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

I've water fasted and juice fasted. I've done vegan diet, carnivore diet, Atkins, Paleo, Mediterranean, etc... Carnivore with added oily fish is best IMO because it supplies 99% of what you need and leaves out things that can aggravate symptoms. I've settled on 90% carnivore with fruits and veggies on occasion. Whatever you do though, DON'T try to cure PAWS with fasting! It will backfire. You feel the way you do because your brain is physically altered from years of active addiction, not because of your diet. Neurological symptoms such as tinnitus, changes in vision, chronic fatigue, and memory loss are symptoms of deranged brain structure and chemistry. The LAST thing you want to do is to starve your brain of essential lipids and proteins. Doing so will not cure you or speed up the healing process from PAWS.

My best advice at this point is to read and practice Stoic Philosophy. Learn to see your suffering as a necessary process. Learn to stop resenting your old life and your current abstinence and to value your new role as a strong virtuous man above all other things. Formulate in your mind the person who you really want to be at the end of your PAWS recovery. You are on a journey where you permanently become a man with extreme self-control, discipline, and unwaivering mental stability. Learn to value pain over pleasure. None of it will cure you from PAWS, but it will give you an excellent perspective of your situation and prepare you to move on with your life as you become more able mentally. Time is what it takes for the brain structure to normalize but creating a new mindset on life is something productive that you can be working on while you suffer.

Here are some 2000 year old quotes from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations to ponder:
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Human life. Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of Body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting Fame: uncertain. Sum Up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion. Then what can guide us?

Only philosophy.

Which means making sure that the power within stays safe and free from assault, superior to pleasure and pain, doing nothing randomly or dishonestly and with imposture, not dependent on anyone else’s doing something or not doing it. And making sure that it accepts what happens and what it is dealt as coming from the same place it came from. And above all, that it accepts death in a cheerful spirit, as nothing but the dissolution of the elements from which each living thing is composed. If it doesn’t hurt the individual elements to change continually into one another, why are people afraid of all of them changing and separating? It’s a natural thing. And nothing natural is evil.

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How to act: Never under compulsion, out of selfishness, without forethought, with misgivings. Don’t gussy up your thoughts. No surplus words or unnecessary actions. Let the spirit in you represent a man, an adult, a citizen, a Roman, a ruler. Taking up his post like a soldier and patiently awaiting his recall from life. Needing no oath or witness. Cheerfulness. Without requiring other people’s help. Or serenity supplied by others. To stand up straight—not straightened.

If, at some point in your life, you should come across anything better than justice, honesty, self-control, courage—than a mind satisfied that it has succeeded in enabling you to act rationally, and satisfied to accept what’s beyond its control—if you find anything better than that, embrace it without reservations—it must be an extraordinary thing indeed—and enjoy it to the full. But if nothing presents itself that’s superior to the spirit that lives within—the one that has subordinated individual desires to itself, that discriminates among impressions, that has broken free of physical temptations (as Socrates used to say), and subordinated itself to the gods, and looks out for human beings’ welfare—if you find that there’s nothing more important or valuable than that . . . . . . then don’t make room for anything but it—for anything that might lead you astray, tempt you off the road, and leave you unable to devote yourself completely to achieving the goodness that is uniquely yours.

It would be wrong for anything to stand between you and attaining goodness—as a rational being and a citizen. Anything at all: the applause of the crowd, high office, wealth, or self-indulgence. All of them might seem to be compatible with it—for a while. But suddenly they control us and sweep us away. So make your choice straightforwardly, once and for all, and stick to it. Choose what’s best. —Best is what benefits me.

Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust, or lose your sense of shame, or makes you show hatred, suspicion, ill will, or hypocrisy, or a desire for things best done behind closed doors. If you can privilege your own mind, your guiding spirit and your reverence for its powers, that should keep you clear of dramatics, of wailing and gnashing of teeth. You won’t need solitude—or a cast of thousands, either. Above all, you’ll be free of fear and desire. And how long your body will contain the soul that inhabits it will cause you not a moment’s worry. If it’s time for you to go, leave willingly—as you would to accomplish anything that can be done with grace and honor. And concentrate on this, your whole life long: for your mind to be in the right state—the state a rational, civic mind should be in.

The mind of one set straight and purified: no pus, no dirt, no scabs. And not a life cut short by death, like an actor who stops before the play is done, the plot wound up. Neither servility nor arrogance. Neither cringing nor disdain. Neither excuses nor evasions.

Your ability to control your thoughts—treat it with respect. It’s all that protects your mind from false perceptions—false to your nature, and that of all rational beings. It’s what makes thoughtfulness possible, and affection for other people, and submission to the divine.

Forget everything else. Keep hold of this alone and remember it: Each of us lives only now, this brief instant. The rest has been lived already, or is impossible to see. The span we live is small— small as the corner of the earth in which we live it. Small as even the greatest renown, passed from mouth to mouth by short-lived stick figures, ignorant alike of themselves and those long dead.

To the stand-bys above, add this one: always to define whatever it is we perceive—to trace its outline—so we can see what it really is: its substance. Stripped bare. As a whole. Unmodified. And to call it by its name—the thing itself and its components, to which it will eventually return.

Nothing is so conducive to spiritual growth as this capacity for logical and accurate analysis of everything that happens to us. To look at it in such a way that we understand what need it fulfills, and in what kind of world. And its value to that world as a whole and to man in particular—as a citizen of that higher city, of which all other cities are mere households.

What is it—this thing that now forces itself on my notice? What is it made up of? How long was it designed to last? And what qualities do I need to bring to bear on it—tranquility, courage, honesty, trustworthiness, straightforwardness, independence or what? So in each case you need to say: “This is due to God.” Or: “This is due to the interweavings and intertwinings of fate, to coincidence or chance.” Or: “This is due to a human being. Someone of the same race, the same birth, the same society, but who doesn’t know what nature requires of him. But I do. And so I’ll treat them as the law that binds us—the law of nature—requires. With kindness and with justice. And in inconsequential things? I’ll do my best to treat them as they deserve.”

If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience, if you keep yourself free of distractions, and keep the spirit inside you undamaged, as if you might have to give it back at any moment— If you can embrace this without fear or expectation—can find fulfillment in what you’re doing now, as Nature intended, and in superhuman truthfulness (every word, every utterance)—then your life will be happy. No one can prevent that.

Doctors keep their scalpels and other instruments handy, for emergencies. Keep your philosophy ready too—ready to understand heaven and earth. In everything you do, even the smallest thing, remember the chain that links them. Nothing earthly succeeds by ignoring heaven, nothing heavenly by ignoring the earth.

Body. Soul. Mind. Sensations: the body. Desires: the soul. Reasoning: the mind. To experience sensations: even grazing beasts do that. To let your desires control you: even wild animals do that—and rutting humans, and tyrants (from Phalaris to Nero . . .). To make your mind your guide to what seems best: even people who deny the gods do that. Even people who betray their country. Even people who do <. . .> behind closed doors. If all the rest is common coin, then what is unique to the good man? To welcome with affection what is sent by fate. Not to stain or disturb the spirit within him with a mess of false beliefs. Instead, to preserve it faithfully, by calmly obeying God—saying nothing untrue, doing nothing unjust. And if the others don’t acknowledge it—this life lived with simplicity, humility, cheerfulness—he doesn’t resent them for it, and isn’t deterred from following the road where it leads: to the end of life. An end to be approached in purity, in serenity, in acceptance, in peaceful unity with what must be.

 

sure, you dont lose the experience gained but in terms of time to recover its a significant set back.

 

Kudos to you for having the discipline! How much weight did you lose?

 

See I agree with you. When I did intermittent fasting for a few days a few weeks ago, stress got super high and urges caused me to relapse after almost 4 months no PMO. It was unnaturally stressing my body I believe. I am trying to eat a balanced supplemented diet now to see if that helps at all.

 

Feel good for u brother......
I am closing 6 months.... I was more of a Masturbation addict than porn addict.. And having Insane depression , brain fog , social anxiety... .. If these are PAWS then I can have patience..... But I am also doubting That what if its not PAWS. and I actually have depression and i will have to live like this.. Because I cant have medication or therepy... Are these Actually Withdrawls.... How to know if it is paws or not???

 

Hello everyone. I am back on forum after about 08 months. And obviously the first thing I did was see my Inbox and opened up this thread which helped me a lot back in 2019. I see some new people here along with others I know from back in time. I read a few posts but a lot of content has been added ever since and there is no surprise that this thread continues to be the most popular and relevant on this forum.

For people who know about my history, I have some things to report. The others can read my history in the link below regarding my PIED recovery.

I continue to reap benefits after leaving porn. Allah blessed me with a beautiful daughter back in Nov 2020 and that was also partially the reason I couldn't log on here. For a guy who couldn't manage a single intercourse after getting married, to be blessed with such a beautiful baby has been a life changing event for me.

I am 20 months clean now i.e. No P & No M. Last 08 months have been hardmode. Lucky enough to do hardmode because of wife's pregnancy otherwise it's not easy for a married man to do hardmode for a very long time.

So, why I didn't log on to this forum for such a long time? Primary reason being, I wanted to try if getting away from the forum would help me in getting over PAWS or not. Secondary reason was that I thought I had obtained everything I could from here so there was no reason browsing here mindlessly and debating with people who still believe that PAWS are just unreal and non-existent.

I don't think staying away from the forum helped me in any way to overcome my PAWS or increase my recovery's speed. The forum was not in any way reinforcing the "PAWS mentality" or "sth is wrong with me". My recovery pace has been slow away from the forum just like it was when I was active here. How much I have recovered is a very difficult question to answer but two things are for sure. I have improved from where my PAWS symptoms began about 18 months ago and secondly I am not out of the woods just yet. There are days when I feel I have recovered maybe 30% and then there are days when I feel like somewhere between 50-60%. My body still remains in fight-flight mode for no reason esp under social settings. Though it is better than how it was in the beginning. The frequency of me leaving the room has reduced significantly and I am able to drag through no matter how uncomfortable I feel. One thing where I have felt significant improvement is drop in my general anxiety. In the beginning, I was in anxiety/panic and what not 24/7. Now, my anxiety is only limited to certain social scenarios and that's about it. Otherwise, I feel quite relaxed and calm which is definitely a huge boost for me.

To sum it up, I feel that it's the social anxiety that I am left with right now which has been a constant challenge to me from the start. I can't comment much if my memory has improved or not. Panic attacks frequency has reduced and remain limited to social scenarios. Heart rate is better but no way near normal. Brain fog only when I am highly anxious otherwise no brain fog. I am looking forward to completing 02 years and beyond.

Another observation, I don't think that hardmode has in any way increased my recovery speed. It has been more or less the same when I was on normal mode and sexually active with my wife. Just my observation. I definitely do believe that there are benefits of semen retention but unfortunately I couldn't get it to speed up my recovery. So yeah, that's about it folks that's coming to my mind to report here. PAWS are real, tough and makes you go through things you cannot even imagine. They break the toughest of minds and hearts. The first step to heal from them is to acknowledge them, embrace them. Then you start counting months (not days) WITHOUT any relapse until you start seeing glimmers of hope here and there.

 

Is it normal to notice absolutely no improvement in symptoms during paws even when over 1 year in?

 

@winningover Thanks for posting this. It's awesome to hear from folks as far into this process as you are.

Congrats on having a child!

 

Dude, thanks for taking the time to come back and tell us about your progress.

Out of curiosity, what is your heart-rate like? I can't get the energy together to do enough exercise to do anything about this (it is a little high), and when I do try, I tend to get heart palpitations, even after a short walk on many days.

 

My heart rate is normal when I am not anxious or stressed which is now thankfully most of the day unless I am at work or in a social scenario. I used to have palpitations just like you are having but not anymore. Now, I don't get palpitations from any physical activity. It's only related to mind now. It was always about the mind actually. Your brain controls your heart rate, rhythm etc. Actually, while I am replying to your post and reflecting back, I think I have improved significantly in this regard. The progress is just so slow that you tend to forget how you were 06 months ago, 10 months ago, 20 months ago. I started in April 2019 so its been 20 months now.

I also read some posts from @whysolong a few pages back and I can't disagree more. Like I said in my last post, I was away from this forum for a very long time and it didn't magically removed my PAWS or sped my recovery. I took around 3 weeks off for my child's birth and amidst all of that I totally forgot everything about my PAWS, recovery, reboot, etc etc. And when my baby came into this world, I literally forgot everything about this, and I mean EVERYTHING! And then some of our relatives came to congratulate us and I just felt it all over again sitting among them. The usual PAWS crap....social anxiety, brain fog, racing heart...I mean , I don't even want to write all of the symptoms again and again, you get it!

And then on my good days, which I have thankfully experienced, no matter how much I reinforced in my mind that I am going to feel all those symptoms, they just didn't happen. I just felt the calm coming naturally inside me and words starting flowing seamlessly and things got smooth. I have seen the good days and bad days and I can tell you with surety that its not about the PAWS mentality or reinforcing negativity or telling myself that I am broken. When you feel good and you are recovered from PAWS, your brain will naturally take over everything else and positivity will come from within. It is quite dangerous to believe that you are having all those symptoms due to your negative mindset and YOU CAN do something about it to change everything. It may take you down even further, erode self confidence more and enhance the belief that sth is inherently wrong with you when in reality your PHYSICAL brain is literally fucked up and it will take TIME and PATIENCE to recover itself.

Yes, you may try to do things that you feel may help you manage your symptoms in the meanwhile. I tried semen retention, getting off these forums, cold showers, fasting, wim hof breathing etc. I am also getting wet cupping next week. But none of these really sped up my recovery. It only has been months which I am slowly and surely putting between now and last time I watched porn which is improving my PAWS.

I am very happy for @whysolong that he has recovered but his logic is very dangerous for everyone else. It is just like I start gardening from next week and I recover from PAWS completely in next 3-4 months and I come here claiming that all of you need to take up gardening to recover from PAWS when it only has been the shitload amount of time that I have been putting staying away from porn that has helped me recover. And there is no doubt that @whysolong did put shitload of time and kudos to him. @Don Quixote took 2 years of hardmode to recover. I am seeing glimmers after 20 months. Its dangerous to claim that there has been anything other than time (without any relapse) that helped them recover

 

Assalamulaikum bro, Thats very rational post.. and I love how u care for others... May Allah bless u ... ...Brother I am almost completing 6th months .. And Having insane depression , brainfog since starting or even before..... I have not laughed genuinly since last 5 months.. I feel jealous when people talk eachother and laugh at somthing because I cant laugh It looks wierd to others... having Social nervousness as well cant even talk to family members. .. I dont know If its PAWS or what.... I am seriously tensed due to it... I was always socially nervous and self concious but not to the extent that I cant even talk my mother.... And depression &brain fog is insane .. I cant remember what happend in morning or yesterday without forcing.. everything feels like a movie is going on.. Its unreal feeling .. Are there really Withdrawls.... I need ur help.. brother

 

Thank you for writing this. Those of us who frequent this forum are seeking both clarity on how to move forward and for reaffirmation that healing is possible through abstinence. Sometimes our symptoms are so severe that we just want to be reminded that we're not permanently broken. We talk about a variety of ways to cope with the PAWS symptoms but none of that is a substitution for putting in the time it takes to weaken the addiction pathways in the mind. Feeling calm and happy is supposed to come naturally. By becoming slaves to pleasure and vice, we have temporarily forfeited our minds capacity to feel natural happiness.

I just want to reiterate for everyone that the most important thing is to not relapse at all, not even sexual fantasies, because it reinforces to our brains that pornography has immense importance. When you tell your brain that pornographic thoughts are valuable it slows down the neural pruning that has to take place to reverse the condition. Vices are the opposite of happiness because they are obsession and inflexibility hardwired into the brain. Once it becomes hardwired, an inflexible obsessive brain has so much noise that it makes happiness and mental clarity completely unreachable.

Everything in the universe (including your brain) is constantly changing. The only way to heal PAWS is to get out of the way so that nature can untangle what you have done. That means avoiding all pornographic thoughts completely. The only way to speed up the process is to actively try to change what your brain values. Do you have to be proactive about it to get results? IDK. Technically, the behavioral change to abstinence is extremely proactive so everyone here is already doing the most important thing. But, The faster you can devalue pornographic thoughts the faster your brain will delete the neurons that occupy that space. And, the fastest way to devalue something is to repeatedly reinforce the value of its opposite. Value virtue over vice and you can eventually make permanent changes to who you really are. Of course, this takes repetition, time, and patience.

I'm convinced that everyone who stays the course will eventually make it out of PAWS. Eventually normal calm happiness will take over again, but it does take a long ass time. The question is will you still value pornographic indulgence and perceive it as a reward? Real sex should never be associated with any kind of selfish obsession or emotional neediness. If you want it like a drug then you aren't healed yet.

Also, during PAWS, you're probably still seeing women through the distorted veil of your addiction. If you've been idolizing and worshipping females and their genitals for years and years, then your relationship with women as a whole has changed too. Eventually as the cognitive and emotional symptoms of PAWS get better you are still going to have to work on any lingering social distortions if they exist. These aren't PAWS-related issues but related to years of inappropriate programming and fictionalizing women in your mind.

In the end it's about three things.
1) Separating yourself from the addictive behavior long enough so the brain can rewire and function normally again.
2) Valuing your new virtue, self-control, and the lessons that you've learned so highly that you remove any chance of falling back into the same behavior in the future.
3) Reprogramming your attitudes and beliefs about women and sex that don't make sense now that you're not porn obsessed. Remembering how to see the entirety of the person you're attracted to.

OK, I won't let this get too long. Thank you again @winningover for coming back and sharing your experiences! It really helps.

 

Hi, thanks for the reply - thanks for sharing your experiences, because as others say, this is all giving people like me good inspiration to keep motivated and focused on what we need to do. And I especially agree with the part above, about mindset - I really do think it is simply a matter of grinding it out day after day, until PMO is all in the past, and the brain is healed. Anything else is, at best, a waste of time, and at worst could lead to costly mistakes.

It's really simple. Really difficult, but also really simple, which kind of makes it easier! Keep grinding.

 

@whysolong is the biggest contradicting mongoloid I ever came across on this forum. "I NEVER SAID PAWS IS NOT REAL, BUT IT'S NOT REAL OVER 6 MONTHS!!1" Where the fuck is the logic and rationality in that? The guy has some major issues with his ego (don't worry, me too) If you disagree with the guy he instantly activates the attack mode (fuck this, fuck that) Yes, the PAWS guys do the same.

I have never seen such a guy like that on a forum. I wonder what he is like in real life. When someone mispronounce English words, while he @whysolong can't even tell the difference between theirs and there's in sentences, just GTFO being a "smartass".

I don't have many PAWS at all anymore, and, was it because I left the forum? No, it was because I was sitting it out and enduring. Time is the great healer. Maybe he has a point that for some this forum is holding is down by injecting some negativity, I'm not dismissing that. But that PAWS just magically disappeared after leaving a simple internet forum is retarded hocus pocus. I know he comes to help, but the way he does it is discombobulated and making most of us infuriating. For a lot of us, this forum is a godsend. Someone with a bit of human knowledge should KNOW WAY better. Then he comes as "I know more about neuroscience than all of you"

I have never seen you make any scientific post or scientific citation coming from you. Please, small son. Work on that EGO. Maybe try some ayahuasca?

 

I had a small conversation with the neuroscientist with the guy that conducted the D2 PET scan binding.

In July participated in a study in The Netherlands to scan for D2 receptor downregulation and hypofrontality - lower blood flow. There were healthy controls and participants like me, that suffered severe withdrawal. None of us had less D2 binding. Now I have been through this hell with withdrawal. Depression, anxiety, insomnia, insomnia, and 50 more hellish symptoms. It was hell! What the fuck happened? The theory of Gary Wilson, Gabe Deem, and the so-called nofap gurus, we're dead wrong with their D2 broscience.

The response from the neuroscientist.
"No baseline decreased D2 binding and no baseline decreased blood flow. We are in the final stages of the article, will certainly be a deliberate piece and only part of the puzzle."

"
Hello Peter,

There were indeed several with serious symptoms. It is certainly a problem, and worth investigating. Hopefully, you will get through it a bit, perhaps you have already contacted Trubbendorffer or something similar?

At the time when I was working on it, they still had most clients with these kinds of symptoms.

Regards,

Gilles"

I got some other hypotheses when it comes to the symptoms.

"What you said about diabetes type 2 could be true in porn addiction indeed. So maybe the D2 receptor showed normal receptor binding, maybe the VTA is the one where the problem lies. Shrunken dopamine-producing neurons. Tyrosine hydroxylase immunoreactivity could be changed in the VTA and changed in the NAc of porn addiction compared to controls. Shrunken VTA producing cells. Dopamine segregation, dopamine turnover, homovanillic acid levels. Also, what you said they focus on 3 ROIs, they should focus more on other parts of the brain like the insula and the ACC. They should have used voxel-based morphometry. They tested just one dopamine receptor subtype, just like cannabis addicts don’t show changes in D2 and D3 binding, in porn addiction there could be other subtypes involved. Just like cannabis works through different mechanisms via partial agonist of the CB1 receptor, porn works very differently than drugs of abuse, sure, they activate the same nerve cells, but porn is different, so should be treated differently when a study is going to be done of it.


Here the cannabis D2/3 binding study:

https://www.pnas.org/content/111/30/E3149

I hope I have given you some insight and fuel for when the study comes out, and the naysayers use it as their fuel.

Thank you for your work, Gary."

P.s.
It's not broscience yet. @whysolong the scienceguy and the naysayers love to use this term around. There is still very much work and studies to be done on before calling it bro-science haha. I was a bit rigorous calling it broscience since I went through a lot of trouble to conduct the study, to prove it exists.

 

I just had a wetdream tonight where I dreamt of watching graphic porn videos while masturbating to it and in the end having a small orgasm.

I just hate wetdreams and no matter how much I try to keep my mindset right they always seem to cause more symptoms. I just feel so betrayed afterwards...

Wetdreams don’t seem to be a problem for many in here?!

 

Hi everyone!! i' m about 90 days without any PMO, but still having sex with my girlfriend about 4 times per week.

Recently i feel my sex drive has lots of ups and downs...low libido and DE mostly
I still get flashbacks of porn related images during sex or during the day that last 1 or 2 seconds and i try to remove them from my head as soon as possible, but it affects my ability to be in the moment .

I still have very heavy withdrawal in the form of ups and downs , especially anxiety , brain fog , low confidence ,random bouts of depression and sleep problems, intrusive thoughts and ruminating .

The difference between the ups and downs is very big! On my good days i feel energetic, i laugh a lot and 2 or 3 times
per week i have these moments of mental clarity, calmness of mind and my stress is reduced like 85%!!

I know my true self is these rare moments that I have here and there and I can't wait to completely recover from this
addiction.

 

Hi DerJogge, I’m at almost 100 days and this has happened to me twice thus far. It is very frustrating because I do feel worse after they happen, but I guess there’s nothing really to do about it. One thing I have noticed on other occasions is that I’m able to stop myself in a dream because I “know about hardmode” even then, so perhaps taking a firm enough stance regarding PMO will eventually pay dividends even in dreams.

 

I have just passed the 2 year mark of NO PORN or porn substitutes.

I have personally experienced popping out of the flatline (and horrible PAWS) literally overnight. And let me be clear; nothing in my life changed that could possibly affect my mental state.

My libido and symptoms fluctuate regularly, but the episodes I am referring to are much more than that. Last time this happened was 9 months ago, but the most unbelievable one was actually 1,5 years ago. For one whole week I felt perfectly normal. This was initiated by an orgasm from sex. I had none of my horrible symptoms like anxiety, depression or tension headaches. But most noticable was my incredible libido. It felt like being on ED drugs or something. Just the anticipation of sex gave me raging boners. I had to limit myself to sex once a day because I didnt want to overload my system, but my body was ready to go again in like 5 minutes. I was quite drunk some of the nights because I was on vacation. The only effect it had was that I could last as long as I wanted with rock solid erections. But, after around a week I could feel my libido slowly slipping away, and I was soon back to the horrible PAWS grind.

I did not write this story to brag or excite anyone, but to prove the point that it is not all mental. I really appreciate people like whysolong sharing their story and experience. I am sure we all develop mental issues to some degree after many years of hell, but flatlines that almost feel endless are very real in my case. I am currently going through terrible symptoms, but I never lose hope. I would rather not live than watch porn again.

Eperimenting together is the only way we will find a way to beat the worst cases here!

Has anyone had similar experiences to mine, were you suddenly just snap out of it?

 

How have things improved for you overall/on average over the last two years?