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

Yeah I can't really do anything. I don't know how to explain to people how I'm doing. I forget things right after I think of them. My brain just doesn't seem to work. There are many times I'm like I wish I had a brain to reply to that person. It's just temporary agony, we'll get through it. I'm getting tougher and tougher as time goes by.

 

Actually, I said that it's not just an addiction, not that it isn't an addiction.

Again, I did not say this.

I argued his rebuttal that a relapse doesn't send you back to zero. My evidence for that is the experience of those who make up this thread. I've yet to see someone recover from PAWS despite intermittent relapses. What I have seen is very few actually recover and those who did all took a long continuous streak of abstinence in order to do so. What I have also seen is posters in here experiencing increasingly severe and longer-lasting symptoms upon each relapse.

Merky in that you won't believe anything until there's a written paper for you to dive into and accept as fact. I don't need a study to confirm what I experience and what I can see is happening to countless others, even if you'd rather ignore it and hide behind the lack of studies.

I'm sure you've seen the brain scan images floating around of a porn addict and how they compare to that of a cocaine and heroin user, they are very similar. Just because you don't inject, snort, smoke or swallow porn doesn't mean that it's not interacting with your brain in the same way. All drugs are merely a gateway, it's the reaction of neurochemicals within the brain that determine what effect it has and how potent it is.

Anyway, I'd rather you stopped stop quoting my posts from now on, you know we don't agree on this. I sincerely hope you recover soon, four years is a long time to get over a "behavioural addiction".

 

The worst is when I have a conversation, or get coaxed into an argument with someone, and my mind is entirely blank during it, but after it, when it's too late, I remember a dozen things I could have said, and cues that I missed, or jokes that would have lightened the mood. It's like some demon in my head is taunting me by keeping these words from me on purpose. Even then, I doubt any of those things would have been received well, or taken seriously, because my "aura" is so paper-thin at this point that I just don't command any emotion whatsoever from people—except maybe indifference.

Or when I have to attend a job interview and I spend the whole time stuttering and forgetting words, and I can tell when my interviewers have made up their minds about me. "Oh, this guy's just an idiot." You've never fucking met him.

Sorry. This whole situation is just so grim. The fact that this can happen to a human being, who needs to rely on his brain to be useful for more than manual labor in modern society, has disillusioned me so much. It has become a philosophical question at this point, and I don't even know if my complaint is with porn, withdrawal, or life itself. Imagine a world where you actually get to live, and not just spend most of your life trying to. But I digress, as this post is getting too negative.

Whenever you feel like you're the only one going through it, just read my "Symptoms" post. I know exactly how you guys feel. The good news is people with these symptoms have gone through these forums before, and healed completely. They haven't been online in ages after posting their success stories, and I take that as a very good sign.

 

Thanks so much that post was affirming. I really felt I was invincible from people as if no matter how much I did for them (I've been trying to be really kind and helpful in paws) they still wouldn't give the love I deserved and needed.

Where is your symptoms post?

 

It's in my signature, above my counter. But I'll post it here for the sake of convenience: https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?t...ey-cure-duration.231859/page-212#post-3519660

And I feel the same exact way. It's made me very stingy with my energy.

 

Agreed. Drugs depend on the chemicals already available in our bodies in order to be effective; in porn addiction we go and get the chemicals ourselves, no middleman required. Well, unless you consider the porn to be the middleman. Either way, it's a much more direct approach than using agents to induce the high, and you don't need to pay a single cent, which makes it ten times as dangerous.

In my opinion, porn addiction differs quite a bit from what we call behavioral addictions, such as gambling addiction or social media addiction. In gambling addiction or social media addiction the reward pathway is abused, true—but the web becomes far more complicated when orgasms and the tapping of bodily fluids enter the stage. Sex and orgasms involve a cocktail of different chemicals, whereas behavioral addictions often involve far fewer, and in smaller but still impactful amounts.

Orgasms are also very intense; even at their peak the perceived pleasure of behavioral addictions couldn't compare in terms of intensity, and that's not even taking into account edging. On top of that, the body has a lot of work to do to restore balance after every session, which I don't think can quite be said for the other two. I believe porn addiction is not fit to be called a behavioral addiction. If I had to label it, I'd say it's a very dangerous hybrid of a behavioral addiction and a substance addiction, although that may be reductive.

As for the conversation about brain damage: I don't believe nor want to believe that permanent, irreversible brain damage to the point where I'll be like this forever has occurred, as my life is pretty much only fit to be disposed of if that is true, and I've seen people make amazing recoveries. But I have to consider the possibility that I may only ever be 95% healed, or at least that the last 5% will take a couple of years to fully recoup after I feel mostly healed. Hope for the best, be prepared for the worst. But those odds still sound pretty good to me!

 

I don't think it has anything to do with anyone burying their head in studies, or needing medical papers. You said that PMO is the same as hard drugs, which is absolutely fine. I questioned your point because saying that PMO equates to brain damage is something I have never heard of.

You didn't need to provide a medical paper, it could have been a link to a health website. A blog post. A YouTube video. Or even a post from Reddit. Anything to back what you were saying. You didn't provide anything. You said that evidence could be found if we looked. I never found it.

I am not saying that what you said is wrong or incorrect, I am saying that I do not agree. There have been plenty of moments where I have made a statement and nobody in this forum has agreed. As a result I was roasted which is to be expected. In those moments I had a choice to either a) provide some supporting information, or b) question my original point and learn from it. That has always been the nature of this forum and thread.

I have no issue with you making your point, but if you make a statement that I disagree with I am going to challenge it. Not because I dislike you as person. Not because I want to be difficult. But because it is unfair for newcomers to enter this thread and believe that they suffer from brain damage without some form of reference.

I don't disagree with porn having an effect on the brain. I am saying that I don't think that PMO is a hard drug and that it does not cause brain damage. Do I believe porn causes brain changes? Most certainly. Do I believe it causes brain damage? No.

 

Thank you for sharing your experience, i couldn't find any therapist who is specialized with sexual issues but i'm thinking to find someone who is specialised with CBT who can help me with controlling my thoughts and fantasies, particularly fetish type of disorders.. Which were the reason and still the main thing that keeps me traped despite realising and analysing it as a wrong thing.

I agree seniors are the best therapists.

I hope your coming experience will meet your expectations.

Thanks for sharing. I should try my luck, i hope it will help.

I understand my problem. But i am still unable to fix its roots

 

I'm giving you a standing ovation! You're the guy I single out on this forum, and it's your comments I read. With great interest. I don't know how you have the strength to respond to all those who are still waiting for some kind of scientific research. It's already clear to me that porn is a heavy drug. I also encountered kindling. Please tell me, in the future, without a single relapse, do we have any chances of recovery?

 

I wonder what would take someone to say that PIED can be irreversible. What criteria do we follow to determine that PIED is always reversible ?

Long reboots are quite scary. " There is something else wrong with you " , " No way flatline could take that long " comments are getting tiresome.

 

I made a more detailed post about my 48 months Nofap / PAWS from porn timeline :

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/nofap-48-months-paws.348559/

For data availability.

 

Is irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) a symptom of paws? I think on some days i experience this. Mostly on the days that follow after i consume a lot of things that gives me a lot of dopamine like watching YouTube or watching a movie etc. When i brain relaxes again IBS goes away, but this time it's taking too long i feel.

 

I'm heading to 28 days. It's crazy. My productivity is increasing and I've been learning so many skills since then. Keep moving guys!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I don´t know if it is your case but PAWS can cause autonomic disturbances :

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-acute-withdrawal_syndrome ( check signs and symptoms )

In my case, i have urination issues, more frequency less quantity, low urination stream . I think it is connected with genital numbness caused by the " Flatline " / PAWS .

 

Dopamine receptors reside in your gut as well as your brain. A disturbance in your gut takes place due to the dopamine imbalance from overstimulation. Similar to getting "butterflies" when nervous or stressed.

Your nervous system is reacting to the amount of stimulation.

 

Friend, I can not agree with you on this and truth to be told I don't think it's very smart to make claim like this. There are so many people here suffering like crazy, going through paws and flatlines year by year and hope is the only thing that keeps them going. Don't take it away from them.

The same way I don't believe that pmo causes irreversible and permanent brain damage and there is no real data to support this.

I've been at this game for 3,5 years. For most of the journey it indeed felt like that with each relapse I'm starting from the scratch or worse. So I understand where you come from with these claims. But I don't believe that that is what is happening as I'll explain later.

16 days ago I relapsed hard and edged for 10 hours. And now I feel like I'm in the very same territory where I was shortly before my streak 250+ died. I'm alright, still facing paws and flatlines but I'm undoubtedly getting better.

Kindling is certainly real and it even makes sense to me now that for somebody who indulged in pmo for many years that after each period of abstinence, the withdrawal is getting more severe and potentially dangerous. Because wires in our head are damaged and very sensitive in the process of fixing themselves. Still that doesn't mean that the hard work that you've done for hundreds of days is lost, it only feels like that. All those days of abstinence add up and they will manifest later. So unless the guy keeps relapsing frequently and for many hours, the progress indeed does happen. It's only somewhat invisible for the time being. And I personally consider this aspect of nofap the most difficult and most confusing from them all.

That being said, there comes a point when kindling becomes irrelevant and relapses don't take you back to hell. Firstly the wires in our head have partly repaired themselves and secondly after some number of days ( we don't know how many..could be 1000, could be more and of course it depends from person to person) your brain switches to the new default setting in which it believes that NO PMO is the new normal, whereas before the withdrawals come from the old default setting in which your brain cries for more PMO.

It will probably take years before I reach the full recovery but I believe that the first stage of SCARY PAWS is more or less over. I'm now in what I could call LAZY PAWS - meaning I can still feel most of the symptoms but to a lesser degree. It's not paralyzing anymore. I'm o.k.

Of course, everybody has different pmo story the same as nofap story. And in my specific case I have invested a lot of effort into removing other dopamine outlets from my life as well and I continue doing so.

Where I agree with you is that pmo is indeed very easily comparable with other hardcore drugs. With all those withdrawals we've been going through there really is no doubt about that.

Heads up guys. We are progressing and relapses are necessary part of the journey - that is where you learn most. Only best of luck to all of us. It is a hell of a journey and maybe the most difficult thing I'll ever accomplish. But I will be successful and so will you

 

Guys is how you're feeling a good indicator of how far you are in recovery? Like for example if you're feeling better or close to recovery it means you are close? Like is it linear or there are ups and downs? My recovery has been pretty static but I could be feeling like mildly better. Anyone who know about recovery or heard from others who have recovered have any insights on this?