Time for a total dopamine detox.

I would recommend you don’t do this. It’s pretty well documented that cutting out all forms of dopamine inducing behaviors, addictive habits, at once usually leads to catastrophic failure and hardcore relapses. That’s why someone starting AA it’s recommended they don’t quit smoking cold turkey because it’s too difficult. You do you but generally a gradual reduction method is better.

Porn alone is going to be the hardest thing to quit that you’ve ever done in your life most likely.
What’s going to happen is your one outlet, say YouTube is going to go through the roof in usage. (compensation) and it’ll eventually will be the thing you use for porn substitutes. I use to do this with marijuana a lot, pretend I was doing really good at nofap but I was smoking entirely too much.

Anyway good luck either way for sure.

 

Where? It's not that I don't trust you, but I want to read more about this from reliable sources.

 

Every time I tried to go cold turkey I failed really hard.

 

I second this. I've fasted all food for 40 days once, and giving up porn has been harder.

I would recommend going all in for getting off porn. Once you've got a 90+ day streak, then think about trying to doing something more, like a full dopamine detox.

Not before the 90 day mark, though.


If you quit porn, you're commiting to one of the hardest challenges of your life.

Set yourself up for success in this. After you've succeeded in this, the rest can come.

 

Been thinking about doing this as well, but seems like you guys advise against it. Why tho? What if most of your relapses are because you feel like shit from binging and scrolling the internet all day? What if you compulsively waste your time on the internet? I dont see how wasting time on the internet would help in quitting PMO. It's been a real problem for me since online school just makes it so easy to stay in bed all day and live like an ameba. What would you guys recommend?

To specify more the type of dopamine detox I wanna do isn't super hardcore. I can still watch movies (in planned intervals) listen to music (while doing routine tasks), listen to audiobooks, and watch youtube videos (so long as they are USEFUL and in short, planned intervals). Basically just minimizing the popcorn fast food type consumption.

 

This might cause you too much pressure and stress. Just be careful.

 

I'm not recommending against doing a "dopamine detox".

I'm recommending against two things:

1. Commiting to too much at once — porn addiction recovery is already going to be one of the most challenging processes ever; if you need to lift a car with your bare hands, adding 100kg weights to the car isn't going to help you achieve your goal.

2. Making the Dopamine Detox the focus while you're still addicted to porn. İn our state, recovering from addiction, it's super easy for us to go "slippery slope". OP says he wants to give up on junk food — a noble and healthy goal, which I think he should indeed do at some point. But, if that's tied to his feeling of victory over porn, then there's a decent chance eating a piece of cake will bring on guilt. "I failed in this... Might as well drink some alcohol... Welp, I drank alcohol, might as well look at porn."

Y'all might not be that way, but I know I am, and I know many others who are.

İnstead, my recommendation is Do whatever you need to do to get free from porn (short of starting a new, less healthy addiction (drugs, smoking, etc.)).

İn some instances, that does indeed mean staying the hell away from social media (many Instagram pages are much more sexually triggering than anything my grandpa would have seen in his life).. and sometimes, junk food makes me feel like crap, which makes me tempted to PMO.

However, there's also been times when, processing an urge, the best thing to help me navigate the urge was to go and buy a nice big chocolate bar.

Sometimes alternative dopamine sources like chocolate, coffee, or a video game can actually help you navigate withdrawal symptoms. Having a tool like that in your back pocket when withdrawal symptoms are hitting you hard can be a game changer. I know it was for me.

Don't get me wrong: I am ALL FOR the goals OP lays out. I deleted every one of my social media accounts last year and I couldn't be happier. I don't drink. I've cut back on junk food and YouTube significantly over the course of my streak.

I love the goal. But, it's going to be much easier to get free from PMO if you don't add those as extra commitments to your stack for the first 3 months.

Assess where you're at on a day-by-day, week-by-week basis on your reboot. İf it helps you to start eating cleaner, then start eating cleaner. But if it helps you to have a little dopamine hit by having a coffee and eating some ice cream, then eat the friggen ice cream.

Just. Don't. Fap.

Getting off porn should be goal #1. Everything else should come into alignment and support of that goal during reboot.

 

I don't know but I haven't been using any social media, playing any video games, consuming sugar since I started this current streak, but I spent more idle time surfing this website and NOT focusing COMPLETELY on my life goals (learning 10 hours a day [sound harsh/corny and stupid lol], exercising regularly, practicing guitar). Although, I felt more and more calm, content, happy, apparently positive emotions come within the time I have been free from the PMO slavery and other high-stimulating/short-term activities.

Alcohol is a substance addiction, maybe it's harder to quit than behavioral addiction, in my opinion, if alcohol consumption is related to your porn consumption (ex: use porn after being drunk), you should quit both.

That's also the reason why I'm trying to quit all dopaminergic activities which are not helpful for my recovery, the more I'm sunken into them, the more I become depressed and return to my biggest addiction: PMO.

Good luck on your journey~ Smilin' and fightin' for the bright future.

 

Does anyone else have Addiction of ASMR? I've found its really dopamine inducing and am trying to cut back