I had a fall after 21 days yesterday. Here's a few thoughts I had.

The bottom line is that porn is junk food, plain and simple. All of the methods and tactics we use are helpful but are mere bandaids. Truly happy satisfied people don't turn to this garbage.

I recently met an older man who had such a sweet and earnest demeanor. I don't know him personally but I can bet my bottom dollar he's a happy individual. I bet he wouldn't struggle like I do because he's much moe fulfilled. I don't think he'd see the appeal in pornography the way I do.

it's obviously much harder to bear the responsibility of life and pain than it is to look at nude women. I think this is is self evident. If we can only reframe the struggle wed be able play the long game.

I had an employee that was a recovering heroin addict and he finally found a frum guy to give him a real job. He was so greatful and happy to be able to enter the real world of functioning people. He expressed to me how glad he was to be on a legitimate path in life. Were all addicts here to some degree. Let's try to reclaim our trajectory.

I also advise watching Jordan Petersons lectures on porn on YouTube, they're very depe and helpful. Here's a small clip:

I know lots of happy and fulfilled people who eat junk food.

i also know a lot of happy, satisfied people, who watch porn.

it seems we have entered the instant coffee generation to the 100th degree. folks not so interested in really working on their issues, so instead they develop/manufacture/fabricate all types of easy fixes, such as the "five-minute-self-talk-in-the-mirror-in-your-undies" method, or the easy-peasy app, or the "porn is junk food" shpiel, or "listen to the schmooooze while you're on the spin in a tri-mixed gender gym" workout. learning mussar, talking to a live person, SA, F2F, therapists - way too difficult.

now, so i don't get all the fellows yelling that i am bashing progress (although you can bring it on if you like), please see this disclaimer: do whatever speaks to you, continue progressing no matter what, try out whatever you'd like, or do nothing at all; this is an open forum and i'm simply expressing my opinion.

and one more disclaimer: currently, i am worse than those fellows mentioned above. yes, i did spend years with the difficult work and there was a lot of success and a true mindset change, but some behaviors i fell back into occasionally, and now i'm too tired for any method, although i'm one month past any antics (hey, how will you be celebrating? l'chayim! we're rooting for you in Lutzk (if that hasn't been bombarded yet), buy an ice cream sundae coffee (oops, that's junk food), take someone's wife out to eat, etc.), but i'd rather just coast.

so there

nauru (none of your business today where exactly; last time i caught someone snooping around the phosphate mines looking for trouble)

I appreciate your response and disagreement.

I wasn't trying to come up with an easy fix to the issue - I'm merely saying the struggle isn't "local" - I'm advocating for a macro view, not a micro view.

There are varying degrees to porn watching. I still haven't masturbated in 11 years. I occasionally glance at nude photos online, not videos. For me, this isn't "clinical" for lack of a better term. In my realm, I think this approach can and is appropriate.

There is no question that one who is content and finds fulfillment in life will have an easier time turning away and resisting the temptation, unless of course he's become addicted. 

What you are saying has tremendous validity. Sometimes a person needs to recognize that right now is just not the right time. That doesn’t mean you don’t want to fight it just means that you need to have some downtime to regroup.

One cannot expect a struggle of this magnitude to be easy and if you don’t have the motivation to enter into a battle It is difficult to imagine that much progress can be made.

However once a person is motivated to jump in and keeps at it, there can be tremendous siyaata dshmaya and sometimes it becomes much less difficult than expected.