Believing You Can Break The Habit Is Half The Battle
Wondering how long does it take to quit porn?
The better way to go about this will be to start believing you can do it before you get down to the specifics.
Ultimate Guide to Weathering the No Nut Flatline and not Giving In
Accepting the addiction and believing you can give up, allows you the space to plan how to give up, as you can focus your attention, energy, and motivation away from the addiction itself towards efforts to break and combat the addiction. Always remember, change is possible. Humans are designed to adapt to change.
Activities That Speed Up Your Reboot
Hypofrontality also reverses, but this takes time. You may speed up this process by engaging in activities such as meditation that are known to engage your frontal lobes. This will help reverse hypofrontality and thus strengthen your willpower. This will mean urges will become easier to ignore and healthy choices such as exercising and socialising will become far more appealing.
Meet The Coolidge Effect
Internet porns endless supply of sexual novelty is an unnatural stimulus exploiting something thats been termed the Coolidge effect. This effect is best explained by an example. When you drop a willing female rat into a males cage, the male will continuously mate with the rat until he becomes bored. However, when you drop a different female rat into the cage, the males sexual appetite is awoken once more. You may repeat this process over and over again until the male rat collapses in exhaustion.
Why do the males become bored with the same female? Well, because the brain excretes less and less dopamine in respect of the current female, but a surge in dopamine occurs in the males brain when a new female is introduced. This mechanism helps promote genetic diversity and ensures no female goes unfertilized.
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Read This Prayer When Lustful Thoughts Come To You
One of the spiritual sages I met advised me to recite the following prayer of the Prophet :
O Ever-Living, O Sustainer! I call upon Your mercy for and I seek refuge from Your punishment. Rectify all my affairs and do not entrusts me to myself or to any of Your creation for even the blink of an eye.
Yayyu y Qayym, bi-ramatika astaghth, wa min adhbika astajr, ali l shan kullah, wa l takiln il nafs wa l il aadan min khalqika arfata ayn.
Another very useful prayer is the following:
My Lord! I seek Your protection against the insinuations of the devils and I seek your protection against them approaching me.
I recite these repeatedly whenever I am triggered or lustful thoughts enter my mind. I have found consistently that these thoughts go away and I get distracted by something else after reading the prayers. These prayers can be found in many collections of daily supplications. I personally recite it from the collection of Imam al-Haddad called Wird-al-Latif. If you dont already have a routine of reciting supplications, I highly recommend incorporating this collection in your daily routine. It has all the important prayers the Prophet advised for daily recital and takes only a few minutes to complete.
Dont Aim To Be Mr Perfect
Just make sure that you know what the situation is and how to deal with it. Jumping into the mess and trying to fix everything at once will leave you overwhelmed and stressed.
This makes this journey tougher than it has to be. Learn to accept the fact that you might relapse, you might even fail the first time. But, know that, thats completely okay. Make the commitment and push through till the very end.
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Symptoms Of Masturbation Addiction
While engaging in masturbation regularly does not necessarily mean that you have a problem, any of the following could signify that it’s time to reach out for help:
- Masturbation takes up a lot of your time
- Your personal or work life is suffering because of masturbation
- You choose masturbation over in-person activities
- You find yourself engaging in masturbation in public or in places where you would rather not
- You’re masturbating when you don’t feel like it or when you’re not aroused
- You find yourself feeling guilty or upset during or after masturbating
- You find yourself thinking about it often
Sex Addiction Disordered Relationships And Abuse
Support groups for sex addiction, disordered relationships, and abuse include:
- Love Addicts Anonymous: A 12-step program for those who have “distorted thoughts, feelings, and behavior when it comes to love, fantasies, and relationships.”
- Sexaholics Anonymous: A 12-step program for those who want to “stop lusting and become sexually sober.”
- Sex & Love Addicts Anonymous: Find a meeting by searching by state or province. This is a 12-step program for those with “an addictive compulsion to engage in or avoid sex, love, or emotional attachment.”
- Sexual Compulsives Anonymous: A list of International SCA meetings in-person and online. This is a 12-step program.
- Sexual Recovery Anonymous: A 12-step group for those who desire to stop compulsive sexual behavior.
- Survivors of Incest Anonymous: A 12-step program for those who are over age 18 who were sexually abused as a child.
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Find A Sponsor And Call Them Daily
A sponsor is someone who holds you accountable for your sobriety and helps you work through the 12-steps. Two months of attending weekly SA meetings, I found they alone were not helping me stay sober. I had to find someone who I would commit to working the program and building a personal relationship. In SA meetings, senior members whove accumulated decent sobriety usually volunteer to take on new members. If you choose not to join SA, find someone from your social circle you can rely on: this can be a friend, Imam, spouse, family member etc. I highly recommend getting the White Book and Step-into-Action and working through these with your sponsor.
How To Join A Support Group
For most support groups, all that is required to join is a desire to begin recovery. Most people join a support group by simply walking in the door of a meeting near them. No invitation is required and there are no dues or fees. For members, there is often a voluntary collection.
That said, there are “open” meetings for members and non-members as well as closed meetings for members and prospective members only. Depending on the type of meeting, you might come across some of the following codes that indicate a more exclusive support group or additional services offered:
- American Sign Language
- Al-Anon Family Groups from Al-Anon
You can still find a meeting the old-school way by looking up a phone number in the white pages of the local telephone book or online.
Some databases are detailed and allow you to see which meetings are for newcomers or are wheelchair accessible, non-smoking, or LGBTQ+-friendly, among other characteristics. Other pages are less detailed and may only have phone numbers or listings for you to contact the meeting organizers.
The following is a list of official mutual support group websites and their meeting listings. If you cannot locate a face-to-face meeting near you, there are many online meetings available.
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Delete Your Browser History
Those of you with a background in psychology will recognize this as a type of Pavlovian conditioning. Pavlovian conditioning as defined by Wikipedia :
Classical conditioning refers to a learning procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus is paired with a previously neutral stimulus . It also refers to the learning process that results from this pairing, through which the neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response that is usually similar to the one elicited by the potent stimulus.
The only way around this is to delete your browser history.
For Families And Codependents
These meetings are for those who have relatives and friends with addictions and problem behaviors. In addition to these groups, there are often links to family recovery groups for specific addictions or behaviors on the sites for the programs dedicated to them.
- Adult Children of Alcoholics: Find an ACA meeting by location search. They also have online meetings and phone meetings.
- Alanon and Alateen: Search for an Al-Anon Family Group meeting by location in the United States and Canada. You can also use the site to find online meetings, international meetings, or phone meetings.
- Codependents Anonymous: A 12-step program for recovery from unhealthy relationships.
- Families Anonymous: Get a PDF file of FA meetings by state. This is a 12-step program for those who have a family member with an addiction or problem behavior.
- Nar-Anon: A 12-step group for friends and families of people with substance use disorders.
- Recovering Couples Anonymous: A 12-step group for couples who want to restore and maintain their relationship in recovery.
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Dont Beat Yourself Up If You Fall Off The Wagon
Trying to break a habit or recover from an addiction is a journey. Unfortunately, on that journey, you might find yourself slipping back into old habits. Whenever that happens, dont waste any time beating yourself up.
Do your research, try more coping mechanisms and treatment options and get back on the wagon.
Deltafosb And Genetic Survival Via Memory And Repetition
Sensitisation begins with high levels of dopamine. This tells our primitive brain that this activity is really valuable and you should engage in this activity again and again. Dopamines goal is to have us remember and repeat behaviours that further our genetic survival. Dopamine achieves this by triggering a protein known as DeltaFosB. DeltaFosB remains in the brain for around eight weeks following your last binge.
DeltaFosB also activates certain genes that change the physical and chemical structure of the brain. As DeltaFosB levels rise, this protein begins to rewire the brain to crave for the substance or behaviour that led to a rise in DeltaFosB levels in the first place. This creates a circular process where wanting causes doing. This causes a surge in dopamine which leads to even more DeltaFosB being accumulated. As DeltaFosB accumulates, so does the urge to engage in the behaviour that created its accumulation in the first place. And so this cycle continues until you make a conscious effect to cease the addictive behaviour.
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Get Physical & Get Away From The Computer
Crackheads arent just addicted to the high of crack cocaine. Theyre addicted to the stuffing, lighting, and the passing of the crackpipe. Its the ritual.
However, you almost certainly have to use a computer.
This creates a ritual. You sit down with the intention of working, but you get the urge to jerk off. Good old-fashioned physical activity works best for me at those times.
Go for a run, lift some weights, stretch, whatever.
This also has the side benefit of getting you in shape, which will make the next step that much easier.
Go Through The Steps To Freedom
The Steps to Freedom in Christ is a spiritual and moral inventory of your life written by Neil T. Anderson.
We have found that a weekend retreat works the best to complete the Steps.
- It allows men to focus on what the Holy Spirit is saying and not be distracted.
- We strongly recommend disconnecting from smart phones for the weekend.
- It takes about 6-8 hours to go through the Steps. This is why the weekend retreat works well, but you can also do it weekly in your continued meetings
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Get Help From Other People
This addiction thrives in secrecy and isolation you must end this secrecy to start the process of recovery. For years I made the mistake we all addicts make: trying to quit it on our own. After realizing I needed help, I started with the obvious things: self-help websites and online programs that cater to Muslims, like Purify Your Gaze. While these helped me get an understanding of my problem and gave me a guide that I could potentially follow to sober up, it ultimately did not work. Why? Because I still had to rely on myself to stay sober and follow through with the regimes they laid out. Online programs give you access to a web forum where you can chat with other addicts, seminars to listen to and the occasional call with a councilor which comes with a hefty price tag. However, at the end of the day, you are still alone and stuck with a computer and the internet these are the very things I was trying to get away from!
Figure Out Your Triggers
Triggers are different for everyone. We sin when we are enticed and drawn away by our own lusts. Sin is, essentially, personal.
What triggers you may not trigger anyone else. For some people, triggers are emotional. For some, theyre situational. My triggers were a little bit of both. I found myself more tempted when under a lot of stress, when I watched movies on my laptop, and when I used a lotion I used in college. I learned to manage my stress, got rid of my laptop for a while, and threw away the lotion.
Not every trigger is avoidable, but when you know what triggers you, you are able to develop a plan for how to approach each one.
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Install Filtering And Accountability Software
Filtering software is a tool to help you avoid a website that could trigger a relapse.
Sometimes youre online to simply buy something on Amazon and the next thing you know youre reading the news you see a pop-up and something goes off in your head and before you know it youve forgotten that you came online to do one thing which is buy something on Amazon.
So filters will not allow you to access those websites which could ruin your day and cause you to relapse.
Some accountability software even notifies your accountability partner when you try to bypass or uninstall it.
Psychological And Emotional Needs
It is important to remember when working towards recovery that your addiction is routed in complex emotional and psychological causes.
You may need to alter your life in other ways to help you in your recovery. There may be certain relationships or habits in your life that jeopardize recovery.
It may also be necessary to consider how you process and express emotions and how you communicate with those around you. A professional treatment centre will help you to do this.
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Disordered Eating And Food
Support groups for problematic food-related behavior include:
- Food Addicts in Recovery Anonymous: A 12-step program for those who have had an eating problem, including overeating or bulimia.
- GreySheeters Anonymous: A 12-step program for compulsive overeating.
- Overeaters Anonymous:A 12-step program for overeating, undereating, anorexia, bulimia, and other problem eating behaviors.
Engage In Physical Activity
Engaging in physical activity has been shown to positively impact the reward center of the brain which promotes overall well-being. Exercise is known to improve the physical and mental health of individuals by controlling the reward impulse, which may help explain its ability to mitigate internet addiction.45
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Seek More Than We Are Satisfied
However, our dopamine system is stronger than our opioid system. This means that we seek more than we are satisfied. Seeking is more likely to keep us a live compared to sitting around in a satisfied heap. In summary, dopamine compels animals into action. This is why scientists refer to dopamine as the seeking circuit. Dopamine provides the motivation for us to pursue our wants and desires.
We receive a bigger burst of dopamine when we look at foods containing a bigger proportion of sugars and fats. This is because these foods are most likely to keep us alive when we are threatened with starvation. This is why you believe you are full until the waiter offers you that chocolate pudding. The anticipation for that pudding is fuelled by dopamine. Dopamine surges thus override feelings of satiety.
There Is Hope And Forgiveness In God
In 1 Corinthians, we read: No trial has come to you but what is human. God is faithful and will not let you be tried beyond your strength but with the trial he will also provide a way out, so that you may be able to bear it .
And Proverbs tells us: Those who conceal their sins do not prosper, but those who confess and forsake them obtain mercy .
There is no disputing Gods love. Its a love we cannot even fathom. Because of this immense love, He will forgive us if we seek forgiveness.
Just as it keeps you from true intimacy with your spouse, it keeps you from an intimacy with God.
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Are There Treatment Options Available
Many individuals benefit from who can help them overcome emotional difficulties and make positive changes in their lives. Usually, treatment incorporates:
- : This therapy focuses on challenging and changing unhelpful cognitive distortions and behaviors, improving emotional regulation, and developing coping strategies that target current problems.
- Individual therapy: One-on-one therapy sessions offer a unique and transparent space for those in recovery to express their challenges, emotions, and hopes.
- Couples therapy: When behavioral addictions break apart relationships, both romantic and family ones, couples counseling can help restore trust and rebuild relationships, which can be essential for support in long-term recovery.
- Group therapy: Speaking about challenges, emotions, and troubles in a group environment, can offer a sense of fellowship and support and provide a space to build sober relationships.
- Self-help groups: Usually, addiction is a lifelong journey self-help groups can offer aftercare support once someone ends treatment. Usually, these 12-step programs provide a sense of structure that can help with long-term sobriety.
