So this is probably a surprise to nobody, but I used to watch porn. Like, a lot of it. At the time, I didn’t think much of it but looking back at it I’m embarrassed and ashamed at myself. So much so, that I debated even putting up this post in the first place because it is so personal and I feel a bit venerable in doing it. However, this is something that I have to get off my chest, and since Phenibut Guru is all about quality self-improvement advice, I feel like this would be helpful to anyone else out there.
I feel like this is such an issue that is so pervasive among young men that I would be unqualified to even discuss it without providing my experience first. There are so many articles out there that provide no more advice then saying “don’t watch porn you wuss-bag!” but many of those guys were never porn addicts in the first place. These guys are unaware of how powerful this leech locks on to you and drains you of your essence. It truly is a poison. That’s why this post is all about my unfortunate experience with porn and will serve as a primer to a multi part series to why porn is something you should kick to the curb.
Some backstory
I have been addicted to porn for 8 years (jeez, even just writing that down still makes me feel ashamed). In other words, from the time I was 13 until right before my 21st birthday. Now it might make sense that porn addiction would come during this time phase when guys have the most raging hormones bottled up inside themselves, but that is not a justification for using and abusing porn. I basically spent all of high school and almost all of college jerking off to porn! I’m sure there were several girls during this time period that would have hooked up with me if I gave them a chance, but I never did. Like a fool, I chose to jerk off instead because it was just so much more convenient for me.
I don’t really recall the exact moment the porn addiction began. I do know that when I was 13, my parents divorced. A very nasty divorce at that (I’m not going into details about it to respect their privacy). I was traumatized by that experience. Something about going through that made me a bit afraid of girls (silly, I know), but when you are a young boy the biggest model for male-female dynamics you will see is between your parents (even though you obviously don’t see or understand all of it). I don’t know if it’s just me, but watching it go up in flames made me much more cautious and apprehensive about women.
I wasn’t always like this. While I would definitely say I’m an introvert and socializing has always been a bit of a struggle with me, I never had a shortage of confidence. I even managed to get my first kiss in the seventh grade! Thankfully this happened before I started becoming addicted to porn or I would be a 21 year old former porn addict who has never even kissed a girl. It makes me wonder where I could have been if I never discovered it- I might have had some halfway decent successes with women in high school and college. It also makes me wonder where I would be a few years from now if I never made the commitment now to quit.
The addiction
Being your typical nerd, I have an addiction with the internet and had it long before I discovered porn. Being an internet addict is not necessarily a bad thing- internet addicts are more likely to launch online businesses or profitable blogs for a bit of side hustle or as their career. Nothing wrong with that. However it’s when you start to venture into the dark side of the internet that it becomes a problem. The internet is neutral and it’s the content that can be either good or bad. Whether you choose to have an internet addiction be healthy or harmful is up to you.
Starting my own blog seemed to be a good middle ground for my internet addiction. It gave me something to do instead of having so much idle time that my mind starts to drift into unsavory material, but it doesn’t keep me so busy that I can’t enjoy the real world (which you can’t do if you are constantly hunched behind a computer screen). Plus I simply love to write and it’s a good free therapy for me.
But back to the addiction itself. At some point I guess I stumbled across some very tame soft porn. Out of just idle curiosity, I decided to find some more. And it got progressively harder and more vulgar until it became a habit. At the time, I didn’t think much of it because I didn’t really understand that what I was doing was harmful to myself. Plus I justified it by the fact that pretty much every other guy my age was doing it anyway. However, if you ever have to justify something just because it is something that everyone else is doing, your reasoning is incredibly weak. Besides, the other guys were at least trying to get laid from time to time (and were eventually successful) while I never did.
Regret has got to be the worst feeling a person can have. We never really let it sink into our heads that our time on Earth is so very limited. You may think you have a lot of time to do whatever it is that you are holding out on, but when that time comes you realize that there’s so much that you either have planned or wish you could do, and not enough time left to achieve it. Meanwhile you wasted so much of your time doing stupid shit that you wish you could have changed, but there’s nothing you can do about it now. All you now carry is the burden of knowledge.
I’ve always been a pretty introspective person, and I’ve always been able to see the consequences of my actions. I’ve never been one to blame others for my own mistakes, but I’ve always been able to see that I was the one who made the mistakes. I’ve always been able to see that I was the one who was responsible for my own actions. And I’ve always been able to see that I was the one who was going to have to deal with the consequences of my actions.
Why porn viewing is habitual
The reason that I created this blog was to provide applicable advice to those who wished to seek it. I don’t believe in theory. You might as well read books that you are not even interested in (college is a lot like that) if you are just interested in learning a bunch of theory.
If you don’t have a life’s vision, you can’t break a destructive habit. The reason that we do habits is because it’s easy. Why would I go out and talk to girls and risk getting rejected when I can just jerk off to porn? This was what I kept on telling myself to justify the addiction that I had. At the time (especially in high school), I didn’t have a life vision so there was no reason for me to change my habits.
If you are going to change something about yourself you need a reason why. Your body loves homeostasis (keeping things in order) which is why we makes habits so easily. Habits are neutral, just like the internet that I mentioned earlier is neutral. You can make good habits such as taking cold showers and **saying no to sugary drinks**and alcohol, or you can make destructive ones like jerking off to porn. It’s entirely up to you.
But if you don’t have a life’s vision, habits just come happenstance. So many elderly members of my family smoke a pack of cigarettes every day and have since they were teenagers. It wasn’t something that they ever thought about, they just did it every 30 minutes, every day, for decades, reinforcing the habit until it is something that defined who they were. It was just something that they always did. They either never really had a life’s vision, or their life’s vision was so weak that it incorporates cigarette smoking.
Kicking the habit
A friend of mine directed me to nofap sophomore year of college. I had many different streaks when I was doing nofap, but they never seemed to last longer than two weeks. No matter how hard I tried, that creeping urge to jerk off popped up when I least expected it- I even started having dreams of watching porn! The habit has already been reinforced for so many years that it became a full-fledged addiction, and my body which was demanding homeostasis and order to be restored was fighting back.
All the advice I could possibly read about kicking my porn addiction didn’t seem to make a damn bit of difference. Many of the people on nofap post about getting all sorts of “superpowers” in an attempt to entice whoever is gullible enough to join their little cult. Now don’t get me wrong, I absolutely think porn is destructive to your mind and a leech of your time, however going on streaks without jerking off just to impress your internet buddies and gain these mystical superpowers is pathetic, and you are doing it for all the wrong reasons. Me, I don’t ever do something to supplicate to anyone, much less a bunch of geeks on the internet.
I firmly believe that if you are or were formerly addicted to porn, it is because of a deeper psychological issue that is taking place. The porn addiction in itself is only the effect, not the cause of your problems. If you focus all your effort on not jerking off to porn, you are being reactionary instead of being preventative. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People is a book I highly recommend you read because there are a lot of helpful tips like spending your energy “preventing fires” instead of “putting them out”.
So in order to quit porn once and for all, I decided to nix the notion of fulfilling a nofap streak. Being able to brag about how long you gone without jerking off is a form a masturbation anyway (you are stroking off your ego). We all need to seek gratification- either through jerking off or being able to brag about not jerking off- because the dopamine rush our brains get feels so good that they can’t tell the difference.
Like I said earlier, if you don’t have a life’s vision, you can’t break a destructive habit. At some point this summer, after years of doubt and confusion, I finally cultivated a rough draft of what I wanted to do with my life. I want to be my own boss and make my living on my own terms. I want to travel to different locations and fully experience different cultures. I want meet and have powerfully intimate relationships with many different girls. Most importantly, I want to live a life free of regret. There’s already so much that I regret having not done, and I’m still young. I don’t want to live that way- the way of regret- anymore. As you can see, porn doesn’t really have a place in my life’s vision. Continuing to jerk off doesn’t advance my dreams in any way. So just like that I quit.
The Blueprint
Now it’s time to discuss the blueprint. A lot of young guys that are looking to kick their porn addiction simply focus on all the little tricks to make kicking their porn addiction easier. And while I will go over as many of them as I can here, I strongly urge you to read the other posts- especially part II- before you bother with this one. This is merely a supplemental guide to go along with the foundation you have laid out in part II. So if you are ready for the supplemental guide, here we go…
Got ya blueprint right here
Better than a porn filter
You may have noticed that I have been spelling this word as porn instead of “pr0n”. A lot of people use the alternative spelling to get around content filters like K9 (I don’t know exactly how well this will work because I have never used K9). Honestly, if you were dead set on beating porn, you wouldn’t even need a content filter. I can’t say I fully recommend content filters because the exercise in part II would make this somewhat obsolete.
However, if you really want to have a porn filter at your disposal, follow this neat trick that helped me. Take out a three by five notecard and draw a line dividing it in half. On one half you are going to write “Reasons to watch porn” and on the other half write “Reasons to not watch porn”. Then list out your reasons for each half. You probably heard about this before, but I’m going to add a twist to it.
For each of the reasons you listed on each side of the notecard, assign a number between 1 and 10, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. Take your time with this because we want these numbers to be congruent with your life’s vision. For example on “Reasons to not watch porn”, you might give “being more confident around girls” a 7 because it’s something that’s somewhat important to you. However if you want to quit to “be in touch with your spiritual self/masculine energy/closer to God”, you would give that a 10 because it is the upmost importance for you. Under “Reasons to watch porn” you might give “because jerking off feels good” a 3 because maybe it does, but so do a lot of other things and it might not advance your life’s vision in any way.
Now add up the numbers. Whichever side has the highest number is what you follow. This might mean that you find there really is no reason to quit porn and you should keep watching it, but I have a feeling that the number for “Reasons to not watch porn” will be way higher (it was for me). Now that you made this notecard, keep it in your pocket at all times, or make an additional one to have near your computer.
Why does this work? Because as opposed to just relying on a porn filter, you now have something that you have emotionally invested in. There’s no emotional investment in installing a porn filter, and if you really wanted to you could just uninstall it so what’s the point? The notecard method won’t restrict what you can or can’t watch, but it will remind you of your mission. It has your values in a moment of clarity, for use when you are in dire straits.
Dealing with a relapse
The worst possible thing you can do when you relapse is go on a binge. You beat yourself up because you thought you finally had your porn addiction beat. What you probably don’t realize is that watching porn is a decision you make. Maybe using the word “addiction” is not entirely accurate because it implies victim mentality; that you are not in control of your life.
At some point near the end of my experience watching porn, I realized that I was making the conscious decision to watch it. At that point I tried very hard to quit and was getting nowhere. I started engaging in negative self-talk by thinking “Wow, I guess I am really addicted”, but all the good that did was diminish my ability to resist the stuff.
It’s time to take accountability whenever you relapse. Instead of thinking your porn addiction has stricken back, re-frame your mind by taking full responsibility for it. “I made a mistake” “What I did today was not congruent with my mission” “I will now only engage in activities that will help advance my goals” Then look at the notecard and remind yourself why you are doing this, and why it’s worth it.
Find your triggers
For me, my biggest trigger was having my phone near my bed. I used to like having the phone near my bed because when the alarm would go off I only needed to reach over and turn it off. I was a lazy bitch back then, and I think you can see the problems here. First of all, I was too lazy to get out of bed when I needed to that I set my alarm close to me so I could turn it off quickly and fall back asleep. The second problem was when you are in your comfy bed with the internet at your fingertips and you’re bored, it’s just a breeding ground for unwholesome thoughts (and actions).
Find your triggers. If simply using your laptop at your desk is a trigger, turn your laptop off and put it away for a few weeks. You can access the internet somewhere in public like a library and carry your files on a flash drive so you can still continue your work (and nothing else). If having your phone near your bed is a trigger, put it completely on the other side of the room when it’s time to sleep. You’ll kill two birds with one stone here– eliminating a relapse trigger and forcing yourself to wake up on time instead of going back to sleep. Speaking of eliminating triggers…
Take cold showers!
You should already know by now the host of benefits that cold showers can bring. Well here’s one more-eliminating a porn trigger. It’s almost impossible to successfully jerk off when you are taking a cold shower. Not only that, but cold showers are more beneficial to your testosterone than hot water showers are. Simply put, they were transform you from a porn watching bitch into a porn-free, cold-shower-taking badass.
I’m serious about this, as soon as I started taking cold showers it strengthened my resiliency, and having a high resiliency is key to kicking a porn addiction. Try this: if you are at home and feel a sudden, uncontrollable urge to fap, turn your device off and sprint to the shower, turning it all the way down. Spend a good 5-10 minutes in there while you calm yourself down (cold showers definitely make you more calm and less neurotic). Then go back to your device. I bet you won’t feel the slightest urge to watch porn after that!
Meditate
You don’t need to turn into a weird Zen monk or anything like that. All you need is 5 minutes and no distractions. Meditation can be real tricky for beginners because in this information overloaded world, are minds are rushing everywhere. We live truly chaotic lives. Chaotic lives make chaotic minds, and a chaotic and disorderly mind is not a resilient mind. As mentioned earlier, resiliency is vital to breaking this, or any other destructive habit.
The simplest, no bullshit solution for any newbie who wants to experience meditation is to square off 5 minutes of your time. There’s not a person reading this blog who’s too busy to spend 5 minutes of their day meditating, so it is feasible. Also 5 minutes is not a big commitment, and small habits are easier to stick to than big ones. Spend 5 minutes of your day just clearing your mind of all the clutter, and focus on your breathing.
Sit comfortably in a chair and breathe in and out slowly. Don’t think about anything else, just focus on the breath. Turn off phones, computers, and let your family know not to disturb you during this time. After a few weeks porn will be your old addiction and meditation will be your new one. Hint: this is a good problem! ?
Hold yourself accountable
The best way to hold yourself accountable is to tell the people who care about you about this problem. This was the one thing I’m recommending that I actually didn’t do, but it would have made my recovery so much easier. This will be embarrassing and maybe a bit humiliating for you, but the people who really truly care about you will be there to help, so don’t be afraid to speak up. And for the record, Terry Crews was a former porn addict and he spoke up about it. Terry fucking Crews! If he can share his addiction with the world, you can share it with your loved ones regardless of how uncomfortable it may feel.
Truth is, you should be a little embarrassed when you tell them. It means your dark secret is out there in the open, and instead of shoving it in your closet with the rest of the skeletons, you are forcing yourself to face it. The shame you feel can be used as a call to action if you let it. We all want to make our loved ones proud, and they will always be our biggest support group. Take advantage of that. If nothing else, leave your comments in the comment section so you can remain anonymous if you want and I’ll do whatever I can to address your concerns.
In conclusion:
Now that I reach the point where I no longer have the urge to look at porn again, my entire demeanor has changed. Every single year that I struggled with porn was a year I struggled with depression. It might not have been the cause of depression, but I think it definitely added fuel to the fire.
Coming from someone who is now on the other side, I can confirm that there are no superpowers to be found. Think about it, did you have superpowers before you watched porn? Of course not, the only changes you will find when doing this is being back on a level playing field again. This is only a first step.
However it is a very important first step, maybe the most important one you can take as a man. It will change the way you look at women and how women look at you (it turns out women don’t really like guys who hide in dark rooms jerking off, who knew?) You will retain the masculine energy that you should have already had by now. You will be more clear-minded. These are the building blocks to great success, but there’s so much more after this.
I implore anyone out there who is struggling with this problem to take action now. The time you wasted on this is time you will never get back. Why would you wait any longer to take action, especially when the remaining time we have is so vital and precious? You may think you can ignore this any carry on with this habit, but will you still be thinking that ten years from now? If you don’t think you would be thinking that in the future when you are more mature, get the jump on the future and just quit now!
I really hope this advice resonated with you in some way. I hope it’s not advice that you will just dismiss and end up regretting in the future, because I got to tell you regret really fucking sucks. That’s why I had so much to say about this topic. Please distribute these posts to whoever you may think would need it.
In conclusion:
So this sums up my background to porn addiction, something that I felt was important to discuss before we delve into the next part, the mindset that you need to cultivate in order to kick this destructive habit. I really hope that any young guys like me don’t waste eight fucking years of their life being a porn addict. It might not be something that you want to change now (and you may even defend your addiction), but that won’t always be the case, and when you are finally past that stage of your life you are going to wonder why you wasted so much time on an activity that drains you of your energy and provides you with no real joy. If you are ready to start changing things right now, then keep on reading…
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