You might not believe the title at first, but it works. Better than any method I’ve seen before. And it only takes a couple of minutes each day to do. Too good to be true? No, it’s what I’ve come to see as the truth after years of failing again and again.
My highest streak before this one was 60 days. And that was just because I got lucky by not stumbling on any triggers. I still had urges. With this streak and the method, I will tell you won’t have any urges at all. Most of my streaks before were because I didn’t stumble on some porn accidently. I was doing it wrong. Yeah, you can meditate and take cold showers and lock your devices away. That’s what I tried. But then I realized if I came across an urge, none of these things would work. Most of the advice I heard was all ‘quick tips’ Motivation was DEFINATELY not going going to save you, which is ironic because that is what most of this subreddit is. And yeah you could use immense willpower. But guess what, willpower isn’t always conveniently going to be there.
I realized the only way to succeed was to focus on that few seconds after seeing the urge. Nothing else mattered.
This is probably the only method you are going to need. I’m not claiming to be the only one to have used this. Most successful streaks (over 90) are probably based on this. Assuming the person didn’t just get lucky and didn’t move to the mountains to become a monk. The method:
- record all the urges you can remember: the moment you saw the urge, and what you did next
- each morning, sit down and imagine seeing an urge you recently had. Visualise what you will do to overcome it. Breathing, thinking of family, whatever. Repeat until it feels natural
- Do this everyday, and soon it will become an instinctive habit. Every time you see an urge, remember the protocol you have created and it will be put into action, and not the body’s biological default ‘sex mode’.
How I developed this method
- When I realised when confronted with an urge, all the cold showers and push-ups weren’t going to save me, I realised I had to actually train the ‘resisting’ itself. And willpower wasn’t the answer, as most of my relapses were when I felt like shit
- I knew I had to come up with a ‘protocol’ of sorts, a set of instructions I would subconsciously follow instead of the default ‘make baby mode’, and instead of using sheer willpower to resist. I had to make this reaction a habit
- I first though about purposely showing myself porn so I could practise resisting the impulse. But that was counter-intuitive.
- Then I remembered reading about a study that showed visualising practising basketball was just as effective. Thus this method was born
That is literally it. This means you won’t have to uninstall Reddit or Instagram in fear of urges. Confront them. Soon you will overcome any urges. You will come to a period where there are no urges at all. I remember a few days ago being accidently being redirected to a porn ad. I was surprised to see I didn’t feel anything at all. I just casually clicked away. This would have never happened before. When I started the method, it took a few minutes before the urges went. Now, it takes a few seconds. It is all because of the reprogramming. Good luck, and you have used a similar method, or if this works for you, then be sure to let me know! I would love to see if this has worked for anyone else. If you need any advice or anything feel free to PM me
Edit: One problem I had when doing the method is realizing quickly enough I was falling into the urge. The trick to it is realizing what’s happening quickly enough. That’s all it is. That’s what the visualizations are for, extra practice to make the reaction into a habit.
Habit loop before:
trigger -> release dopamine -> fap
Habit loop after:
trigger -> “oh look, a trigger” -> ‘protocol’ -> release dopamine ->fap -> move on
OGDusky, a Reddit user.
