Do Other Dopamine Source Prolong Addictions

Dopamine is released in all sorts of situations throughout the day, it's not something you can particularly avoid. It's a way of your brain remembering that whatever you've just done was good, and that you should do it again in the future.

What you're aiming to do with NoFap is to break the reward circuits you have built in your brain through watching porn and consequently releasing dopamine and doing this cycle over and over again. Dopamine strengthens the reward circuits in your brain so after a few years of porn and dopamine those circuits are pretty strong.

Taking part in social media will release dopamine for sure, particularly if you're using social media for egotistical purposes (e.g. "Yes, I got 53 likes on instagram! I feel valued now"). However, it's a different activity and therefore a different reward circuit, so it shouldn't hinder your progress.

The exception to that rule is if the reward circuits overlap. If you're getting some sort of sexual-gratification from using social media (e.g. seeing women) then you'll be strengthening that porn circuit again.

Hope that makes sense

 

That is a really well thought out explanation and it makes a lot of sense.

 

Yeah that's a good summary. There's lots of important questions in there that I want to pick apart without writing too much of an essay haha.

Let's start with what dopamine is. You brain is really complex bunch of cells that communicate with eachother rapidly via neurons (long, string-like cells). At the end of each neuron (there are billions in your brain) is a tip that can release chemicals onto the cell that it's attached to - the chemicals are called neurotransmitters and dopamine is one of them. In general, the neurotransmitters can cause effects in the cell or help to strengthen the neuron (or even cause more neurons to grow to it)

So dopamine is just a chemical, it's not inherently evil. What it does do is it strengthens the neurons that link the extreme sexual visuals from porn with sexual desire and sexual release. When we're having real sex, its a whole body experience, or brains are receiving a lot more stimuli (total-body touch, smells etc) and making much broader connections. When we're masturbating to porn, we're strengthening a much narrower selection of pathways. And in general, we're masturbating a hell of a lot more than we're having sex. It's no wonder people report getting more pleasure from masturbation - sex can feel like sensory overload and just not enjoyable. The normal pathways of arousal can be clouded by all these other porn-induced neural pathways.

How long does it take for the pathways to dissolve... hmmm... the answer would be different for everyone. Some people's brains are naturally more adaptive (this is called neuroplasticity - older people would tend to have lower neuroplasticity - that's why they tend to be stuck in their ways and its more difficult for them to learn new things). It also depends on how ingrained that neural pathway is - some people are more addicted than others, and may have deeper emotional connections than others.

And as I mentioned earlier, porn and sex are completely different. During one your body is cold, you're lying relatively still and your vision is being bombarded with bright, HD sexual images. In the other your hot, your body is being touched all over, you're touching another person, you're talking, and vision is a lot less in-your-face.