After rebooting, my physical/mental health recovered, but my porn 'tolerance level' did not

I wrote about this experience in my latest journal entry. But I wanted to talk about it a bit more here, in hopes that it might help others who, like me, have abused porn for a long time and whose tastes have escalated into more and more deviant content.

I'll try to keep this to the point. I've completed several challenges, the latest being 90 days PMO-free. I noticed some significant improvements in my physical, mental, and even spiritual well-being. I feel calmer, more hopeful, and have better self-esteem. My PIED has eased, and I'm relating in a more healthy and positive way with women again. All good things, and I encourage all of you to see what a period of nofap can do to help you heal on several levels.

Ok so here's the thing. I thought, somewhat innocently, but mostly stupidly, that after succeeding in my last challenge, that maybe I could sort of "test myself", and see if I could look at some porn just, you know, "casually", and see if my reset would allow me to do so without fear of slipping into a deeper addiction cycle like has happened before. Now while I don't recommend this to anyone, I did realize something important from this risky experiment.

What happened was I immediately wanted to leap-frog over any kind of vanilla/softcore kind of stuff that back in the day would have satisfied an earlier me, and also over some of the more mainstream fetishes out there that would have satisfied a later me, right to the most deviant, graphic, self-destructive, mind-fucking kind of poison that's available (I don't want to spell these out for fear of triggers, but you can read my last journal entry for that info if you wish.)

The point is, that even though much internal progress has been made through my latest reset, my relationship with porn, as it were, has not changed much at all. And this is a very important cautionary tale for me, and possibly for others who are long-term, chronic abusers who have experienced such intense and sustained escalation in the past. Although your personal situation very likely will improve, your tolerance for porn may never quite reset, such that if you seek it out again, you'll dive right back into the worst, most addictive, most destructive stuff that's out there. (It's kind of like a long-term, chronic heroin addict thinking they can go back to just enjoying a few beers casually and never craving anything more intense.) Anyway, with respect to PMO - if that's the case you find yourself in, like I do, then you basically have to just completely swear it all off for good.