I suppose I’ll preface with a little background. Skip ahead if you’d like. I’ve masturbated since I can remember. I found softcore porn in my dad’s room when I was very young and found very hardcore stuff on the computer shortly thereafter. My impressionable young brain was hooked. I started developing fetishes before even hitting puberty.
Throughout adolescence, porn was my favorite hobby and one of my only sources of joy. Most of my memories of years gone by are shrouded in depression and darkness. At about 16 years of age I knew I had a problem and decided to quit. Thousands of failed attempts later, never making it past a week or two of abstinence, I was 21 years of age and my porn addiction as bad as it gets.
I possessed almost ALL of the negative symptoms of porn addiction that you can read here on NoFap. My favorite porn was always the type that made me feel the absolute worst: jealousy, anger, hatred, disgust, etc. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. “Why am I so ****** up?”
THINGS I DID TO TRY TO QUIT
I scoured the internet reading success story after success story looking for a common tip, trick, or theme, never really coming up with anything of substance. I joined the military expecting the long-term training to delete my porn addiction. Nope. I installed software on my computer and internet system to block porn. Nope. I sold my Smartphone and computer and lived with only a flip-phone. Nope. I made one strong determination after the other saying things like “Now I will change my life. This addiction is over” Nope. I went on week’s long roadtrips, hiking trips, and spent a month in Europe expecting change from each. Nope. I read book after book about habit formation/deletion and studied various drug addictions and the treatments for each. Nope.
I took psychedelic drugs expecting some revelatory experience that would change my brain’s hard wiring. Nope. I spent months on other drugs: alcohol, opiates, uppers, etc hoping they would kill my libido or something. Nope. I went to therapy, SA meetings, had accountability partners, talked to people about it and such. I even told my long term girlfriend the problem. Nope. I lifted weights and got big and strong, ate well, took good supplements, socialized, tried meditation, mantras, etc. Nope. I went to church and tried finding God thinking He would fight my battle for me. Nope. I was desperate, so desperate for something, just something God please! Please help me end this pain! I am such a weak, pathetic human being. I might just kill myself; that will end my misery, right? NOPE.
THE ACTUAL PROBLEM
This isn’t a matter of willpower, of being mentally strong or weak, of good vs evil, of God or the Devil being on your side.
This is hard wiring of the brain. This is the hijacking of man’s pinnacle reward: sex. (Those who believe in Maslow’s will disagree with that statement haha.) Everything about this addiction can be more or less explained scientifically. I’m sure many of you have read up on neuroplasticity and such so I won’t try to explain it but I’ll use an analogy that I think works quite well:
If your mind is a dense uncharted jungle when you are born, the habits and connections you make as you age are simply walking paths you have formed in the jungle. Some of these paths might be very rarely walked (The entire sequence you use when you put together a sandwich for yourself) and therefore easily forgotten or avoided. As such, the path will overgrow with foliage in a short time and no longer be a path. Some of these other paths may be quite solid ones that you use quite often (Your showering sequence or your morning regiment) but are still relatively easy to avoid and form a different path.
Some other paths you have turned into formidable trails or roads (A cigarette habit or a gaming addiction etc.) and will be difficult to avoid and will also take quite some time to become jungle again. And lastly, in this case of porn, I have turned this path into a state of the art BULLET TRAIN. One little trigger and I’m going from 0-200 in a matter of seconds and I’ve reached my wonderful destination.. turns out the destination ain’t so wonderful when you get out and walk around. Needless to say, this bullet train isn’t just going to up and vanish. It’s going to take time and the right type of hard work.
HOW I DID IT
A 10-day meditation course. http://www.dhamma.org/en-US/about/code Before you click the back button, hear me out. I’m not selling anything. The retreat I went to is entirely worldwide non-commercial, non-profit, and FREE to attend. Everyone who works there is a volunteer. Even if you meditate every day but have never attended this course or one like it, keep reading. I was fortunate enough to find out about it while reading a blog otherwise I probably would have never found out about it and continued being a porn addict for the rest of my time in this body.
As I said before, I was completely desperate so as soon as I saw this opportunity I took it. Knowing very little about meditation I was jumping into the deep end. Of course fears and worries crop up about the course. Isn’t this only what hippies and weirdos do? What if it’s too hard and I quit? What if it doesn’t work? Thoughts just stream on and on out of control.
At the course, you live like a monk/nun for 10 days. With about 50 others, you observe noble silence: silence of body, speech, and mind. No communication whatsoever with other students. You also observe five precepts: No killing, no stealing, no sexual activity, no lying, and no intoxicants. This forms your moral foundation so that you can work properly. You also have no electronics, sleep on simple beds, are not allowed to read/write or indulge in any sensual pleasure, and eat a simple vegetarian diet (which was delicious, btw).
For the first three days, with excellent instruction, you work on developing focus/concentration by observing the natural breath. Then with that focus, you work on developing wisdom/insight by observing sensation throughout the body, objectively, without reacting (trying not to) to it. This is the process of mental purification. You are training yourself, at the deepest level, not to react to any sensation you experience in/on your body, pleasurable or unpleasurable. When broken down, as is explained in the course, all suffering throughout your life is the result of craving, aversion, or ignorance, and not actually from thoughts themselves.
For example: you see a person you know, a thought arises in your head that you hate this person, that thought triggers sensations like a faster heartbeat, perspiration, and heat to develop in your body, and you react to these sensations with aversion and even hatred. Or maybe you’re smoking a cigarette, you feel that pleasant sensation of a buzz or the smoke in your lungs, and you react to these sensations with craving and attachment. Or you think about your favorite porn scene which triggers increased respiration, rush of blood to your genitals, faster heartbeat, maybe a rush in your head that feels like it’s taking over, that oh-so-unbearable horniness, and you react to these sensations with aversion and hatred.
All these situations result in suffering in one way or another. The feeling of pleasure is nice, of course, but as soon as it goes away, as it always will, you suffer because you craved it and became attached to it. The feeling of not getting your fix is unpleasant so you react with aversion to it and maybe develop hatred towards it. You can see that craving/aversion are actually two sides to the same coin. Even a physically painful sensation like a stab wound or extreme cold only causes you to suffer because you react to it with aversion and hatred instead of objectivity and equanimity. Easier said than done, I know, but it’s the truth.
And the third, ignorance, is the reason for much suffering because when you are unaware of the processes of your mind and have no control over them, you are bound to suffer. This craving/aversion/ignorance paradigm can be applied to any suffering you experience. Take some time to reflect and I’m sure you’ll agree. This all may be hard to comprehend, understand, or believe at first but it becomes very clear as you experience it yourself. When I first came to the realization during one of the meditation sittings that every bit of suffering I have experienced in life is simply a creation of my own mind, it was like a ton was lifted off my chest and I could breath fresh air again.
You may be thinking “Oh, I’ll just research the technique and do it at home”. I don’t suggest this at all. In fact, I think this technique is next to impossible to learn without attending a course like this. Unless you can live like a monk at home in complete silence for ten days and convince yourself to meditate for 10+ hours every day with good technique, it’s just not possible. You may also think “I don’t have time”. That’s just an excuse. Make time. Maybe you think “This is too good to be true. You’re telling me I can eradicate all suffering from my life, yeah right.” It’s not too good to be true simply due to the shear amount of painstaking work you have to put in to develop this. You really have to want it and work harder than you ever have.
It was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done but by far the most rewarding and fulfilling experience of my life. But I wanted to quit porn so bad that this was my last hope. I know many of you have that same drive inside. If you look at this and say “Too difficult, swipe” then you don’t really have that burning desire to quit porn or accomplish anything in life. Nothing in life worth having is easily acquired.
MORE BENEFITS OF THIS COURSE AND MY LIFE AFTER PORN
The fact that this made me quit porn is actually just a side effect. My daily life has improved in pretty much every area. I feel mostly positive thoughts now as I have developed the habit of not reacting to anything negative. Motivating myself to do something is now effortless. I no longer drink cigarettes, smoke copious amounts of alcohol, or do any other detrimental thing for my body. Sleep and dreams are better, exercise is better, food tastes better, social interaction is better, sex is better of course, the list goes on.
Now I radiate positive energy and lighten up the lives of all those around me. Success with women is just a byproduct (Saying this just to motivate the dudes reading this, as if what has been said so far isn’t enough ;P) It’s kind of like being high on life at all times. Talk about super powers x2. It’s truly wonderful. The confidence that comes with knowing you can conquer anything after completing this most-difficult course is a wonderful benefit. Plus it gets you a nice 10+ day addition to whatever streak you currently have. Did I mention it’s FREE?
And no, don’t let me fool you into thinking my life is perfect now and I’m the Buddha or the next Jesus Christ. I’ve taken a mere couple steps on a very long journey. But even these steps have made my life many times better and I hope you will be able to say the same. I’m not writing this for my own pleasure. I’m writing it because I frequent NoFap and most of what I see is a cycle of failure, over and over and over. That was me. It’s not your fault that it is the way it is. You’re not weak or pathetic. It’s just the way things happened. You can come out of it. I believe there is strength, peace, love, and compassion inside every human being. It just needs to be brought out. Don’t take my word for it. Go see for yourself.
And are there other techniques out there that can accomplish the same thing? I’m sure there are. But this one works well for me and thousands of others. Not a single person in my class of 50 came out with a frown on their face. The metaphor goes: Different methods are like wells you dig looking for water. You might dig one 10 meter well here and one 20 meter well here and one 30 meter well here but never find water. “All these techniques are useless!” Little did you know that if you would have just stuck with one method you would have found the water at 40 meters…
I hope I explained this all properly. If you see an error, scientific or otherwise, please bring it up. If anything needs clarification, please ask. Also, feel free to AMA.
tl;dr Just be patient and read it. 😉
P.S. If you are thinking about one of these courses, sign up asap. Their course dates are usually pretty full and have waiting lists so sign up for a future date with no waiting list. Even if you decide not to go, you can cancel.
LINK – Severe porn addiction cured after 5+ YEARS OF MISERY. How I did it and how you can too.
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