Quitting Porn vs Cutting Down

I drink sometimes, but I don’t have a drinking problem. With the exception of a few nights in college, I don’t drink enough to puke or make stupid decisions. I don’t crave alcohol or drink when I’m alone. And when I’m with friends on a night out, I can knock a couple back in moderation without it causing me problems.

For some, however, one drink leads to five, leads to a DUI or cheating on their partner, leads to more drinking to numb the pain, leads to liver problems and other health risks, etc.

There are plenty of people out there who watch a few porn videos a couple times a month without it hurting their sexual health or becoming compulsive. These people don’t have a porn problem. But I do. I can’t limit myself to just a couple of videos. If I get started, it’s extremely difficult to stop.

Plus, I would pretty quickly bring back the porn-induced erectile dysfunction that destroyed my sex life for so many years.

I know that moderate and harmless use is not possible for me. Ever. The same is true for most REMOJO users, and they realize that fact sooner or later. If you haven’t developed a sexual dysfunction and don’t have any trouble not using porn for a month when you decide to, maybe you’re different. You’ll do your own experiment and figure it out.

Not sure if you have a porn problem? Take the REMOJO challenge to go 30 days pornfree and see what happens…

If you already tried quitting and failed—or tried to only reduce your porn use—then you might have found your quality of life getting worse.. And the strength of your cravings going up. But you were overall using less porn, so what gives? Shouldn’t things have been getting better?

The answer is that sometimes things get worse before they get better. There’s often a period of withdrawal when cravings are high, emotions are raw, it’s difficult to sleep, and things seem worse than when you weren’t even trying to improve. If you’re relapsing during this time or choosing to still use here and there, you can end up extending this period of withdrawal and craving indefinitely. Instead of getting through it and moving on with your life, you remain stuck in a battle with yourself.

99% is a bitch, 100% is a breeze.

You’ve probably heard this truth before. The fact is, when you’re 100% committed to something, you don’t have to fight yourself. When you have no doubt, you accept your new way of life and get on with living.

You may find that using porn feels much more exciting after a streak of abstinence. Since you stopped blasting your brain with porn, your sexual sensitivity has started to return. This is exactly what we want, so we can get back to enjoying real sex again! But if you’re not all-in on living pornfree, you may find that porn feels more stimulating than it has in a long time for the same reason. 

Some will walk into the trap of a longer cycle of abstinence and binging, chasing this higher high. This is a game of diminishing returns. The more you do this, the longer healing takes and the quicker the desensitization returns when you use again.

We know from research on compulsions for drugs, food, and sex that “intermittent” use like this trains the brain for stronger cravings. Our brains adapt based on our actions and experiences. They adapt to develop skills, habits, and desires that help us get better at whatever it is that we’re doing–whether that’s playing basketball or masturbating to porn.

If we have easy access to something we want, then there’s no need to develop extremely strong cravings for it. However, if that thing we desire seems scarce, then strong cravings will help ensure that we take advantage of every opportunity to seize it. Think of your ancestors who didn’t always know where their next meal was coming from. Developing strong impulses to take advantage of any opportunity for food helped ensure their survival.

But porn is more like nicotine or alcohol than food. We don’t need it to survive. If we leave porn behind completely and permanently, then we can get to a new normal in which we’re not jonesing for that pixel fix anymore. We learn to live without porn, and cravings get weaker and less frequent. Like this Rebooter posted in the REMOJO Community,

Had a porn addiction. Everyday all it took was a thought in my head and I was straight on a site. Tried so hard but had to always get my little fix. This app has helped me so much being able to block these sites. I don’t even try going on them anymore, don’t get urges or nothing. As for sexual performance… skyrocketed along with my confidence it’s like I was 20 again aha I won’t go back to porn as I know the damages it causes.

But if you feed the porn habit even a few crumbs here and there, it can keep the conditioning alive and even strengthen the cravings.

For those with a porn problem, just using less porn is like scratching yourself when you have chicken pox. If you can resist the itch, you’ll heal faster. But if you keep scratching, you’ll only make it worse.

It may feel daunting to commit 100% to going pornfree, but in the long run it’s actually much easier than keeping yourself in half-ass hell, constantly battling cravings. To stay true to your goals and avoid the intermittent use trap, download the REMOJO app and use the courses, community, blocker, and accountability tools to free your mind and get your vitality back!

Live better without porn.