03-03 Why Is It Difficult to Stop?

Why Is It Difficult to Stop?

As I explained earlier, I got interested in this subject because of my own addiction. When I finally stopped it was like magic. When I had previously tried to stop there were weeks of black depression. There would be odd days when I was comparatively cheerful but the next day back with the depression. It was like clawing your way out of a slippery pit, you feel you are near the top, you see the sunshine and then find yourself sliding down again. Eventually you open your browser and as you masturbate you feel awful and you try to work out why you have to do it.

One of the questions I always ask online is: “do you want to stop PMO?” In a way it is a stupid question. All users (including members who dispute total abstinence) would love to stop PMO. If you ask to the most confirmed PMOer: “if you could go back to the time before you became hooked, with the knowledge you have now, would you have started PMO?”

“NO WAY,” would be the reply.

Say to the confirmed PMOer - someone who defends internet porn and who doesn’t think that it cause injury to the brain (PIED, hypofrontality or the decreases in the dopamine receptors and etc.) - “do you encourage your children to use PMO?”

“NO WAY,” is again the reply.

All PMOers feel that something evil has got possession of them. In the early days it is a question of, “I am going to stop, not today but tomorrow.” Eventually we get to the stage where we think either that we haven’t got the willpower or that there is something inherent in the whole PMO that we must have in order to enjoy life.

As I said previously, the problem is not explaining why it is easy to stop; it is explaining why it is difficult. In fact, the real problem is explaining scientifically why anybody does it even after getting the insights on the neurological damages of addictions not limited to porn.

The whole business of porn is an extraordinary enigma. One of the reasons we get on to it is because of the thousands of people are already into it, about 35% of the population approximately. Yet every one of them wishes he or she had not started in the first place, telling us that life is like driving in second gear. We cannot quite believe they are not enjoying it. We associate it with freedom or being “sex-educated” and work hard to become hooked ourselves. We then spend the rest of our lives telling others not to do it and trying to kick the habit ourselves.

We also spend the rest of our lives feeling hopeless and miserable. Time spent on porn can accumulate to a large percentage of our life in this planet! What do we do with that amount of time spent? We ‘educate’ ourselves with supranormal¹ ‘material’ that makes us stupidly prefer and childishly long for these cold images - even when warm real ones are available. By the constant surge and drop of dopamine induced by PMO, we sentence ourselves to a lifetime of irritability, anger, frustration, stress, fatigue², PIED, hypofrontality etc. In short, it is a lifetime of slavery. It is logically and intuitively clear that amative sex (physical touch, feel, voice etc.) is the best part of sex and is even better (if Karezza³ is practiced, although not necessary for the current purposes) than the propagative (orgasm) part, except when children are desired. So, when we use porn in the absence of the best part of sex we feel miserable and guilty.

In fact, all the reading about internet pornography’s addictive capabilities and it’s destructive effects here and in other online sites makes us even more nervous and hopeless. When we are trying to cut down or stop, we end up feeling deprived. We wish we didn’t have to. What sort of hobby is it that when you are doing it you wish you weren’t, and when you are not doing it you crave for it? A lifetime of an otherwise intelligent, rational human being going through life in contempt.

The PMOer despises himself, every time he has an unreliable erection, a fading penetration, reading about PIED and other stuff on the YBOP forum, every time he could not pull himself up to exercise after a daytime PMO, every PMO behind his or her trustfully asleep partner’s back, every time he sees his tired face and lifeless eyes in the restroom mirror.

Having to go through life with these awful black shadows at the back of his mind, what does he get out of it? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING! Pleasure? Enjoyment? Relaxation? A prop? A boost? All illusions, unless you consider the wearing of tight shoes to enjoy the removal of them as some sort of pleasure!

The real problem is trying to explain not only why PMOers find it difficult to stop but why anybody does it at all after knowing about brain neuroplasticity. You are probably thinking: “That’s all very well. I know this, but once you are hooked on these things it is very difficult to stop.” But why is it so difficult, and why do we have to do it? Addicts of PMO search for the answer to these questions all of their lives. Some say it is because of the powerful withdrawal symptoms. In fact, the actual withdrawal symptoms from porn are so mild (see Chapter 6) that PMOers should know about smokers who have lived and died without ever realizing they are drug addicts.

Some say internet porn is free and hence humankind should claim this biological bonanza. It is NOT. It is addictive and acts like any other drug. Ask a PMOer who swears that he only enjoys safe playboy type erotica and that he could always restrict himself only to this soft genre? If he is absolutely honest - he would tell you about the many times when he had unwittingly crossed the line. Otherwise good PMOers would rather use ‘unsafe’ hardcore stuff, rationalizing it, than left with nothing at all.

Enjoyment has nothing to do with it. I enjoy lobster but I never got to the stage where I had to have lobsters everyday and multiple times like they are hanging round my neck. With other things in life we enjoy them whilst we are doing them but we don’t sit feeling deprived when we are not. Some search for deep psychological reasons, the “Freudian Syndrome,” or “the child at the mother’s breast.” Really it is just the reverse.

The ‘usual’ reason why we start PMO is to show we are grown up and mature. Some think it is the reverse, the macho effect of “doing what boys do” or in some cases, “let me show I am a tomboy girl,” to rattle my conservative family. Again, this argument has no substance. Internet porn provides easy escalation (outrageous and shocking clips just a click away), desensitization (same clips don’t do it any more) and all this within the high reward no risk settings. The science fiction story lines, the fake “amateurs,” the “real life” clips etc. should make any average PMOer discover pretty soon that it is all an illusion. What a PMOer should also understand is that after eating at restaurants every day the home food will never appeal your taste buds at all. Yes, the food is free and is tasty - but does it nourish you?

Some say:

• “It is educational!” So, when is your graduation?
• “It is a sexual satisfaction.” So, why do it alone? Find a partner and save it for her or him?
• “It is the feeling of release.” A release from the stresses of real life? Porn is going to remove the cause of the stress? OK, good luck. You just added more to it.

Many believe PMO relieves boredom. This is also a fallacy. Boredom is a frame of mind. Porn will induce you to “novelty” seeking in no time. Causing you to be eventually more bored unless and until you participate in the “wild goose chase” all night long for the “right hit” producing clip. There is nothing interesting about supranormal stimulus such as internet porn, it fires up dopamine whose only job is to seek clips that evoke strong emotions, interesting novelty and outrageous shock value.

For thirty years my reason was that it relaxed me, gave me confidence and courage. I also knew it was draining me and costing me virility. Why didn’t I go to a therapist or find an another way to relax me and give me courage and confidence? I didn’t go because I knew he would suggest an alternative. It wasn’t my reason; it was my excuse.

Some say they only do it because their friends and every one they know do it. Are you really that stupid? If so, just pray that your friends do not start cutting their heads off to cure a headache! Most users who think about it eventually come to the conclusion that it is just a habit. This is not really an explanation but having discounted all the usual rational explanations, it appears to be the only remaining excuse. Unfortunately, this explanation is equally illogical. Every day of our lives we change habits and some of them are very enjoyable. We have been brainwashed to believe that PMO is a habit and that habits are difficult to break. Are habits really difficult to break?

In the US we are in the habit of driving on the right side of the road. Yet when we drive in the UK we immediately break that habit with hardly any aggravation whatsoever. It is clearly a fallacy that habits are hard to break. The fact is that we make and break habits every day of our lives. So why do we find it difficult to break a habit that makes us deprived when we don’t have it yet guilty when we do and that we would love to break anyway, when all we have to do is to stop doing it?

The answer is that PMO is not habit: IT IS ADDICTION! That is why it appears to be so difficult to “give up.” Perhaps you feel this explanation explains why it is difficult to “give up?” It does explain why most PMOers find it difficult to “give up.” That is because they do not understand addiction. The main reason is that PMOers are convinced that they get some genuine pleasure and/or crutch from porn and believe that they are making a genuine sacrifice if they quit.

The beautiful truth is that once you understand porn addiction and the true reasons why you PMO, you will stop doing it just like that - and within three weeks the only mystery will be why you found it necessary to PMO as long as you have, and why you cannot persuade other PMOers HOW NICE IT IS TO BE A NON-PMOer!