How do you guys deal with your urges?

There's no secret trick that I know of. Try to stay active. Try to fill your time with stuff that you can't just put off. Like, work and . . . well work is the only thing I guess, unless you can take some classes. Don't try to do more than you can handle. You don't want to set yourself up for a situation in which your willpower is drained.

Avoid triggers of course.

Cold showers.

Try to have lots of positive social interactions, this will help with your anxiety and restlessness.

Make sure you have something to keep your mind occupied in bed before you fall asleep. I listen to podcasts.

Avoid naps. I've had problems with napping and I've read a lot of other people being compromised due to napping. I don't know why.

Stay out of your house as much as possible.

When you have an urge, just try to put off gratifying it. Because usually it'll pass fairly quickly.

 

I find it helpful to not repress the feeling but simply to observe it for what it is, acknowledge that it's an urge and is separate from me and then continue with other activities. If anything it provides an energy to things I didn't have before. In terms of practical stuff if the urge is overwhelming: go for a run, take a shower, read, watch a movie, make lunch - and then I'll suddenly notice it doesn't take over my thoughts. I will say that I've relapsed recently (pre-joining this community) so I'm far from the ideal, but thought I'd share my humble advice.

 

Lots of good advice give so far about redirecting the energy, distracting yourself, and just observing the urge and understanding it will pass. Sometimes, though, I just have to white-knuckle it. I have to force myself not to do what my addict brain is telling me to do by insisting that I need to jerk off. The urge will pass until I get another one. Then repeat the above until that one passes. Eventually, it gets easier (I hope).

 

Ez bar, bench press, free weights etc. Do anything you possibly can

 

Physical training such as yoga pushups stretching running walking curls weights lunges squats and walking in nature outside. Just going for a stroll around the block is HGUE for redirected energy.

 

Focusing on the benefits of rebooting instead of focusing on what I'm giving up helps. I finally started doing that today.

 

It'll sound silly and I feel a bit cliche saying it, but primal screaming helps!

 

I find any kind of exercise that gets you into your body and out of your head helpful. When you are in your body, you are in the here and now and not in fantasy. Even just breathing and counting those breathes mindfully to 10 can be enough in pinch to reframe the situation. Also, I found just coming here and journaling or if not online, on a piece of paper the pros and cons of PMO. That can squash it in a moment. Hope that helps.

 

All the above is great.
Something else is that I will get on this forum and post. Or, call or text a friend.
In other words, being in communication seems to help.
I have told a few people about my addiction and a couple of them are ones I will text or call when the urges get real strong.

You can do it. You are strong!

 

It actually does help

 

Remember that what your addicted brain is looking for is dopamine- which is released when you begin the P hunt. It is your primal brain's way of saying "we need to to mate with that man/woman/whatever on the screen!!" So look for ways to supplement dopamine in positive ways. Here is an article that gives a bunch of good tips:

http://www.wikihow.com/Increase-Dopamine

 

HELP with masturbation addiction and stubborn fettish!

Ok I really need some help! This is my first post so I apologize for the length and if I break any rules in the content of my message (although I dont think I am).

I do not have an issue with Porn anymore, but I still have all the things ingrained in my brain that I learned from porn, and they influence my fantasies. I have a few problems which I will number out below.

1.) I REALLY, DESPERATELY want to stop masturbating but I just can't figure out how to do it. Although my masturbation is usually only once per day (sometimes two), and not 4-5 times a day like some people, I literally cannot go more than 1 day without masturbating. I haven't watched porn in over a month and I (almost never) look at images online that are even a little suggestive, but still I often have a strong urge to masturbate. And many times I will not be looking at or listening to anything sexual, but I will just randomly get sexual thoughts pop into my brain, and the harder I try to resist thinking about them and the harder I resist the urge to masturbate, the stronger the thoughts/urge gets and I start to feel severe physical and mental anxiety to the point that I feel like I will go crazy if I dont satisfy my need for orgasm right away. Additionally, there have been times where I did resist the urge and it went away but then an hour or two later when I was out in public or in class I would get a spontaneous erection and then I would have to frantically fight to hide it and get it to go away. This caused me much embarrassment and as a result if I get an urge I will take care of it immediately in an attempt to prevent a random boner in public from occurring again, but this just worsens the cycle. Being an unmarried Christian man, I really want to do what is right according to the Bible, and since masturbation is a sin (unless you are married and your wife wont give you any), I want to stop at least until I get married, if not preferably even after I get married (ie only getting off by having sex with my wife). And by the way I am following the decision to abstain from pre-marital sex.

2.) So not only can I not stop masturbating, but it also has to do with how porn has affected my mind and my expectations of sex. Through porn and a brief childhood "experimentation" period involving oral sex (when I was too young to know any better), I have developed a oral sex/deep throat fetish. Every single time I masturbate it is me fantasizing about my girlfriend giving me deep throat and that seems to be the most satisfying thing to think about. The problem is that I realize that once we do get married, she very well may not be able/willing to give me deep throat (or possibly even oral sex at all as I've heard of some women who wont give that to a man at all). If either of those things did occur I would be respectful of her limitations and love her anyway, but I worry that I might get really bummed out about it or not be able to enjoy sex as much with the aforementioned acts being absent from our intimate time. Sometimes the fetish includes the desire for rough/fast deep throat, which I recognize is something that would be too uncomfortable for most women to allow, so this will probably remain an unfulfilled fantasy. I really do care about how she feels too so I never want to do anything that would cause her pain or discomfort. So what I need help with is "How do I retrain my brain to stop this oral sex/deep throat fetish and to also allow me to be satisfied in my future sex life if I'm not able to have those desires met?"

Just a little understanding of my life situation, I'm a senior in college (although I'm 23) and my girlfriend is a freshman, but she is only going for an Associates degree. But we are long distance right now until we both finish college, and it will probably be another 2-4 years before we both have enough money to get married. Despite the distance our relationship is strong and healthy, but that amount of time to wait until we are able to get married scares me, because that's 2-4 years is a LONG time to go without sex or even masturbation. And I know that some non-Christians out there may be saying that I'm stupid for approaching sexuality the way I am, but I knew that following this path would be painful, but in my belief the benefit will outweigh the pain. But right now I am just trying to figure out how to make it through the waiting period and get my mind restored from how the porn screwed it up so I can have a healthy relationship with my (eventual) wife.

But just so basically, 1.) How can I stop masturbating when the urge is so strong?, and 2.) How can I undo the twisting of my brain that occurred from porn, so that my sexual desires are more normal?

 

I understand that not all of you may share my religious convictions and beliefs but if you disagree with them just respectfully accept my difference in belief, and please dont try to convince me otherwise like "masturbation and pre-marital sex are not sins." If you dont believe it, fine, but since I do, just go along with my flow for the sake of helping a masturbation addict out.

 

Feeling shame can be detrimental to your recovery. So if you believe masturbating is a sin I'd urge you to talk to a priest about how to come to terms with your sins. And he/she can probably offer more help.

Jacking off to avoid boners, won't get you anywhere. So you should stop that and, make plans to deal with public boners instead. Like sitting down usually hides at least most of it. You could carry something around with you that hides it. Like a backpack. Or use a weekend to get the first days out of the way, because i suspect that your boners won't come day 2 or 3.

If you are still fantasizing about P. Thats the same as watching it. So if your are still doing that, stop. And try to not look at women as much as you can.

Why did you put your post here?

Anyway good luck.

 

So are spontaneous boners from too much porn?

 

Well I mentioned that I don't watch porn anymore so I don't think that is the reason. I suspect that hormones and suppressed/unrelieved sexual energy are what causes the random boners, but sexual energy redirection (aka 'sublimation ') does not seem to work for me. A work out only kills my libido for a few hours. I can't work out all day every day (although I would if cortisol and recovery weren't an issue). So if no fapping causes the sexual energy to be repressed and unrelieved, and then it comes back like a raging inferno shortly after, how are you ever supposed to overcome that energy without fapping if sublimation doesn't work?

It seems hormones/libido are my enemy here.

 

Hi JPChristianMan, I think 2-4 year really is a long time to be apart from your girlfriend, so perhaps it would be easier for you to start setting short term goals along the way first. Maybe you can ask yourself: what are you going to do in the next month to help yourself focus on the positive things of life? It could be about personal growth in gearing yourself for marriage, your career, dreams in life, etc. How about talking to your gf about it as well?

By the way, I'm a Christian brother as well. There are many times I'd tell myself that I have to live by the principles in the Bible and that masturbation is a sin. Thing is, as spoken from experience, the urge to masturbate does not simply diminish because of that. In fact, you could likely want more to do it. Read about it: hyper-intention - a forced intention toward some end which makes that end unattainable; and hyper-reflection - an excessive attention to oneself which stifles attempts to avoid the neurosis to which one thinks oneself predisposed. Viktor Frankl wrote about these neuroses in his book, Man's Search for Meaning. I'm just using these to explain the whole idea.

I guess there is really a difference between repressing your urges and you truly desiring not to do it because of other reasons. The septic focus is not the same between the two. What I'm saying is that if you simply tend to masturbation as a problem/sin and focus on that, you will not be able to beat it. Because the guilt makes it harder. The more important thing is to move forward even while you have failed, and as a Christian man, to ask Jesus for His grace & strength to keep pushing forward. In fact, the idea is more about living freely, rather than to stop the act of fapping simply. You know, our God doesn't fall off His throne because He sees us having to reset our PMO counter!

I think meditation will help you too. I think most other people here subscribe to it as clearing your mind for a period of time each day, though I would subscribe to it more as meditating to Bible verses. Which means repeating to yourself the verses in the Bible which matters to you. Not the commandments per se of course, but verses about peace, like Isaiah 26:3 or verses about the good things in life, like Philippians 4:8.

All the best brother!