My Thoughts On Rebooting [EXTREMELY LONG POST]

This is the best post I have ever seen on this subject. Thank You.

 

I agree that the fundamental cause of any addiction, to include porn, is due to a lack of superior coping mechanisms for handling our emotions. Many of my worst relapses were during very depressed times. Sometimes I felt I would intentionally do it to punish myself.

I agree abstinence doesn't equal recovery. Further, MO is actually healthy for the prostate.

However, I have to completely disagree with the statement that having sex with lots of hot women is unrealistic. This statement is so untrue. I discovered YBOP from a Pick Up forum, and what they teach over there made me a machine in the clubs and bars. I went from a 5% close rate to well over 50% depending on the night. If anyone is interested in drastically improving their game, go find a copy of "Magic Bullets". It's worth triple what they charge. There is no reason that even the ugliest guy here cannot have sex with good looking women. It's all about emotional triggers. That said, no man can have a 100% close rate because game is subjective; some women will only date a certain type of guy, and we can't be everything to everyone... but that doesn't beget giving up on hot women.

That said, even being able to spit good game doesn't make you invincible to porn addiction. Hot women don't magically fill some internal void and keep my sex drive satisfied forever; after all, how many times have we heard, in reference to a hot chick that somewhere there is a guy sick of putting up with her shit? The problem (for me) is novelty, and that novely originates from poor self-esteem, from putting some ideal (a woman, a drug, a sexual act) on a pedestal higher than my own self-esteem.

Before porn, it was booze. Before booze, it was drugs. Before drugs, it was cigarettes. Before cigarettes, it was video games. I was born a neurological addict. I've beat porn before, and maybe I'll relapse again, or maybe I will become addicted to something new; the only certainty is that the threat of addiction (to anything) will always be in my life. Vigilant I must be.

 

Thanks theunderdog.

I'll add to this. What most people don't seem to understand is that YBOP is a clearinghouse of information. We report YOUR suggestions. We didn't come up with the "reboot" - the men on reuniting who recovered from PIED invented it. It wasn't days they were after it was results - to resolve DE, ED, weird porn tastes, loss of libido, loss of attraction to partners, etc.

The above were pretty easy to quantify.

Eventually rebooters arrived wanting to resolve seemingly unrelated issues such as social anxiety, low energy, lack of motivation, brain fog.

The above were far less quantifiable.

The goal shifted from fixing sexual issues, to experiencing what life is like without porn. This is what we say in the first paragraph on the rebooting page.

YourBrainOnPorn.com does not have a "porn recovery program." We simply pass along suggestions by men who have recovered from Internet porn addiction, porn-induced ED, and other negative effects of porn use. If you are looking for a set of rules you will not find them - other than: "No artificial sexual stimulation during your reboot." By artificial I mean pixels, audio and literature. If it's not real life, just say 'no.'

As for the suggestions put forth on this site, I encourage you to pick and choose what works for you. Please do not get caught up in, "Am I doing this right?" The goal of rebooting is to discover what you are like without porn in your life. It is you who decide the length and parameters of your reboot, depending on your goals and current situation.

We also link to 3 of theunderdogs insightful rants on the rebooting page. I continuously update the main pages...as new information or insights become available.

It's not that we don't address "issues" or life changes. Our other two main tabs are "tools for change" with all your suggestions about changing your lives. Our "support" has links to many other forums with "programs".

The main complaint about YBOP is that we don't come out and tell you what to do: How long? Should I have sex? Should I masturbate? Should I orgasm during sex? How should I rewire? Should I rewire now or later? Can I fantasize? When am I healed? What should I do after my reboot? Can I masturbate after my reboot? Should I meditate, go to therapy, join a 12 step, should I eat this, take this, think this........

We let you decide everything - it is your life and your experiment.

That said, I do see mindroll's point. Many guys see days as the goal, especially with nofap reinforcing the 90 day thing. I don't have a solution for possible negative experiences of viewing a number as an endpoint, other than placing this thread at the top of the rebooting page.

 

This post is great. We need more content like this. Less bullshiting and complaining and feel good comments every time someone relapses. I personally avoid journals and just read success stories and information/discussion topics. There is no value in reading people hating on themselves...

What really resonates with me is the fact that this is just another part of our journey of self-development. We need to fix everything that isn't the way we like it not just porn and remain realistic while we do it.

Thanks TheUnderdog!

 

Thanks a lot for this post UnderDog. Was a great personal help for myself today. I have a few notes jotted down, and am actually excited about coming up with this life plan.

Thanks again!!

 

Re: My Thoughts On Rebooting

A hundred a thousand a hundred thousand A MILLION BRAVOS for this post, Underdog!

 

Well TheUnderdog, you made me realize how often I just whine about how much my life is fucked up instead of do something about it. I am trully impressed. I'll try to follow your advice.

 

This is 100% truth UD.
The vast majority of people on YBR and all the other no fap/no porn websites all have goals of abstinence, which is pointless and why 95% of them are stuck in a relapse cycle and keep saying "I'll try harder next time"

The real goal of a "rebooter" should be to change their shitty lifestyle, eliminate the triggers in their life, learn to deal with their emotions like a man, then the long periods of sobriety will come all on their own without the reliance on willpower alone.

95% of this community are rebooting backwards, and will never, ever be free of porn, this is my prophecy, 95% of you are destined to a life of porn addiction.

 

Rebooting is much easier when you put larger obstacles in your path to overcome. What happens when you get past those obstacles? You keep going and find the next one.

 

Thank you very much UD! Thank you, really.
Omw to change my life for the better, this post is really inspiring.

Edit:

Uhm, my brain is starting to say things like:
If that is the case, why not watch it? It's NOT causing my shitty life, so why not just go abd enjoy yourself with an awesome porn-marathon?

 

An awesome post. It was posted the other day on NoFap and it didn't get the attention it deserved

I think this should become the official go-to thread for newcomers and people who have been "trying" to stay clean for a long time but without much success

 

+1

And you would get no benefits by just quitting without improving your life.

 

Very good post. I've learned a bunch of new things (thinking about sex is not allowed; you're craving the rush and not the orgasm per se) and I'm happy to say that I've realized a lot of what you posted myself in the last couple of weeks.
I'm 25 now and I tried quitting porn a lot of times the past two years, but the farthest I've got was six days. And all those times I knew from the start I was gonna relapse anyway (self-fulfilling prophecy). It was only three weeks ago when I had an insanely powerful, almost mystical, moment about myself and my whole life. I suddenly realized what I had been missing all this time and that I was just using porn to flee from that pain.
The porn addiction itself is really not the problem like you say. It's just a tool I used to hide from life. Abstaining only lifted the curtains. Dealing with what lies beyond these curtains is what will truly make you whole again.
I'm on day 28 now. I had to look this up because I don't really count anymore. Instead I treat each day as a new chance to improve myself. I'm going through a ton of emotions (positive and negative) right now and I still have a long road ahead of me, but I know I will get there eventually.

 

Great post - I have been thinking about the same topic and wanted to write a post, but never did it (postponing things, huh? ). I started my reboot in August 2012, a bit more than a year ago. At the beginning I blamed porn for all of my problems, but after finding my girlfriend and visiting a therapist a few times I realized the very same thing as TheUnderdog. Porn was not the reason, it was a symptom. The symptom of my loneliness, the lack of self-confidence and no stress handling.
It is damn hard to change my life. I have my great achievements, I learned new things, I got a new certification, I talked to my boss and agreed to actually set a new career goal and change a few things in my job. The first time in my life. I am 34, I should be senior engineer or engineering manager by now. And what do I do? Shitty, simple tasks, a monkey could do it.
It was great to see the changes, but I got depressed again in the last months. This post gave me a boost, again. Everything is given to finish the changes. I have a lovely girlfriend (more than one year, the longest relationship in my life so far), job, money, time. I start it. Now.

 

I actually binged and failed because of this sentence.

I just cant counter this. If it's not the problem, I could just keep on doing, right?
You can say anything you want about porn, but if it's only a sympom, I can keep on doing this until I fix the cause.

 

Tempted to do the same....
But think of it this way: Binging doesnt helpt to fix the problem either.
With PMOing chances of recovering are far less and way harder than without PMOing.
If you dont learn to walk, you will never walk. But you have the possibility.
If you have a broken leg, you cant walk at all, no matter how hard you try.
So why making it extra hard for people who are already struggling with life (me included)?
You could start drinking, smoking, other drugs as well...till you fix this cause. What will never happen then.

Quitting porn is MANDATORY to fix your problems.
So man up, there is no shortcut!
Life is not about quitting porn, life is what you DO when NOT PMOing!!

 

No, because we all agree that porn is adding to your life staying shitty.
I think it's a vicious circle we are trapped in. You see, stopping porn can help to bring us in a virtuous circle, where we feel positive and have the energy to do healthy things with our time, but if we don't actually get up and make real lifestyle changes with the refound energy and only rely on the fact that we stopped pmo'ing there is a good chance we fall right back in the vicious circle of a shitty life.

Think of it, why do we keep coming back to porn? Just why? We all know the negative effects of it, what it does to the brain and all these great scientific explanations, which we are very thankful for and for many of us made us acknowledge the problem in the first place. But still we have a difficult time to stop. Why?

Is it only because our fucked-up brain-system? Are we machines driven by our brains? Destined to keep repeat our behavior over and over again? No, clearly not, since some have proven to reach to a point where they don't feel the need anymore to watch porn. They don't need the comfortable safe haven of porn-world anymore.

So why do we keep relapsing. We can't only blame our brains. We are the ones who decide to let ourselves go when we are triggered. We have hands to put that thing back in our pants, just like we used those hands to take it out. So we obviously can't make our brains fully responsible for it. Aren't we more than just our brains?

Besides the neurophysiological side, I believe this addiction also has a psychological side for many of us. We are obviously not living our life the way we want. If we were pursuing our dreams we wouldn't have time for and interest in porn. Maybe some are demotivated, others are heavily depressed, others might not know what to do with their life. Whatever it is for each individual, it must be a mental state that causes us to escape into that comfortable porn fantasy, over and over again.