5 Things To Avoid When You’re Quitting Porn
For most people, quitting porn permanently is no easy task. The process is notoriously hard to navigate without proper preparation, and can leave you scratching your head over where you went wrong when you slip up and return to your old habits. It may take several attempts if you’re not aware of the common pitfalls, so to make your life easier, here are 5 things to avoid when you’re quitting porn.
Porn-substitutes
A porn-substitute is defined as any sort of media you would use as a replacement to pornography when you’re experiencing cravings to return to your old habits. For example, using social media or dating apps with the intention to seek out some extention of the arousal you normally get from pornography would be considered a porn-substitute. While no type of media is innately harmful to recovery from pornography, if they’re used in this manner while you’re trying to quit a deep-rooted routine of porn use, it’s certainly not doing you any favors. Even further, one of the most highly regarded positive effects of quitting pornography is the additional free time that was previously used to watch porn, so why use it to scroll social media? Play it safe and stay away for a while.
Do this instead: Literally anything you want. Learn a new skill, Pick up a new hobby, Spend more time with family and friends. The extra time you’ve earned should serve as a reward for quitting porn, so make sure you use it on something you enjoy.
“White knuckling”
The term “White knuckling” is commonly used in AA and NA to describe attempting to achieve sobriety without any support. The term stems from the imagery of trying to hang onto something so hard that it whitenes your knuckles, and accurately reflects that you shouldn’t try to quit a bad habit with sheer willpower alone. Choosing to “white knuckle” your way to a porn-free life may seem like a good alternative when you feel shame over having cravings and would prefer not having to seek peer support. However, if you consult an addiction specialist or the current literature on addiction, you will find that “white knuckling” is never considered to be the best option.
Do this instead: Create a plan for how you handle your urges. If you want a concrete strategy to quitting porn that is both proven in research and tailor-made to your specific challenges, we suggest reading our article on research-based strategies to quit porn.
If you’re experiencing severe issues as a result of porn use, it’s always recommended to seek help from a licensed therapist.
Keeping your phone in your bedroom
Using your phone before sleep is a common mistake for people who have created a strong association between their phone and using pornography. Fortunately, the solution is simple.
Do this instead: Don’t bring your phone into your bedroom. The same goes with other electronic devices you might use as an excuse to watch porn when you’re tired and your willpower isn’t on top. If you use your phone as an alarm in the morning, buy an alarm clock.
Try reading a book before sleep, it works wonders!
Isolating yourself
Your urges are experts in tempting you away from your support-networks and the people who hold you accountable. A common experience with this phenomenon is that people get the sudden idea that they’re tired of hanging out with their friends and want to be alone for a while. For example, you might get the unexplainable urge to ditch your friends and go to sleep at 8:30, which of course leaves you vulnerable for cravings to start building throughout the night. Friends and family keep us grounded and accountable for our actions, and serve as excellent discussion partners when we need to ventilate our troubles. However, you may not be comfortable with opening up about your troubles with porn to just anyone.
Do this instead: Recruit a trusted friend as a teammate on your journey to quitting porn. This friend may be welcome to join the journey as an accountability partner, but only really needs to let you talk about your achievements and challenges, and provide the occasional words of wisdom. It’s up to you to decide how you want to structure your checkups, but we recommend at least meeting on a weekly basis.
Ignoring your needs (HALT)
Ignoring the signs your body sends you is the evil twin of “white knuckling”. We put a lot of effort into avoiding triggers and surpressing cravings, but there are much more healthy ways to handling cravings than ignoring them. As we explained in our article on how porn affects the brain, cravings occur when we experience a deficit in our dopamine levels as a result of abstaining from stimuli that usually give us a kick (in this case, watching porn). Your body is telling you that something is wrong, and that you need to compensate for the dopamine deficit that your abstinence is causing. The wrong approach here is to interpret this signal as your body attempting to lure you back into using porn.
Do this instead: The right approach is to interpret the signal for what it is, and to seek out more healthy ways to stimulate a dopamine response as compensation for the boredom you’re experiencing from quitting porn. A useful acronym from other addiction therapy programs is "HALT", which reminds you that when you’re experiencing cravings, you’re probably either Hungry, Angry, Lonely, or Tired. A great tip is to respond to porn cravings by engaging in something else that is kind of a bad habit, but gives you a much healthier dopamine kick. Don’t worry about playing too many video games or eating some junk food when you’re trying to quit porn. You can always taper off other bad habits later, but porn is a habit that you definitely want to prioritize quitting first.
