A Short but Smart Guide for Quitting Porn Addiction

I failed for a decade before finally making a decent crack at my porn addiction. Initially, when I found out about nofap, it wasn’t mainstream yet, as it is these days. There weren’t that many resources available, and while I was excited about what I found, it was easy to fall back into binging and old habits whenever I relapsed. I don’t blame the lack of resources, but at that time there was a definite feeling of fringeness to nofap. Now disproven claims that “experts” were spouting, such as “not masturbating increases the chance of prostate cancer,” were rampant. It was easy to fall into self doubt. Now that there is more of a movement toward digital minimalism and people are questioning porn and social media more and more, it’s easier than ever to succeed. There probably isn’t a shortage of guides for beginners either. So, why another guide? I want to add to the pile. I want more people to succeed. I’m well-read on this subject, and my personal experience is vast. I’ve failed countless times, that’s for sure. I’ve found 10,000 ways that didn’t work, as the famous Thomas Edison quote goes. Hopefully my voice will resonate with someone out there.

I wanted to write a no-BS guide that would be easy and fast to digest. I know someone who’s suffering from porn addiction is also suffering from a short attention span, so I’ll try to keep this short and to the point — a distilled, no-nonsense information package that will take you far. I hope you’re still with me; let’s get started!

1. Take This Seriously

Addicts are notorious for bullshitting and making excuses. They even say stupid shit, like “I’m not addicted, I could quit any time I want”. You’ve probably heard a smoker say that before. Don’t fall into the trap. You are addicted, and it takes tremendous effort to quit. There is no room for hubris. You need to prioritize this. This is super important. You can’t just think, “oh, I’ll quit, and then leave it at that.” It’s like a rocket leaving the gravitational force of the Earth; quitting an addictive behavioral pattern requires a tremendous amount of force and effort. But don’t be discouraged; it absolutely can be done. It’s not easy, but it’s very much doable. I’ve written a whole article about the power of prioritizing, which I’ll publish soon. Subscribe to stay tuned for it.

To summarize: put quitting first. You don’t want to fail for a decade like I did, do you? So make it a priority in your life.

2. Implement Good Habits

This is repeated to ad-nauseaum in the nofap circles, but for a good reason: it’s true. You can’t just quit and change anything else and expect your life to change. I mean, you can, but it will be a lot harder and take longer. I recommend thinking in terms of what habits promote increased concentration and, thus, frontal lobe development. Reading, exercise, meditation, and so on. Implement healthy habits you feel yourself gravitating towards and stick to them like your life depends on it. You’ll build resilience and even if you happen to relapse, you won’t fall back to your previous habits so easily because you already have other healthier habits compelling you to do them as well. Imagine what you’d like your life to look like without the addiction being part of it, sucking up time and energy, and go towards that direction.

3. Learn to Recognize Your Addictive Voice

There is an obscure and old, but profound book about addiction recovery. It’s known as AVRT (addictive voice recognition technique). I won’t go into the history of this technique for a lot, but it used to compete with the twelve-step programs, and for some reason the steps programs won the popularity wars, but that doesn’t mean this technique doesn’t work. It’s really profound; you train yourself to recognize the addictive voice within you. The addictive voice is the voice that keeps telling you to relapse. Another name might be the urge, temptation, asshole brain, demons, the monkey, and so on. It doesn’t really matter what you call it, but giving it a name might be helpful.

The technique is simple but requires effort. You might want to read the book by Jack Trimpey, but I find it to have too much fluff content about the politics of the addiction recovery movements. It can be found for free online. In any case, the technique can be summarized like this: learn to detect the voice within you that craves the addictive substance (in this case, porn), and whenever you hear it, dismiss it. You can use logic, swear it off, or simply utter a resounding “no!” to it — whatever works. The most important part is the recognition. That alone is the biggest part of the battle. The addictive voice (or the Beast, as the book likes to refer to it) only cares about getting the substance. It doesn’t care about your well-being. It’s cunning and uses any means necessary, including mental images, words, and manipulation of all kinds, but it’s ultimately powerless. It has no power over you; it can only manipulate. That’s the key here. You hear its voice, but you don’t engage in bargaining conversation with it. You reject it coldly, off the cuff. Like a muscle, keep practicing hearing that voice, and you’ll get better at it. Relapse doesn’t come out of the blue when you realize it’s always instigated by this addictive voice.

4. Journal About Your Relapses

Ideally, there wouldn’t be any kinks to this journey and you wouldn’t relapse even a single time, but we don’t live in an ideal world. Mistakes happen. Don’t get stuck in them. You’re not a worse person for making mistakes. Good people learn from their mistakes, so try to make it a habit of really getting to the bottom of what led to the relapse and then making the appropriate changes necessary to never let it happen in that way again. Just keep repeating this and you should be able to weed out the last one of the reasons that led to you relapsing.

5. Trust the Process And Never Mind the Doubters

Even as nofap and porn addiction have become more mainstream, there are still plenty of doubters. Realize that most of these people are probably addicts themselves. Their addictive voices are in control, and thus, they are very defensive of anything that can come in between them and their fix. Realize that they have their own path to follow, and so do you. Don’t try to argue with them. Lead by example. Once you set your mind that you are going to do this and take it seriously, there is no reason to listen to the doubters. You’ve done your research and you know that it’s good for you.

There will also come days that are harder than others. Realize that if you relapsed, you would only make things worse. A bad day doesn’t turn into a good day by relapsing. Trust the process. There’s light at the end of the tunnel. When in hell, you don’t stop to look at the scenery; you keep on walking.

A Special Tip You Probably Haven’t Heard Anywhere Else:

So that’s my short guide for beginners. I hope you managed to gather some value from this. The process won’t be easy, but it is so, very rewarding. You will feel on top of the world and your days will grow more and more luminous. Your brain fog will gradually disappear and dopamine receptors will normalize. Don’t give up on hard days. Fall back on how far you’ve already come. Read this post again if you have to. Read my other stuff if you found this helpful. There is so much more to life after porn addiction. Godspeed!