P.A.W.S. - what are they, cure, duration

You only used them for 6 days? I would say you can quit them cold turkey.
At such a short time there won't be any withdrawal. Escitalopram Oxalate is not for 10 days like the clonazepam I suppose. Escitalopram Oxalate is for long term use when all serotonergic post, SERT and pre aurorectors in the synaptic cleft reach equilibrium.

 

https://www.google.no/amp/s/amp.red...nts/csqkbw/yes_end_of_27mo_flatline_826_days/
27 MONTH! flatline then suddenly one day just snapped out of it

Dont worry mate, just look forward to how good you will feel in the time to come

 

Thanks for posting that - I actually had goosebumps as I know the blissful state he’s describing. I’m so fucking hyped for the day this is over. I would go another 17 months if it would take that long. I once was in this blissful state for months and life just unfolded itself in front of me and there was no effort, no suffering although bad things happens. I know I will return to that place and finally come home.

 

Damn man. I'm loving how you guys are bringing all of these long-term success stories to this place. Thanks for doing that. I think half the reason I started coming here was because I wanted to read about people who made it to the other end. Good shit.

 

Has it slowed my reboot already????

 

Not at all. Clonazepam works on the GABA receptor and actually decreases dopamine is most parts of the brain, and escitalopram is an SSRI that only affects serotonin. You're fine.

 

Thats a relief... Thank u

 

Yes exactly DerJogge, people that have experienced this state know how epic it feels, and 1-3 years of hell is easily worth it to get the benefits. The only problem is you dont know if it will ever happen until it does

 

This is the exact state I had last weekend where I nearly dropped to my knees, and it has given me complete hope of where this journey ends

 

I indulged in a 5 second fantasy that involved me having sex with a girl I saw a week ago. How worried should I be about this? I'm disappointed in myself.

I didn't masturbate or anything. It was just a quit 5 second fantasy, but I'm still nervous that I did any sort of damage.

What are your guys's thoughts?

 

Nothing to worry about! 5 seconds.of a little lust. That sure must have triggered a huge dopamine rush. /Joke
Man.... during wet dreams I get a total dopamine rush, see the girl, or pornscreen in my dream and orgasm. That's my wet dream. They don't even affect me anymore.

 

Absolutely no problem, we are only human Just stay clear of any porn fantasy marathons

 

Practice of Brahmacharya (selfdefinition.org)

This is a great book. I'm not Indian and I don't want to be a swami but this book puts the concept of celibacy into a perspective that is extremely helpful. There's a bunch of stuff that I don't agree with but there's also a lot that I do. It's worth reading for anyone committing to long-term abstinence because it's useful to read how people practice it who aren't running away from addiction but instead toward self-control and happiness. The parts about how to view women are extremely helpful if you are trying to reverse years of worshipping pixels. By putting pretty girls on such a high pedestal for so long I know I've personally given women enormous power over me that they haven't earned. And even after nearly a year clean, that power is still very much there.

I think while you're healing from porn addiction you need to recognize and challenge any automatic feelings you have when you see attractive women. If you act or feel differently around attractive vs. unattractive women then you're yielding unearned power to them just because of your old programming. It's not like you really think you're going to fuck the pretty young girl at the store checkout counter, but the addicted brain still thinks it wants something from her. Once you've made the commitment not to fap to her, and you're positive sex isn't in the cards, then why should you give her any power over your thoughts and emotions? You have to teach your brain that you don't actually have a use for every girl you see anymore because you don't jack off to anybody. There is joy in remembering how to appreciate beauty without coveting it. To talk with a beautiful girl and realize that you really don't need to "take" anything from the experience. You don't even need her to like you. Who cares? She just is.

These are the kind of cognitive distortions that people still struggle with even years after quitting porn. You have to recognize and challenge any negative thoughts you have that are automatic and reprogram them to reverse what's happened on the computer. We've spent years engaged in voluntary brainwashing.

Celibacy will repair your cortex over time but fetishes and cognitive distortions will remain until they are overwritten and replaced with different values. Porn changes your whole value system. For instance, if you spend years programming your brain to lick buttholes while you jerk off to it, then you'll always feel weak and subordinate sexually. Even if 10 years have passed and then you sleep with a woman, your brain would instantly revert back to butt licking because that's what it still values, it doesn't know any better. You have to go back mentally to being a child, when you knew with every fiber of your being that that was disgusting. Genitals are sewage repositories and bacteria farms. 99.99% of the time, that's what they do. You have to restore healthy perspectives about sex.

It's not wrong to think like that. I don't think reminding yourself of that is harmful or degrading to women in any way, it helps you take back your personal power. It only offers a counter-narrative to the nonsense that has been circulating in your head for years. It helps you to put things back into perspective. If you've been falsely idolizing and worshipping women for many years then you have to reverse that programming with something equally powerful. Practice treating ugly girls and pretty girls the same way. Do everything you can think of to remove the veil of pornographic delusion. The next time you're in front of a gorgeous girl, in your mind, see and smell her with a horrible oozing yeast infection while you talk to her. Go ahead and picture it falling out of her like chunks of cottage cheese and smelling like kippered herring. No matter how beautiful her face is, or how magnetic her smile, think of her as someone you wouldn't fuck for a million dollars while you talk to her. Doing that isn't bad or wrong and it won't cause you to stop liking girls. It will help to offset and give balance to an already distorted perspective of exaggerated overvalue. Is that imagery any less honest than putting her pussy on a pedestal for 6 hours and pretending it tastes like cotton candy?

I don't know if your brain is as fucked up as mine but if you have distortions then combat them now so that you'll never be tempted to brainwash yourself again. Learn to hate whatever you don't want in your life. It's kind of like quitting cigarettes. I used to chain smoke and I loved it. People who quit smoking but never lose the mindset that they "love to smoke" are the ones who tend to keep going back to cigarettes. It was only when I became truly disgusted with cigarettes that I knew for sure that I won't ever be a smoker again. Now, when I'm in the grocery store and someone walks by me with that super strong ashtray smell it only reinforces my distain. As a result I never ever think about cigarettes now, even if I have a drink.

The point is, if you've developed sexual hang-ups or fetishes then you have to challenge them and actively rewire them. Otherwise they'll always be lurking in there waiting to pull you back in again when your guard is down. If you still see your escalated porn fantasies and sexual tastes as something better than reality then it's only a matter of time before your brain falls back on that programming. You can never un-see what you've seen online but you can still learn to be genuinely disgusted by any of it. The cigarette example shows that someone can learn to honestly loathe something that they once defended and loved. If there's anything about your sexual mind that you think is dysfunctional or unhelpful to a happy life after porn, then you have to teach yourself to be disgusted by those thoughts. Create counter-visuals in your mind so that they happen automatically when you're tempted. Associate bacteria, diarrhea, blood, pus, and feces with the unwanted imagery. Don't hold back. Make it as disgusting and unpalatable as you can. If you do that often enough, then it will start to happen automatically. For whatever reason I started to have an erotic dream last week, even after all this time clean, and I realized it and woke up before it went too far. Even in my sleep I was able to cancel it out.

Anyhow, we don't often talk about this stuff but we all deal with it to one degree or another. Again, the book is an interesting read. Parts of it were inspiring.

 

I've downloaded the book and had a quick skim through it already - it looks interesting. I think that stuff like this that was written before modern / "western" / permissive culture went mainstream can be quite valuable because they have a genuinely alternative perspective - not least because all but the most conservative of people in the west today think that unlimited sex / masturbation etc are good, no ifs and buts, regardless of what their background or beliefs are in relation to any other issue. Modern society is so out of tune with what is actually good for us that I despair at times - but I also blame myself a lot less for my current predicament than I used to, because in many ways I never stood a chance of following a healthier path than the one I did. My parents were lost to sexual excess in many ways, and I absorbed what was going on around me as most children do. And it wasn't just my parents, but the wider culture back in the 70's and 80's.

In many ways this does reach back far earlier than the advent of internet porn. It's bound up with the last few hundred years of western civilisation. I'm tempted to say that sexual excess is the hidden curse of the Enlightenment, but that might be stretching it a bit. Anyway, I'm starting to ramble, but thanks for the link.

EDIT: The book was originally published in 1934, which is quite thought provoking - hence some of my comments above!

 

I think sexual fantasies are the last bit of addiction that really is floating around and I don't actually know how to get rid of it. I mostly get fantasies and urges when I'm meditating which is really annoying to be honest. It's not like those are heavy fetished loaded fantasies, it's just plain and simple vanilla sex fantasies with women that I was intimate with earlier. I'm also not actively thinking them, it's like a short clip that appears in my mind. Most of the times its just a few seconds but and I instantly notice that they occur and then I try my best to let them go away. But after 16-17 months of not having sex it can be really hard to just let go of the arrousal that the body mirrors. I didn't had those fantasies or urges until around 6-9 months of celibacy and I can't remember what I did different back then for them to not appear.

I barely have any fantasies when I'm out in public and seeing a really attractive woman. Yes my body reacts might react with arrousal but it's not like I'm actively thinking about having sex with her or imaging what I would do if I could be intimate with her. It's more of an appreciation of her beauty often accompanied with a pull towards her, to be near her and talk to her or even make further advances. I feel like this going more into the direction of having a real libido. I often wondered how men could simply talk to a woman that they are attracted to. Now I know - because they are delighted by another person and there is this positive "urge" to talk to that person. I'm still not fully healed concerning my libido and view of woman overall. There is still a very primal part of my brain scanning my surroundings and actively looking for women but I didn't find any solution to shut down that primal part of my brain. I think its somehow normal that the primitive brain is looking for a partner to mate when its deprived from female company for more than a year. The only way to stop this would be to consider women disgusting and evil which I don't think is a good idea.

I also think that fantasies, pornographic wet dreams, etc. are part of the healing process and are just a left-over-conditioning that occured from years of hardwiring sexual things into your brain. No matter what I do, I still have to fight wet dreams and fantasies and I don't know anyone that found a longterm solution of having no wetdreams once they started having them. I have a buddy and he wasn't able to masturbate or have sex until about 2-3 years ago because of a mechanical medical condition of his penis and he had wet dreams every 2 weeks or so. He never watched porn or actively fantasized as he told me.

I remember the days back in late nov. - early dec. 20' when the adnedonia and other symptoms left: I had the impressive urge to just be around a woman while just spending time with her but my cortex was able to override that emotion by simply noticing that getting to know a female in my current state would only cause friction and problems. After that realization I was completely fine with being alone and just by myself - I felt complete on my own. I also don't remember having any form of fantasies in those days because I was just so busy doing another things and because I was ACTUALLY in control of my mind and not the other way around. One of the things that stand out for me through this whole PAWS thing is the fact that my seretonine reward system basically isn't alive and thus my dopamine is highly unregulated which causes all kinds of problem. Seretonine is highly important for a person to feel relaxed, content, having good sleep (as seretonine is a form prior to melatonine), being optimistic and not depressed. If you take away those things from a person than the brain starts to finds other ways of getting its fix and this is mostly through dopamine related activities.

To sum this up: I personally don't think that fantasies or wet dreams are hindering recovery as long as you don't have a wet dream every second day or sitting down 15-30 minutes a day actively thinking about sex and imagening all kinds of stuff. Being attracted to vanilla thoughts and wishing to be intimate with another female being is something I would consider normal and having some form of preferences when it comes down to sex isn't automatically a fetish. I personally love blowjobs but I decided that this is just to much for my brain to take. It's too good in order for me to not get hooked on it and no matter what happens in the future I will try my best to not receive a single one. But I personally won't start counteracting it with images in my mind of blowjobs being disgusting and how much bacteria is transfered, etc. in order to this wiring go away. I don't think that this is the right way for myself. My body and mind love blowjobs but my spirit knows that it's trading 5 minutes of pure pleasure and lust for weeks and months of despair and a lower form of energy. In order for sexual fantasies to go away completely I would have to consider sex with a woman as disgusting and negative in its whole totality and I know that is not true. If you recover from PAWS then many systems in your brain will boot up again which will cause old patterns and conditioning to be overwritten. Why does a drug addict still feels a pull to a certain drug? Because he hasn't found fulfillment in its new life yet. A person that is happy and recovered has no need to dwell in fantasies of using drugs and getting back into them because he feels naturally happy and content and thus there is no reason to live in the mind. From time to time my brain thinks about smoking weed again or playing multiplayer video games like world of warcraft but I know it's just a form of my brain motivating me to get back into old patterns in order to feel good again. I think the same is happening with sexual fantasies etc. and once recovery is complete you have full control over what you are thinking what you don't want to think about. I don't have full control over my thoughts yet. It's actually pretty difficult to direct them in any direction. It's mostly a constant stream of subconscious thoughts.

 

You make some good points @DerJogge! The thing is that we're on this journey at different points in our lives, I'm twice your age. It's extremely unhealthy for 50 yr old men to be locked into 20 yr old ideas about sex. That's one of the worst things about porn is that it stunts your growth as a person. As you personally keep aging, the porn models just stay the same age. It's not healthy for mature men to be coveting girls younger than their own daughters. 40+ men shouldn't be able to click a mouse and see thousands of naked 18 yr olds in closeup hi-rez HD detail. Doing that is brand new in human history and it only leads to great dissatisfaction with real life. Those are supposed to be the cherished memories of our youth. For most of us, it's not useful or practical in any way to yearn for the past if the goal is to live a happy life in the present. People are supposed to age gracefully, not to resist nature. The truth is everyone's beauty is only temporary. Decay is inevitable. Part of the meaning of life is to understand and embrace that fact.

So when I turn on the TV and see a highly sexualized 25 yr old girl sucking a lollipop and prancing around in her yoga pants, it's healthy for me to remember that her shit does in fact stink. She's not the perfect wonder that she's portrayed as. It's all an illusion. In 20 years no one will even give her a second look. It doesn't mean that she's bad or evil but it does mean that I'm in on the joke now. I refuse to be sucked in and manipulated by whatever she says or does. I'm not afraid to mentally to take her down off her perch. It gives me freedom.

For the record, I don't think getting blowjobs is a bad thing. It's wonderful. That is the opposite of porn or fantasy. I have no idea to the extent that you escalated your content while you fapped but in my previous post I'm only talking about unhealthy thoughts. If you have mostly vanilla thoughts about sex then you're probably doing just fine. But one man's blowjob is another man's bukkake. Gagging, face spitting, forced swallowing, etc... these things are all unnatural and disgusting examples of blowjobs gone bad. If someone has elevated those ideas to a high level of value in their mind then I'm saying that some mental reprogramming is in order. Not all the time, just enough so that you have a built-in counter narrative that devalues those thoughts when they try to creep back in. If the person doesn't learn to be disgusted by those thoughts then they will always be in there waiting to ensnare him in the future. That's all I was really getting at.

 

shit I hate these fantasies, I can easily not watch P. But, almost everyday I spend like 2 - 5 minutes having these fantasies.

 

Honestly, you distracted me here. So when did the anhedonia lift, around 16 months in? Oh yeah and I see you tracker says 500+ now! That's great. Congratulations!

 

MANNNN, THIS TOPIC HAS SOME REALLL GOOD STUFF. The about pretty women and that book by Masked-Debater is real useful!
We should spend a evening talking about all this stuff on discord guys!
Y'all doing my life way easier and productive! Thank you very much!

 

Anhedonia liftet 2-2,5 months ago but after that phase of feeling very good it came back so fucking strong I nearly even forgot about it because my brain is keeping those very dark phases away from me. At the moment there is very little anhedonia but this says nothing as it can come back every other day.

And yes I totally understand your points! The thing is I had a very intimate and sex heavy relationship with my last girlfriend because we were so attracted to each other but until today I can’t differentiate between sex being the problem or just the other drugs. But sex definitely was something I craved for but maybe this was because my brain wasn’t healed back then and I’m kinda cautious before I ever have orgasms again to not fall back into the hole I am currently climbing out. If I look back I definitely had tendencies of being an sex addict but maybe I was just crazy over my girlfriend. I still believe that orgasms itself cause fluctuations and swinging baselines in mood in a completely healthy persons. Not to the extend of having really bad symptoms but maybe the male brain is less efficient and focused after having an orgasm.

I often forget that you are 20 years older then me. But I have massive respect for you buddy. Most of the people aren’t able turn around their life at this point. It takes a lot of courage and willpower do that. And thanks for the congratulations on the 500 days - I wouldn’t even have noticed. It also means that I’m 530 days off from weed which is the longest I have ever been.