Meditation to help understand the "Itch" or "Urge"

Back in the day I used to struggle with substance abuse (namely valium and xanax pills). At first I went though what was probably physical withdrawal, where my neurotransmitters were pretty fried and deregulated from the drug constantly being in my system. Inevitably, this led to shakiness, anxiety, and insomnia. However, my anxiety continued to persist, and I came to realize that many of the problems I was having was almost entirely psychological. The thought that I couldn't have this pill to escape my feelings caused me GREAT anxiety. Dealing with my feelings was a notion that seemed so foreign and strange to me, after all, they don't teach us how to deal with difficult feelings in school.

Eventually I saw a spoke with a therapist to help me cope with all the strange things I was dealing with; along with this I read a plethora of books to help educate me on the matter. Eventually I started practicing a meditation that was influenced by Buddhist teachings; in it we were taught to close our eyes and actually FEEL our discomfort, without turning away from it or distracting ourselves from the pain, discomfort, and squeamishness that would arise. Eventually you would be able to localize the pain or the discomfort in your actual body without needing to DO anything to get rid of it. For example, the craving to jack off or eat some junk food, or take a hit of coke can start off as a tingling sensation in your abdomen or chest area, while continuing to observe it you may notice that a feeling will shift in your genital area where you may feel a painful sensation, but just sit with it and observe it, without feeling the need to turn away from it. This will raise you understanding of the addiction, for what it is in almost an objective point of view. The goal is to not feel the need to run away from your pain and develop a sense of understanding of your pain (which is intrinsically a part of you, and by disowning your pain you are in effect disowning a part of yourself).

Take your time with this exercise. Continue to do the activities in your life that bring you joy outside of fapping, but set aside a few minutes a day to do this exercise, it has brought me a great deal of relief or at the very least understanding for other problems I have had in my life. And also, this exercise doesn't need to be used exclusively for fapping, but can be used for other issues as well.