornography addiction is the worse addiction of them all. I just want to gather your thoughts on this.

    Obviously, this is biased since I have no experience with any other major addiction, but hear me out...

    Porn addiction can fly under the radar for years without anyone around you having any sort of indication that you are silently suffering. Hardcore drugs on the other hand will drastically warp your appearance, causing you to skeletonize and physically look misshapen. I think it should be noted that a porn addiction could definitely make you look odd if it were causing you to skip normal daily activities such as eating & getting enough sleep / sunlight, but my point still stands.

    Also, drugs kill. You smoke meth for a year straight and you are certain to croak. But dealing with porn addiction for a year straight does not equate death. Not even in the slightest. You can steadily keep up this addiction for 5 decades and not die from it. This addiction is like no other. The worst part is that it is a relatively new challenge for humanity to face, so there is no definitive cure for it other than being a strong-minded individual, which is hard for the so many of us who are broken.

    I used drugs as my example since that is probably the most widespread addiction of them all, and arguably the "worst to have" as people say.

    Addiction is not some competition in which we see who has it the worst and award them brownie points. I just want to know what others think of this.
     
  2. I used to be addicted to benzos. I did manage to quit them but doing so was pretty brutal. Even with tapering, the withdrawals were intense. As difficult as it was quitting benzos, I still think quitting porn is harder, I really do.
     
  3. thedev

    thedev Fapstronaut

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    Porn is a beast. I did not even mention the horrific psychological damage it has. You know, really bizarre things. You start seeing people as objects. Losing sense of reality. All you can think about is that one video. That 3 second gif you can't get out of your head. It never stays on one genre either... usually starts with the vanilla stuff, that gets old, so you transition to bi, then gay, then bondage, then granny, then you know the rest. It is rabbit hole like none other that seriously damages one's view of the world and themselves. Thank you for sharing your past addictions. Kudos to you for kicking it. During it, did you ever once crave to try another drug? Just curious.
     
  4. No problem, and thanks. I've thought about trying a lot of different things but I intentionally avoided most of them because I knew that I would get severely addicted, I have a pretty addictive personality.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 19, 2021
  5. hollyman

    hollyman Fapstronaut

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    i used to smoke and alcohol, yet porn addiction is harder to stop

    maybe is not as fast as meth or drugs but ur appearance will surely change if ur a chronic addict , starting with bold/hair problem, skin problem, eye problem, and posture problem
     
  6. OhWhenThe

    OhWhenThe Fapstronaut

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    I have no experience with drugs so feel free to tell me I'm chatting absolute crap but here's some reasons as to why I think porn is harder, or at least potentially harder to quit than physical drugs:

    1) Porn is available any time and anywhere you want. There's no going out in the middle of the night to meet some dodgy back-alley dealer, just simply pull out your phone or load up your PC and away you go. Imagine if all it took to get your drug of choice was to click a mouse a couple of times and out shoots a load of coke.

    2) Porn is free. Ok so some of us have descended into paying for it as well but there's still an infinite amount of free porn to meet your every need. Of course if you are hooked on drugs you will find the money somewhere but with porn that's one less hurdle to jump in order to get your fix.

    3) Most people don't acknowledge porn as a real addiction. You tell someone that you're addicted to porn and it's most likely going to be met with a mix of bemusement or disgust, most will find it funny and others just weird, ultimately they won't take you seriously so you're effectively on your own(unless you find others who also struggle with the same addiction). Tell them you have a drug addiction however and whilst they might judge you for it, they'll also sympathise and try to help - whether that's professional help or support from friends/family.

    4) Most will have gotten hooked on porn from a very young age when the brain is at its most malleable. Unless you've had a rather sketchy upbringing then it's highly unlikely that you'll have come across drugs in early adolescence, however it's said that the average age of encountering porn for the first time is now around 10 years old. The earlier you get hooked on something, the harder it is to quit later in life. You don't get kids hooked on drugs at age 10.

    5) You can't overdose on porn. So you could see this as a positive but on the flip side the more you do something, the stronger the addiction will become. With drugs you have a threshold that once passed your body will give up, you could see this as a kind of safety mechanism but of course the effects could also be fatal. With porn however you can happily fuck your brain away for hours on end constantly feeding into an ever-increasing addiction, this behaviour could carry on for years and years until you see the effect it has on your overall wellbeing.

    6) Porn taps into our innate desire for sex. You aren't born with a natural desire to use drugs, you can get hooked on those things but you aren't biologically designed to seek them out like you are to seek out sex. Once you've been clean from drugs for a certain amount of time you will reset to your natural state, the same can't quite be said for porn addiction however as we will always desire sex - and porn is simply just a quick and easy artificial replacement for that.

    7) Porn is much harder to avoid than drugs. This ties into point #1 in that porn and porn triggers are everywhere - social media, tv, movies, music, magazine covers, billboards etc. You don't go outside and see coke and meth everywhere, as long as you cut ties from the source of those drugs then there's no reason to encounter them again.

    8) Thinking about porn keeps the addiction alive. So you can cut yourself off from every possible source of porn but no matter what, you still carry a library of it around in your head. Thinking about porn triggers the addictive pathways that you're trying to break. You can keep replaying that video, that scene, that picture etc in your head but every time you do you are simply feeding straight back into the addiction. You can't think your way back into a physical substance like heroin.


    There's probably a few other reasons as well but they're the ones that came to mind.
     
    Last edited: Sep 19, 2021

  7. I think this post pretty much sums up why porn can be a tough addiction to quit. 2 additional points I would add are:

    9) You can keep your porn addiction hidden. With the "privacy mode" or "incognito mode" of web browsers today I think it's easier to keep your porn addiction hidden. This way it never shows up in your browser's history. I live alone and when i would watch porn i would use these features so that if someone were to use my computer they would not see it in the browser history.

    10) People will rationalize it and tell you it's okay because everyone watches porn.
     
    Dares Greeneye and HelperX like this.
  8. thedev

    thedev Fapstronaut

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    True, I can personally attest to this happening.
     
  9. dboy18

    dboy18 Fapstronaut

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    Very tough
     
  10. thedev

    thedev Fapstronaut

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    EXACTLY. Beautifully said. You and I_Am_Strong_54 tapped into this with your #3 and their #10, but I want to add a #11 to the list.

    11) Porn addiction is an embarrassing addiction. What I mean by this is, at least in my case and I'm sure many others, I cannot physically bring myself to seek outer help. I cannot even imagine sitting my family down and telling them to the extent that my addiction has gotten ( the rabbit hole I mentioned in my first post ) It is so embarrassing and nothing like having a drug addiction which is seen as relatively "okay" and "normal", if you will.

    @OhWhenThe & @I_Am_Strong_54 - You guys are killing it - I agree with every point made.
     
    Dares Greeneye likes this.
  11. In trainspotting this is said about heroin: "take your best orgasm, multiply the feeling by twenty, and you're still fuckin miles off the pace"
    There must be some truth to it. So I believe that's a worse addiction than that which we deal with. Also the stigma for heroin is definitely bigger.

    Yes, commonly behavioral addictions are underestimated or ignored. Although today we know a lot about neuro-chemistry and have those brain scans that prove that behavioral addiction are leaving similar "scars" in the brain than "traditional" addiction. In a way all addicts are substance addicts, when you consider dopamine a substance.

    But we have to take into account that ppl who uses substances not only have a brain that has changed its own chemistry accordingly to the addiction but on top of that are putting an exogenous substance into their body and their brain. They get physical addicted to it and ruin their health when they smoke, sniff or inject it (mostly because of the poisonous additives). Alcoholics even can die during cold turkey!

    Porn addiction sucks! It really really sucks and it is f*cking difficult to quit. But I would never change that for an addiction to hard drugs.
     
    Brko, Need2Rewire and Dares Greeneye like this.
  12. Brko

    Brko New Fapstronaut

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    Totally agree
     
  13. thedev

    thedev Fapstronaut

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    At least heavy drug users have the privilege and certainty of death if use continues over an extended period of time. Man, I sure do wish porn addiction did kill. I would have died over 5 years ago. Try sticking yourself 4 times in a single day, your body would not be able to make it past the 2nd, I guarantee this. But you can jerk off more than 4 times in a single day and be A-Okay! Believe me, I have done it. It is not so much that I'm trying to compare the effects of these addictions. Rather, I am trying to point out that:

    1) Porn addiction is not as mainstream as so many other addictions - Bottom line, the public ( of the West ) is generally in favor of pornographic material. This leads to our addiction being cast-away and overlooked. People joke about our addiction. They say it's not really an addiction.

    2) Porn addiction can go relatively unnoticed by those around you for decades. There are a lot of people on this site right now that have been battling this for over 20 years, some of which I will reckon to guess their family still has no idea of their problem. That really says something about what we are dealing with here.

    3) As @OhWhenThe pointed out in his point #1, the availability for porn is through the fucking roof. Easy instant access in the palm of our hands.
     
  14. I agree with you here. (Actually I agree with all 3 point). I think the common understanding and awareness is growing, but I had to deal with the same ignorance one of my friends, even AFTER I explained everything to him and with my ex it was similar.
    Obviously there are a lot of ppl that consume porn but have it under control and don't develope an addiction right away (the same with drugs). At least those people don't judge you in general for watching porn but they have a hard time excepting that porn consumption has a lot of cons and can lead to a severe addiction.

    I hear you. But let me tell you, excactly that is our mission: to live with this perfidious addiction which doesn't kill us, as long as we must and finally get rid of it. And we can learn from it. It's actually a lesson. Just not that kind of lesson that we can skip when we don't get along but one that sticks with us, until we finally got it.
     
  15. Odiebear

    Odiebear Fapstronaut

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    Idk about yall but I'm gonna have to disagree harddddd with all of you.
    Yes. I agree porn addiction is difficult to free one's self from. But no one can disagree with the absolute devastating effects some really hard drugs and alcohol can have (without even considering death) on you...
    -the long term effects can render you completely disabled
    -you're willing to put your health of you and others at risk by driving to aquire more of it.
    -withdrawals can be life threatening
    -you can lose absolutely everything to drugs to the point where you are homeless
    -porn addiction can't really land you in jail
    -some people are willing to hurt others or kill for it
    -porn can affect everyone while drugs and alcohol addiction tends to prey on the poor and people with mental health issues.
    I'm a paramedic and I've seen countless lives lost or completely broken to drugs and alcohol addictions. Almost on a daily basis.
     
    modern milarepa likes this.
  16. wangkaiquan

    wangkaiquan Fapstronaut

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    I have all the symptoms of Postorgasmic illness syndrome. Before nofap, I felt like I was in hell every day except when I watched porn.
     
  17. I don't know how you see it, But, I think they are refering to the process of quitting an addiction,i.e., it is easy to quit drug relative to porn. I am not sure on my stand.
     
  18. ANewFocus

    ANewFocus Fapstronaut

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    Alcohol was easy. Porn is so debilitating.
     
  19. mdz

    mdz Fapstronaut

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    I kept up my addiction for decades and it turned me into a social anxcious person. I even lost "automatic natural" social responses like to know when to shake hands, and how to keep a normal conversation. I felt awkrward. After i quit porn it took me a couple of years to "get back to normal". So, yes porn can fuck up the brain more badly than other substantial drugs.
     

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