These were the real eye openers for me:Chapter 11 - The Willpower Method
It’s an accepted fact in society that it’s very difficult to stop watching porn. Books and forums advising you on how to stop usually begin by emphasizing how challenging it is. But the truth is, it’s ridiculously easy. It’s understandable to question that statement, but first, just consider it. If your goal is to run a mile in four minutes, that’s difficult, and you’ll need years of hard training, and even then, you might be physically incapable.
However, all you have to do to stop watching porn is to simply stop—don’t watch it and/or masturbate anymore. Nobody forces you to masturbate (apart from yourself), and unlike food or water, it isn’t necessary for survival. So, if you want to stop, why should it be difficult? In fact, it isn’t. It’s the users who make it difficult for themselves through the use of willpower or methods that make them feel like they’re sacrificing something. Let’s consider these methods.
We don’t decide to become users; we merely experiment with porn websites, and because they’re awful (that’s right, awful), apart from the clip we’re seeking, we convince ourselves that we can stop whenever we want.
At first, we watch those first few clips when we want to, usually on special occasions. Before we realize it, we’re not only visiting those sites regularly and masturbating when we want, but we’re masturbating to them daily. Porn becomes a part of our lives, ensuring we need an internet connection wherever we go. We then feel entitled to orgasms and the stress- relieving properties of porn. It doesn’t occur to us that the same clips and actors no longer provide the same level of arousal, and we begin fighting against the urge to avoid "bad porn." In reality, masturbation and internet porn neither improve our sex lives nor reduce stress— users simply believe they can’t enjoy life or handle stress without an orgasm.
It usually takes a long time to realize that we’re hooked because we’re under the illusion that users watch porn because they enjoy it, not because they need to. When we’re not "enjoying" porn, which we can never truly do unless novelty, shock, or escalation is added, we believe we can stop whenever we want. This is a confidence trap: “I don’t enjoy porn, so I can stop when I want to.” But the truth is, you never seem to "want" to stop.
It’s not until we actually try to stop that we realize there’s a problem.
Regardless of the reason, the user always waits for a stressful situation. As soon as they stop, the little monster starts getting hungry. The user then seeks something to pump their dopamine, such as cigarettes, alcohol, or their favorite—internet porn, with their favorites
just a click away. The porn cache is no longer in the basement; it’s virtual and accessible from anywhere. If their partner is around or they’re with friends, they no longer have access to their virtual harem, making them even more distressed.
If the user has come across scientific material or online communities, they’ll be engaged in a tug-of-war in their mind, resisting temptations and feeling deprived. Their usual way to relieve stress is now unavailable, suffering a triple blow. The probable result of this period of torture is compromise: “I’ll cut down” or “I’ve picked the wrong time” or perhaps, “I’ll wait until the stress has gone from my life.” However, once the stress has gone, there’s no reason to stop, and the user doesn’t decide to quit again until the next stressful time.
Of course, there’s never a right time because life for most people becomes more stressful. We leave the protection of our parents, enter the world of setting up homes, taking on mortgages, having children, and more responsible jobs. Regardless, the user’s life cannot become less stressful because porn actually causes stress. The quicker the user passes into the escalation stage, the more distressed they become, and the greater the illusion of dependency grows.
In fact, it’s an illusion that life becomes more stressful, and porn—or a similar crutch— creates that illusion. This will be discussed in greater detail later. After these initial failures, the user usually relies on the hope that one day they’ll wake up and just not want to masturbate or use porn anymore. This hope is usually fueled by stories from other ex-users: “I wasn’t serious until I had a fading penetration, then I didn’t want to use porn anymore and stopped masturbating.”
Don’t kid yourself. Probe these rumors, and you’ll discover they’re never quite as simple as they seem. Usually, the user has already been preparing to stop and merely used the incident as a springboard. More often, in cases where people stop “just like that,” they’ve suffered a shock—a discovery by their partner, a self-spotting incident of accessing porn that’s not of their normal sexual orientation, or a scare they had themselves.
“That’s just the sort of person I am.” Stop kidding yourself. It won’t happen unless you make it happen.
Let’s consider in greater detail why the willpower method is so difficult. For most of our lives, we adopt the head-in-the-sand “I’ll stop tomorrow” approach. At odd times, something will trigger an attempt to stop. It may be concerns about health, virility, or a bout of self-analysis that leads us to realize we don’t actually enjoy it.
Whatever the reason, we start weighing the pros and cons of porn. Sex is split into sensory (touch, smell, voice) and propagative (orgasm)—this is one of the major keys in opening our minds. Without this important distinction, there will be confusion, which leads to failure. Upon rational assessment, we realize what we’ve known our entire lives: the conclusion is a thousand times over: "STOP WATCHING IT!"
If you were to sit down and give points to the advantages of stopping and compare them to the advantages of watching porn, the total point count for stopping would far outweigh any "disadvantages." If you employ Pascal’s Wager, by quitting you’re losing almost nothing, with high chances of gains and a higher chance of not losing. Although the user knows that they’ll be better off as a non-user, the belief that they’re making a sacrifice trips them up. Although it’s an illusion, it’s powerful. They don’t know why, but the user believes that during the good and bad times of life, the sessions seem to help. Even before they attempt to stop, societal brainwashing, reinforced by the brainwashing of their own addiction, is combined with the even more powerful brainwashing of how difficult it is to "give up."
Hearing stories from those who’ve stopped for many months but still desperately crave, and accounts of disgruntled quitters—having stopped but spending the rest of their lives lamenting their desire for a session—reinforces the belief.
Tales of users who stopped for many months or years, living happy lives only to have one "peek" at porn and suddenly get hooked again. They probably know several people in the advanced stages of addiction, visibly destroying themselves and clearly not enjoying life— but continuing to use. Additionally, they’ve probably suffered one or more of those experiences themselves.
So instead of starting with the feeling, “Great! Have you heard the news? I don’t need to watch porn anymore!” they begin with feelings of doom and gloom—as if trying to climb Everest—feeling like once the little monster has its hooks in, they’re hooked for life.
Assume the user survives a few days without a session; they’re regaining their arousal and starting to recover. They haven’t opened their favorite porn sites and are consequently getting aroused by normal stimuli they’d previously ignored. The reasons they decided to stop in the first place are rapidly disappearing from their thoughts, like seeing a bad road accident while driving. It slows you down for a while, but the next time you’re late for an appointment, you stomp on the throttle again.
On the other side of the war is the little monster who still hasn’t had its fix. There’s no physical pain—if you had the same feeling because of a cold, you wouldn’t stop working or
get depressed; you’d laugh it off. All the user knows is they want to visit their harem. The little monster knows this and starts up the big brainwashing monster, causing the same person who was a few hours or days earlier listing all the reasons to stop, to now desperately search for any excuse to start again. They begin saying things like:
• “Life is too short; a bomb could go off, I could step under a bus tomorrow. I’ve left it too late. They tell you everything gives you an addiction nowadays.”
• “I’ve picked the wrong time.”
• “I should have waited until after my vacation, after tests, after this stressful event in my life.”
• “I can’t concentrate; I’m getting irritable and bad-tempered; I can’t even do my job properly.”
• “I’m an addict, and there’s no way I’ll ever be happy again without an orgasm.”
• “Nobody can survive without sex.” (Brainwashed by well-meaning people who don’t consider the distinction between the sensory and propagative parts of sex).
• “I knew this would happen, my brain is ‘sensitized’ by DeltaFosB due to changes affected by dopamine surges from my past excessive porn use. Sensitization can ‘never’ be removed from the brain.”
At this stage, the user usually gives in. Firing up the browser, the schizophrenia increases. On one hand, there’s tremendous relief as the little monster finally gets its fix; on the other hand, the orgasm is awful, and the user can’t understand why they’re doing it. This is why the user thinks they lack willpower. In fact, it’s not a lack of willpower—they’ve simply changed their mind and made a perfectly rational decision in light of the latest information.
“What’s the point of being healthy or rich if you’re miserable?”
Absolutely none! It’s far better to have a shorter, enjoyable life than a lengthy, miserable one. Fortunately, this is untrue for the non-user, as life is infinitely more enjoyable. The misery the user is suffering isn’t due to withdrawal pangs—though initially triggered by them—the actual agony comes from the tug-of-war in the mind caused by doubt and uncertainty. Because the user starts by feeling they’re making a sacrifice, they begin to feel deprived, a form of stress.
One of these stressful times is when the brain tells them to “have a peek”—wanting to backtrack as soon as they stop. But because they’ve stopped, they can’t, which makes them even more depressed and sets the trigger off again. Another factor making quitting so difficult is waiting for something to happen. If your objective is passing a driving test, as soon as you’ve passed, it’s clear whether you’ve achieved your objective.
Under the willpower method, the internal narrative is: “If I can go long enough without internet porn, the urge to watch it will eventually go.” You can see this in practice in online forums where addicts talk about their streaks or days of abstinence.
As mentioned earlier, the agony the user undergoes is mental and caused by uncertainty. Although there’s no physical pain, it still has powerful effects. Now miserable and insecure, the user is far from forgetting, full of doubts and fears.
• “How long will the craving last?”
• “Will I ever be happy again?”
• “Will I ever want to get up in the morning?”
• “How will I ever cope with stress in the future?”
The user is waiting for things to improve, but while they’re still moping, the "harem" is becoming ever more precious. In fact, something is happening unconsciously. If they can survive weeks without opening the browser, the craving for the little monster disappears. However, as stated previously, the pangs of withdrawal from dopamine and opioids are so mild that the user isn’t even aware of them. At this time, many users sense they’ve "kicked it," so they take a peek to prove it, sending them down the water slide. Having supplied dopamine to the body, a little voice at the back of their mind says, “You want another one.” In fact, they’d kicked it, but they’ve hooked themselves again.
As a child, you watched cartoons, and according to neuroscience, you formed neural pathways (DeltaFosB) for them. If you wanted to discourage a child from watching, you’d study if those pathways still existed and survey adults on why they don’t like watching their favorite childhood cartoons anymore. For one, there’s better entertainment available, and secondly, the cartoons just don’t hold the magic anymore. With the willpower method, you’re just denying the child the cartoon, but with EasyPeasy, you’re also making sure they see no value in it. Which is better?
The user won’t usually jump into another session immediately, thinking, “I don’t want to get hooked again!” and allows a safe period of hours, days, or even weeks. The ex-user can then say, “Well, I didn’t get hooked, so I can safely have another session.” They’ve fallen back into the same trap they were in when they first started and are already on the slippery slope.
Users who succeed with the willpower method tend to find it long and difficult because the primary problem is the brainwashing. Long after the physical addiction has subsided, the user still feels miserable. Eventually, after surviving this long-term torture, it begins to dawn on them that they aren’t going to give in, stopping the moping and accepting that life goes on
and is enjoyable without porn. There are significantly more failures than successes, and some who succeed live in a vulnerable state, left with a certain amount of brainwashing telling them that porn does, in fact, give them a boost. This explains why many users who’ve stopped for long periods end up starting again later on.
Many ex-users will have the occasional session as a “special treat” or to convince themselves of how strong their self-control is. It does exactly that—but as soon as their session ends, the dopamine starts to leave, and a little voice at the back of their mind begins driving them toward another one. If they decide to partake, it still seems under control—no shocks, escalation, or novelty-seeking—so they say, “Marvellous! While I’m not really enjoying it, I won’t get hooked. After this holiday, after this stressful event, I’ll stop.” Little do they know, the water slides of their brain have been greased even more.
Too late. They’re already hooked! The trap they managed to claw their way out of has claimed its victim again.
As mentioned earlier, enjoyment doesn’t come into it. It never did! If we watched because of enjoyment, nobody would stay on the tube sites longer than it takes to finish the deed. Regardless, a better way to self-pleasure is from memories. We assume we enjoy internet porn only because we can’t believe we’d be stupid enough to get addicted if we didn’t enjoy it. Most users don’t have any idea about supernormal stimuli, novelty, or shock-seeking, and even after reading about it, don’t believe their use is motivated by repeated reward circuit wiring. That’s why so much of porn is subconscious. If you were aware of the neurological changes and had to justify it costing you money in the future, even the illusion of enjoyment would disappear.
When we try to block our minds from the bad side, we feel stupid. If we had to face it, that would be intolerable!
If you watch a user in action, you’ll see they’re happy only when they’re unaware they’re using. Once they’re aware, they tend to be uncomfortable and apologetic. Porn feeds the little monster, so when you purge it from your body, along with the brainwashing (big monster), you’ll have neither need nor desire to watch!
Chapter 12 - Beware of Cutting Down
Many users resort to cutting down as a stepping stone toward stopping or as an attempt to control the "little monster." Some even recommend cutting down or following a "porn diet" as a pick-me-up. However, using cutting down as a stepping stone to stopping is a trap. These attempts to cut down often keep us trapped for the rest of our lives.
Typically, cutting down follows failed attempts to stop. After a few hours or days of abstinence, the user may think:
"I can't face the thought of going to sleep without visiting my online harem, so from now on, I’ll only use porn once every four days or purge my collection of ‘bad porn.’ If I can stick to this porn diet, I’ll either hold steady or cut down even further."
At this point, certain terrible things happen:
1. They’re stuck with the worst of all worlds—still addicted to internet porn, keeping the monster alive not only in their body but also in their mind.
2. They start wishing their life away, waiting for the next session.
Before cutting down, whenever they wanted to visit their harem, they’d fire up their browser and at least partially relieve their withdrawal pangs. Now, in addition to the normal stresses of life, they’re causing themselves to suffer withdrawal pangs most of the time, making them even more miserable and bad-tempered.
While indulging, they neither enjoyed most of the sessions nor realized they were using supernormal stimulus. It was automatic—the only time they truly "enjoyed" a visit was after a period of abstinence. Now, they wait an extra hour for each visit, and each one seems to "enjoy" it more. The longer they wait, the more "enjoyable" each session appears, because the "enjoyment" isn't from the session itself—it’s the relief from the craving, whether it’s physical or mental. The longer the suffering, the more "enjoyable" each session becomes.
The primary difficulty in stopping isn’t the neurological addiction—it’s the illusion of entitlement. Users feel that internet porn is a prop or a reward, and that life will never be the same without it. All that cutting down does is leave users feeling insecure and miserable, convincing them that the most precious thing in the world is the new clip they missed and that they’ll never be happy again without seeing it.
There’s nothing more pathetic than a user who’s been trying to cut down, suffering from the delusion that the less porn they watch, the less they’ll want to visit online harems. The
reverse is true—the less they watch, the longer they suffer withdrawal pangs, and the more they "enjoy" the relief of relieving them.
However, they may notice their favorite genre isn’t hitting the spot. But that won’t stop them. If porn sites were dedicated to only one star or genre, no user would ever visit more than once.
Difficult to believe? What’s the worst moment of self-control? Waiting four days and then having a climax. And what’s the most precious moment for most users on a four-day porn diet? That’s right—the same climax after waiting four days! Do you really believe you’re masturbating to enjoy the orgasm? Or is it more rational to think that you’re relieving withdrawal pangs under the illusion of entitlement?
Removing the brainwashing is essential. You must remove the illusion that you enjoy porn. Unless you’ve removed that illusion, you can’t prove it afterward without getting hooked again.
When hovering over bookmarks or saved pictures, ask yourself: Where’s the glory in this action? Perhaps you believe only certain clips are in good taste—those that align with your habitual or favorite themes. But if that’s the case, why do you bother watching other videos or themes? Because you’ve gotten into the habit?
Why would anyone habitually mess up their brain and waste themselves? Nothing is different after a month—why should a porn clip be any different?
Test it yourself. Find that hot clip from last month and prove it’s different. Then, set a reminder and watch the same clip after a month without porn. It will hit (almost) the same spots as it did last month. The same clip will feel different after a social event where you were turned down or tested by a potential partner.
Why? Because the addict can never be fully happy if the little monster remains unsatisfied.
Where does satisfaction come in? It’s just that they’re miserable if they can’t relieve their withdrawal symptoms. The difference between watching porn and not is the difference between being happy and miserable. That’s why internet porn appears to be "better." Meanwhile, users who go to these sites first thing in the morning for porn are miserable whether they watch it or not.
Cutting down not only doesn’t work—it’s the worst form of torture.
It doesn’t work because, initially, the user hopes that by reducing their visits over time, they’ll reduce their desire for porn. But it’s not a habit—it’s addiction. The nature of any addiction is wanting more and more, not less and less.
Therefore, in order to cut down, the user has to exercise willpower and discipline for the rest of their lives. Cutting down means willpower and discipline forever. Stopping is far easier and less painful.
The problem with stopping isn’t the dopamine addiction, which is easy to cope with. It’s the mistaken belief that porn gives you pleasure—a belief that was formed through brainwashing before we started using it, and reinforced by the addiction itself. All cutting down does is further reinforce this fallacy until porn dominates the user’s life and convinces them that the most precious thing on earth is their addiction.
The few cases that succeed with cutting down have done so by a relatively short period of cutting down, followed by going "cold turkey." These users stopped in spite of cutting down, not because of it. Cutting down only prolonged the agony, leaving them as nervous wrecks, even more convinced they’re hooked for life. This often leads them back to their online harem for pleasure and crutch—or sets them up for another failed attempt.
However, cutting down does help illustrate the futility of porn. It clearly shows that visits to the harem aren’t enjoyable after periods of abstinence. You have to bang your head against a brick wall (suffer withdrawal pangs) in order to make it "nice" upon stopping.
Therefore, the choices are:
1. Cut down for life and suffer self-imposed torture—which you won’t be able to maintain anyway.
2. Torture yourself more and more for life—which is pointless.
3. Be kind to yourself—and cut it out altogether.
The other thing cutting down demonstrates is that there’s no such thing as the occasional harem visit. Internet porn is a chain reaction that will last your entire life unless you make a positive effort to break it.
Remember: Cutting down will drag you down.
Chapter 13 - Just One Peek
“Just One Peek” Is a Myth That You Must Remove From Your Mind:
• It’s just one peek that gets us started in the first place.
• It’s just one peek to tide us over a difficult patch or a special occasion that defeats most of our attempts to stop.
• It’s just one peek that, after having succeeded in breaking the addiction, sends us back into the trap. Sometimes, it’s just to confirm they don’t need porn anymore, and one harem visit does just that.
The aftereffects of porn will be horrible and convince the user they’ll never become hooked again—but they already are. The user feels that something making them so miserable and guilty shouldn’t have made them do it—yet they did.
It’s the thought of “one special session” that often prevents users from stopping—the one after a long conference trip, a hard day at work, a fight with the kids, or an incident where their partner rejects them for sex. Get it firmly in your mind: there’s no such thing as “just one peek.” It’s a chain reaction that will last the rest of your life unless broken.
The myth about the odd, special occasion keeps users moping after stopping. Get into the habit of never seeing the “no big deal” session—it’s a fantasy. Whenever you think about porn, see a filthy lifetime of spending eons behind a screen for the privilege of destroying yourself mentally and physically—a lifetime of slavery and hopelessness.
It isn’t a crime if your erections are unreliable, but it is when you could be happier long-term but instead choose to sacrifice that for short-term “pleasure.”
It’s okay that we can’t always come up with “something to do” for the void; doing that isn’t realistically possible every time for our entire lives. We can plan for most of them, but sometimes, it just happens. Good and bad times also happen, irrespective of porn. But get it clearly into your mind—porn isn’t it.
You’re stuck with either a lifetime of misery or none at all. You wouldn’t dream of taking cyanide just because you liked the taste of almonds, so stop punishing yourself with the occasional “no big deal” session.
Ask a user with issues, “If you had the opportunity to go back to the time before you became hooked, would you have become a user?” The answer is inevitably, “You’ve got to be joking!”
Yet every user has that choice every day of their life—so why don’t they opt for it? The answer is fear.
The fear that they can’t stop.
The fear that life won’t be the same without it.
Stop Kidding Yourself!
You can do it—anybody can. It’s ridiculously easy, but to make it so, there are certain fundamentals to get clear in your mind:
1. There’s nothing to give up—only marvelous, positive gains to achieve.
2. Never convince yourself of the odd “no big deal” or “just one peek” session. It doesn’t exist. There’s only a lifetime of filth and slavery.
3. There’s nothing different about you—any user can find it easy to stop.
Many users believe they’re confirmed addicts or have addictive personalities. This usually happens as a result of reading excessive amounts of shocking neuroscience.
There’s no such thing.
Nobody is born with the need to masturbate to video clips before they became hooked. It’s the drug that hooks you, not your character or personality. The nature of addictive supernormal stimuli makes you believe this is the case.
However, it’s essential to remove this belief—because if you believe you’re addicted, you will be, even after the little monster in your body is long dead.
It’s essential to remove all of this brainwashing.
Warning: Spoiler!