What do you do when strong urges arise?

Do something drastically different.

Get out of the house and take a walk, go for a drive to a grocery store across town and buy a favorite food item and eat it away from the house, go outside and clean up while listening to good music, something that will take you out of the area where you usually act out and stay out of that area until your urges clam down.

Best to plan ahead what your drastic action will be for different times and different situations.

 

And for a more technical advice for a better day, its good to keep track on how much you spend your will power, a lot of studies show it's a finite source... but its like a muscle and can grow. But until you're not there don't push yourself too much, set up a challenge, quitting porn and thats the only priority, you have to add stuff like gym and other things, but always considering they are there to help you, not hinder you. Be productive but be smart about it, always be on the move, but don't overly tire yourself. That has been helping me immensely and not only for porn.

 

Always appreciate your pearls of wisdom, my friend.

 

If you get a strong urge, act as quickly as possible. The longer you let an urge bubble around inside of you the harder it will be to break free. What I usually do is find some way to reroute the energy - for me this is usually drawing, meditating or working out. If possible, the best thing you can do is leave any high risk areas where you can relapse. In my experience, simply leaving the room and going to somewhere else I can still relapse just as easily doesn't work.

 

There was a time probably about a year ago I reached over 100 days. The urges get worse before they get better. Simply put, this is because the neurochemical responsible for the feeling of "satiety" begins to wear off after a week or two of abstinence. We still feel urges with this neurochemical present because we are so hooked on porn as an escape behaviour -- with it gone they become even more violent. However, I found that after a couple of months free the urges became a lot less powerful. They never went away entirely though.

What's important to remember is not to get complacent: that's the reason I've been back down in the trenches unable to break the two week barrier for near enough to half a year now. Depending on how young you were when you first used, it will take anything from 1 to 5 years for your brain to heal fully (If your first sexual experience was porn or masturbation, it will take longer. Same if you've been using for a very long time.).

 

When the urges inevitably come, your main device is willpower, and not much else. However, I have noticed that it is possible to reduce urges altogether. For me, the best way to reduce urges is to avoid triggers throughout the day. At night, after I settle into bed, then I "collect" the sum of my sexual thoughts throughout the day and it seems that the more I look at triggering images and fantasize throughout the day, the more horny I become at night. The same is true when I first wake up - the sexual stress from the previous day seems to surface then.

I am speaking very subjectively and metaphorically of course. You should not take my advice as a rule. But in general, if you are disciplined throughout the day and avoid things that trigger you, then you will have more manageable urges, whenever they seem to strike. Oh, and the reason I never get urges DURING the day, is because I am always busy. That helps too. I think there is a saying among religious people that goes: "The devil will find work for idle hands to do." From a psychological perspective, this makes sense. Withdrawal is a very strong subconscious force that can easily pull your mind away from where you want it to be. This is why when your mind is working hard, then the withdrawal is on hold until you are more vulnerable.

 

We both have 3 days right now - that's actually very decent. If you can get a full week you'll be in very good shape.

 

I read an article or blog post a long time ago that was on porn addiction and dealing with urges, but made an important contrast with other addictions in that we are all hardwired for sexual feelings and desire. And, that's in contrast to alcohol, caffeine, or other substances. Unlike those, wanting to have sex and a sexual release is more into our nature, so the urges will never truly go away.

 

What's been helping me lately is just taking 3 to 4 hour breaks from technology. I don't know how easy that is for you, but some ideas are: bbqing, fixing something that's broken, or hell, even just driving to the other side of town to get some ice cream from a place that I never go to because it's so far. It can lead to discovery of something neat, and even if it doesn't, you'll have spent time doing other things. Every time I take a 4 hour break from my pc during the day, I come back to it and there's a whole new set of things on there to keep me occupied that isn't anywhere near porn related.

Hope this helps.

 

Yes it’s hard to control but I recommend to stay with a large number of people or counting from 1 to5

 

I found different kinds of meditation and cold showers/baths helpful. These two things are really helpful when for some reason you have to stay at home.