As I promised you earlier this week, this is the next part in a series on the stages of the Porn Reboot system.
I’m breaking down each stage down into separate blog posts over the next few days. Consider it a quick summary of the Porn Reboot program to help kickstart or refresh your reboot. You can find the post for Stage 1 and Stage 3 here:
The first stage of the Porn Reboot system involves recognizing your problem and your need for help. Once you start the withdrawal process and begin learning to manage those symptoms, you’re ready to move into Stage 2.
Stage 2 is where you finish cognitively and emotionally processing the situations that brought you into the program. Perhaps you were struggling with porn-induced erectile dysfunction and it affected intimacy with your partner. Perhaps there was some porn-induced infidelity and your relationship has reached a crisis point. Maybe you spent a lot of money, lost something important to you, or were let go from your job due to your behavior.
Whatever the crisis is, Stage 2 is when we finish processing it. We work through the stressors that brought you here and get you to a place where you can start logically processing the program.
The Keys to Success for Stage 2
Like Stage 1, there are a few crucial goals you have to accomplish to be successful during Stage 2:
1. Accept your behavior
2. Accept that you can live a new life
3. Learn the skills you need to function without porn or masturbation
Let’s get a little more in-depth on what each of these goals looks like.
Accept Your Behavior
Accepting your behavior involves letting go of a lot of the old ideas you might have about pornography addiction and recovery. Maybe you picked these beliefs up at a 12-step group or through work with a therapist. There are other methods to recovery out there but Porn Reboot has a specific way of approaching it with our clients.
For example, one thing you need to let go of is the habit of counting days. It’s something a ton of men do but I don’t think it’s a helpful approach when it comes to rewiring your brain. I don’t believe in it and I advocate against it for men in the Porn Reboot group.
You also need to shift the idea that this is an all-or-nothing thing. Men come in thinking that they should never slip, not even once, and that if they do then it’s all over. They beat themselves up and throw in the towel, not understanding what a detrimental belief this is.
These are only a few of the things that stand in the way of you accepting your behavior. It’s hard to rewire your brain after carrying these ideas around for months or years, but it’s crucial if you want to be successful in your reboot.
Accept That You Can Live a New Life
Men often arrive here feeling exhausted and defeated. Porn Reboot is probably not the first method you’ve heard about or tried. Compulsive masturbation and pornography addiction are difficult conditions to live with. They wear you down and they wear down the people affected by your behavior.
Men often believe they’re beyond the point of help by the time they get here. But I promise you, brothers, that you can live a new life. You can find freedom and relief from your compulsive sexual behavior. Until you accept that you can live a new life, though, your false beliefs will hold you back.
This goal is a critical part of moving forward with the program. Once you realize that you can have a new lease on life through Porn Reboot, you can start making progress and moving into the next phases of the program.
Overcoming Denial
Stage 2 is also when denial starts to creep in. Even after you accept your behavior and the fact that you can overcome it, at some point you might feel this was all a big overreaction. You start wondering whether you made a big deal out of nothing. Or you start feeling shame creeping in and want to deny that you ever had a problem in the first place.
Overcoming denial is crucial before you can move onto Stage 3. You have to understand and accept the crises and unwanted situations that your compulsive sexual behavior got you into. You’re going to have to face the shame at some point if you want to work through your problem with porn and masturbation.
Justification and rationalization are the creeping killers of your reboot. It happened to me time and time again at the beginning of my reboot. The earlier you learn to control and overcome this creeping denial the better. Denial may sneak in at various points during later stages of your reboot but by that time you’ve learned to keep these feelings at bay.
Once you’ve completed these goals, it’s time to move onto Stage 3.
