For the ones who had a porn addiction: How long did it take to rewire your brain and finally enjoy sex?

DigitalDragonSlayer · 2020-01-17T16:19:27+00:00

Progress can be noticed 30, 60, and 90 days out, 6, 12, 24 months out based on what I’ve read gauging other men’s experience.

I’m in a similar boat—trying to kick porn completely.

boywonder200 · 2020-01-17T16:27:06+00:00

If you really want a hard reset in a relatively short amount of time, cut down on dopamine hits from any form of screen. I remember going on vacation after masturbating every day or every other day. Didn't bring a laptop and was hardly on my phone the whole time. Came back home after a week and a half and I remember sex with my GF just being amazing. Rock hard dick without any help from PDE5i's.

You gotta keep in mind that your reward system is all controlled by a single part of the brain - The nucleus accumbens. So any form of dopamine dysregulation will affect other areas in life. That is why a person addicted to dopaminergic drugs feels little happiness at all in other areas of life - this drug is taking up all of the dopamine in their system. In similar ways, most people have strengthened pathways related to compute/phone use, and these pathways dominate the majority of their dopamine release. So other pathways using dopamine, say running to the top of a hill to watch the sunrise, give them less pleasure.

Cheeseydick6969 · 2020-01-17T15:24:08+00:00

Only read the title. I'm assuming you know all about no fap

2 weeks to get some feeling back in my dick. About 1.5 months to really appreciate a woman's touch and enjoy sex 3 months after and I forgot I even had the problem.

I got pussy while addicted to porn and it never felt the way it does now. Quit porn. Don't get caught up in the mindset of if you touch your dick your nofap streak is ruined. It's a lot of stress that will mess with your head and slow you down.

Just don't watch porn cut back on social media and take a deep breath. No need to track streaks or worry about any of that shit.

Diche_Bach · 2020-01-17T18:07:04+00:00

Wow. I did not realize it could get that bad, but I guess if the excessive exposure to porn is too early in life, yeah it makes sense.

It sounds like you are doing a lot of wise stuff. The only thing I would also suggest is: try to use exposure to non-porn female signals (imagery and sound) and achieve aroused but not erotically aroused engagement.

I'm a very old guy, though I do stay fit for my age. I read TRP and askTRP because the whole phenomenon of a post-Feminist world gone so crazy that males need this kind of 'support' and guidance is still pretty amazing to me. It makes sense from an analytical standpoint, but I still find it amazing at how much incredibly social and biological change has taken place these last 20 years or so (and indeed, I think a lot of it has been in the last 10 or 15 years).

For me, hailing as I do from a youth and young adult hood in the 1950s and 1960s, what is today regarded as "red pill" is to me simply "normal guy stuff." Now granted, I do see a good bit of plain old stupid misogyny and dick-waving that gets passed off as "red pill," but that is to be expected. I think there is a sound "return to ethical masculinism" to found in that red pill, if in fact one is in need of taking it, which I am not and never will be. I am from the era before red pills were necessary, a bit like the character in the Matrix who shows Neo he was born in Zion free from all of the plugs and cables of having been born in the Matrix.

As an example of the sort of 'achieve aroused but not erotically aroused engagement,' I'm talking about . . . yesterday I was in the grocer. Now as I said, I'm unusually fit for my age, and I also do not dress like a boomer. I don't dress like anyone but myself in fact. So people tend to notice me. I make eye contact and return whatever they deserve: respect, reassurance, attraction, vacuous stare, glare, whatever. I was in the produce section and happened to notice this young lady employees ass and was probably gazing at it with a grin when she caught me doing it and started to grin back at me, and we made eye contact and I winked at her and she was flattered and went on her way smiling. I didn't leer at her, I didn't get a boner and cream in my shorts, I wasn't scheming how to get laid, I just noticed an attractive young lady and there was a brief exchange of looks. Totally normal and commonplace for a normal healthy male even in advanced old age. IMO, that is the goal for which one should strive.

Nothing inherently wrong with porn. But even too much of a okay thing can be harmful and especially when we are talking about a young mind/body.

bloody_condoms · 2020-01-17T18:25:18+00:00

If only more guys like you asked for advice with already a plan for success in mind, everyone on this sub would be so much more inclined to help.

You’re plan is solid and your goals are high. Stick to it religiously.

Best advice: Eyes on the prize, hands off your thighs

Lightways434 · 2020-01-17T14:50:05+00:00

So much of your story resonates with me. I discovered sex through porn at a very young age and it negatively affected me for the rest of my life. I finally realized I had a porn addiction at age 20. It took 2 years to finally rewire, however, I’m still fully aware that my brain is attuned to the rush of dopamine awarded from porn or any sexually suggestive content so I tread carefully. To your point about being triggered even when you don’t want to watch, is your brains response to the years of conditioning from that artificial stimulus. It’ll take a while before you’re brain is back to something approximating normal.

RevolutionaryPea7 · 2020-01-17T19:15:38+00:00

Same story as you except didn't bother with women until about 25. Discovered that a real woman couldn't get me hard at all. Only porn worked.

I did a full 90 days of nofap and then it still took several fucks to be able to cum inside my girlfriend at the time. After that I still had problems getting hard and cumming with new women. Went through about 20 women. Couldn't get hard for 5 of them, couldn't cum with another 5.

After several years of reconditioning my to sex instead of porn I can cum almost every time. But my brain still desperately wants to fuck a different woman every day. Unfortunately that isn't going to happen.

It gets better. Stop watching porn completely.

Velebit · 2020-01-17T23:03:07+00:00

8 times a day? That is fucked up. However settling for a nonhorndog girl you feel is passable (6) is the source of the issue, it will not change with removing porn. If you can wank off 8 times a day with good erection, the problem is not with physical stuff but with comfort, mental comfort with women being physically there and sex being in private with another person and not yourself.

I found my performance is trash when I am not genuinely finding the girl hot af but merely okay.

Startlivingfornow · 2020-01-17T23:06:49+00:00

Solely jerk off to my girlfriend and the pornos that we make when I can’t bang her.

Haven’t seen a porno in maybe a year now.

Best choice.

smeckledeckle · 2020-01-17T20:22:57+00:00

Hey man, I’ve got a very similar backstory to what you described and I know how debilitating it is after having jacked off to porn for so long from such a young age. After a couple years of back and forth trying to solve my issue, I was able to fix my relationship with sex and porn.

Here’s what helped me the most:

1) cutting out porn, but not necessarily masturbation. If you feel the need to jack off, do so but don’t watch porn. Instead use lube, go slow and try to feel your body and tune into arousal without porn. Re-familiarize yourself with the feeling of jacking off and orgasming without porn. This will be tough at first but with some patience it is achievable.

2) having a girl that you can fuck regularly and also has the same sexual interests/kinks as you. I’m not sure about you, but for me and many other men that have struggled with porn addiction, its common to progressively watch more and more extreme porn. Anal porn was your thing? Find a girl who loves getting fucked in the ass. Bondage your thing? Find a girl that you can dominate, slap, tie up or whatever. I was lucky enough to find a chick who had very good sexual chemistry with me and over time I totally forgot about porn because I had the real thing instead.

FrenCan316 · 2020-01-17T22:32:25+00:00

Honestly, if you don't care about that chick (you said she's just for practice) you should leave her and go monk mode for 2-3 months. That'll get you sorted. It's fucking hard but focus on GOOD dopamine hits like positive irl social interactions, hitting the gym and eating healthy delicious food. Avoid bad dopamine hits like junk good, cheat days, instagram or dating apps. I say dating apps because they give you easy validation when you get a match, the same way getting likes on instagram does.

Check out NoFap. Though it's overrun by teenagers and 99% of the posts are "I'm at X days" circle jerks look for the good and informative content. And use RP motivational content. Lastly , you'll be amazed at the results if you get sorted. If you pull off 60 or 90 days in monk mode and focus on self improvement, you'll come out the other side like a wolf

saheebs · 2020-01-18T01:18:10+00:00

Disclaimer: This is what worked for me hope it helpsFor me I just did so much research and read so many tabs of information regarding porn, listened to my 'heroes' and try to copy paste into my mind what they see porn as, like Jordan Peterson and Joe Rogan etc etc., and I sorta just gained so much information that I slowly shifted the balance in what I believe.

After the belief was reinforced x100000 and strong enough that "porn = bad" I now don't have the need to open up any of it.

Tony Robbins pretty much says if you can come up with enough reasons not to do something, your mind and body start to carry out different actions subconsciously, because that's technically how you 'rewire' your brain by thinking different things.Jordan Peterson says porn pretty much allows you to bypass the need to become an attractive male in real life and bypass all the natural emotional processes and bypass the building of natural confidence and get tens of thousands of girls with no effort.

I could keep going but the point is it won't sink in unless you research and internalise like 100 reasons why porn is bad. Now every time I think about porn I think of the millions of pages I've read about porn and its now just an automatic defense system. Sure I might open it up sometimes, but even during watching it my mind is like 'yeah but there's reasons not to watch it and reasons to do other things instead of let it drain your time and energy that will make you tired'. After a 5 to 7 minutes it is now habitual that I end up closing it.

TLDR: Come up with so many reasons that are so serious that you simply can't ignore them when you end up coming close to opening up porn that it becomes an automatic kneejerk reaction to close it.

Hope this helps!

thrwy75479 · 2020-01-17T14:50:32+00:00

About one and a half years.

bestsparkyalive · 2020-01-17T17:49:16+00:00

It’s a tough and rewarding journey.

TominatorXX · 2020-01-17T21:51:07+00:00

Listen to Dan Savage's sex advice podcast Savage Love. He has an episode or two where he talks about this problem and how to fix it. You have to stop wanking and have sex without coming and eventually you'll retrain your dick. If you have sex and can't cum, don't finish with your hand.

OfficerWade · 2020-01-17T22:12:20+00:00

It’s one of those things you have to stop cold turkey. The grass is greener

frognads · 2020-01-17T16:02:19+00:00

As long as it took to fuck a girl who turned me on

Anussauce · 2020-01-17T20:03:02+00:00

8 times? Jeez. Not judging. However, my meat is raw after 2; no matter the recharge time.

fannyfire · 2020-01-17T22:14:52+00:00

Have you ever read the book NMMNG. There’s a good section about pornography in it.

Gawernator · 2020-01-18T03:34:51+00:00

Never had it nearly as bad as you and it never really affected me in a physical way I think, just like how some people have different tolerances for "addictions"... but after a few months you definitely feel a sort of reset

VigilantSmartbomb · 2020-01-17T18:39:37+00:00

like 2 sexs

lol and my stories worse than this

erehc · 2020-01-23T14:28:37+00:00

Build your SMV and try your best to stop looking at porn. I didnt jack off at the rate you did, but over time I got more attention from girls and jacking off just got in the way so I naturally just replaced my jacking off habit with girls.

Building your SMV will also give you purpose and keep you a bit busier. I COULDN'T jack off in the morning anymore when I started lifting every morning because it would either cause me to get a terrible lift in or make me late to work. I DIDN'T jack off after working out because I was too busy organizing my shit and making breakfast before work. I WOULDN'T jack off after work because I was out of the house, working on my hobbies, chilling with my roommate, on a date, or out exploring the town solo.

Maybe I'd miss the gym one day and relapse or give myself a "cheat" day on Sunday if I really wanted to, but it go easier to not spiral out of control when I got busy.

Rispy_Girl · 2020-01-17T18:00:49+00:00

Had this happen in the past. I did a no orgasm month. As in not even from sex, then I stayed away from porn. I've gone back to looking at porn since then, but not at the quantities I used to. I also have sex regularly now which may be helping.

Terminal-Psychosis · 2020-01-17T19:14:10+00:00

[deleted]

cat_magnet · 2020-01-17T18:00:31+00:00

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Title	For the ones who had a porn addiction: How long did it take to rewire your brain and finally enjoy sex?
Author	LeonidasGER
Upvotes	127
Comments	69
Date	January 17, 2020 2:41 PM UTC (4 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/eq17jf/for_the_ones_who_had_a_porn_addiction_how_long/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/for-the-ones-who-had-a-porn-addiction-how-long-did.311887 https://theredarchive.com/post/311887