Why do you relapse?

[City Fool]

I am writing this thread following Bolt's Thread "Dealing with relapse"
What struck a chord with me was the fact that this is reactive thinking. One should not really focus on how to pick oneself up following a relapse, but focus on not relapsing at all.

I fully appreciate it sounds so much easier than done, but I myself and many others have taken this journey on and been strict with our strategies which in turn make the journey that much easier.
YOU CAN BE P FREE, if you are PREPARED to DO and CHANGE what is necessary.

So Why do we relapse?

Definition of 'Relapse' :-

• To fall back again
• to recur
• to worsen

If you relapse, quite simply you haven't prepared well enough.

So how do you prepare effectively? To explain this, I will start of with an extreme, then break it down.

Task: Never see P again

Current ways to view P and provocative images/videos:

1. Internet
2. Magazines
3. TV
4. Access through friends
5. DVD shop

I have now identified all the ways I can view P. So now, All I need to do, is work out, how to prevent myself from accessing those points.

Actions to take to prevent viewing P

1. Disconnect Internet / broadband / Telephone line
2. Do not leave room / house
3. Sell TV
4. Do not meet friends
5. Do not leave room / house

As stated earlier, this is extreme, however, I have countered points 1 to 5.

Now, what were not addressing here, is all those temptations, all those thoughts. This is the real test of will power.

If you were in Ethiopia or Rwanda now, where your primary concern is to survive, It is highly unlikely your sxual urges, temptations will come to surface.

So the next part of you planning, should be to address these temptations and triggers.

example 1: If you are usually start to think about P, when you visit a store and see loads of magazines on the rack with scantily clad women. You can prepare in a number of ways. 1) Dont go to the store again, Acknowledge the location of the untoward magazines and when entering store physically look in the opposite direction.

example 2: If you usually think about P, when you at home or in your room all alone for hours, again you can prepare in a number of ways. 1) you know when you will be alone, why not plan a meeting with friends at that time, why not do some chores at that time 2) Have an internet filter, managed by someone else 3) Dont stay at home, go out untill someone else is home.

Will power is usually the biggest issue, but what were trying to do, is give you the best chance, by reducing the amount of will power needed. To do this, I beleive there are number of factors that you need to be clear about:

1) Know why you want to be P free
If you are doing this for anyone else but yourself, you will fail.
If you dont know why you want to be P free, you will fail.

2) Be honest with yourself
We have lied to everyone, You will be shocked at how many times you can lie to yourself to convince yourself its not that bad.
Be honest, in your planning, be honest in identifying your weaknesses. If you lie to yourself, you will fail.

3) Preparation is Key
If you dont prepare, you dont really care.
Do not react to situations, Try and proactively run through scenarios before they happen, so you can adjust. This requires total honesty with yourself. If you dive in to this journey without some form of preparation, you will fail.

4) Knowledge is power
Know thy enemy. Learn about how one has hurt others through this addiction. Learn how it affects our characters, and actions. By gaining this knowledge, daily, weekly, monthly, you make yourself stronger, better prepared, more honest, and ultimatley stregnthen your reasoning to why you want to be P free.

If through all this, you still slip up, thats fine, because we are human and we make mistakes, but with all the points, you should have the sense and knowledge to work out what went wrong in your strategy, then ammend your plan to that it cant happen again. If it keeps happening again, ultimatley you are lying to yourself, or you are unclear in why you want to be P free.

In January 2008 I could have not written this with such clarity or confidence. But through daily reading, and gaining knowledge, I know anyone can do this, if they REALLY WANT TOO.

Best of strength to all.

Make a fresh start: More about ThroughTheFlame.org

FM

This is one of the best posts on the site and worth airing for the benefit of new members or lurkers.
Other sites I've been on have a lot of lurkers who for reasons of their own, read and don't post. Not a bad thing, but there's more support and answers if a person does post.

CF

[Twilight]

I can endure 1-7 days after relapse. Eventually I feel extremely frantic feeling in my mind like someone rule, steer me... 2-6 minutes (not hours) of P watching is enough to relapse for me. Then I stop to watch P for a time, just 2-6 min. Then it repeat afresh - frantic feeling etc...

Actually I hate P. Suppose it is not enough of this feeling within me... Probably the chemichal processes in my mind impels me to relapse? What do you think?

[Daniel]

Twighlight,

Most definitely.

I would never assert something crazy like "the chemicals made me do it." Which is not true.

We act out for myraid reasons, some easier to justify than others (all justifications/rationalizations being wrong at the outset).

Once we are in the moment of using, with the release of serotonin and other "feel-good" physio-chemical drugs kicked in by our reward center in our brains, then we develop a pyschological bond with that high, similar to a drug addict. We end up running for more at every urge.

Thus P (and perhaps MB too) turns into a twisted oasis where we go to escape fill-in-the-blank. Meanwhile the P Monster, who is only satisfied with MORE, slowly or quickly begins to fill up all available space in our life until literally everything else is pushed out.

That's the bottom.

Seek to avoid it!

Daniel

[Twilight]

Daniel,

I would say I'm ruled by strongly developed habit, easy speaking.

"We act out for myraid reasons". Also I realize that I must not act out for myriad of reasons. :-)

It is of interest that I'm a victim for a 14 years and I never felt like I want more and more hard P. That's true. Is it contdradiction? Probably it's not because all this years I heartily wage war against this filth. And I don't permit P to be satisfied with more. Last year I made decision to end up with this at all (Lucky that I found your site). Never thought there are still morally clean people in our degrading world (feel like there will be army of sexual maniacs in the whole world soon).

Also I've noticed that when my feelings getting stronger toward one girl it is easier to end up with P. Interesting...

[stillandagain]

I am replying to this thread to move it back to the more currently active location in the forum. For me, as someone new here, this is such an important conversation to visit, and learn from.

Thank you

[blindside]

bumping this back up. What a well written post!

[FoolishMind]

Thank you very much Blindside.
FM