Day 25 strong urges today and looked at some swimsuit images but stopped and know better not to spiral down to worse stuff. Have a great weekend everyone!
Yes you are right. In my case I am Starting to realize I'm using porn as an "escape".... Yesterday I got dissapointed by someone and I have been stressing out about unemployment, the only thing that came to mind is PMO. It's like I am using PMO to soothe every pain I am experiencing. I wrote and noted this on my journal and I am looking for healthier "escapes" to stress, anxiety or any negative emotion I might experience, things like meditation or Excercise or Journaling my emotions. Also I realized that I am doing absolutely nothing with the urges, I guess I need better alternatives to PMO to cope with life. I am adding meditation to my journey, I have been blindly following nofap forums now and counting streaks , without ever looking into defensive mechanism for when the Urges arrive. Simply having Willpower is not going to do it.
Day 0 Urges are stronger than my resolve, i have no willpower to resist them. I'm stuck in an endless loop of pleasure seeking and pain. A tag war between my conscious and unconscious. I feel sad. I'm the problem and the solution at the same time, so playing the vectim role is pointless. I need a break. Ill be back soon. Stay strong.
Dude I get it. I know that feeling. Let yourself feel bad for a little while, then start taking practical steps to move forward. No matter how many times we fail, we always have a chance to start over, and use what we have learned. No judgements here, bro. We're here to support you anytime.
Yep, it took me awhile to realize it, but PMO is basically like doing drugs. It's strange since the drugs are already in there, in your brain, but binging on porn releases them and temporarily makes you feel better about things. But like all drugs (or alcohol) the long-term damage is worse than the short-term escape. I think with PMO there's a kind of mental/emotional "hangover" afterwords, where we just feel tired, and depressed, and bad about ourselves. About a year ago I gave up drinking. Surprisingly this was easier for me than giving up porn - that should be a clue as to how powerful the "porn drug" (dopamine) is. But there's a strategy I learned about booze which I now use for porn. It's called "Playing the tape forward." So when you get an urge to act out, you just mentally walk through the pattern that you *know* will happen - basically a short-term thrill, a brief flood of "feel-good" chemicals, followed by remorse, anxiety/depression, and (depending on what you watched) shame/guilt. The upshot buddy is if you realize "It's just not worth it" *before* you act out, then it's easier to just stop and move your focus elsehwere, to something positive.
Congrats dude, well done. You have proved to yourself that you have a great internal power of self-discipline. You will always have this knowledge within you and when you face challenges in the future you can be confident that you can get through them. Best of luck with your path forward!
Yes you are definitely right it is a Drug, scientific research suggests that the same dopamine hit we get from PMO is equivalent if not worse than that of a cocaine addict. Brain Scans of porn users and drug abusers have repeatedly shown that they are technically the same. Its a scary thought to process. A lot needs to be done to educate everyone of the dangers of Porn Use, because truely speaking the only place where Porn Addiction is taken seriously is on forums like Nofap, to the outside world, including even in the medical field , it is still viewed as normal. I was looking to find sort of a Rehab Centre for porn addicts and I found none. I am willing to even go for rehab if that is what will take to overcome this. I like the mental walk through idea and also how the after affects of PMO is just the same with alcohol or drugs. Yes we most certainly face Emotional "Hangovers", not only that, but also face withdrawal symptoms the same way someone would, if they were looking to quit drugs or smoking.