Multiple relapses over the years, the guilt, betrayal of loved ones, the erectile dysfunction the jump into acting out in real life

It’s a rough journey, alright!

Sometimes, its easier to deal with everything by unconsciously telling ourselves lies. These lies grow and overtime turn out to be the greatest hindrance to our progress.

This post will help you identify the most common lies we tell ourselves about our porn use.

1) Powerless Lie: I can’t stop watching porn. I can’t quit.

This another lie and a red flag for low self-esteem. Most frequently told when you feel that you are completely powerless to control your addiction.

You CAN quit. You are more powerful than you imagine. Perhaps you grew with some rough experiences that knocked you down a few notches. You can still rise.

Willpower is a muscle- it gets tired, but it will get you far enough to see the mountaintop in this tough climb. Once you have a glimpse at freedom, you will do whatever it takes to get there!

A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind. – Elly Roselle.

2) Downplay Lie: I must have recovered.

This!

This was one of the biggest obstacles in my porn addiction journey.

I would quit porn and masturbation for a few weeks and feel amazing then the thoughts would begin to slowly creep in well, I haven’t felt the urge in so long- I must be fine! Phew- thank God it’s not an addiction!

Well, guess what downplaying led to?

I fell right back into the porn and masturbation cycle.

Another variation of this lie occurs when you quit watching porn, but then try to masturbate. To your surprise, you find that it’s almost impossible to do so without watching porn. Back to porn again. Both are lies we tell ourselves to rationalize the addiction.

3) Whitewash Lie: I was drunk., I was high, It was right there.

In my college days, excessive drinking and smoking was a one-way ticket to the masturbation station.

No matter how much I wanted to quit, putting myself under the influence invariably led to a relapse. For those trying to give up porn, the effects of alcohol and drugs on the process of quitting cannot be emphasized enough.

Once your inhibitions are lowered, or certain senses chemically heightened, the last vestiges of restraint fly out the window.

4) Minimize Lie: Just 5 minutes.

I’ll only look at this anime porn on Tumblr for 5 minutes.

Two hours later and 30 Firefox tabs later, you’re exhausted and disgusted from your porn binge.

The time trap always escalates. You play down and attempt to minimize the actual amount of time you know you will spend on porn.

5) Inflation Lie: I’m stressed

I feel like crap, so I deserve to watch porn. It’s been a crazy stressful day, screw it, I need this.

Another common lie where you inflate a rough situation into an excuse to binge on porn.

You haven’t developed alternate means of coping with stress, so when you experience above-average stress, you automatically return to the thing that soothes you.

Solution: Work on developing positive habits that you can turn to the moment your triggers kick in. Meditation has worked very well for me.

6) Implication Lie: My significant other isn’t into what I want.

My girlfriend doesn’t give blowjobs and she doesn’t like anal.

Yeap- I used that one too, and it nearly cost me my relationship.

It’s easy to blame or implicate someone for your porn habits. An easy, but a weak lie.Its also one of the top lies we tell ourselves before, during and after we act out porn fantasies in real life.

In our program Porn Reboot Intensive, I emphasize that taking responsibility is among the first steps to giving up pornography.

7) Privilege Lie: I’m a late bloomer.

I’m a late bloomer, and I missed out. I married early, that’s why I’m acting out. Wow. I feel like I’ve used every lie so far!

As a guy who teaches men how to meet and attract women, I’ve noticed that this lie is most common among the “Get Girls” crowd in the community.

Men who gain success later on in life develop confidence and improve self-esteem through self-improvement or career success tend to develop a sense of entitlement when justifying their porn or sex addiction. If your habit of having with women outside of your relationship is fueled by porn, it’s time to start cutting back.

8) Standard Lie: A man’s biology dictates that he should sleep with many attractive women as possible, or every guy does it.

I am guilty of this lie as well. While the statement is true, painting the picture of porn as a normal, standard part of a man’s lifestyle as an excuse for porn addiction constitutes lying to yourself.

Not every man watches porn and masturbates on a daily basis. In fact, some of the most accomplished men in history stayed far away from pornography.

9) Non-acceptance Lie: I don’t watch porn anymore.

I used this lie for too long. My rationalization was that spending the same amount of time that I used to spend on porn browsing Instagram for chicks in bikinis was obviously not watching porn.

The reboot process is sabotaged the moment you replace your addiction to porn with something else. Its the equivalent of someone addicted to cigarettes trying to quit by switching to e-cigarettes. It doesn’t work.

Quitting porn by rebooting involves completely avoiding and isolating yourself from any habits that that may potentially lead to a trigger.

10) Negating Lie: There is nothing wrong with porn, or playing out my addiction in real life.

If you say this, but one day you are attracted to women, and the next you’ve had sex with more sex workers or prostitutes from Craigslist than actual women, you’re lying to yourself.

Porn use escalates as our brain craves more stimulation. Negating the effects of pornography is the singularly most devastating lie you can tell yourself.

What are some of the lies not included here that YOU frequently tell yourself?

I’d love to know. Leave your comments below.

The post 10 Lies You Tell Yourself About Porn appeared first on Elevated Recovery.

Porn addiction aside, the one thing that sucks the most is relapsing. In my years of living with an addiction to internet porn, I’ve made the decision to quit more times than I choose to remember.

I vividly remember the first time I relapsed after my longest streak without porn or masturbation. At that time, it was such a challenge to even go 1 week without getting on my favorite site. This time, I had managed 2 full months.

I relapsed on Day 92.

After that relapse I felt three main things:

1) Disbelief and Confusion: “How did this happen?” “I was doing so well!”.
2) Shame
3) Less confidence in myself. I basically looked at my self as someone who couldn’t be trusted to keep his word.

If you’re reading this, there’s a good chance that you can relate quite well to all three emotions.

I’d like you to do something for yourself for a moment, though…

Think back to your last relapse- specifically, the week BEFORE your relapse.

Now honestly answer these questions:

Did you have a recovery plan?

Did you have boundaries or actions to take if you were triggered?

Were you checking in with anyone regularly?

Was there someone who helped to keep you accountable?

Were you being proactive about your recovery?

Were you being aware of the places you went, media you exposed yourself to and the thoughts you had?  

Or were you a little more “relaxed” about everything?

Did you have a self-care plan?

A support network of people who understood your problem?

Were you meditating, using affirmations, exercising, eating right, managing stressful situations, getting enough sleep or taking time off to relax?

The truth is, if you relapsed, there is bound to be a “No” or a couple of No’s in response to these questions.

All those questions above are related to something called RECOVERY.

When you are in recovery, your brain will inevitably REBOOT with time and you will be free of your compulsive behavior with pornography. It’s that simple.

Simple- but not easy.

So why aren’t most guys in recovery?

Well, I realized- after years of relapsing myself, that our way of viewing recovery is pretty skewed.

See,

“Wanting to be in recovery”, is NOT recovery
“ Installing a filter”, is NOT recovery
“ 90 Days NoFap” is NOT recovery

“Changing my habits” is NOT recovery

Those questions you answered earlier? That’s recovery.

Many of us think that a “relapse” is an event. Something that “happened”.

NO.

A relapse is not ONE event!

A relapse begins when you start missing parts of your recovery.

For instance, before your relapse:

Were you aware of your triggers?

Did you feel entitled? Like- “I’ve been doing so well without porn and masturbation. It has been a hard day, I deserve a break to watch porn.”

Were you watching Youtube videos with “sexy” content- you know, those triggering thumbnails?

Did you quit doing something that was really good for you- such as working out regularly, or eating well?

Were you frustrated with a particular situation, or dealing with strong emotions-perhaps a family issue?

When you experience any of the above and don’t fix them immediately, your relapse has ALREADY BEGUN.

Again, a relapse is not an event.

It is a state of mind.

So how do tell exactly when your relapse begins if it isn’t a solitary event?

Well, here is another set of questions to help you determine if your relapse has begun.

Who did you call after you relapsed?

What was the consequence to applied to yourself due to that behavior?

Did you change anything in your environment after the relapse? For instance, if you found out that a certain site on your device wasn’t blocked by your filter, did you immediately block it?

What sort of self-care behavior did you engage in after the relapse to uplift your mind, body, and emotions?

Now if your answer to these is “ I don’t do any of those.” or you only applied one of the four suggested actions, then you are STILL RELAPSING.

By now, some of you may be realizing that you’ve been in a state of relapse for YEARS.

Write this down on a piece of paper and stick it somewhere you can see it:

Your relapse is never over till you bring someone else in.

Having an accountability partner pulls you out of the cycle of relapse and helps your process the events prior to to the relapse while taking the next steps.

As time goes on, you will be able to answer these questions on your own and within moments. Getting to this level will require bringing someone else into your life as an accountability partner.

But what if you don’t have access to an accountability partner, or you don’t know anyone who could help you with accountability?

Well, we’ve got you covered with a solution. Before I get into it, I’d like to share a quick story from a college student who took advantage of this.

Case Study:

I had a college student reach out to me, at his wits end about his repeated relapses- we’ll call him “S.P” for privacy purposes. S.P was 22 years old, had been exposed to porn at 10 years old and been using porn and masturbating daily since he was 12. However, he had educated himself on porn addiction and made some changes in his life. The biggest change he made was installing one of the best internet filters on his laptop. This had managed to keep him off porn for two months.

The main problem was his smart phone which eventually led him to slip.

S.P fully understood the need for an accountability partner and had got on a call with me to find out if I could be his accountability partner for a time. Unfortunately, at the time, I was fully booked and couldn’t keep up with any more clients in terms of accountability.

He was in a permanent state of relapse and desperately needed something to help him in the moments before and after a slip. I gave him access to what a few hundred guys who didn’t have accountability partners or a structure to their recovery had been using and received an email from him two weeks later.

Here’s an excerpt:

“It’s such a change from the person I was 14 days ago who could barely put together a sentence in front of new people to the guy now who can talk with almost anyone without thinking about it. Also,  a couple of people have been telling me I look different, I’m not sure if its the way I carry myself or something else but they said they could barely recognize me from a distance. I do feel different though. I can’t wait until day 30 to see how much more I can change. I’m not going to sit around and wait for the changes though. I’m going to live and have fun and what happens happens.”

So, what got S.P back on track?

I gave him access to our free Facebook Group. The group contains a collection of actionable step by step videos where I walk you through what do after and before a relapse or when you feel an urge.

Every video equips you with a different skill set to manage your triggers, overcome your urges and make sure that you have control over your porn and masturbation habits

 

If you don’t have control of your urges and haven’t developed the necessary skills to manage them, then this private group is the best place to begin

Get access to the Group

To recap, here are the 10 Questions to ask yourself after a relapse.

1)Were you checking in with anyone regularly? Was there someone who helped to keep you accountable?

2) Were you being proactive about your recovery? Were you being aware of the places you went, media you exposed yourself to and the thoughts you had?  Or were you a little more “relaxed” about everything?

3) Did you have a self-care plan? A support network of people who understood your problem? Were you meditating, using affirmations, exercising, eating right, managing stressful situations, getting enough sleep or taking time off to relax?

4) Did you feel entitled? Like- “I’ve been doing so well without porn and masturbation. It been a hard day, I deserve a break to watch porn.”

5) Were you watching Youtube videos with “sexy” content- you know, those triggering thumbnails?

6) Did you quit doing something that was really good for you- such as working out regularly, or eating well?

7) Were you frustrated with a particular situation, or dealing with strong emotions-perhaps a family issue?

8) Who did you call after you relapsed?

9) What was the consequence to applied to yourself due to that behavior?

10) Did you change anything in your environment after the relapse? For instance, if you found out that a certain site on your device wasn’t blocked by your filter, did you immediately block it?

And if you have a question or comment, please post below – I’m always interested in hearing from you and I love answering your questions.

The post 10 Questions To Ask Yourself After a Relapse appeared first on Elevated Recovery.