If you’ve been struggling to quit porn and feel stuck despite trying everything, you’re not alone—and this guide is made to help you finally break free for good.Today I'm going to cover the things you need to get started on your journey to quitting porn forever.
Overcoming porn is one of the biggest challenges a modern man faces. Almost all of us are exposed to porn at a young age, and are now aware that it is a dangerous thing to do regulary.
Few of us realize that watching porn is something that may be holding us back in life. We find NoFap or perhaps know about it through our religion.
If you are reading this, you desire to quit porn for good, and have probably tried to do it before but failed to keep your word.
Usually after experiencing cravings to watch porn, you look for knowledge. Books. Reddit advice posts. Apps. ChatGPT. Going through hours of research you may try many different methods, and tools such as porn blockers (which don’t work by the way).
Learning that most of the advice is from people still struggling with staying off of porn, is a part of the journey to your freedom.
We all have to try and fail in order to realize, most of the advice out there is either overly specific (somebody who has been able to quit after doing a specific step, but they don’t recount the process to get to that final step)
or relies on external things (higher power, a group, a specific combination of habits you must do every day), therefore it is not permanent (for example 12 step groups have a temporary solution, that relies on being free one day at a time, instead of permanently. (That comes at a great life quality decrease (you are made to believe you have a disease) and usually a lower life quality, due to the constant need to participate in the group.)
I have been trough the journey and have first hand experience with these situations. After 12 years of watching porn daily, and trying to quit for 3 more years, succeeding eventually. Since then I have made it my mission to help people do the same in 1/10th of the time, and to improve my methods to a level where I can 100x the speed of recovery for my clients.
The trick is, this cannot be a one size fits all template that you can just apply, that would work for very few people. There are few parts of my method that are the same, no matter who reaches out for help. Today I’m going to cover the things you need to get started on your journey to quitting porn forever.
“Bookmark this page—you’ll come back to it.” -ChatGPT
Why Most People Can’t Quit Porn (Even When They Really Want To)
Obviously porn is often used as a numbing agent, a de-stressor. But, some may just use it to go to sleep easier. Some use it to celebrate. Needless to say, porn seems like a one size fits all habit, which at the end has very few benefits, that have nothing to do with whatever you tried “fixing” with watching porn.
So how is it, that you decide to quit porn, yet you still watch porn later that day, week, or even hour?
There are 2 likely scenarios:
- You are lying to yourself. You really don’t want to stop watching porn, and for no apparent reason decided to act like you care that porn has life altering side effects, when you in reality you really want to watch porn. Perhaps you want to play the role of the victim, or use this habit as an expression of how dissatisfying your life is (by the way, that would be very inefficient).
- You have a genuine desire to quit, and are making a decision based on the knowledge that porn is bad for you (you personally), and based on your own past experience, you quit watching porn. Yet for some mysterious reason, when cravings hit, somehow you end up watching porn again.
If you are still reading you are #2. A person who acts like they want to quit know they are lying to themselves… You can’t lie to yourself. You will always know it is a lie deep down.
However if you are genuine about your decision, you will know that you are not lying to yourself when you want to quit.
Let me de-mistify the situation:
The Reward Brain
There is a part of your brain (called the extended amygdala) that is responsible for motivating you to chase towards things that help you need to stay alive, and reproduce (water, food, sex, relationships).
This part of your brain is very small, and is surrounded by your upper brain (cerebellum, sulcus etc.) Its only function is to push you towards things that make you
A: stay alive
B: reproduce.
It does this by motivating you to do the actions via your internal thoughts. (Whether you think in words, images or both.)
So that is how, the reward brain, has its own little internal voice.
It can tell you that searching something on instagram won’t hurt you.
That you don’t need to delete all your dirty videos and references to them.
And other bad decision that will inevitably stack up, and cause you to “relapse”.
Even though, you (as in your consciousness in the control centre of your being) genuinely desires to quit porn.
The Trick
The reward brain was tricked. It was made to believe that porn is sex. It thinks when you’re watching porn you’re having sex.
Would you like to prove this?
Here’s an experiment you can do:
- Go to a mirror in a private place (the bigger the mirror the better this works).
- Look into your own eyes deeply
- Say I love you with genuine emotion, and soothe yourself based on any negative emotions you may feel (for example: “I love you no matter what”, “you’re gonna be ok” etc.).
- Now observe your mood, and general emotions change. What just happened? Your “monkey brain” thinks you’ve met someone, who just said they love you, and asked for nothing in return!
Awesome, right? Well, yes, but it can be, and it is exploited by many “entertainment” industries such as the porn industry.
So you have 2 voices in your head
Here is we can separate them:
Your voice: Does not want to watch porn, feels disgusted about watching porn again. Any topic that does not support the viewing of pornography is your voice.
Little voice of the reward brain: ANY thougths that support watching porn, or get you closer to watching porn in the future, positive feeling towards the viewing of erotic material is not you.
I recommend you to read that again, just so you understand it 110%
The bad news is, that voice never goes away.
The good news is, it will find better things to motivate you to do, after you starve it from the thing it craves the most, and give it other stimulus. (Starve: PMO – Pornography, Masturbation, Orgasm. – Add instead: Exercise, socializing, Work, meditation).
For example, you can make it seek any activity no matter how little dopamine it gives, for example my reward brain drives me to work, as I’ve trained it.
My reward brain still, sometimes tries to drive me towards watching porn. It say things like “you’re getting so far away from porn addicts, you can’t ever relate to them” luckily, at this point this happens a few times per year, only in the face of great stressors.
The way forward, or the FIX is to realize that it is your not your internal voice that is talking, and leave it at that. Just move on, and don’t argue or try to be right.
Why? Because the Little voice of the reward brain has full access to your brain’s capabilities, knowledge and memories (but only to motivate you, nothing else) therefore.
if you start an internal argument you can’t win it. You’re arguing with yourself.
Dopamine Loops
Modern society is based on debt and dopamine. If you genuinely desire to quit porn, delete all social media (clean up messenger apps, set a 35 minute app timer on them)(p.s.: instagram is not a messenger app.)
“Most urges come from exposure to soft-core porn or anything related to it.
If you happen to accidentally stumble upon porn, quickly click off whatever it is you’re seeing.
Even a quick voluntary glimpse will make your Reward Brain excited.
Complete abstinence isn’t hard as long as you aren’t viewing anything bad, or peeking.
And if you feel like peeking, just know that it’s your Little Voice telling you to do that.”
Instagram, tiktok, reddit, all these social media apps stimulate your reward brain via dopamine, and you are likely to stumble upon soft-core pornography on them (especially instagram, tiktok).
It is not the goal to “block” you from watching porn. What you’re looking to do is clean up your environment (especially your digital one) so it is harder to get sucked down the dopamine loop, where you keep craving more and more impulses while feeling worse and worse (this is another side addiction almost all porn addicts have, they use social media, which is another thing that can be clearly bad for you. These things go hand-in hand.
The illusion of powerlessness: you feel powerless when you relapse. When in reality, you had all the control all along. You just didn’t know it.
The little voice can only motivate you, manipulate you into watching porn. It can not move your hand, and make you type your favourite site (or your least preferred site, just as a deal that if you’re going to relapse it might as well be the least gratifying) the Little voice can not move your hand and make you type in whatever it is you type in. Only you can do that. The little voice can only manipulate you, and fool you into thinking you don’t have a choice – when in reality you always are in control, and can literally just do nothing.
Going back to the example of choosing your least preferred site, just as a deal that if you’re going to relapse it might as well be the least gratifying:
Just as you don’t try to argue with the little voice, you don’t make deals with it.
“It”(the Little voice) can not do anything, but to make you watch porn. There are no deals to be made. “It” has one function: to make you chase the reward.
All deals will be exploited for the future viewing of pornography.
I guarantee you that.
Experiment
Extend your fingers, and challenge your reward brain to a battle:
make a “deal”, but this time “it” will be left very bitter:
if “it” can bend your index finger on your right hand, you will watch all the porn “it” wants. All of it.
Give it a “fair ammount of time (1-2 minutes)”. Watch your finger. Notice the internal thougths, visions of you bending your finger, internal images. Notice that despite all this, your finger stays extended, and only you can move it.
That’s your first real victory of discipline, well done.
You Don’t Need More Motivation—You Need a System
The article above will make you understand how to quit porn forever, but you will still have a lot of cravings
Quitting porn is a journey that is more than just an extension in knowledge and a few experiments.
There are 3 daily habits that support your brain (frontal lobe) and shrink your Reward brain (extended amygdila):
- Meditation
- Journaling
- Exercise
Doing these 3 habits EVERY DAY, consistently, will significanty improve your quality of life, cause less cravings of the little voice (you’re feeding him with dopmaine from exercise).
By the way. don’t overthink it. Journaling can be just a few words each day. The point is doing it every day, and perhaps writing more on days you feel like it. These are the Most crucial habits.
on top of this you MUST fix your sleep. Sleep is as important than the 3 habits above combined (hint: it is not just the duration, but also the quality)
What About Relapses?
When you know you’re the one choosing to watch porn and being manipulated to do so, slipping up/relapsing does not make you question everything, as the truth will not change.
By the way, “slipping”, “relapse” language is weak and disempowering. If you are not going to watch porn again, you won’t. Stop counting the days, remember the little voice concept and get on with your life, instead of browsing NoFap reddit.
Summary of How to Quit Porn for Good
1: Neuro-Split: Separate the Real You from the Reward Brain
Explain the “Reward brain – Little voice” technique
Clarify: You are not your urges.
2: Radical Environment Control
Deleting your Social media
Meditation, exercise, Journaling daily (even if just a few words)
These are the most important pieces to start the process to quit Porn for good.
There is more to this when it comes to quitting porn, but I’m getting hungry and I went way over the character limit ChatGPT said this article should be as a maximum.
If you want to 10x your speed of recovery, get help with your unique situation or just looking for guidance, I offer coaching on a monthly basis.
If you’re just looking to learn more on your own, check out the other blog articles, and remember. Just because someone wrote it on the internet, does not make it true. Most people writing about NoFap and Quitting Porn for good still struggle with controlling cravings.
Have an Epic day,
Coach Nicholas Ambrus
Call-to-Action:
Why Coaching Changes Everything
3 biggest benefits:
- Daily Accountability
- Perspective and pattern spotting leading to breaking free within weeks
- 10x-100x Faster transformation (expert guidance)
Articles Based on Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
- “Can I quit porn without a coach?”
- “What about masturbation?”
- “What if I relapse after 60 days?”