The right iteration for success in overcoming porn addiction

I've been into self-development for around 6 years now. I actually got into it shortly after a girlfriend broke up with me in September 2019.

I remember because she broke up with me shortly after my birthday which is on the 9th September.

Back then, I was deep in a porn addiction and going through that break up propelled me on a mission to change. I never wanted to experience such strong feelings of rejection and failure again. So, I tried to transform my life and overcome my porn addiction. Unfortunately, I went online and consumed a lot of stupid advice. Through a number of books on business and self-improvement, I learned about continuous improvement and the important of iteration. As such, every time I relapsed, I would change my method a little bit. I tried to iterate. I would make a small tweak in my approach towards overcoming porn addiction and hope this would result in me putting porn in the past for good. However, I was building my model of iteration upon a faulty foundation. The foundation that I had in place was based on a belief system which was completely flawed. This belief system that I had developed had been formed through the addiction recovery information that I had found online. It was broken because it was all built upon helpless thinking. Blockers, removing triggers, substitution, distraction etc...

The idea I had been indoctrinated into believing was that I had to avoid having urges... because if I had an urge - I would get out of control. So, each time I relapsed, I would change my addiction recovery approach by identifying what had led to the urge and working on that area for a bit. For example, for a while I felt like my mind was too overstimulated and that stress was causing me to relapse. So, I meditated for 1 hour every day. Another time, I believed using my phone too much was resulting in me relapsing so I locked my phone in a locker at work every evening.

Some of these strategies worked for a little while. I would go on long-ish NoFap streaks, but I always relapsed eventually.

Through learning the Beyond Compulsion method, I have come to understand that I was iterating my process in the wrong place. I was making changes to what I believed was resulting in me relapsing. But, I had failed to correctly identify what was actually causing me to relapse. What was keeping me stuck in a painful porn hell cycle was not stress or any other emotional trigger and it was not any kind of physical trigger, like my phone either.

Instead, what kept on resulting in me relapsing, over and over, was my thought patterns. Specifically, the addicted part of the mind (APOTM) would use specific strategies to convince me to relapse and I had no idea how to respond to such strategies. For example, I would get tricked into believing that "once wouldn't hurt" or that "I am not really looking at sexual content" or that "this will be the last time". I would fall for these lies from the addicted part of the mind. I did not know how to respond to such thought patterns and put the rational part of my mind back in control. I had been so brainwashed by bad advice into believing that if I had urges I would get out of control that I had never even dared let the addicted part of the mind talk. And as such, when the APOTM did talk and use strategies against me, I felt helpless, overwhelmed, and sadly, I believed in the lie that "these urges are going to get stronger until I eventually give in".

My downfall was not a lack of discipline or some kind of sexual deviance. Instead, I simply had a very poor approach to addiction recovery that was founded on utter helplessness and online misinformation. If you want to stop watching porn and feel good about it, a method for dealing with the APOTM head on is essential. Real freedom is about being able to let the APOTM talk, and feel secure in your strategy for dealing with the APOTM correctly, time and time again in a repeatable way. If one of our clients ever does relapse, we don't see this as part of the journey. Neurons that fire together, wire together. So, this common concept makes no real sense. However, we will work with the client to iterate and ensure they learn from this in the right way. We would figure out exactly what the APOTM said to make choosing to engage in the compulsive behaviour "okay" and then ensure this thought pattern is dealt with correctly and that the system for long-term success is airtight moving forward.

This is how you build a system that works and works and works so you can build up complete self-trust and no longer need to do 100 different things to try and manage the addiction, without ever actually facing the APOTM directly.

If you want to use the exact same method as me to deal with the APOTM by using a templated script every time you experience a compulsive desire, you can build this skill through the education found within the Beyond Compulsion Academy.