PMO a symptom, not a cause?

Alyx87 · Feb 5, 2018

I'm sure I've read about this somewhere but here's something to think about because it could help get out of this addiction with considerably less effort.

Many of us, myself included have gone through the stage where we fought PMO every hour of the day. This is an exhausting experience. Having done that for a few months in the past and getting to a 5 day streak max led me to greater happiness and the will to change my life by finding new activities - namely new jobs and friends. I then forgot about nofap and actually relapsed. However the concept remained in my head enough for me to count days. I would find myself not infrequently PMO-free for 4-5 days with absolutely no effort whatsoever. I had so much stuff to do I didn't have time for porn and with the faint association that PMO = very bad, I would dismiss any weak urges I had during those periods. But then periods of inactivity came along and with them binges or full on relapses, which lasted until the next heightened period of activity came along.

Fast forward to now, almost a year later. I've gone down from fapping 2-4x a day to fapping 3-4x a week (not updating counter, sorry) for around 3 months with a few longer two digit streaks chiefly due to a flatline. This reduction costs me no energy whatsoever. I could devote a lot of this energy to reducing PMO to zero and then get angry at myself after a relapse. However, I now see PMO as a symptom of boredom and also bad diet, caffeine, sugar, fast foods. I'm a numbers guy and this is a rough estimate:
- 80% boredom + bad diet = PMO 2-4 times a day
- 40% boredom + good diet (currently) = PMO 0.5 times a day
- 0% boredom (from experience) = PMO 0 times a day

What I'm suggesting is that if you've reached a stage in your journey where you're able to turn your life around due to increased motivation, focus your energy on doing that, not necessarily on nofap as the urge to PMO will decrease the more your life changes and the more active you are. At this turning point PMO is no longer the cause of the aforementioned boredom (due to lack of motivation), but the symptom of the remaining time you're inactive. That's where I feel I am now, anyone with me on this?

LilD · Feb 5, 2018

I call things like alcohol, drugs, and pornography addiction agents. There are literally hundreds of those agents, even things like job, reading, and sport can be addictive to some people. Thus, indeed whatever it is, it's only consequences of some deeper problems.

However, explaining it with boredom and bad diets is completely wrong. There is a pretty developed psychological theory of addictions which I learned while being in a rehabilitation center a few years ago. It says, in short, that addictions are based on malformed personal characteristics, which are in turn based on deep fears, like a fear of being abandoned, rejected, hurt, etc.

So, it's this scheme:

A person has some natural need, like a need of being loved, being safe, etc.

A person has some childhood experience in which those needs were not fulfilled. For example, parents don't show a child they love them (resulting belief: "I'm not worthy of love"), don't help a child in his/here problems ("Nobody will help me"), or there is some form of abuse/violence in a family ("This world is dangerous").

A person develops beliefs and fears based on these negative experiences.

To protect themselves, a person starts to cope with these fear in unhealthy ways, i.e. developing addictive behaviors.

This theory might not explain everything and many scientists (especially those who do biology and neurophysiology vs. psychology) have other opinions, but I find that this theory explains most of my own problems.

Boredom doesn't play any special role in that, at least not more special than fear, anger, and other emotions.

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PMO a symptom, not a cause?

Alyx87 Fapstronaut

LilD Fapstronaut

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