“You need only allow gentle hope to enter your heart. Exhale and allow hope, and give yourself some time. This is a process of change that requires a good deal of self-compassion, which is neither stagnant nor permissive. We can just start by being a little kinder to ourselves and open to the possibility that life doesn’t have to be bloody awful.”
– Russell Brand
On this episode, I talk about my rollercoaster of a journey with pornography and how I recovered from it. What constitutes an addiction? How do you overcome something that you seem to have no control over? What is happening in the brain that keeps you stuck in this loop? How can you break free? I answer these, and more, on todays episode.
- The addiction cycle goes like this: 1) Pain 2) Using an addictive agent like food, sex, alcohol, drugs, dependent relationships to soothe or distract 3) A temporary anaesthesia or distraction 4) Consequences (hurts your health, family, friends, work) 5) Shame and guilt leading to low self worth. Then the cycle continues.
- In this episode, I specifically talk about my porn addiction of 12 years. I found certain men on Youtube who are on this thing called NoFap (no porn or masterbation). They made me see something that was a part of my programming I have never seen before. I couldn’t see this habit within me until I was exposed to someone who didn’t have to do that habit to live life.
- I thought watching porn was natural and a healthy sexual act. But little did I know that I was hooked into this addiction. Porn is an overly stimulating medium that is new to human evolution. It is artificial. Unnatural. It highjacks the brains reward system (dopamine). Then, 2 hrs after each use, my brain craves this behaviour again. This loop became my new normal.
- I started to understand, from these NoFappers on YouTube, that I cannot be independent if I am a slave to this thing. I was unable to go 2 days without it. I would experience these intense urges and cravings to jump back onto the computer/phone. Then I would. I felt automated. Out of control. This now became a battle between me and my own self.
- To overcome this dragon, I used these mentors on YouTube as a guide. An aim. A goal. Each win I had was changing that giant circuit built on watching porn. Going that 1 day without it was HUGE. Small wins break the circuit, slowly. The brain also starts to come down into a homeostasis state. No longer getting these massive hits of dopamine. The little things in life started to magnify.
- I also relapsed A LOT. But, those failure are part of the journey. They serve as an orientation mechanism. A place where you do not want to be. After each relapse I felt pain, shame, and guilt. This pain was now attaching itself to the act of watching porn. Then eventually I would think: “Is doing this behaviour worth all that shame and guilt afterwards?” Then, slowly, I was moving away from porn because of all this pain I was attaching to it.
For more on my recovery from porn, listen to the full episode below!