How Do You Overcome Certain BAD Thoughts?

[Yesterday Is History]

How do you as a teen or a young person overcome certain thoughts?

Thoughts like, "I'll never be free from this," or "What's the point in even trying, I should just do what I want, because I already feel like I'm a failure for getting addicted to P and MB in the first place."

Thoughts like that. The thoughts that make us feel worthless, and make us feel like we're not even worth saving from this addiction.

PS. all those thoughts are total lies, and YOU are worth saving!

[fightingdefeat]

Good thread. For me personally? I mention it some in my journal, but in overcoming depressive thoughts? It's tough. Especially when I've been on a binge or really am struggling with other things in life and then P creeps in as well.

For me, the process in overcoming bad thoughts stems from my Christian world view... I pray, I meditate on the Bible, and seek Godly counsel. Other non-religious ways though that I use to remain positive, joyful, and determined include exercise, friendship (and just being outgoing in general, tough for me personally, but fellowship helps a persons' self esteem tremendously), writing my thoughts out in a journal, talking to people who are positive... Reading the news? Believe it or not, it helps me re-focus on priorities in life and that the world out there is hurting and me being depressed or engaging in P does not help anyone.

I also love to envision the future. I love to envision the possibilities of being a person who is not addicted to P. I love thinking and pondering about the future of marriage and family and how I would not want P to get in the way of any of that.

[no_excuses]

I think those suggestions are all great ones. Another one for me, and I think for a lot of others rebuilding from (any) addiction, is a deep and visceral disgust and hatred of how the addiction had dragged us down, made us into someone other than who we really are, caused us to lose great things in life, and was a true demon in our existence. When I think back on the years of living with that cancer inside me, there's just no way I can go back. And don't get me wrong, it took many failed attempts at quitting to get to this point. I was disgusted with myself many times in the past over the addiction, yet kept going back to it out of weakness. But look at what "rock bottom" really means. It means that though you've sunk low many times before, you can't do it any more, you can't allow yourself to keep hurting yourself any more, there are no more lies to tell yourself because you've proven all of them wrong and you know exactly how bad porn is for you and exactly how easy it is to slip under its spell. The great thing about clarity is that once it shines clear - not mostly clear, not kind of clear, but perfectly clear so that you understand it with every fiber of your being - you can never forget it. You can never be fooled again. And quitting for good becomes so much easier when you have that clarity permanently burned into your mindset - the clarity of the good person you REALLY are and how porn is an illusion, not even a drug, but simply the picture of a drug. Tune into your true self. Live there every day, and for as many moments in each day as you can. See the ugly former parts of yourself for what they are, and forgive yourself and move on. Hold onto that clarity and it will be your ship on the stormiest seas.