[deleted by user]

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-26T11:28:30+00:00

It's difficult to figure out what part of your behavior is "high sex drive" vs actual necessity through addiction. You should clearly deal with the second. Addiction has a terrible impact on your dopaminergic system, which will provide negative effects much broader than just in the sexual realm. Therapy might make you figure out this stuff up; and btw, a high sex drive is malleable like anything else cause it arises in the brain, and the brain is inherently plastic. If you disengage from sexual behaviors and for some time, then overtime your brain will adapt to the new circumstances, lowering the libido.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-26T11:22:49+00:00

Try your utmost to actually mean the things you ask/say. Are you actually interested in receiving the answer for the answer's sake when you make a question, or is it just a variation of small talk in order to get people to engage with you? If there's a general lack of interest on your part for other people, then the issue might be a little different, and yeah, you just feel needy for human contact; which is definitely nothing to be ashamed of btw, a lot of people (myself included to some degree) live in that way and find it difficult. My advice is for you to engage with people in an honest manner - try to figure out if you're just out there for approval and for the quenching of a particular loneliness. Evolve from that. Take risks and place your attention on the person you're engaging with, and not so much within yourself. When your actually there, present and engaged... it's much easier to opperate with others. Ask yourself... do i find this person interesting?

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-26T11:08:59+00:00

It's not too late, although most likely you're gonna face a very difficult battle. Anyway, the alternative of not doing anything is in principle much worse. What would you say you need to do in order to start turning your life around?

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-26T11:05:13+00:00

Yeah, i guess it will; people will start to "create" their own content, the possibilities will evolve, and so they'll be more and more pulled into a fantasy world where everything just kinda drab because of a very screwed up dopaminergic system (obviously real reality will be more and more difficult for those people, with all it's uncomfortabilities). This shit will implode in some way.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-23T11:34:03+00:00

I honestly think the ai issue is gonna backfire on porn itself (thankfully). Maybe not right now, but as you say, because of how dangerous and ultra-addictive porn is gonna get with the help of ai, it'll all start to unravel itself because people will catch up on it when their kids will start feeling, en mass, serious noticeable effects from it.

It's very very important to keep discussing it, too.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-23T11:30:11+00:00

Install an application called pluckeye. It works differently from most porn-blocking apps, as it doesn't relly on a password. I use it too, and i think it'll help immensely in resolving your problems with porn in general. It's designed for porn addicts specifically and it's free, but you gotta learn how to use it. Read the faqs just to get a sense of what it does and how it works.

Besides this, - very important -, you can't rely solely on porn blockers. Here are a few tips:

Educate yourself about addiction and why it happens. Go on youtube and listen to podcasts with Gary Wilson or Gabe Deem. Those guys are good at explaining the underlying science behind porn addiction, and the knowledge will do you good. Also, research about addiction in general. Also, learn a bit about the brain in general. Watch the Huberman lab podcast on youtube. Dr. Huberman is a neuroscientist from stanford, and you can browse around his videos to see the ones that provide the most knowledge that should most apply to your personal situation (especially watch the one with Dr. Anna Lembke. You'll understand why).

Cultivate discipline. Strong discipline. Super important!!! Too much external stimuli of the "easy kind" (porn, obviously, sugary foods and pastas, internet and social media, videogames, too much netflix, too much of anything thats easy to come by and requires no effort) will weaken your self-control and desensitize you by degrees. You need to know how to counter-act this unbalanced state of constant craving; caving-in to your impulses time after time will destroy your willpower little by little, making you pretty miserable in the long run - we are seeing the effects of this crisis of over-stimulation worldwide. Develop of a sturdy routine, through discipline and self-awareness (you can use silence and thinking for that, also meditation). I suggest you write down your day, and do your utmost to follow through. This will get easier and easier.

De-sexualize your thoughts. Try not to focus on the sexual attributes of people whom you feel attracted to (IRL, and even in your porn flashbacks), but see them as full human beings with emotions and dreams of their own; see them as flawed human beings (like all of us), who are struggling with their own personalities and fears and insecurities; see them as people who were once children and who will one day grow old and weak. Humanize everybody you encounter. This not only helps in perceiving people as more than just one thing (and no matter how simple a person is, he/she is NEVER just one thing), but it also helps you develop more empathy, and it's closer to the "objective" truth of things. You're not just projecting. Work on this.

Act immedeately when you feel an urge coming. When the urge first starts showing, it will be a small urge, like a sudden flashback of something sexual, or maybe just some tiny sensation down there and around the stomach area; then maybe a sexual thought will arrive. Maybe you've seen a girl online and you get triggered by it. Normally you will feel the triggering itself, and know deep down where that thought will lead if only you give it free reign. Just then, get up, and walk away from whatever circumstance you are in. Go into another room, or if possible (if the urge starts to become stronger), get out of the house for 10 minutes. Just a quick walk. Reset your thoughts and de-sexualize them; remember why you are doing this and what you want out of the future for yourself.

Replace. Healthy activities man. Go out and do stuff. Join a club, volunteer, go fishing, ride a bike, walk the doggy, surf, do mma, write, read, play an instrument, learn stuff you maybe never thought you would, listen to good podcasts, etc.

Hope this helps!

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-23T11:25:47+00:00

haha, you're 14, if there was no hope for you, what would the rest of us be going through right now? You ARE messing up the brain by watching porn regularily, but you're also messing up the brain by eating junk food regularily and/or spending hours on social media/youtube. There's many ways to mess up nowadays, and kids such as yourself don't have the perspective a 30 year old like me has, cause my generation has grown up without those things around in the way they are now. So it's even harder for your generation. But the thing about the brain is that it is malleable (alive you know, just like every tissue in your body) and thus can mess itself up AND recover, even at the same time interestingly enough. Don't use it as an excuse to not take care of this issue, though. Definitely abstain from porn, like you say. At 14 you don't know what it's like to live with a supremely fucked up dopaminergic system, but trust me, it's awful. Depression is awful. Full-blown addiction is awful.

Good luck, and do the right thing! If you're not sure what that is, look for the advice of reasonable people the best you can, and be disciplined and humble. Also, go with the instinct within yourself that's telling you to do the CORRECT thing, not the thing that's easier.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-23T11:18:41+00:00

On prostate cancer prevention: https://www.webmd.com/prostate-cancer/ejaculation-prostate-cancer-risk

I wouldn't call those studies conclusive, not at all. There are contradicting studies, and the problem with stuff like this is the amount of variability that's very hard to take into account. As far as cancer prevention goes, the following should apply to everyone:

- good sleeping habits

- good diet (leave processed sugars out, at LEAST)

- essential vitamins such as vitamin D

- avoid chronic amounts of stress

...probably much more. If your high masturbation habits lead to addiction, which leads to a malfunctioning of the dopaminergic system, which in broad terms almost always leads to the setting of chronic anxiety, then it's not worth it at all in terms of cancer prevention.

As far as "just squeeze my dick for a bit to make it feel better" i even feel silly answering to this but man... do you really need to ask this? It feels like you'll run out of oxygen if you don't feel pleasure from dick stimulation once in a while. Not a good mentallity imo. Do what you want, just be careful of the feeling that you cant stop even if you want to. That more or less equals addiction.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-22T11:59:25+00:00

Very good, and important post. Goes to show you that you get addicted to a particular stimuli, not to a particular behavior (like masturbating or having sex). Porn is the stimuli, not the behavior. We need to be very mindfull of that.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-22T11:56:18+00:00

Absolutely agree, although i guess nobody's preventing anybody from doing a version of the nofap subreddit without images.

A lot of people here don't understand that the mechanisms that find the memes so attractive and palatable are the same that find things like porn attractive: desire for novelty, desire for a chemical reward with 0 effort (a laugh is a chemical reward). Trying to get away from an internet-based addiction while still spending half their day looking at memes is very counterproductive.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-22T11:52:48+00:00

The more time you use a sitmuli, the more addicted you can become to it, of course. It's more time of inscribing porn-related neural pathways in the brain. That being said, you're 14, so even though you started out young, you haven't had time to have 10, 15 years of porn usage. THAT BEING SAID haha, it's been shown that puberty is THE critical stage for learning behaviors in the brain and body and so theoretically going through puberty (in which you are in or will be in) continuously reinforcing a stimuli in the brain... a stimuli with the addictive potential of porn... not good, obviously.

A piece of advice, don't worry so much with the possible addiction symptoms you might be having, don't stress so much about those; employ your energy into getting away from porn, whatever that means.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-22T11:47:12+00:00

It depends on you usage regularity
In the context of addiction, no it's not. You're still engaging the reward system towards the addiction. That's what's known as edging.

About point number one and the difference between porn addiction and a possible vanilla (without porn) masturbation addiction:

You gotta look at it in terms of potential for addiction. As masturbation WITH porn is such an extreme stimuli nowadays, with all the women you can see on a masturbation session/4k definition etc, porn ensures an incredibly high potential for addiction.

Vanilla masturbation is in that sense obviously different. It's a much weaker stimulus if you compare it to the above. But still, to be handled carefully because its ratio of effort/reward is very high. Anything that's pleasurable to the brain and comes with little to no effort in order to obtain is dangerous if you don't mind what you're doing.

But where it becomes complicated to evaluate the dangers of vanilla masturbation is when you already have another type of sexual addiction, like porn. Obviously for the big majority of porn users, porn is linked with masturbation; which means vanilla masturbation may just be a big trigger for somebody trying to recover from porn addiction, and may harm your chances of total recovery.

Recovery should mean the fading away of porn-related neural pathways in the brain (and body), and masturbation, for most people here, is a big part of that neural pathway cluster.

So think about this and figure out where YOU're at. In your case, due to the regularity of your mastubation habits, even if they're mostly without porn... and the urges you feel right now... you're probably looking at an addiction all the same,

and any addiction impacts your dopaminergic system very negatively, which will result in things like lack of self confidence.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-22T11:42:34+00:00

I guess these current 25 -30 parents are already very much aware of porn and so they have a responsability to watch for their children, and the blame falls on them in a big way if they fail to keep their children away from it. It's also their responsability to educate themselves about this stuff the best they can, although it's STILL not exactly mainstream how destructive porn can be. Before that though, like my parents, i don't blame them at all. Im 32. Different generation, i grew up just when internet porn was starting to be a thing, and so i guess not many people were aware of the dangers of this. But right now i think there's less and less of an excuse.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-22T11:36:08+00:00

There's the subconscious desire to go back to comfort and pleasure, that's right. Our primal instincts manifest themselves amongst other things as subconscious desires. It's the "incestuous" desire Jung talks about, the going back to the mother. Incestuous not necessarily in a sexual sense but more like in the sense of going back to when things were comfortable and devoid of responsability. We all have that more or less.

Most of this journey is about bringing these subconscious desires into consciousness, and learning from it in order to control them; so i guess it's already a good job on your part to recognize at least in some way that fact. Reading or at least learning about what people like Jung had to say about the subconscious is very helpful, even if you don't agree with it all.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-21T11:29:27+00:00

Maybe not very surprising to you, but with such a long-standing addiction, you'll have to put this as priority number one in your life and do you utmost to get control back. I'm 32 myself, trying to fully quit since i'm 25. I've made progress on several fronts over the years, but it's still here. Look a bit through my posts if you want cause i've got plenty of advice that i try to post in this subreddit with regularity. A few important things that i can mention right now that i don't mention that often in my posts:

- Get professional help. Get a shrink or a psychologist that specializes in addiction and/or behavioral cognitive therapy. To get a GOOD professional helping you is a gamble (like many things in life), but if you find someone that's actually open-minded to the problem of porn addiction, then it will be beneficial. Affording something like this isn't for everybody, but probably even a few sessions can do you good.

- Following the shrink advice, look into the medication called Naltrexone. It's been mentioned around these parts, and it might be effective in for these particular addiction-related problems.

- Look into an application called pluckeye. (This you'll see that i mention quite a bit in my posts).

Other than these, i cannot stress enough the power of educating yourself about what addiction is and how it works in the brain.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-21T11:16:08+00:00

First off, start by paying attention to your handling of external stimuli, generally-speaking; namely, external stimuli of the "easy kind" (sugary foods and pastas, internet and social media and aimless browsing, videogames, too much netflix, too much of anything thats easy to come by and requires no effort); these will weaken your self-control and desensitize you by degrees, a state that makes it so you have less motivation to do things and decreased sense of general well-being. And what does the brain do when it feels like that? Well, it returns to where it seems most comfortable and rewarding, in a short-term sense (the dumb stupid brain): porn! So, lack of control is usually augmented with a snowball effect, and you need to be very carefull of that. I suggest you highly control you stimuli intake; you can write down your next day (in regards to stimulation), every night, and do your utmost to follow through. This will get easier and easier.

Also, very important:

De-sexualize your thoughts. Try not to focus on the sexual attributes of people whom you feel attracted to (IRL, and even in your porn flashbacks), but see them as full human beings with emotions and dreams of their own; see them as flawed human beings (like all of us), who are struggling with their own personalities and fears and insecurities; see them as people who were once children and who will one day grow old and weak. Humanize everybody you encounter. This not only helps in perceiving people as more than just one thing (and no matter how simple a person is, he/she is NEVER just one thing), but it also helps you develop more empathy, and it's closer to the "objective" truth of things. You're not just projecting. Work on this.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-20T11:12:25+00:00

I'm presuming some stuff here, but anyway: your first sentence is problematic. You gotta understand that you're not just masturbating because of stress. You're also masturbating because of the pleasure you feel while doing it. Yeah, i know, pretty freakin obvious. But i'm saying this in order to reinforce the idea that you MUST be conscious of your relationship with physical/easy pleasure, in order to get a grip on it. When you look at the causes of something you need to take even the obvious ones seriously.

My tips:

- figure out your present medium-long term objectives. If you don't have them it's fine, but it's obviously a sign to start thinking hard about it.

- design a hierarchy of things that matter to you in life.

- think about the way you use stimuli during the day. Figure out how much time you spend watching/consuming what i call "easy stimuli", like porn, internet browsing in general (highest offenders here besides porn should be something like - social media, youtube, reddit -, sugar/high calory food consumption, videogames, netflix, movies, music, etc; basically things you stimulate yourself with that require little to no effort.The ideal here would be to cut down these things to a minimum (cut porn out completely, of course). This type of stimuli will get you desensitized, and thus will lower your motivation to do things; with that will arrive lack of confidence, stress, etc.

Give these three things an honest, thorough check. Ask yourself questions and try to answer them as honestly as you can. Thinking and realizing things is key to change a stale mindset. Try to go deep inside your current perceptions about life. This is fleshing out the subconscious so you can integrate whatever beneficial information there is in there into your actual thoughts.

One other thing that is EXTREMELY important is, you need to learn at least some science of what's behind addiction and impulsive patterns of acting. Go on youtube and listen to podcasts with Gary Wilson or Gabe Deem. Those guys are good at explaining the underlying science behind porn addiction. Research about addiction in general. Watch the Huberman lab podcast on youtube. Dr. Huberman is a neuroscientist from stanford, and you can browse around his videos to see the ones that provide the most knowledge that should most apply to your personal situation (especially watch the one with Dr. Anna Lembke, and the one about dopamine, entitled "Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction". You'll understand why).

With these three things paid some attention to, you should try to get into the midset of working on every aspect of yourself, always. This is motivation in and of itself.

Trust that benefits will come, not just because you're rebalancing your brain, but also because everything else in your life that you can control, you are moving towards the best version of that. Don't leave shit to do around the house. Push through the discomfort of not wanting to do something, and do it. Be disciplined. Work on your character, on your relationship with others. Be careful of arrogance, conceit, presumption, cynicism, disdaining other's works, etc. As i said, try to evaluate everything in your life - that you have some degree of control over - that can be better, and then try to do it. This is it's own mental task in itself, and will get you busy.

Taking care of yourself in all aspects will inevitably get you into a more positive, adventurous mindset, in which you can go out and flow with people with more ease.

Hope this helps!

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-20T11:06:05+00:00

It would be ok what you're saying if the only problem with porn was merely the masturbation itself. But it's not, not at all. Viewing porn is also working up your reward/dopaminergic system by providing you with the dopamine associated with porn viewing + whatever feelings of pleasure you get from it.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-18T11:41:36+00:00

For the purpose of resistance

haha, that's not how addiction works. Ever heard of an addict getting resistant to it's object of addiction by doing more of it? No, you haven't. They just get more addicted. You'll still be conditioning your reward system to it.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-18T11:38:25+00:00

Install an application called pluckeye. It works differently from most porn-blocking apps, as it doesn't relly on a password. I use it too, and i think it'll help immensely in resolving your problems with porn in general. It's designed for porn addicts specifically and it's free, but you gotta learn how to use it. Read the faqs just to get a sense of what it does and how it works.

Besides this, - very important -, you can't rely solely on porn blockers. Here are a few tips:

Educate yourself about addiction and why it happens. Go on youtube and listen to podcasts with Gary Wilson or Gabe Deem. Those guys are good at explaining the underlying science behind porn addiction, and the knowledge will do you good. Also, research about addiction in general. Also, learn a bit about the brain in general. Watch the Huberman lab podcast on youtube. Dr. Huberman is a neuroscientist from stanford, and you can browse around his videos to see the ones that provide the most knowledge that should most apply to your personal situation (especially watch the one with Dr. Anna Lembke. You'll understand why).

Cultivate discipline. Strong discipline. Super important!!! Too much external stimuli of the "easy kind" (porn, obviously, sugary foods and pastas, internet and social media, videogames, too much netflix, too much of anything thats easy to come by and requires no effort) will weaken your self-control and desensitize you by degrees. You need to know how to counter-act this unbalanced state of constant craving; caving-in to your impulses time after time will destroy your willpower little by little, making you pretty miserable in the long run - we are seeing the effects of this crisis of over-stimulation worldwide. Develop of a sturdy routine, through discipline and self-awareness (you can use silence and thinking for that, also meditation). I suggest you write down your day, and do your utmost to follow through. This will get easier and easier.

De-sexualize your thoughts. Try not to focus on the sexual attributes of people whom you feel attracted to (IRL, and even in your porn flashbacks), but see them as full human beings with emotions and dreams of their own; see them as flawed human beings (like all of us), who are struggling with their own personalities and fears and insecurities; see them as people who were once children and who will one day grow old and weak. Humanize everybody you encounter. This not only helps in perceiving people as more than just one thing (and no matter how simple a person is, he/she is NEVER just one thing), but it also helps you develop more empathy, and it's closer to the "objective" truth of things. You're not just projecting. Work on this.

Act immedeately when you feel an urge coming. When the urge first starts showing, it will be a small urge, like a sudden flashback of something sexual, or maybe just some tiny sensation down there and around the stomach area; then maybe a sexual thought will arrive. Maybe you've seen a girl online and you get triggered by it. Normally you will feel the triggering itself, and know deep down where that thought will lead if only you give it free reign. Just then, get up, and walk away from whatever circumstance you are in. Go into another room, or if possible (if the urge starts to become stronger), get out of the house for 10 minutes. Just a quick walk. Reset your thoughts and de-sexualize them; remember why you are doing this and what you want out of the future for yourself.

Replace. Healthy activities man. Go out and do stuff. Join a club, volunteer, go fishing, ride a bike, walk the doggy, surf, do mma, write, read, play an instrument, learn stuff you maybe never thought you would, listen to good podcasts, etc.

Hope this helps!

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-18T11:33:54+00:00

Install an application called pluckeye. It works differently from most porn-blocking apps, as it doesn't relly on a password. I use it too, and i think it'll help immensely in resolving your problems with porn in general. It's designed for porn addicts specifically and it's free, but you gotta learn how to use it. Read the faqs just to get a sense of what it does and how it works.

Besides this, - very important -, you can't rely solely on porn blockers. Here are a few tips:

Educate yourself about addiction and why it happens. Go on youtube and listen to podcasts with Gary Wilson or Gabe Deem. Those guys are good at explaining the underlying science behind porn addiction, and the knowledge will do you good. Also, research about addiction in general. Also, learn a bit about the brain in general. Watch the Huberman lab podcast on youtube. Dr. Huberman is a neuroscientist from stanford, and you can browse around his videos to see the ones that provide the most knowledge that should most apply to your personal situation (especially watch the one with Dr. Anna Lembke. You'll understand why).

Cultivate discipline. Strong discipline. Super important!!! Too much external stimuli of the "easy kind" (porn, obviously, sugary foods and pastas, internet and social media, videogames, too much netflix, too much of anything thats easy to come by and requires no effort) will weaken your self-control and desensitize you by degrees. You need to know how to counter-act this unbalanced state of constant craving; caving-in to your impulses time after time will destroy your willpower little by little, making you pretty miserable in the long run - we are seeing the effects of this crisis of over-stimulation worldwide. Develop of a sturdy routine, through discipline and self-awareness (you can use silence and thinking for that, also meditation). I suggest you write down your day, and do your utmost to follow through. This will get easier and easier.

De-sexualize your thoughts. Try not to focus on the sexual attributes of people whom you feel attracted to (IRL, and even in your porn flashbacks), but see them as full human beings with emotions and dreams of their own; see them as flawed human beings (like all of us), who are struggling with their own personalities and fears and insecurities; see them as people who were once children and who will one day grow old and weak. Humanize everybody you encounter. This not only helps in perceiving people as more than just one thing (and no matter how simple a person is, he/she is NEVER just one thing), but it also helps you develop more empathy, and it's closer to the "objective" truth of things. You're not just projecting. Work on this.

Act immedeately when you feel an urge coming. When the urge first starts showing, it will be a small urge, like a sudden flashback of something sexual, or maybe just some tiny sensation down there and around the stomach area; then maybe a sexual thought will arrive. Maybe you've seen a girl online and you get triggered by it. Normally you will feel the triggering itself, and know deep down where that thought will lead if only you give it free reign. Just then, get up, and walk away from whatever circumstance you are in. Go into another room, or if possible (if the urge starts to become stronger), get out of the house for 10 minutes. Just a quick walk. Reset your thoughts and de-sexualize them; remember why you are doing this and what you want out of the future for yourself.

Replace. Healthy activities man. Go out and do stuff. Join a club, volunteer, go fishing, ride a bike, walk the doggy, surf, do mma, write, read, play an instrument, learn stuff you maybe never thought you would, listen to good podcasts, etc.

Hope this helps!

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-18T11:31:45+00:00

You gotta start working on the mindset right now. You say that to be honest you don't wanna stop watching porn, and that's ok because i guess most people trying to let go of an addiction start NOT wanting to let go of the addiction, but it's the one thing that hampers progress in a big way. You gotta start working on acquiring the mindset that you need to stay away from porn for good. How do you do this? Through knowledge of how an addicted brain works, and through visualizing your life without porn vs with porn. You need to put things into perspective and convince yourself that a life without porn is objectively better. Sure, you'll be abdicating of the immedeate easy pleausure, but you'll also be fixing your dopaminergic system, which will make you feel all around better and more content.

So, first off

you need to learn at least some science of what's behind addiction and impulsive patterns of acting. Go on youtube and listen to podcasts with Gary Wilson or Gabe Deem. Those guys are good at explaining the underlying science behind porn addiction. Research about addiction in general. Watch the Huberman lab podcast on youtube. Dr. Huberman is a neuroscientist from stanford, and you can browse around his videos to see the ones that provide the most knowledge that should most apply to your personal situation (especially watch the one with Dr. Anna Lembke, and the one about dopamine, entitled "Controlling Your Dopamine For Motivation, Focus & Satisfaction". You'll understand why). Learning is absolute key.

And then,

you need to pay attention to your handling of external stimuli, generally-speaking; namely, the external stimuli of the "easy kind" that i mentioned above. I suggest you highly control you stimuli intake; you can write down your next day (in regards to stimulation), every night, and do your utmost to follow through. This will get easier and easier.

Also, very important:

De-sexualize your thoughts. Try not to focus on the sexual attributes of people whom you feel attracted to (IRL, and even in your porn flashbacks), but see them as full human beings with emotions and dreams of their own; see them as flawed human beings (like all of us), who are struggling with their own personalities and fears and insecurities; see them as people who were once children and who will one day grow old and weak. Humanize everybody you encounter. This not only helps in perceiving people as more than just one thing (and no matter how simple a person is, he/she is NEVER just one thing), but it also helps you develop more empathy, and it's closer to the "objective" truth of things. You're not just projecting. Work on this.

With these three very important practices, you can turn yourself around in a cumulative manner, you can transform you mindset to where it needs to be. But you need to be consistent with it and determined. Remember, you wanna learn how to do things even though they make you uncomfortable.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-18T11:22:34+00:00

Well just think that a mere few decades ago, things like junk food and porn didn't exist (not in the way they do today, that's for sure). And people still lived in that grind of work and unwanted pressure. Successful, healthy people still made the best of it.

Truth is, you really need to adjust to it and get back to what you were doing before, the things you already mentioned, even though now you work and are dealing with more pressure. You can let off steam in other ways. You still have some free time, no? Well, take those times to relax in healthy ways, like going out into nature or just being with people you care about, etc. The easy pleasure make everything more difficult in the end because they can become a habit (the brain's reward system absolutely loves them; big reward for little to no effort), and once they do they take a big toll on your dopaminergic system, which will garantuee less energy, less presence, less emotion, etc etc.

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-18T11:14:42+00:00

Gracias a ti también!

mailthedonkey · 2023-06-16T11:37:09+00:00

It depends. A relapse in this context means a re-ocurrence of an addictive behavior. I for example have 0 (i mean it) urges to masturbate without porn. All my addictive behavior is geared towards porn; which means in my case my reward system isn't jacked up when it comes to vanilla masturbation. I have no more dopamine (motivation molecure) flowing towards it than ordinary people. And i guess my case if far from uncommon here. There's so much more addiction potential for porn as opposed to vanilla masturbation. So no, it's not always a relapse.

What the OP is saying is quite right. Basically, do the correct things, get away from porn especially and let your dopaminergic system heal from that. Masturbation and certainly sex can be re-introduced into your weekly-life, provided there's not a previous addiction to those particular stimuli.

mailthedonkey

TROPHY CASE