Hi, i am rebuilding my life for a longer time now and still did not made it to rewire finally. The problem is not the addiction anymore for a long time now. The real problem is, that i was on the wrong way from my early childhood on. Born into a family with a strong piety usually only found at sect members. Now, the biggest problem are foreign smartphones. As soon as my reboot comes close to complacency, my smartphone vulnerability becomes bigger and bigger. Means as soon as i see a smartphone somewhere it seems to trigger addictive pathways and withdrawal symptoms follow (bad innergame, emotional numbness). However, they do not last too long, after one or two days the cycle starts again. A place without smartphones would probably solve this but smartphones are nowadays everywhere. In every club, restaurant, bar, everbody looks on his smartphone every few minutes. Only my house is a smartphone free area. And i can't use any media. Reading emails, having a phone call, using whatsapp seems to trigger addictive pathways as well. Here it needs 6 days of withdrawal to recover. I get to know new woman every few days now. They seem interested but miss a healthy amount of complacency and hope that this will improve in the future. The problem is finding a woman suitable for rewiring. Every woman is sorting out men with emotional health problems quickly. They wait for Mister Right. I have read here sometimes to search for a woman with emotional health issues, too. It seems that my recovery derailed somewhere in the past. But how to go back on track now? Are here others having this smartphone problems, too? I feel like Terence Hill in the movie Super Fuzz. There he has super powers as long as he does not see the color red.
In this case your addiction is hard-wired in your brain to smartphone use. This is well-described in the book 'Your brain on porn' by Gary Wilson. Maybe that is a good start for understanding your addiction and overcoming it? Good luck!
reading the initial post now. I can relate, but seeing some else use a smart phone doesn't trigger me. Just when I have one under my control. Because when someone else with it I won't be able to use it for relapse. But from my experience your brain eventually somehow can get used to something, when you continously use it and you notice there's no sexual component to it. Let's say you read e-mails and there's nothing sexual going on every time you do it. Eventually your addictive brain will learn that it isn't something to be excited about. That process can be painful because it can take month to get used it. Also I keep avoiding a lot of things due to my addiction, however avoiding something can take your anxiety about having to use it to an extreme level. So that's a dilemma I haven't found the answer to even many years. Normally when people have a phobia, they need to confront it to lose it. But with addiction it's a problem, so you most likely have to avoid it. (?) For example, boss says I should do something on social media (linkedin, my account is inactive), but I know social media triggers me and I get extremly anxious about having to reactivate my account. Last time I tried to get used to it, after two months I quit, because I was depressed/burned out. Didn't even do something sexual there, but it agitates me.
