Your fundament for overcoming Pornography
A platonic short story, temptation and how to always keep the upper-hand over your urges.
Indeed, porn addiction is, even though not scientifically recognized, an existing problem. Like with any addiction, the craving often beats the mind. Here is what your inner temptation has to do with an old story famous philosopher Plato once told.
Leontios, a Greek statesman, was on his way to another city. Arriving at town square, he saw executed bodies laying in front of the city's senate. He was shocked.
One part of him wanted to stare at the bodies and get a closer look. At the same time, he felt disgusted and held himself back. Leontios struggled and even covered his eyes with both of his hands. Then desire got the better of him. He rushed over to where the deceased lay, and forced his eyes wide open, shouting:
"Here you are, there is your will. Take a look. Isn’t it a lovely sight?"
Personally, I found this rather unknown story remarkable, especially because it metaphorically describes the relation many have with their porn habit. I at least immediately related when I read the story for the first time.
Today, more than 2000 years later, I can imagine how Leontios must have felt. But is there a way to avoid his story and overcome the urge to look?
How to avoid Leontios’ mistake
In the following, I talk about four steps you still can take today for finally quitting pornography.
Acknowledge you got a Porn Problem
Should sound simple, but many struggle with acknowledging this.
If you acknowledged that you need to quit, you have already made progress. Every journey starts with the first step.
Mindset
Define your "why?" and write it down. Also, make sure you truly get how evil porn is. Try to lock porn out of your life as if it never existed.
The good thing is, there are scientific studies proving the bad influence porn has on the brain and yourself. But more to that later.
Ironically, his initial reaction was the right one. Covering his eyes. Considering porn, the first step therefore should be:
3. Cover your eyes
Delete all the material, magazines, and apps you have
Install blockers on all of your devices (e.g BlockerX)
Delete every browser and internet access, very extreme, but this was the only way that worked for the addicted me.
Try to combine these.
Seek immediate accountability
Your accountability partner can be a friend, app developers (BlockerHero has that feature), or an internet NoFap forum or group. Implementing these steps takes time, however, it is the only way. Trust me, I’ve been there. If you just want to reduce your porn usage, try implementing some of the steps.
Quitting will be hard. No question. Yet, not quitting will make your life even harder long term.
Withdrawal symptoms
A 2018 study looked into what porn addicts tend to experience after quitting.
“These symptoms generally include impaired control, preoccupation, craving, [porn] use as a dysfunctional coping mechanism, withdrawal, tolerance, distress about use, functional impairment, and continued use despite negative consequences”
Especially the last point, “continued use despite negative consequences”, is distressing. Many NoFap forums’ advice is wrong. All too often, relapsing is presented as it wouldn’t be a problem but rather a natural part of the journey. Utter nonsense.
Let’s imagine a chain smoker wanting to quit. He did manage to not smoke for a week, but somehow the cravings took over him and he smoked again. Now, he faces two options. Either, 1) he is disappointed and his mood is drawn down for the next couple of hours, he can’t stop thinking about how dumb he just was.
Or 2) he thinks that this is natural and not a big deal, and the day is “over” anyway as he already smoked, so why not smoke again? I actually have to smile reading that sentence again, as it describes how I thought after relapsing to porn once again.
One of the two ways is going to work, he is going to quit and look back at his addiction in disgust. Which option do you think it is? The same applies for quitting porn.
This means that if you fail, consider it a setback. Do not play it down, or you will get back into the addiction cycle.
Benefits of abstention
“The righteous will be rewarded with prosperity”
Or, as the study ““The Pornography “Rebooting” Experience: A Qualitative Analysis of Abstinence Journals on an Online Pornography Abstinence Forum““ found;
“Members who persisted with abstinence typically found abstinence to be a rewarding experience and reported a range of perceived benefits which they attributed to abstaining from pornography.”
Unequivocal, there are tons of benefits from abstaining masturbation and porn, such as clearer thinking, no more erectile dysfunction, and more - but the best reward probably is you glowing up as a character and person.
If you follow the four steps mentioned above, you have felt like Leontios for the longest time! Share this episode with a friend and make the first step towards having an accountability partner!
Please excuse me for publishing this article 10 hours later than usual, I will be on point again next Saturday. Stay tuned, as I will focus on Gen Z and their generational porn/masturbation problem in the upcoming weeks!