Feed the Right Wolf

Hi Bestself,

I think it's great you took such a drastic step to help your recovery. The internet in general can be addictive and usually we don't get much real value out of most popular sites like facebook and twitter. I hope you are staying connected with people the old-fashioned way, have fun on your trip.

Your friend,
Absolution.

_________________
Sobriety Date: October 25, 2011
"Everything comes to us that belongs to us if we create the capacity to receive it."
-Rabindranath Tagore

I admire your ability to just turn off the internet at home. Like you, even outside porn addiction, I can surf the web for hours (soccer, random lurid crimes/trials, political debate, celebrity gossip, climate change debate are some of the websites I waste my time on).
Were it possible to turn off the internet completely at home: I could read and learn and think more and I think that paradoxically, my life would be better. But I have 2 kids who love Netflix (I am worried that they will become future addicts.) And they have homework to do, and other legit reasons to search for information on the web. So the internet will remain at home, and I must find a way to harness it for good.

To be clear I don’t think having the internet at home is bad for everyone. Just bad for me. The goal for me is to one day master my internet and porn addiction so that I could have a computer at home without being a slave to it. Because I have built up strong habit patterns in internet and porn consumption I need to drastically alter my lifestyle for a while so that new habit patterns can form. Currently I know that after I have done what I’ve needed to do on the net, i.e. check email and respond to messages, I have a tendency to surf the net aimlessly for a while afterwards – most times this has led to going to inappropriate websites.

Here’s a good article about the advantages of quitting internet at home for those that are interested:
http://www.theminimalists.com/internet/

In regard to how I’m doing in rebooting…I’m struggling. I can get to a week or so pretty consistently, but always at the 8-10 day mark I feel so much pressure to release that I have caved 5 times thus far. Not having the internet at home is a huge help, but fantasizing and recalling images doesn’t. On the plus side over the past month, the number of times I’ve masturbated has drastically gone down relative to previous months. Some progress has been made, but I am nowhere near to where I want to be.

In an effort to rededicate myself I’ve been studying how to change behavior and found there are 3 primary ways to do so:
1. Set a goal and meet it
2. Fix a problem
3. Make goal attainment inevitable
What this would look like is:
1. No PMO for 90 days
2. Counseling, recovery courses
3. Pay a good friend money or eat a can of cat food everytime I watch porn or masturbate

Routes 1 and 2 take tremendous willpower, of which I have a limited supply of. It is also the 2 ways I’ve gone about trying to beat my addiction. I’m now going to try route 3:

Everytime I look at porn or masturbate over the next 90 days I am going to eat one spoonful of cat food.

Route 3 puts an extra cost with PMO, now when I think about doing it I will also think about the spoonful of cat food that I need to eat afterwards. Sounds crazy, but I really need to get rid of this addiction so I’ll try it.

But now that you have come to know God, or rather to be known by God, how can you turn back again to the weak and worthless elementary principles of the world, whose slaves you want to be once more?
(Galatians 4:9 ESV)

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/200 ... paging=off

The goal is marriage - not prolonged singleness and constant struggling with sexual temptation