Does anyone actually ever actually quite pmo for good?

This is a question I feel I can really shed some light on. So, a couple of years ago, I found myself asking this exact same question. Only it wasn't about PMO. It was about opiates (Morphine, Heroin, etc). I was an opiate addict, with lots of other opiate addicted friends. I would always see them, saying they were finally going to get clean, and then they would for a while, but something or another would always trigger them to relapse. Yes I knew of a few celebrities and such who'd quit and allegedly never relapsed - but I didn't know whether or not those stories were true, or if they'd just been more sneaky about hiding their relapses. I genuinely started to question if it was possible to rid yourself of this addiction, or if it was a case of: when you're in, you're in for life.

I tried to quit many times, and, just like my friends, I always relapsed. Until.. I didn't. You see just over a year ago, I quit again, but this time it was different. Before I had been quitting simply because I didn't want to be an addict any more, and the negatives of addiction were making me try to escape it. This alone is simply fear based motivation, and is not sufficiently strong to be enough to push you to conquer addiction. What I instead found during the last attempt, was love based motivation. In other words, I found something I loved much //more// than my bad habit - my spiritual path, and I realised that quitting my habit would benefit me on that path and allow me to achieve much more on it.

Now I was no longer running away from a bad habit, I'd just changed and no longer was seeking it, as I was seeking something else, something more pure and beneficial. So, when I quit this time it was different. Rather than counting up the days/weeks and trying not to relapse, it was just like the power plug had been pulled. I left my addiction behind, because I no longer even wanted it. I saw it as disgusting. I didn't want to touch the drugs ever again. I lost any and all interest in getting high - and even gave up all other drugs in the process, including cigarettes (although I still have the occasional drink of alcohol - since I never had any issues with that). I have absolutely zero interest in ever touching any of those things again, and I simply couldn't. You would sooner be able to convince an adamant straight edge person to shoot up Heroin than you'd convince me to even ever handle the stuff again, never mind use it.

So why'd I tell this story? Well, it's the same with PMO. PMO, like opiate addiction etc has been hard-wired into our brains as strongly as our survival habits (eating, sleeping, reproduction). As a result, trying to run from it, will always end up in failure. If you are trying to avoid a relapse, a relapse is the surest thing to happen. You have to genuinely develop a distaste for the habit. You have to lose interest. You have to find something else that replaces that interest - something healthier, something positive that the NoFap journey brings to the table that simply couldn't be part of your life if PMO was. For example: the NoFap benefits etc.

Whatever you focus on, will continue to manifest in your life. You can try it for yourself right now. Pick a colour car, say.. blue cars. Now, today, go for an hour long walk, and try to see how many blue cars you notice. It'll seem like there are so many of them. What happened? Did you make more blue cars appear? Of course not, but by focusing in on the idea of the blue car, your brain was able to notice them everywhere - where it had previously just glossed over them as if they weren't even there.

Okay, so we know what you focus on will persist - but doesn't that mean focusing on avoiding relapse will be enough to avoid relapse? Well.. Not quite. Try this other little experiment for me. Don't think of a polar bear in a top hat! Well shit, couldn't manage that could you? Why? It's simple, your brain cannot process a negative request like that. All your brain heard was "polar bear in a top hat", the "don't think of" part was ignored. So, when you focus on "avoiding relapse", what does your brain hear? "relapse", and as a result, relapse becomes your focus, and the cycle of constant resets and relapses is pretty much guaranteed.

You have to find a new focus that has nothing to do with PMO. Then you can replace your old bad habit, with a new healthy one, and put it in the past for good.

 

Just because many fail does not mean that some do not succeed.

It is a very hard battle, it may take some people years to fully master and conquor.. but if you push long enough and hard enough then one day a breakthrough will happen.

 

There are people who quit for good. Sadly, I haven't been one of them yet, but I'm working on it.

To be honest, I'm not entirely sure that looking at someone's streak is the best way to measure their success. Instead we should look at the other 98% of our lives, and how quitting or even reducing porn has helped with that. Let's talk about the average youtube guy referred to in the OP. The guy who goes from being a porn addict to staying clean for 200 days, then he relapses. Why would that guy be disheartened? Think of all the things he could do with the time and energy freed up by staying away from PMO for those 200 days!

Jesus Green wrote a really good post above this one. The key is to find something else to replace your PMO habit. If you have something else to look forward to, then you've made progress. If you relapse after that, it will still suck, but in all likelihood, your new passion will help pull you out of the mire afterward. The trick is not to give up. We don't fail until we quit.

 

@Faptomist : there is no cure. Once be an addict, forever be an addict.

 

But then, if someone beats an addicting thing it would go to say that they were never an addict in the first place. This kind of definitive labeling does not go far with the practical task at hand. It does well to know how serious an addiction can be, but still leave hope for people to crawl out of it.

If I were to accept that saying, I'd give up right now. If that was the label I'd have to bear, I'd totally lose hope. The scientific basis for it is tenuous. While many may never escape the addiction, who can authoritatively say who an addict is? That line is hard to draw, and a future of continuously struggling against PMO can be daunting.

Some people can and will change, even to the point of being near indistinguishable from someone who never struggled in the first place. Is that person an addict? Just because they were addicted at one point they are doomed to be an addict forever? You gotta leave room for people to do things you'd never expect. They can and will.

 

^ So very true .. great post !!

 

Yep, and its better to see it that way, than to think you are healed and can start watching a little again!
Choosing to see the addiction as a lifelong issue helps remind yourself of making continuous efforts in finding healthy coping mechanisms and to keep trying to reach a little step closer to total cleanliness.

right now tho, I consider that because my relationship goes a LOT better now that I don't PMO, I have a living proof, a real incendive to stay in the right lane. I get more real sex and my PIED is gone. Without it, I think that my fight would be a lot harder.

 

I can see why you want to know this but really, even if it was true that nobody can get entirely rid of it, that shouldn't discourage you in trying to quit PMO. I didn't PMO for one and a half years, then my relationship ended and I relapsed. But that cannot take away those 18 months from me anymore. The experiences I made, the way my body, mind & life changed - that doesn't just vanish because of a relapse. Overall, it's still a trumendous success for me.

 

If you see sex as a competition it's pretty easy. Porn = admitting you're not good enough for the real thing.

 

Well, i just want to share my humble point of view:
- Said differently, if you limit "love" to the only aspect of "sex", then you will relapse.
- If you're not able to accept to be labeled as an addict, then you won't find the energy to avoid a relapse.

Even if you have the opportunity to stand the longest streak the world has ever known, you have to accept that somehow, you're in a recovery process. Pro football players, when they got a knee injury wouldn't go back playing even if they recovered. So, even if you seem to be fixed, you won't throw yourself into it by displaying unproper content on your screen.

Embrace this condition, it doesn't make you a bad person. Work on it, find your weapons to overcome your addiction but keep in mind you're an addict in a permanent (even lifetime) recovery process. We all have failures, troubles, darkness inside of us. Find people who love you for who you are and not what you should be or what you can do for them.

(I hope i'm clear enough. French people, well... you know... )

 

I do believe that one can quit P forever. It is my plan eventually. And I do believe I will get there.

I think everybody is an addict. Everybody is born an addict. Addiction is inside of every one of us. Even in those who has never been addicted to anything in their lives and maybe will die after 100 years without ever getting addicted to anything, even in them there is still potential. It's just not active. To me it's not about completely getting rid of that part of ourselves but rather putting it back where it came from - deactivating it. And realizing that it it still in there, active or not. But also realizing that you are not IT. You are you and IT is part of you. So classifying yourself as an addict is not an idea that I like. Rather having an addiction. Having, not being. Disassociate yourself from IT. Creates a distance. And longer the distance harder to cover it.

I am not really that competitive and definitely do not look at sex as a competition. But I still love that way of looking at this. Puts things into nice perspective.

Another way that I like to look at this is like a dog humping a fire hydrant. Or a horny rabbit humping a ball. It's funny to look down on them from above and think "poor dumb creature". But is that's what you wanna be? Cos this is exactly what PMO is. We are humping pixels. When you think about it it's kinda pathetic. That's what I tell myself.

 

An excellent question that started this thread. @JesusGreen pretty much said it all very eloquently. Having quit a few addictions for good myself, I can attest to his point. You need something better to strive for that PMO is obstructing you from achieving. That constitutes a strong motivation. Also in time the object of addiction simply occupies less of your thoughts. Along the way I feel one needs to make another important transition: first you acknowledge there is a part of your mind that is addicted (this is essential at the early stage, else denial will get one nowhere) but more important is the eventual disassociation from the addict label. You must come to see that your true nature is not 'the addict'. Our true nature is pure Consciousness or pure awareness. It is really misidentification with a label that causes all these problems, but first that has to acknowledged and the mind repeatedly purified of the false notion. That takes time for sure. All the best. YB

 

Here's a post from not so long ago where I tried to outline the stages of recovery.
https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.p...is-and-staying-tough.58425/page-4#post-507428
In my opinion, some (maybe many) can get stuck in the relapsing stage for a while. PMO is one of the hardest addictions to quit IMO. For me it is truly the last one. It is harder than others because it is very intimately tied to the very notion of our body and gender (mis)identity. It has been there since the first manifestation of humans. As long as we think "I am the body" then it can be a problem. Conquering it leads to brahmacarya which is a pre-requisite for spiritual growth in the Yoga and other faith traditions. Conversely, being established in noFap leads to spiritual growth- as evidenced by the remarkable posts you will find on this site. The level to which one gets established in it varies, and so we see different levels of relapsing. But it is absolutely possible to be PMO free for life- numerous sages in India and outside in other faith traditions have proved this. It just seems terribly hard from inside the addiction but it is definitely not impossible. I think that firm conviction is a pre-requisite to conquering it. It is not our true nature- that's for sure. YB.

 

It may be too early but I have been on this for some +70 days and since then I have no urges whatsoever to resort to have porn in my life ever again. The moment I deleted my stash from my computer I liberated myself from my own enslavement from all that digital make believe. Now looking back I am like really? You wasted yourself just because you lived in some sort of self induced fear and have held yourself back all these years from something meaningful.

From that moment in March I decided to clear myself from this I have been inwardly declaring war on this PMO nonsense and outwardly declaring war on myself by making myself accountable.

 

The main caveat in answering this question is that those who quit for good aren't here anymore, because they quit for good.
And what is someone who has quit for good : someone who hasn't relapsed yet.
The minute you think it's done, you'll expose yourself to relapse.
It's never over until you die, in fact.

It may sound depressing, but I think it is important to view it differently.
It's not about being perfect, it's about improving.

I'm 168 days in now.
My best attempt was 30 days, before that.
I'm not perfect, never will be, but I'm far better now than I have ever been, and that's what matters.

And maybe one day, you'll discover that you can spend a full week without even thinking about PMO.
And maybe one day you'll completely forget that you ever PMO'ed...

 

@Machin your post is inspiring. I totally agree and this is i wanted to say in my previous post. Mais pardonnez mon anglais...

 

There are some very good posts in this thread. Especially @JesusGreen's post is really important.
Thank you all for your input!