The Moment Part 2

This Time It’s Personal

I am feeling it again. I’ve been able to circumvent it through the day, somewhat easily. I’m close to a trap, meaning I’m trying to redirect my actions in a specific way whenever I feel the urge. The reason I’m doing it despite claiming methods don’t work, is because it is paired with other tools and because it was not born out of the post-habit guilt, but rather from observing a friend and his careless, worry-free demeanor. It is also an indulgence.

Let me tell you about my addiction: it’s porn. There’s debate about whether porn addiction is a real thing or not. I’m not going to make a case here for why I believe it is, except say that that is how it feels to me. I don’t have any other real addictions. I drink coffee almost daily, I constantly crave validation, but I wouldn’t go as far as calling those addictions. I’m even content with my screen usage, I no longer mindlessly browse reddit and there’s days where I’m on my phone for less than half an hour. But the hold porn has had on my mind is very much the way addiction acts, specially in three harmful ways:

1. Time consumption. At some point I’d spend more than one hour every single day masturbating and looking at porn. Sometimes up to two hours.
2. Escalation. The nature of what I watched got more intense and more taboo. I mentioned in the past how [guilt can be hi-jacked] by addiction. Similarly, toeing your personal moral line can also become a part of the cycle.
3. Depression. Other things become less appealing, more boring. Everything else takes too much effort when compared with the instant and extreme dopamine rush so easily accessible at the tip of my fingers.

One could argue that last point is not so much a symptom of the addiction, but rather the cause for it, that it is born out of not wanting to face it, an escape from asking for help. That might be true, but even so I believe it can also be a component. Either can come first, and even if the habit is covering up an underlying depression, it can definitely intensify it by “turning down the brightness” in other hobbies/activities, so as to become the only one that really provides satisfaction (or, in reality, a false sense of satisfaction, a substitute).

So what is the method I’ve been trying? Naps. Yes, that simple. Whenever I feel the urge, I throw myself on my bed and let go. I accept that I feel the urge, I let it inhabit my body, I even actively imagine porn or sex activities, with the explicit feeling that I’m giving myself permission to do this. This way I don’t feel resistance, I don’t feel I’m fighting it or rebelling against it.

Now, I’m not entirely sure that not carrying through with the activity physically, but engaging with it in my imagination is advisable. It might not be effective long term. But I’m taking it as an intermediate step in re-educating my brain in how it relates with these thoughts and urges, taking guilt out of the equation.

In a way, like the alchemical principle of solve et coagula, we must take the components of our addiction apart, but once done so, leaving them disassembled can cause great stress. If we can take this chance to look at the components and consider how we’d put them back together in a healthier, more wholesome shape, we are making progress, even if while we’re doing so, the parts fly out of our hands and snap back together in the familiar habit.