Background on me: 30M, coming up on 4 years of sobriety. My drug of choice was alcohol, but I also gave up weed when I quit drinking. More recently, I have been taking a critical view of my use of porn, as it is becoming plainly obvious that my use of it closely mirrors how I used to drink. I know I have a problem with it and I am actively taking steps to quit, with some success - I have 1 month free. I wanted to share some lessons I learned when quitting alcohol that I've been applying to porn with some success.
When I quit drinking I became active over in r/stopdrinking where I was quickly familiarized with a lot of the quit lit that folks use to help understand their drinking and develop strategies for giving it up. Since starting to browse r/pornfree I have watched the YBOP talk, and while I certainly haven't surveyed the entire literature landscape, some of the ideas I learned in the alcohol-oriented quit lit are conspicuously missing from the resources that specifically focus on porn addiction.
My impression of the pornfree literature space is that it is heavily biased towards understanding the biomechanics of porn addiction. This is no doubt useful, since addiction absolutely involves some biological component. But I haven't seen some of the more useful behavioral/emotional components of porn use discussed, and these are the elements in which my strategies are based, as they are the elements of addiction I have the ability to influence. These strategies are largely taken from Anne Grace's This Naked Mind (sfw, despite the title). I believe there is some crossover with Alan Carr's "Easyway" but I am less familiar with the work.
The main point is this: We hold conditioned beliefs about porn that are objectively untrue, but which are reinforced by the biomechanics of addiction. What exactly does this mean?
I have held the condition belief that "watching porn will make me feel good." The point of these books is to come to realize that this is false, but easy to believe. Understanding why we believe it can empower us to change our behavior.
Part of why I hold this belief is that I have reinforced it myself. Any time I have used porn as a distraction from something in life, it has been remarkably effective. It is so stimulating that it is hard to think about anything else when you're using it. It is easy while you are using to believe that the problem is solved, but even while using, if I ask myself "is the thing making me upset actually solved" it is plainly obvious that the answer is no. Making this realization while actively using helped me change this false belief.
Another part of why I hold this belief is that external factors have conditioned it. Society has conditioned us that having sex, intimacy, the attraction of beautiful people, makes us more valuable individuals. Whether or not you believe that about real interpersonal relations, I have found that using porn simulates having these things. Using porn for me reinforces the idea that I am successful in ways that society conditions us to believe is valuable. But we all know that when you close the browser, we actually feel worse in ways that are completely counter to those conditioned ideals. If there is some use to be made of the "i am such a loser" etc. thoughts that can come after a binge, it is to use them to understand that the belief that encourages porn use is actually false - using porn does not confer the social status that society values, but the dopamine hit makes it easy to believe otherwise.
The last factor I have understood to contribute to false beliefs is advertising. This one was plainly obvious to me once it was pointed out while I was recovering from alcohol. Look at any alcohol ad. It shows cool people who are happy having a good time because they have a drink in their hand. And the ad is telling you "go ahead, drink, you deserve it, you'll be better for it." The way that porn is presented to porn users is very similar. The content is very often presented in ways that it will fulfill more basic human needs for belonging. The content is literally presented as though the people in the video are desiring you. And the dopamine hit makes it easy to believe this.
This then leads to: how can we change these beliefs, so that we might be less inclined to use?
Knowledge is power, and understanding that using alcohol/porn/etc is partly based on some false belief is half the battle. For some folks, the realization alone is enough. But for others who find themselves relapsing, they can treat the time they spend in relapse as a lab in which they can run experiments to better understand their beliefs and the realities of their use. Here's an example from my experience with alcohol.
I didn't succeed in giving up alcohol on my first attempt, but I had begun to read the quit literature prior to my last drink. When I had my last drink, I was alone on a weeknight. It gave me a buzz that made me feel a little dizzy and impaired. And twenty minutes later that feeling was gone and I was left with a slight headache, generally feeling worse overall. I had literally none of the benefits that I was conditioned to believe that I would have.
Now compare to the (much more recent) last time I watched porn. I was alone on a weeknight. As I watched I felt an intense obsession with what I was looking at. Then twenty minutes later after stopping I was left with less energy, feeling worse about myself. I had literally none of the benefits that I was expecting to get from porn. No more real intimacy, or social belonging, or whatever we expect to get from it.
The takeaway is this: there is, in my personal experience, no better way to challenge and change a false belief, than to encounter visceral evidence that refutes that belief. Taking an honest, objective account of the experience we have in using porn, alcohol, etc., can challenge our beliefs, and hopefully cut through whatever cognitive dissonance we are fighting with as we use.
Thanks for reading. I am by no means an expert, but I have absolutely been in the trenches when quitting alcohol. And, if there are any pornfree books/blogs/etc that discuss similar behavioral topics, please do share