Confused about all the responses here that are literally just a period. Am I missing something

They were edited

Poshuteh Jew wrote on 17 Sep 2021 18:46:

Yeah, I tried to delete a bunch of old posts but couldn't, so I was advised to edit them to just have a period.

I usually check in about once a week or so or when I'm bored, and didn't want any unnecessary posts to remain up so I just deleted most of my old posts. If you have any questions about Alan Carr's Easyway or rather EasyPeasy which is an adaptation of Easyway for quitting porn, I'm happy to answer them.

In short: Easyway gets you to view substances as a non-user again. Non-users don't have to fight a desire to use [porn][smoking][drugs][alcohol], only users experience that. Easyway gives you the tools to become a non-user again. It's quite easy to do, which is why Carr called it Easyway. Usually I just recommend people read the book and decide for themselves if they want to keep being a user or not.

Hey Poshuteh,

Curious what you thought of the book and if it helped you remove your desire for pornography.

Alan Carr's big insight into smoking was that people don't smoke for all of the reasons they should quit, such as health, money, hygiene, etc; they smoke for all of the reasons they think they enjoy it. Most smokers smoke because they enjoy the taste, it relaxes them, it's a sociable activity, it relieves stress, it looks cool, and so on. Carr's insight was that he was getting none of the benefits that he thought he was getting from his 100 cigarettes a day habit, er, nicotine addiction. He realized that it wasn't that the disadvantages of smoking outweighed the advantages of smoking...it was that there were ABSOLUTELY no advantages to smoking whatsoever. So why smoke if you get nothing out of it? There's a lot more to the method, but how Easyway (EasyPeasy in our case of porn) works is it removes your desire to use your drug of choice. 

The way that the book EasyPeasy works is that over the course of reading it, it systematically takes all of your beliefs about your drug of choice (porn, Youtube, IG, social media, "non-porn" images and video) and shows how you're not actually getting out of it what you thought you were getting out of it.

Many people may be skeptical and say "Yeah tzaddik'l, we get that you can remove the desire for smoking, but nobody is born with a drive to smoke! Smoking is a needless addiction that people develop later in life. However, we all have a drive to reproduce...am I not supposed to have a sexual drive anymore? How can I remove the desire for something that every human being or even an animal has: a desire to reproduce? How can I remove that desire?

Good question. Obviously you can educate yourself by reading the book, as you would with any other issue in your life. But in response to the question, it's very clear how you can remove the desire for porn (or, youtube, etc) even though we have a sexual drive. 

Porn is not sex.

You don't view the images or videos because of sexual attraction or lust. You do it to get the brief dopamine hit that viewing gives you by hijacking your natural sexual reward center in your brain. All you ever get from it is the brief dopamine boost that you need because of the withdrawal craving from the last time you had a session. To keep the dopamine flooding going, you move from image to image; from video to video; opening multiple tabs and windows; saving content you never end up watching; dancing near the boundary of what you find acceptable and what you find shocking because the more shocking the material the more dopamine you get.

How is that at all related to sexual desire? If you really found the image or the video to be so compelling and the subject to be so beautiful and intoxicating, then all you would ever need is that one image or video for the rest of your life. But it's never enough. It's never even enough for one session. It's never even enough for the first minute of one session. It's not about sex. It might have been about sex the first time, but ask yourself if that's what you're getting out of it now, or are you just perpetuating the cycle of dopamine flooding followed by the comedown, followed by the withdrawal craving, followed by the inevitable next session?

But still, you might say "But the subject of the image/video is so intoxicating, so beautiful! I can't help myself!"

If the subject is so attractive to you, then why go immediately to the next image or video? If the subject is so beautiful, then why are you immediately disgusted when the session is over? Do people look at a beautiful sunrise and then immediately look for a new sunrise to look at? Do they feel disgusted when they're done looking at the sunrise? You're not using porn because of your sexual drive – porn kills sexual drive (PIED). Porn isn't beautiful or enjoyable, it's just addictive.

People don't habitually watch porn because they love it. They don't do it because they decided to or chose to. They do it because they were lured into the trap, and now they're stuck. It's a subtle trap that millions have fallen for.

Good news! It's easy to climb out of the trap of addiction when you know how. It's even enjoyable! You don't have to suffer if you don't want to. If any of the things you've read resonated with you and you're interested in learning more, I'd recommend reading the book, an open source project available for free with no signup online on a mobile friendly website or as a pdf here:

easypeasymethod.org

easypeasymethod.org/easypeasy.pdf

ihadstringsbutnowimfree wrote on 08 Oct 2021 12:34:

Not sure if Poshuteh has checked in recently. 

ihadstringsbutnowimfree,
Can you possibly share how this has helped you and did you succeed to hit the 90 day clean bench mark?

I don't count days anymore. If my plan is to never PMO ever again, who cares how many days it's been since my last time? If I do have a lapse in non-porn use and have a session, I can just examine where I went wrong, clarify what caused me to have a session, and move on, a happy non-user of pornography. A lapse would be unfortunate, but not the end of the world and I know how to deal with lapses.

Here's how this has helped me. In the past, I would be struggling against my desires, using willpower to stay abstinent from porn use. Part of me knew it was bad for me physically, mentally and spiritually, but part of me also really wanted the (perceived) benefits I was getting from using, like stress relief, relaxation, relief from boredom, sexual gratification, etc.

Now that I've read the book a few times and really understand how the method works, I've systematically worked through every benefit I thought I was getting from porn use, and I realize now how I wasn't really getting any benefit at all from porn. So now, instead of struggling against my desire for porn, I just have no desire for porn. I do get cravings, but it's easy to deal with a craving for something that you have no desire for. The cravings get less and less with time, as well.

I also no longer see my addiction as some flaw in my willpower or morality. I just see myself as someone who wasn't aware of the trap, fell in the trap, spent a long time in the trap, and now is free of the trap. People may be skeptical, but that's fine.

If any of that sounds too good to be true, just remember: the mindset of "porn doesn't do anything for me, and is only harmful" is exactly how non-users of porn or any drug view it. I see smoking, drinking, and drugs exactly that way: it's harmful to me, is addictive, and offers me no benefit at all. It's only users who feel that they're getting a benefit from their drug of choice.

What I am is a happy non-user. If you've been abstinent from porn or whatever (youtube, etc) for a while but still feel like you're missing out on the "fun", I'd recommend reading the book and you'll no longer feel that way. Ask yourself: are you going to struggle for the rest of your life? Are you going to "suffer" and "survive" for the rest of your life? Don't you want to move forward already? Just my thoughts.

ihadstringsbutnowimfree wrote on 10 Oct 2021 14:46:

Why should anyone be skeptical? The idea is sound. It can remove some of the pressure. 

But the header is still misleading where you advertise and easy method to get clean, yet on the other hand it hasn’t helped you to get fully clean… So I’m confused. 

I think what Markz is trying to ask is are you you a happy and clean guy? Or are you just a happy guy (because you don't stress about being clean)?

ihadstringsbutnowimfree wrote on 08 Oct 2021 20:11:

I don't get disgusted after a porn session.
I save tabs and look at them again.
Porn is beautiful and enjoyable for me, especially the kind I like.
[Personally, I have a hunch that this whole dopamine business is a load of crock, but maybe not.]

Oh well, not every method will work for everyone.

I understand what the point you are making. 
However, i dont understand how you get around the fact that whatever chemical watching porn or being aroused, releases, feels very good and it creates a craving. I can tell myself till tomorrow that its not real and everything but the blissful feeling is real and that what addictions do. Same way a drug addict cant just convince themselves that its not real. because  the pleasure is very real. I have very strong filters everywhere and im planning on never looking at any type of indecency anywhere. I havent seen anything bad in months. But when i come in contact with a unfiltered device or anything that i used to use for pleasure back in the day, i still get a surge of pleasure in my heart and my pulse increases for a few seconds and then i move on. But i dont now how to rewqire my brain to forget that pleasure that i used to have.

It's very interesting that the easy peasy method requires a 108-page tome.

I know excellent, powerful tools to control my lust. This is more than most people can claim. But once I mastered these tools I hit the original problem (what they call psychic pain) and I decided that I want to develop an addiction or die, because the root cause of it all is absolutely intolerable.

I also realized that my entire life has been pivoting around my addiction. Addiction is not just an attitude and a distortion, it's an entire mind, a personality. Trying to control that person, while technically succesful, was not a good goal, and I hurt a lot of people very badly while I tinkered with it. That is why I joined SA. It's the way I would view God and the world if I could live my life all over again.

But I believe that most people are not like me. They can end the compulsion using mental tools.