ZenAF
Fapstronaut
Intro
First off, let me get a lot of you to stop reading right here because you're hoping to find a recipe in this post on how to quit porn. I haven't quit. But I have reached a place where porn isn't a problem in my life anymore. By that I mean my sex life is healthy, I have a great relationship with my girlfriend and porn doesn't distract or bother me at all. If you're interested on how I got here, keep reading.
How it was
First a short background to where I used to be a few years ago: Excessive PMO of three to four times a day, anxiety that I'm screwing my life up with it, trying to get free, lots of NoFap streaks that would end with a feeling in my stomach like I'm about to get sick, which was next level craving that I'd give in to. Depression and helplessness about being unable to quit. Incapable of having a productive day without being constantly interrupted by cravings. And not to mention countless, and I mean hundreds over the years, of hours overthinking the "porn problem". I had been in this state for around four years of my life.
How it's now
Now I PMO around four times a week, I don't feel cravings at all, I can easily focus on work, I don't get distracted by thoughts of porn. It's no problem for me to stop for a while to PMO and not even think about it.
How did I get there
The following wisdom should be your main take away from this post:
Where focus goes energy flows.
First thing I did was to quit this forum and I only come back to write this post because I know people here are struggling.
However daily engagement with people talking about porn and getting rewarded for it through likes and attention does not help your brain to ease off the subject.
Next, I stopped trying to quit. When I want to watch porn, I watch porn. There's no internal struggle, trying to resist or guilt after I've done it. At the time the porn use first went up by a lot, like a starving person trying to fill their stomach to the brim because they don't know when they'll have the next opportunity to eat. But then the porn use slowly started to decrease. It stopped being "the forbidden fruit that tastes the sweetest" and just became another fruit. The obsessive thinking, the anxiety, guilt, self-doubt went away. I can't remember how long that process took but it was at least a couple months.
What I really want to stress is that I stopped caring about porn. I gave this subject so much time and energy and I was tired of it draining me. I had other things going on in my life and still do that are much more important, like getting the right career, making money, establishing a long-lasting relationship, dealing with my self-image etc.
My focus shifted. I got into Forex trading and joined a community which teaches a lot about rewiring the mind, how to stay positive, focused and productive in order to trade the markets well. All my energy started to go there and porn was no longer center-stage in my life. It became a side character. It got back to where it once was back when I first started watching porn. Just another way to get off.
I know a lot of you want to quit completely. But what I want to get across is that all the negativity around porn in my life was a self-inflating balloon that kept getting worse until I finally stopped caring. It was a big relief and improved my mental health greatly.
The neurological background
Many of you are wondering why you're stuck in these cycles of PMO, NoFap, Relapse. The reason is because your brain is hard-wired to get it's desires met. Unless you change your opinion about sexy bodies and turn into a permanent asexual, your brain is going to continue liking what it sees on the internet and will want to see it at times. When you resist it your brain will..
1. Entice you to watch "Hey how about a bit of.."
2. Bargain "How about just looking, or I don't take my pants of.."
3. Struggle "I can't concentrate, I keep obsessing over it"
4. Crave "...... NOW!"
The reason it does that is to figure out which signal strength you respond to, to give it what it wants. When you go on your NoFap streak and relapse when it gets really bad, like I did, your brain learns that you need a really strong signal to meet it's desires. You programmed the strength of your cravings into yourself by consistently trying to resist them. This will still happen after 30, 40, 50 days of NoFap.
What I essentially did unknowingly at the time when I stopped resisting, is to teach my brain that it doesn't have to obsess over porn to get porn. It's readily available when it wants it and it therefor doesn't care about it the rest of the time. And when I do want to watch, it's not a craving, it's more like an idea, like a treat I look forward to.
What about truly quitting, 90+ days NoFap streak?
If that's what you want, go for it, I by no means say it's wrong to quit porn. Do what you want. In my case I realized after several years being in the NoFap community that it's a huge struggle to get to those 90+ days and the issue absorbed such a big part of my mental real-estate that one day I wasn't willing to pay that price anymore. More importantly I need my focus elsewhere.
When the positive consequences of letting go of trying to quit started to make me feel so much better, I was tempted to make this post but I stopped myself because I wasn't sure yet if it's sustainable. Now however it's been more than two years and I feel comfortable saying that this works great for me. So it's likely to help maybe not all but some of you as well.
I'll check in on this post for a couple days if you have questions or concerns, then I'll be gone again.
Take care and all the best
ZenAF
First off, let me get a lot of you to stop reading right here because you're hoping to find a recipe in this post on how to quit porn. I haven't quit. But I have reached a place where porn isn't a problem in my life anymore. By that I mean my sex life is healthy, I have a great relationship with my girlfriend and porn doesn't distract or bother me at all. If you're interested on how I got here, keep reading.
How it was
First a short background to where I used to be a few years ago: Excessive PMO of three to four times a day, anxiety that I'm screwing my life up with it, trying to get free, lots of NoFap streaks that would end with a feeling in my stomach like I'm about to get sick, which was next level craving that I'd give in to. Depression and helplessness about being unable to quit. Incapable of having a productive day without being constantly interrupted by cravings. And not to mention countless, and I mean hundreds over the years, of hours overthinking the "porn problem". I had been in this state for around four years of my life.
How it's now
Now I PMO around four times a week, I don't feel cravings at all, I can easily focus on work, I don't get distracted by thoughts of porn. It's no problem for me to stop for a while to PMO and not even think about it.
How did I get there
The following wisdom should be your main take away from this post:
Where focus goes energy flows.
First thing I did was to quit this forum and I only come back to write this post because I know people here are struggling.
However daily engagement with people talking about porn and getting rewarded for it through likes and attention does not help your brain to ease off the subject.
Next, I stopped trying to quit. When I want to watch porn, I watch porn. There's no internal struggle, trying to resist or guilt after I've done it. At the time the porn use first went up by a lot, like a starving person trying to fill their stomach to the brim because they don't know when they'll have the next opportunity to eat. But then the porn use slowly started to decrease. It stopped being "the forbidden fruit that tastes the sweetest" and just became another fruit. The obsessive thinking, the anxiety, guilt, self-doubt went away. I can't remember how long that process took but it was at least a couple months.
What I really want to stress is that I stopped caring about porn. I gave this subject so much time and energy and I was tired of it draining me. I had other things going on in my life and still do that are much more important, like getting the right career, making money, establishing a long-lasting relationship, dealing with my self-image etc.
My focus shifted. I got into Forex trading and joined a community which teaches a lot about rewiring the mind, how to stay positive, focused and productive in order to trade the markets well. All my energy started to go there and porn was no longer center-stage in my life. It became a side character. It got back to where it once was back when I first started watching porn. Just another way to get off.
I know a lot of you want to quit completely. But what I want to get across is that all the negativity around porn in my life was a self-inflating balloon that kept getting worse until I finally stopped caring. It was a big relief and improved my mental health greatly.
The neurological background
Many of you are wondering why you're stuck in these cycles of PMO, NoFap, Relapse. The reason is because your brain is hard-wired to get it's desires met. Unless you change your opinion about sexy bodies and turn into a permanent asexual, your brain is going to continue liking what it sees on the internet and will want to see it at times. When you resist it your brain will..
1. Entice you to watch "Hey how about a bit of.."
2. Bargain "How about just looking, or I don't take my pants of.."
3. Struggle "I can't concentrate, I keep obsessing over it"
4. Crave "...... NOW!"
The reason it does that is to figure out which signal strength you respond to, to give it what it wants. When you go on your NoFap streak and relapse when it gets really bad, like I did, your brain learns that you need a really strong signal to meet it's desires. You programmed the strength of your cravings into yourself by consistently trying to resist them. This will still happen after 30, 40, 50 days of NoFap.
What I essentially did unknowingly at the time when I stopped resisting, is to teach my brain that it doesn't have to obsess over porn to get porn. It's readily available when it wants it and it therefor doesn't care about it the rest of the time. And when I do want to watch, it's not a craving, it's more like an idea, like a treat I look forward to.
What about truly quitting, 90+ days NoFap streak?
If that's what you want, go for it, I by no means say it's wrong to quit porn. Do what you want. In my case I realized after several years being in the NoFap community that it's a huge struggle to get to those 90+ days and the issue absorbed such a big part of my mental real-estate that one day I wasn't willing to pay that price anymore. More importantly I need my focus elsewhere.
When the positive consequences of letting go of trying to quit started to make me feel so much better, I was tempted to make this post but I stopped myself because I wasn't sure yet if it's sustainable. Now however it's been more than two years and I feel comfortable saying that this works great for me. So it's likely to help maybe not all but some of you as well.
I'll check in on this post for a couple days if you have questions or concerns, then I'll be gone again.
Take care and all the best
ZenAF
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