I Will Save X Hours a Week
I cannot repeat too often that it is brainwashing that makes it difficult to stop PMOing. So, the more brainwashing we can dispel before we start, the easier you will find it to achieve your goal. Occasionally I get into arguments with people whom I call “confirmed PMOers.” By my definition a confirmed PMOer is somebody who doesn’t believe PMO has any negative effect on his health (PME, PIED and hypofrontality etc.) and is not having a mental tug of war. Most times he’d be a younger guy or a single but with an occasional sex partner. Thus the internal feedback is lost due to the nature of their youth and or it is too infrequent to be observed and registered.
If he is a young man, I’d rather say to him, “I cannot believe you are not worried about the time you are spending.” Usually his eyes light up. If I had attacked him instead on health grounds or on the social stigma, he would feel at a disadvantage which will trigger resistance from him. But on time…
“Oh, I can afford it. It is only x hours per week and I think it is worth it. It is my only vice or pleasure.”
“I still cannot believe you are not worried about the time spent. Say at a minimum half an hour a day on an average including the physical ‘drain’ time of dopamine withdrawals, you are spending approximately one full working day of 8 hours every fortnight. Half an hour a day is a very conservative estimate you would agree. And in a year that will add up to a working month. Have you thought about how much time you are going to spend in your lifetime? What are you doing with that time? You are not even developing real relationships? No, your favourite porn star does not have sympathy for you just because you spent that much time on her site - you are throwing it away! Not only that, you are actually using that time to ruin your physical health, to destroy your nerves and confidence, to suffer a lifetime of slavery, pain, stress, melancholy and peevishness. Surely that must worry you?”
It is apparent at this point, particularly with younger PMOers, that they have never considered it a lifetime habit. Occasionally they work out the time they waste in a week and that is alarming. Very occasionally (and only when they think about stopping) they estimate what they spend in a year and that is frightening but over a lifetime it is unthinkable. However, because now we are in an argument, the confirmed PMOer will impulsively say, “I can afford it. It is only so much a week.” He pulls an “encyclopedia salesman” routine on himself.
Will you refuse a job offer which pays you your current annual salary and also gives you a month off every year? Any PMOer would sign up for this job offer in a heartbeat and would get busy finding vacation deals to exotic places. Figuring out how to spend one full month with no work would be the biggest problem that he now has to solve.
In every discussion with a confirmed PMOer - and please bear in mind I am not now talking to someone like yourself who plans to stop, I am talking to someone who has no intention of stopping - nobody has ever taken me up on that offer. Why not?
Often at this point in my consultation, a confirmed PMOer will say, “look, I am not really worried about the money aspect.” If you are thinking along these lines, ask yourself why you are not worried. Why in other aspects of your life will you go to a great deal of trouble to save a few dollars here and there but yet spend thousands of dollars killing your happiness and hang the expense?
The answer to these questions is this: every other decision that you make in your life will be the result of an analytical process of weighing up the pros and cons and arriving at a rational answer. It may be the wrong answer but at least it will be the result of rational deduction. Whenever any PMOer weighs up the pros and cons of using internet porn, the answer is a dozen times over: “STOP PMOing! YOU ARE A MUG!” Therefore all PMOers are using not because they want to or because they decided to but because they think they cannot stop. They have to and need to brainwash themselves. They have to and need to keep their heads in the sand.
The strange thing is many men would pay good money for gym and personal trainers to build their muscles and look sculpted. Other treatments such as boosting testosterone with dubious and sometimes dangerous effects are tried out by many men in their real (and imaginary) desperation. Yet, there are many men in that group who would save money and risks by stopping a practice that systematically not only destroys their manhood but also affects their brain’s natural relaxation system.
This is because they are still thinking with the brainwashed mind of the PMOer. Just take the sand out of your eyes for a moment. Internet porn is a chain reaction and a chain for life. If you do not break that chain, you will remain a user for the rest of your life. Now estimate how much time you think you will spend on PMOing for the rest of your life. The amount will obviously vary with each individual but for the purpose of this exercise let us assume it is a year and half of work hours. You will shortly be making the decision to use your final session (not yet, please - remember the initial instructions). All you have to do to remain a non-PMOer is NOT to fall for the trap again. That is, do not PMO and consciously avoid having “just a peek.” If you do, that one peek will cost you a year and half of your work life. If you think this is a trick way of looking at it, you are still kidding yourself. Just work out how much time you would have saved if you had not taken your very first ‘peek’ right at the start.
If you see the argument as factual, ask yourself how you would feel if there were a cheque from your state’s lotto for a year and half worth of your current salary lying on your carpet tomorrow? You’d be dancing with delight! So start dancing! You are about to start receiving that bonus and that’s just one of the several fantastic gains you are about to receive.
During the withdrawal period you may be tempted to have just one final ‘look’. It will help you to resist the temptation if you remind yourself it will cost you one year’s worth of your peak annual salary (or whatever your estimate is)! I could be making that offer on television and radio programmes yet I bet no-one will take it.
If you are mentoring someone online for his PMO addiction tell him that he knows someone who has refused a job offer that pays his current annual salary and also gives him a full month’s of PTO. When he ask who that idiot is, tell him, “you!” I know it’s rude but you may sometimes need to get your point across in a less-than-polite way.