Yesterday I ran another coaching session with a client. He's been struggling with this addiction for over 15 years. He's smart and curious and has been down a similar road to me in terms of accumulating a wealth of knowledge on this problem. However, without him understanding the ONE reason he wants to watch porn - all of this information in his mind will work against him. And he will continue to try to treat the "reasons" he wants to watch porn instead of dealing directly with the compulsive desire.
His main answer to my question about why he felt he had engaged in compulsive behaviours up until now was loneliness.
And yes he may want to watch porn more when he feels lonely. This is absolutely true.
However, millions of people are very lonely. And not all of them want to watch porn.
I volunteer at the Samaritans where I talk to many people who are considering ending their life. Some of these people are very old women. I've heard them cry down the phone to me about how lonely they are. But, they do not want to watch porn. Not everyone who is lonely wants to watch porn.
That's because not everyone who is lonely also has addicted neural pathways.
What happens when people are in addiction is the addicted part of the mind (APOTM) looks for reasons to engage in the compulsive behaviour. And loneliness can definitely be one of the smartest reasons it uses. If you have ever had plans to go out and spend time with people, and then relapsed and cancelled plans (I have done this many times), you'll know that the addiction can make you feel very, very lonely. We deal with compulsive desire directly, not the reasons people believe they want to engage in the compulsive behaviour.
My relapses in the past
Before learning the Beyond Compulsion™ method, I always had a reason to explain why I'd chosen to engage with porn and masturbation. Many of my reasons would be similar to my client's explanations above. Back in the days of my addiction I had many conditions in my life.
I felt like I had to do things like eat healthily, exercise, socialise enough, meditate enough, take cold showers, complete my to-do list, avoid social media, and more each day. If I didn't achieve what I set out to achieve in a given day and chose to engage with porn on that day - the reason I watched porn would be to do with the condition. Essentially, I was running on an exhausting treadmill of self-improvement, trying my best to manage and control my addiction by trying to remain in control of my triggers. And then inevitably - I'd always end up getting out of control and relapsing.
Eventually, I got help from Mari Paulus and came to understand that all of those reasons (as rational as they sound) were actually part of the addiction.
The ONE reason I wanted to watch porn was because my mind had become involved in a psychological / emotional dependency with a mind / mood altering experience.
To make that even more simple - I wanted to watch porn because my brain had developed addicted neural pathways.
That happened when I was very young and had no idea of the potential consequences. And when I deeply understood that I always had a choice and that I would want to watch porn for as long as I was in the addiction - I got to realise that I didn't need a reason to watch porn. And here's the key thing, even if you do use a reason at this point in time, probably because you've been taught a load of bullshit about dealing with triggers etc - the consequences of choosing to engage in the behaviour remain the exact same.
If you want to learn more about this, give this YouTube video a watch and hopefully this can be the start of you transforming the way you think so you can finally get out of this addiction.