Hey guys, I just wanted to share my story and offer some advice to ya’ll. I used to be a user from the age of 8, up until my early 30’s. I’m done. I’m not - ‘done, but secretly looking back, hoping I don’t fall again.’ I’m done because I want to be. I’ve learned that pmo has no benefit to you, it only hurts you, every time. Like no benefit at all. Let me share what I’ve learned.
I’ve always been interested in the psychology and chemistry of the pmo addiction. If I could just learn the “secret” sauce, the mental sophistication, I could beat it. Besides the dopamine hits, the norepinephrine jolts, the numbness that may feel like it’s needed at the time, there’s something deeper. The things I share are from the free ebook “The Easy Peasy Way to Quit Porn,” a book that I recommend every pmo addict in here to read.
It’s the waterslides you create every time you indulge in what your little green monster tells you. It makes it that much easier to grease the waterslides the next time. But take a step back and think about what you are doing. You just injected a bunch of chemicals into your brain. What does your body do next? It starts closing the receptors. To everything. You no longer have the ability to feel good anymore about anything - hence the numbness. Easy Peasy compares listening to the little green monster all day, just waiting for that time to fire up the computer and snack on some porn; to the act of tying your shoelaces extra tightly just so at the end of the day you can loosen them. Who would do that? There is absolutely no sense in that. Yet that’s exactly what we do when we try to suffer, hurt ourselves all day, just so we can try to get something at the end. You lose something, you actually lose a lot. nothing enjoyable about pmo. It’s all in your head, and it’s all your brain has been telling you as long as you’ve been in it.
The title of this post is because I know I’m going to get some post like, congratulations man, I’m day 1068. But let me be completely honest with you. At day 1068 I don’t think I’ll be talking to you. It will be a distant memory, and nothing more. As much as I like the community, I won’t be here anymore at that time. I want those who still struggle to read easy Peasy, it has changed my life, and it will change yours. It’s the only book I have seen that doesn’t try to “convince” you to stop pmo. It tells you the facts and gives you the option to choose — not the scary - you better quit or you will be hated all your life, or god will smite you - ideas. But cold hard facts. And the biggest one is that there is absolutely nothing stopping you from quitting except your preconceived notions.
My last pieces of advice, which comes from easy Peasy as well: don’t count your days being sober with the mindset that - I’ve made it x days. When you see your sober time, look at it, and say, wow, I’ve taken my life back for the rest of my life. And it all started x days ago. And this is the amount of time I’ve been free of that little green monster. Which I am no longer apart of. I think most people, including myself, were afraid to count the successes out of fear. Fear that sometime it will come back, and with a vengeance. But the truth is that if you are really sure that you don’t want this anymore, not that you are Really trying to do this because God will smite you, or you’re afraid for your relationships being ruined, or you are afraid how others will see that you act more strangely when you are addicted. But you are doing it for yourself. Because you love yourself. Because you respect yourself. That’s when you know the change has taken place.
With love,
Rick