One of the reasons I relapsed today was because I was thinking about sex and couldn't get it off my mind. I thought of an old video I remembered and pretty much that caused me to relapse. Does anyone have any ideas or tips on how to controls my thoughts so instances like this can be avoided in the future?
By simply ignoring them. Controlling thoughts is hard at first, but eventually you will be able to control them easily and even if you didn't, you would simply ignore them.
Try feeding your good likes, your other interests. What do you like, besides sex? Feed that. Investigate it. Spend time thinking about it. Invest your time and resources in it. It will gradually move into center stage. To push PMO out of your mind, you need something else in center stage. It is impossible to just quit thinking. You will always be thinking about something. What are you other likes, hobbies, interests? Sex will not go away easily, and, as long as you have some hormones, it will pop back up, but if you are working at getting better at something else, it will not have a corner on your thinking.
Thanks for the responses, I'll try to push those thoughts away by thinking about a confusing music piece.
You can't push thoughts away. You can choose to think about something else. The harder that you try to not think about something, the stronger you are thinking about it. Find some things you like and spend your time thinking about those things: music, movies, hobbies, art, . . . You will find that you don't have much time for what was taking up all of your processing time.
Yes, I think "control" is the wrong word. Before your reboot you're somewhat screwed. You've been immersing yourself in that crap for so long, so frequently you have to detox, and until you do...good luck. But, there are things you can do. Exercise. Read. Watch a movie. Get out of the environment you're in. Post on nofap. Believe me, if you run long enough, no thought in the world is going to last.
Try meditation when the perverse thought comes just start focussing on breathing and your mind will unfocuss from that thought and gradually go to another one until there are no thoughts. This can open up the internal vision of the pineal gland to the point where you can see thought forms. You can then distinguish if the thought is evil or good and with practice you can turn evil thoughts into good thoughts. You may be turned off from this practice by me stating that last sentence, so let me just say what is evil takes from you and what is good gives to you. Choose what you prefer in order to balance your body and mind.