Why I hate most methods for stopping porn addiction

My mate just sent our group chat some photos of us from our pub crawl the other week. There were about 30 of us there and one photo was of just me and him. There's a pub and a huge England flag behind us in the photo. It got me thinking about my days doing NoFap and how different my life is now...

In the past, I'd have got out of control on that pub crawl - drinking excessively. I probably would have attempted to get with some women, and if that didn't work out, I'd have returned home to watch porn that evening or the next morning as a hangover came crashing down upon me. But the other week on this pub crawl, I had none of that shit in my life. I drank a little bit, had a good time, and then went home with my girlfriend quite early on. The thing I hate about most methods for stopping porn is that most advocate for avoidance and distraction techniques.

They recommend staying busy with a primary focus on productivity. But what they fail to get righ is the simplicity of just living your life like everyone else and then when you have an urge, thinking it through rationally, and then cracking on with life again. That is all there is too it. People overcomplicate this problem - mostly because there's so much noise online nowadays. But, also because a part of the mind (the addicted part of the mind) wants to make it more complicated as a strategy to get people to relapse. Freedom isn't about living in boxes with conditions and rules. And freedom certainly isn't analysing everything all the time. Freedom is doing whatever the hell you want and knowing how to be in control at all times.

I used to say "to hell with it" and relapse to porn. Now I say to hell with blockers, streaks, and distraction techniques. Doing all that stuff nearly ruined my life.

And I am grateful I found Mari Paulus and her Beyond Compulsion method to learn a practical tool to put the rational part of my mind in control when it matters.