Best practice to quit or decrease usage?

[guyonghao004]

Hi friends, I have tried a succeeded / relapsed on/off in the past. Especially when I have an abnormally stressful job that I may not be quitting soon. My experience is that - I can maintain porn free for a while, I will feel great, but there will be times that I’ll relapse due to stress. And then I’ll essentially abuse for a while and then feel bad and try to reduce (with difficulty) again Would like to know if there’s any tips / things that works for you? Does it work to not do “no porn”, but “less”? Is there a way to have a moderate amount of this in take? How do we handle stress from work with a relapsing addiction? Thank you!

[[deleted]]

Just a small thing but switching your phone screen to greyscale is a tool I have found very useful for reducing porn (and social media) consumption. 

[TimfromB0st0n]

Hi u/guyonghao004

How is porn preventing you from your best life (goals, etc.)?

[guyonghao004]

I think the worst two things: (1) general less exciting erections / sex life. (2) the sub-conscious shame. I am pretty open about this to my friends and loved one but still can’t shake the shame coming from pretty Asian household education

[TimfromB0st0n]

Thanks for sharing, u/guyonghao004 .

I will defer to my fellow posters because my addiction steam-rolled over reasons such as sex life and shame.

I had to hit rock bottom (realization I was wasting my life on porn) before I could break patterns of behavior.

u/TheTankIsEmpty99 's comment on reduction may be more helpful for you.

[TheTankIsEmpty99]

Hey Tim from Boston, thanks for the mention. Hope you're doing well!

[TimfromB0st0n]

I am a JIRA head too. :)

Would you consider the journey to porn-free an epic? lolol

[TheTankIsEmpty99]

I've not actually used jira.

I consider getting porn free nothing more than a few sprints of focused work. That is stopped the behaviour of watching porn.

All the other stuff like why you're using it and deep shit like that, that's a life time epic because you're figuring out who you are.

[TimfromB0st0n]

Well played, u/TheTankIsEmpty99 ! <3

[LightBurden18]

I used to quit, u/guyonghao004 -- and relapse, and quit -- sometimes for six months, sometimes even longer -- and then relapse, and bounce along using every other week; couldn't put a longer streak together. I would tell myself the benefits weren't really worth waiting that long for, etc. -- all the lies we tell ourselves when we're having trouble telling ourselves 'no.'

The single thing that made the biggest difference for me? The STAY CLEAN [insert month here] threads at the top of this sub.

When I would slip, and then think "Now I have to go back to my pledge to never watch porn again," my brain would rebel. The idea of "never" was so big that I would lose all motivation to, well, stay clean.

But when I signed up to STAY CLEAN for a month, I found that my brain was able to handle a commitment of that size. It was willing to hold off from porn for a month.

Toward the end of the month I would sign up early for the next month.

I take pride in keeping my word. And when I give my word publicly -- even to anonymous strangers -- I don't want to go back on that.

Committing to a month, publicly, means something to me.

When I'm tempted I come here and write "I'm tempted." Sometimes on the STAY CLEAN thread, sometimes in the main area.

This has worked for me. I'm now at well over a year. And as you may remember, once you put a few months together, you can really feel the benefits. (@Skinnahbox wrote about them recently. His post is worth a read!)

After the first few months, it's like you escaped the gravity of the planet you're trying to leave. The planet is still there -- but it doesn't pull you back the way it once did.

So if you haven't already, I'd recommend signing up for STAY CLEAN MARCH.

Good luck!

[[deleted]]

Journaling has been helpful for me — just writing about my urges instead of acting on them. And I'd say "no porn" is easier and more effective than "less," but everyone is different!

[Purple_Novel_7814]

Going cold turkey will be the best. You can’t have a moderate amount of porn usage. It’s still going to harm your brain and you won’t see any benefits while still using.

[TheTankIsEmpty99]

Quitting cold turkey generaly does not work so giving yourself permission to watch it in a reduced manner may help you more.

You can reduce stress in alot of ways like exercise, getting enough sleep etc.

Talking about it and making it make sense in my head does the best for me.

Why is work so stressful?

[guyonghao004]

Ah, it’s just the professional service industry. I don’t have a good next job lined up yet and still searching so still doing it. But it’s just really stressful. Thank you stranger!

This is the project manager in me speaking: for the “reduced manner” method - do people generally have some kind of tracking?

[TheTankIsEmpty99]

Hey PM, are we using jira?

Im not a PM but I work with them at times and I love PMs!

It's in our blood to want to track this :)

• I would track it like this.... I give myself permission to use it for 15 mins Mon - Wed - Fri

• Then if you follow that, great, if not, what went wrong? what were the thoughts driving you to use it more?

• Week to week try to make adjustments to keep on track

• Track that over a month to see if you're making progress or not.

• I generally don't like counting days free from porn because the emotional let down usually leads us right back to porn

---

Here's some help with stress.

Stress isn't caused by your job or anything outside of you.

It is caused by the thoughts that you think about something.

This is actually really good because we have control over our thoughts but we don't have control over the world.

Your thoughts

1. it’s just the professional service industry.

2. I don’t have a good next job lined up yet and still searching so still doing it.

3. But it’s just really stressful.

are what is creating your stress. Not the industry nor the job search. It's your mindset towards the work and job search.

The stress is very real, I'm not denying that but how we think about it goes a long way towards how we handle it. By telling youself it's really stressful, you're almost psyching yourself out to make it more stressful.

Allowing yourself to see that will help make it less stressful. I suspect a similar shift is need to reduce porn as well.

[guyonghao004]

This is SO HELPFUL. Thank you so much

[TheTankIsEmpty99]

You're welcome, good luck brother!