Energy
Most PMOers are aware of the effect that this progressive process of PMO, leading to novelty and escalation seeking, has on their brain’s reward circuits and their sexual system. However, they are not so aware of the effect it has on their energy level.
One of the subtleties of the PMO trap is that the effects it has on us, both physical and mental, happen so gradually and imperceptibly that we are not aware of them and regard them as normal. It is very similar to the effects of bad eating habits. The pot-belly appears so gradually that it causes us no alarm. We look at people who are grossly overweight and wonder how they could possibly have allowed themselves to reach that state.
But supposing it happened overnight. You went to bed weighing 140 lbs, trim, rippling with muscles and not an ounce of fat on your body. You awoke weighing 180 lbs, fat, bloated and pot-bellied. Instead of waking up feeling fully rested and full of energy, you wake up feeling miserable, lethargic and you can hardly open your eyes. You would be panic-stricken, wondering what awful disease you had contracted overnight. Yet the disease is exactly the same.
The fact that it took you twenty years to reach that state is irrelevant. So it is with PMOing. If I could immediately transfer you into your mind and body to give you a direct comparison on how you would feel having stopped internet porn for just three weeks, that is all I would need to do to persuade you to quit. You would think: “Will I really feel this good?” Or what it really amounts to: “Had I really sunk that low?” I emphasize that I don’t just mean that you would feel healthier and have more energy but how you would also feel more confident and relaxed and better able to concentrate.
As a teenager, I can remember rushing around just for the hell of it. I was interested in reading, I had set up a chemical lab, tried fixing (old CRT) TVs, dabbled with cooking etc. I was fascinated by scientists. Then I got attracted to makers and doers of the rag-to-riches lives of real people. I had the inner push and I knew I had it.
I then was introduced to print porn, then came music TV channels, followed by static computer images. By this time I was permanently tired and lethargic. Then came internet porn of images and downloadable movies. I used to struggle to wake up at nine o’clock in the morning. After my evening meal I would already be thinking about porn before going to bed, even when I had a girlfriend. Sex with her was a ‘chore’. But PMO with internet porn had all the novelty, shock, etc. No one can match that lure. And then the internet upped its game with tube sites, catalogued porn genres, ‘hearting’ favorites and all in lightning speed, high quality, no traces of downloads. Even the browsers went incognito, thoroughly helping me to cover my tracks. Reward with no pains.
By this time, the lack of energy, tiredness and everything related to it is nicely swept under the rug of ‘getting’ older. My friends and colleagues by this time are all living sedentary lifestyles. I thought this behaviour was normal. I believed that energy was the exclusive prerogative of children and teenagers, and that old age began in the early twenties. I did not notice that I was paying attention to my health in general by eating right - which they did not. But I did not notice that anomaly.
Shortly after I stopped PMO, I was relieved that this foggy and muggy feeling left me. For example, I can keep a steady gaze with my eyes on just about anything for a longer time. If I am looking into someone’s eyes it is even longer. However something truly marvellous and unexpected also happened. I started waking at seven o’clock in the morning feeling completely rested and full of energy, actually wanting to exercise, jog and swim. I have read about a forty-eight year old who couldn’t run a step or swim a stroke. The only sporting activities were confined to such dynamic pursuits as green bowling, affectionately referred to as “the old man’s game,” and golf, for which he had to use a motorized cart. But after quitting PMO he started going to gym - not that it is necessary that everyone would - but still. Almost all us know that it’s great to have energy and when you feel physically and mentally strong, it feels great to be alive.
That is the point with PMOing - you are always debiting your energy. And in that process tampering with your brain codes of the reward circuit. Which again is going to make you miserable and vulnerable to stress and strain attacks. Unfortunately when you feel down with all of this you will seek a cigarette or alcohol or again porn. Unlike quitting smoking, where the return of your physical and mental health is only gradual, quitting PMO gives you excellent results from day one. Starting with energy. Then your mental programming to close the ‘water slides’ takes a bit of time. You need to kill the Little Monster - which will be explained in later chapters. Recovering your RC is nothing like as slow as the slide into the pit and if you are going through the trauma of the willpower method of quitting, any health or energy gains will be obliterated by the depression you will be going through. Unfortunately, I cannot immediately transfer you into your mind and body in three weeks’ time. But you can! You know instinctively that what I am telling you is correct. All you need to do is: USE YOUR IMAGINATION!