Stopping triggers

^ Didn't you mention in another post you were edging and that the edging led to a relapse? Maybe I mistook what you said but you seem to think edging is ok along with watching porn as "ERP". You got your own thing going on, but it doesn't sound like your thing is rebooting.

 

I'm sorry if you received hate from ignorant people.
In regards to this opinion-based article however this is utterly and completely off the mark.
btw I've tried this about a year ago thinking, fooling myself, along these exact same lines.
Your brain doesn't get it's fix by masturbating did you know? Your brain gets it's fix by SEEKING it. It's the act of searching it out that creates the rush. The snowboarder analogy is completely off and honestly someone one who can't even spend time to spellcheck their opinion piece should be immediately scrutinized and disregarded because it's not like they are providing statistical data.

In this case the "mountain" you are on is all the same, so taking a different path on this mountain kind of defeats the purpose.. The point is to get BEYOND this mountain. Your not rewiring when you view and not touch, not at all. It simply doesn't function like that with MO/PMO addiction.

To each their own but if you want to save yourself months of pain and escalation in content I'd suggest you take a hard reboot approach. Anything in between in pure and utter bullshit.
Maybe all those ignorant and hate filled people are not so much so but are simply going against what you want to hear, your own confirmation bias.

 

That’s cool man do you. Next time link statistical peer reviewed data proving your theory in regards to sex & porn addiction instead of an opinion piece.

 

I hope I get what you're on about.

Triggers are unavoidable.
whether that's sex sells advertising or meeting sexual triggers in real life.
It's how can we process these triggers without escalating to masturbatory behaviors.

 

That is the post I was referring too.

 

I'm a new user.
I haven't researched this reboot system in terms of efficacy.
I'm just hoping that it may help me with my PIED.
I would think porn addiction or damaging sexual behaviors have similarities to food addiction or anorexia in that eating food, while can be damaging, is still necessary and a appropriate behavior and is healthy and desirable for human beings. likewise a healthy sex life with a sexual interest in other beings is desirable for us as human beings.
We have gone off course of what is natural and healthy.
I'm convinced my own masturbation habits has directly effected my ability to form normal sexual relationships.
I would always warn in buying too much into studies which show high failure rates.
You have to focus on those which stuck with the program.
How did they fare out?
Somehow I don't think a lot of free market or academic investment is going into such studies

 

I don't know if this helps anything, but I know within the Catholic Church and maybe other closely related Christian sects, that exposing yourself to the bad thing (a.k.a. sin) and in this case PMO intentionally is putting yourself in the near occasion of committing that sin/bad thing.

If it is understood properly on my end, ERP will bring you face-to-face with watching porn, or putting yourself in a situation where you are going to be facing PMO directly so that you can overcome the urge you had in the first place of doing PMO. A quick google search showed me this: "ERP, or Exposure and Response Prevention therapy, is the gold-standard for OCD treatment. In ERP, you voluntarily expose yourself to the source of your fear over and over and over again, without acting out any compulsions to neutralize or stop the fear."

However, I am not sure if the compulsion of watching porn as a result of a trigger that comes and goes (it seems you cannot do ERP effectively in such a situation as triggers can seemingly happen randomly without warning and are over before we know it) is the same as the OCD. It is in my understanding that if you happen to be in a near occasion of sin when it is related to the sexual appetite where you are triggered/compelled to PMO, the most successful way to get out of it and avoid committing that act is to physically get out of that situation. That could mean throwing yourself in brambles and thorns if you are as extreme as some monks were when tempted with sexual triggers. They had figured out the best way to combat these triggers/PMO/sexual temptations was not to fight it head-on and face it directly, but to rather move themselves out of that situation.

As for myself, it tends to be difficult to get a system going where I know where to go when this happens... Perhaps this will be part of my next goals in the upcoming months.

 

This is an interesting technique. Sabotaging the cue->routine rule this way might be effective for many things that are "bad habits" or OCD in nature. If you've trained yourself to jump into bed and open the laptop as soon as you get home even if you don't have any particular need to use it at the moment, it might be useful in getting rid of that habit.

However I think it's useless when combatting PMO for most guys. See, we don't watch porn because it's some acquired behavior or at least that's not the main reason. The main reason is simply that naked ladies are interesting. Naked ladies having sex are ultra interesting. Sure, it's not us they're doing it with - but I guess some parts of the brain can't really tell. There's this other layer where even more pleasing than the act itself is the anticipation and the ability to choose.

We watch porn because we like porn. To be exact, our limbic system likes porn. It thinks we're fucking! Or going to. That's not OCD. I'm sure you can remember planning to spend hours and days fapping including which actresses you were going to watch when and feeling very good about yourself. Did you ever plan to bite your nails for a whole day? With timetables telling you which finger's next?

 

OCD is doing a ritual [ or action to combat the compulsion/anxiety, etc] in response to compulsion. Not doing rituals in response to compulsions will, of course, help. Treating porn that way is like doing chemotherapy to combat porn addiction only dumber. I think a more accurate analogy would be doing heroin to stop doing heroin. You are trying to stop watching porn, so if you watch it you already fucked up. You just need to reboot takes about 3 months of abstinence from porn and wanking.

Watching porn as ERP sounds like an excuse to watch porn. Like just a little alcohol for an alcoholic. @Advocate109 you may be doing something different or for some other condition, but to get over PMO what you are suggesting doesn't sound to me like it would be beneficial.

 

i think you’re theory may kind of work at least for me. I haven’t fapped in 6 months, but i have slipped up with P like 4 times now, the most recent being this morning
Feel like zombie

But i feel like i have now basically conditioned myself to be able to watch p without masturbating.

I don’t wanna watch P at all anymore though. So i hope this doesn’t become a habit simply because i can do it without M

I appreciate your efforts to explain and help. If you have any advice on stopping the P watching, that would really help me.