P.A.W.S. - what are they, cure, duration

I have done the drugs thing with sex - lots of kink too. Last time was mid December with G, K and Tina. I haven't had sex since but I did use pmo until mid January and now 26 days free of all sex stuff. I'm getting major euphoric recall of sex meets and some PAWS symptoms.

My guess is that the levels of dopamine rise high with sex and much higher with drugs. It takes longer to re-set those levels and any spike in dopamine, like from looking at social media or looking at innocent pictures on the internet, can artificially raise them again. Even if I think of looking at dating sites or texting a FWB then my hands start to shake and if I get to looking at them then I get massive adrenaline rush.

I'm hoping that I can do 90 days and see what is happening. I've suffered from lots of past anxiety and I think that the urges that I get at 24-26 days that I'm currently on are due to not having pmo to go to when uncomfortable emotions come up. I'm in therapy which is a massive plus for me. I started meditating today.

 

Exact same for me, if I get on a long streak and even go near social media, let alone tinder, I literally shake with adrenaline.

Furthermore porn or pmo is never my main relapse cause, its sex and kink stuff, the euphoric recall becomes like the most enticing thing in the world, and I know its like 24 hours of tindering or other apps away.

The craziest thing is, my kink/fetish stuff got way way more intense since I started nofap lol

I think Im fucked for a long time. 3 years in this journey, and probably another 2-3 to go until completely healed, and thats if I get on a streak

I just need to get on another long 9month+ streak, the first 3-6 months is always the hardest, and after that its just perserverence.

I just have this deep seeded feeling I have wasted the prime years of my life, 30-36+ completely fucked and inoperable

 

Dude just stop mixing all kind of drugs and going on dates with girls that look like pornstars. There isn’t really much to say. There has to be a realisation somehow that nothing of this supports long lasting happiness. Every time you think about doing those things you need to think them through. What is waiting at the end of those adventures? Nothing - just the urge to go on said adventure again.

I would cut out every drug and alcohol as well if you are truly seriously about it. What wires together fires together. If you can’t control those moments where you decide to jump back into dating then you need to work on your impulse control. For me it was meditating. You don’t have to get all spiritual but just get some distance to your thoughts and feelings so you‘re able to have initial moment of choice.

It won’t get better with every relapse.

 

have you guys try meditation and some exercise to help the paws? are they helpful?

 

I find that alcohol (especially hangovers) is a trigger to porn, sex, drugs. It's when I'm feeling at my lowest then these urges come along and if I'm not careful then I get lower and lower. Cutting out (or mindfully drinking) has been a game changer. As I see it, alcohol hasn't got a dopamine effect but it cuts through the central nervous system making me less inhibitive to other addictions. I'd encourage meditation too - I've downloaded the Headspace app to start.

 

I meditate. It helps me a lot. It doesn’t take my symptoms away but it does help me get my thinking straight. I’ve mentioned this before but I use the Muse headband with meditation. I thought I was a load of crap at first but it really works. As for exercise all I do is walk.

 

Honestly I understand what your saying, but I barely drink and have done drugs like 3-4 periods in past 3 years. I mostly live like a monk

I meditate 2-3 hrs a day lol, I spent 2 months in silent retreat.

Let me give you a recent reason for my behaviour: I met a friend for dinner, and my friend is single, good looking, and during dinner hes by accident talking about girls and showing me girls hes sleeping with, and this meal triggered me. When I went home I decided to download hinge, and 3 weeks later, Im having this date I described to you,

I know everything your saying is true, but it's at certain points I just dont seem to care, and end up doing crazy stuff again, I just need to heal 100%

When you are in chronic constant pain like PAWS, you go irrational after a while to escape the pain i.e. my date

 

Some years ago there was a prominent rebooter (I can't remember his name) who believed he had found an explanation to the symptoms of PAWS. He had been through a 2-year reboot and believed that he understood what happens to the body during the PAWS phase. In short, he said he would soon be uploading an e-book for all rebooters, explaining how to curb or lessen the symptoms of PAWS/PIED.

Unfortunately once he recovered (like many others) he dropped off the face of this forum and has never returned. The only clue that he left was that 'understanding the fight-or-flight response is the key'. Some months on, and a whole load of speculating, I wanted to share some of my thoughts.

PMO is essentially the EFFECT of our symptoms and not the CAUSE. What I mean is that, when we are bored (CAUSE) we would PMO (EFFECT). When we were lonely (CAUSE) we would PMO (EFFECT). When we were stressed (CAUSE) we would PMO (EFFECT). Whereas a non-addict when stressed, would go for a walk. Or communicate with friends and family. I think a lot of us here, tend to concentrate on healing the effect (PMO), instead of healing the underlying cause (EMOTIONS).

What I am getting at is that a large percentage of rebooters, often mention turning to PMO because at the time they did not know how to manage their EMOTIONS. I was certainly one of these people. Time and time again I have read stories from individuals who suffered a lonely, isolated or even abusive upbringing. Others simply had an insane sex drive but did not know or how to release it in a constructive way. Nonetheless, the main theme seems to have been around EMOTIONS being turned away from, or repressed in the form of PMO.

To summarise the staple recovery story, we:

1. PMO'd for anything between 5 - 20 years as a substitute of facing our emotions.
2. We allowed the unprocessed thoughts and feelings to live rent free within the very muscles and tissues of our body.
3. With unaddressed emotions, our body exists within a 'fight-or-flight' mode, that gradually burns out our central nervous system
4. We finally give up PMO and allow our body to start healing, yet we feel it takes longer than others to feel close to 'normal' because we still have tonnes of repressed emotional baggage that is keeping our central nervous system switched on.

This would potentially answer why:

• When we become aroused during recovery, some of us immediately experience that head buzz feeling or headache. (arousal causes the central nervous system to switch back on to fight/flight mode despite already being depleted)

• Meditation has such a positive effect and tends to speed up recovery (the intent of meditation is to it release negative thoughts and feelings from within the body)

• Why when we stop PMO we experience feelings of lethargy, depression and anxiety (the flatline) (abstinence from PMO means there is no more energy available to repress the negative feelings and emotions, therefore we begin to experience them)

• Why we begin to experience more vivid dreams, regularly during recovery (the subconscious mind is being cleared of old and useless thoughts)

• The longer you have been PMO'ing the longer your recovery will take (recovery time is potentially defined by the amount/quality of emotions repressed through PMO)

@humbleone your scenario is a good example. After a short period of abstinence you say you find yourself going back to PMO. You crave it despite knowing that a) the outcome will be negative, and b) there will be repercussions in regards to your reboot. These are symptoms of a true addiction, but also symptoms of a deeper problem in my opinion. Have you ever asked yourself why you needed the pornstar girls, the alcohol and the drugs? What did you (or do you) not have emotionally that sex, drugs and PMO gives you?

@Freeddom_Taker I know your recovery spans over several years at this point, despite a range of long periods without PMO. Would it be wrong to start looking at the quality of your emotional life while continuing your recovery? What are the chances that you might have unaddressed or ignored thoughts and feelings that just might be keeping your nervous system working and dragging out your recovery needlessly. (Please say if I am way off the mark here.)

Would it be unreasonable to suggest that repressed emotions play a key role in the strength/continuance of PAWS? Do I believe that PMO causes the onset of PAWS? Absolutely. But for those of us that have been experiencing PAWS for 2+ years with long streaks of abstinence from PMO, I don't think it is unreasonable to suggest that repressed emotions really can take a toll on the nervous system and drag out the recovery time.

It has already been proven that emotions that are repressed (stress, anger, anxiety, sadness) remain stored inside the muscles of the body as tension. Chronic repression of emotions creates toxicity in our body, mind and heart. In essence, repressed (or trapped emotions) is excess energy that is stored in our organs, muscles and tissues. If not tended to correctly it is then left to cause inflammation and chronic health problems.

 

Man thanks for this post. But how you meditate?
Maybe that'll alleviate my symptoms....

 

@mentorr are you familiar with TRE? They are exercises designed to release tension in the psoas muscles which attach from the hips to the spine.

When I first started meditating I could barely sit still for a half hour and my back/thighs would be ridiculously sore for days after. Now that I have made it a habit I can get into a deep half lotus pose with my back straight for a half hour with no problem. The lotus pose isn't just to look cool, it serves the purpose of releasing all of the trauma that is stored in your hips at the cellular level.

I still say that father time trumps all but meditation/TRE has definitely been an asset in my healing.

 

Hey @Grateful Retainer yes I am. Believe it or not, it was you who posted on this thread and put me onto it!

I tried TRE shortly after, and at first I was a bit worried by the results. While I felt extremely relaxed afterwards, the following days I would feel strong existential depression and anxiety. What I did not realise at the time, was that these were repressed feelings coming to the surface and that I simply needed to sit with them, and let them pass. After a few sessions, I noticed my emotional numbness and flatline symptoms were nowhere near as severe as they used to be. It has been like clearing a huge backlog of emotions. So I would like to thank you for posting in here before about TRE. It really has been a great help with my current reboot. Much appreciated.

 

So its not as straightforward as starting meditation and it alleviating all of your symptoms. It is a gradual process.

Something to point out is that I began meditating 10 years ago. As soon as PIED kicked in, I began struggling to meditate. I simply did not have the focus or drive needed to sit still and focus on nothing. For this reason I stopped meditating. Even now I wouldn't say I meditate daily, simply when I can.

Get yourself online and look up different methods for meditating and just do a bit of research. My own meditation is super simple. I sit comfortably in a chair or lie down, close my eyes and try to focus on the black behind your eyes. Allow yourself to breathe normally. The aim is to try and keep your mind clear of any thoughts for as long as possible. You can start with 3 minutes a day, then 5, then 10 and so on. Without a shadow of a doubt, there will be moments where your mind strays, or where you even fall asleep. That is ok. Simply bring your mind back and focus on the black behind your eyes.

As you progress, you will find it gets easier and easier, and that you can go deeper and deeper into the space of keeping your mind clear.

What I want to emphasise is that meditation is not for everyone and that is ok. What I wanted to get across in my previous post is that it helps to start tending to your emotions and just checking in with yourself. If you wake up and feel off or numb, feel into that feeling and work out why. Up until maybe 3 months ago, I had no idea how to manage my feelings. I would wake up, open up my phone, jump on Instagram, Reddit, Facebook, and what I didn't realise it that it was distracting me from my feelings. Now when I wake up, I simply starve that feeling out (although difficult) and focus on starting my day. Day by day, week by week, I have begun to feel ALOT better. At the core of things, jumping on Instagram, or YouTube is a method of escape for me. It gave me the realisation that I do not want to go to work. Therefore the feeling in that moment where I wake up is anxiety, and that anxiety is simply and emotional sign to say that its to look at my current work situation and change jobs. 2/3 years ago I would have went straight to PMO, but at this point I now know that I have the tools necessary to manage that feeling of anxiety and not give in.

Like I said, meditation is a good start, but its more so about addressing how you feel and not distracting yourself going forward. I honestly think unaddressed feelings will keep your nervous system switched on and prolong an already long recovery process. You have been recovering for 7 years now what do you have to lose? Change up the process and see where it takes you. It certainly seems to be working for me and seems to have worked for many others.

 

@mentorr there is no doubt that there is a link between dealing with stress in all its form and compulsive behavior, what it seems you are implying is that actually there is still repressed emotional things that if we just address we will be magically cured, I don't actually buy that

Essentially all your reactions to your emotions since a kid is stored in your body, as tightness/pain, it effects how you walk, how fast you talk, so on and so forth

PAWS basically means you have gone so deep down the reactive hole, your body has accumulated so much stress, it's broken down.

I mean why I keep going back to model good looking girls (I've been mostly celibate for the past 3 years, probably 26 months out of 36), is because essentially theyre attractive, Im young, and its hard to persevere in PAWS for all this time without relapsing, thats just the honest truth, Im in chronic pain, and sometimes I snap

We are talking about giving up sexuality here, this is 0.0000001% of the human population will ever be asked to do, or if they were, could even do it.

We have to put things in perspective, even my crazy nights with pornstar looking girls, for the most part I live like a monk, Im tee-total and celibate, whilst being a good looking, wealthy male in his sexual prime

I wouldn't read too much into my relapse with sex, but hopefully my data can help others to learn

Im confident I will heal, its been a week since the last sex, and Im back on a streak, feeling better

But lets face reality, most of us here, our biggest attachment by far was sexuality, and we are having to renounce it, fully, completely, all the way, theres going to be some bumps in the road

Furthermore this whole experience has been so life changing its hard to overestimate how important it was for me spiritually and personally, I've learnt so much, it will last me 100 life times, or eternity.

If the universe wanted a mechanism to teach me about itself in the most fundamental ways, PAWS would be that. So in a weird way I couldn't have asked for any more to be sent to help me lol

 

There is certainly nothing 'magic' about it. What I am implying is that trauma or emotions that are repressed for long enough can effect the human body on a physical and emotional level and lead to disease. I am not trying to convince anyone, studies have already confirmed such a theory. I am not saying this IS the case for you, but rebooters like myself @Freeddom_Taker and @Legacy of Lost Soul who have had good streaks and have been in recovery for 2+ years, it might be a potential answer.

A reboot is not about renouncing your sexuality or becoming celibate. There is nothing stopping someone from meeting a girl, being open with her about their PIED situation and simply working towards a serious relationship. Karezza or sex without an orgasm is a thing, and if anything is a positive step towards recovery. If you run through the recovery stories, the majority of successful rebooters actually did the opposite of renouncing their sexuality, they embraced it without allowing it manipulate their life or decisions.

Totally get where you're at, and was simply sharing a thought process with the masses. Wishing you well on your recovery!

 

Thanks for your post dude. I have a definitive answer for my own personal case but i cannot speak for others.

For me my paws symptoms seem to occur in isolation of my normal life. Its the same as being sick with say a virus and in the same way recovery seems to be similar. In my experience there has been nothing i could personally do to change or speed up recovery and i have tried it all. I have tried meditation for multiple years (alleviated anxiety in the immediately short term but did nothing for long term), exercise and a stretching regime. None of it worked but time and as painful as that is to accept it is necessary.
Through my own studies and personal experience i have come to understand paws and why it occurs in my case. I have done extensive research for myself both online and in my own life. I have even tried taking a deep dive into my emotions and i know which emotions cause cravings. These emotions occur as a result from my addiction and have not caused me to go into addiction and this is very important to know.

You are right in saying the flight or fight plays a big role in paws and it does. Addiction can be a way we cope with stress, simply taking away that addiction removes that ability to cope with stress, among other things. The poor stress response is what causes a host of other problems aswell. This is where tinnitus comes from, which is a common paws symptom.

I have chased my tail in the past trying to do X or Y to speed up recovery or fix my symptoms and time and time again it always comes back to time away from PMO. My longest streak has been 16 months, which saw very gradual improvements with time. Past 16 months i have yet to reach unfortunately but i know for me success is somewhere past that point.

 

I think for some of us the novelty of going after good looking girls to have sex with them satisfies a very similar part of our brain as PMO did. For me, chasing girls to have sex with them is part of my problematic behaviour beside PMO and all the drugs I went through. I totally understand how hard it is to step back from any sexual activity for a really long time while being in your 20s.

It’s been 29 months since I had real sex and it’s about 24 months since I last touched a female body and kissed a woman. Just writing that out seems crazy to be honest, as a person that was intimidate with dozens of women. But for me, going after woman is a way of stimulating my reward system while the expectation of sex kept me going in my daily life. I don’t think that I‘m a classic Sex Addict but it still was a small part of the equation that tried to substitute the missing neurochemicals to feel good. At some point it doesn’t matter to an addict where his fix is coming from. It’s just important that he can suck the joy out of things so he can temporarily feel good and keep his neurochemicals elevated.

For me PAWS is reversing the addiction and it’s mostly on a neurochemical level which is accompanied by processing emotions and developing skills to deal with the suffering of life. I don’t think that having sex from here and there is doing any harm to learning how to deal with life and emotions but for me personally I wouldn’t risk to have too much stimulation to the neurochemicals while being in PAWS as the brain is repairing the receptor balance. The brain is very sensitive and fragile in this phase of recovery and that’s why relapse binges can send you back to even worse places then before. I’m not trying to implicate that you are going on binges but after all it’s not very helpful to the process and I’m talking about hookup sex which is something else then sex with a person you love.

I’m sorry if this came across like preaching but I think it’s crucial for some of us to be fully abstinent of any form of sexual activity for a continuous amount of time. And don’t get me wrong I understand the feeling of just wanting to have fun for some time and leave all the suffering behind you. Just last week I spent 3-4 days videogaming after not having played for more then 3 years. I didn’t do this out of a situation of feeling really bad but instead the opposite. I was feeling good on a Tuesday and my sister asked me if I wanted to play some games with her and her bf and I said why not. After 2 days it dawned on me that I’m having to much fun and that I can’t really stop gaming once I started a session. After 3-4 days I decided to leave video games again as the mechanics of those games are just too appealing to me. I'm a little bit afraid that this might danger my paws recovery process as video games where also part of my addiction but after some days away from them I feel like before in recovery. My point is I realised that I’m not meant to play video games as they are causing problematic behaviour for me and I can trust myself with that realisation as I won’t be playing any competitive games ever again. I reflected a lot about it and viewed this „relapse“ from every angle and that’s a crucial part of overcoming addiction In the long Term. I realised that my future, my studying, my career, my social life etc. is way more important than playing video games and since I realised that I said goodbye to them forever.

It’s certainly something else with sex as it’s not the goal to never have sex again but I think it’s healthy to think about saying farewell to hook up sex. Is there any long lasting satisfaction arriving from having one night stands with beautiful woman? I remember having sex with beautiful women years ago on a weekly basis. Nothing of this joy is here today, it didn’t even lasted to the next week or the day after tomorrow as I had to meet the same woman again in order to feel that feeling for the time we were spending time together. It’s a bottomless pit. Maybe everyone has to make this realisation on its own and until then it still seems like something to achieve but I can tell you there is nothing waiting at the end of having meaningless sex with woman that you barely know.

I‘m stopping here because I don’t like the way I’m trying to bring across my thought. I hope you don’t get me wrong and think that I’m judging any of your actions. I totally resonate with everything you are saying, I’m just trying to keep you aware of the fact that it might be better to not play with the fire and keeping you longer in PAWS by delaying your recovery because of meaningless sex.

 

Sorry re-read your original post. If when talking about emotions we are reffering to the compounded storing of our negative emotions in our physiology over our lifespan as physical stress, then I 100% agree. 100% all of your emotions are stored in your body, and propagate future thoughts actions and behaviors, it makes you who you are, the mind<->body phenomena, mind is body, body is mind

The more I go monk mode on streaks, ALLLLLLLL my body ailments get better, including my bad knees Ive had surgery on, my bad back, my ability to piss in front of people, and tons of ailments I wasn't even concious I had

My eye sight gets better, my visual field expensive etc etc etc

 

No I really appreciate your original post, its 100% true, and I will bookmark the post for future if I get weak.

WE are in full agreement, all sexual activity has killed me and set me back, I never post these things to brag or say fuck you to recovery, but just to be transparent and to share the data for those to come after us.

There is only one path: full abstinence until full recovery, everything else is a distraction. I've tested it multiple times now, sex, dating, and each time it's just an illusion

Your 100% right, all sexual activity pursued merely for the pleasure element is unhealthy and toxic, whatever form it comes in (kinky sex, dating apps, escorts, porn etc etc)

We walk this path mostly alone besides this thread, so I appreciate the honest words and accountability, it is important to have other people tell you what you already know, like you said you have to think about it, the best thing to happen is you end the adventure where you started but feeling a little more like shit, with a bigger urge to do it again, only a mad man would consciously chose that option

 

One of the other issues we face is existential, PAWS literally tears the fabric of life away from you, everything the Buddha said about ALL sense pleasure being a bottomless pit to be avoided, you start to realize the truth in it.

That's why recently Ive been asking; has any body regained normal sexual control after PAWS recovery, there are 0 stories of anyone returning to a normal healthy sex life, part of the problem is facing the truth I didn't want to face; all sexual activity is literally going to be damaging, even if you aren't in PAWS.

Like @DerJogge is saying, when I look back at all my sexual conquests, and even intimate relationships, none of those ever truly made me happy, and where just distractions, some more normalized then others.

When you reach a long streak and you look at others in relationships, its scary as you start to realize that you're happier single and celibate then those in relationships

And this explains my intermittent relapses to sex; Im testing if this existential hypothesis is true, is sex really a net loss? What about relationships?

Once I recover I will probably pursue a long term relationship, to test one more time if they are a net loss, or can they be fulfilling. I already deep down know the answer, but I guess I want to see it for my self. Im young (34 years old now- started this at 31), and I have time to play around with this dream we call life

If I can get another streak going (3+ months plus) Ill get back into a healthy headspace, and things get easier, its been 10 months since my last long streak.

God speed

 

You're really having the right thoughts mate and I guess you know everything you have to know.

For the part about having sex and if its always a net loss. I think there are woman out there that value a good friendship, trust, soft intimacy and mutual respect in a relationship MORE than getting their egoistic sexual needs satisfied. In our modern world most of the man and a increasingly amount of woman are just having sex to satisfy their own needs and there is barely and connection or bond between them. If sex is all about your own needs then I think its not possibly to have sex without a net loss because after sex there is simply less fun, less interest and less fascination about the other person because you burned all the fireworks for the sake of seeing the fireworks explode. Most of the people are so focused on the fireworks (sexual pleasure/orgasms) exploding that they forgot about the people they are enjoying the fireworks with. That's a keypoint for most of the relationships nowadays. Many relationships are just a vehicle for having regular sex and getting your self worth confirmed by someone else. At some point the fascination wears off and normality sets in and that's when most of the relationships fail.

My point is: if sex is used for personal pleasure then it's always a net loss afterwards but if you have sex with someone you love from the bottom of your heart then it's not about how good in bed you are or how long you can last. It's about sharing real intimacy, about trusting the other person when you are the most vulnerable. It's also focusing on the things the other person likes and not about creating a feeling down there that is awesome for you. If you then have sex and you might not even orgasm and the woman is actually respecting that and not subconsciously forcing you to orgasm out of selfishness THEN I think there is a net gain because sex brought you closer together and created a bond between you. I even think orgasming isn't preventing a net gain if you don't get attached to the high of an orgasm in the following time. Whether you achieve a net loss or gain through sex is highly dependent on you and your partner motives.

Pursuing egoistic sexual pleasure is more prone to a net loss while loving intimate sex is more prone to a net gain. That's at least my take on it