The Root of all addictions in the world...
is DOPAMINE ... have found this article to be the best explanation of gambling addicted SBR posters, striving for Dopamine boost by wagering and admiring DAD's thread's. Artificial monetary and sexual stimula destracting all of the SBR posters from real life
Submitted by Gary Wilson on Thu, 09/01/2011 - 12:42
This article is a very short synopsis of the key concepts we focus on. Watch the 6-part series Your Brain on Porn for a more in depth understanding. For porn-induced ED watch Erectile Dysfunction & Porn. For specific content explore Porn FAQ's.
What happens when you drop a male rat into a cage with a receptive female rat? First, you see a frenzy of copulation. Then, progressively, the male tires of that particular female. Even if she wants more, he has had enough. However, replace the original female with a fresh one, and the male immediately revives and gallantly struggles to fertilize her.
You can repeat this process with fresh females until he nearly dies of exhaustion.
This is called the Coolidge effect—the automatic response to novel mates. And it’s what started you down the road to getting hooked on Internet porn.
Like that lab rat, you have a primitive mechanism in your brain urging you to fertilize the two-dimensional females, males (or whatever) on your screen. (Note: Coolidge effect also occurs in females. Studies show that, when given the opportunity, human females are just as promiscuous as males.)
Primitive circuits in your brain govern emotions, drives, impulses, and subconscious decision-making. They do their jobs so efficiently that evolution hasn't seen the need to change them much since before humans were humans.
More dopamine, please
For you, rats, and all mammals, the desire to have sex arises from a neurochemical called dopamine. Dopamine amps up the centerpiece of the primitive part of the brain—the reward circuitry. It’s where we experience pleasure, and where we get addicted.
The ancient reward circuitry compels you to do things that further your survival and pass on your genes. At the top of our human reward list are food, sex, love, friendship, and novelty. These are called ‘natural reinforcers,’ as opposed to addictive chemicals.
The evolutionary purpose of dopamine is to motivate you to do what your genes want you to. The bigger the squirt the more you want something. No dopamine and you just ignore it. Chocolate cake and ice cream—a big blast. Celery—not so much. Sex and orgasm are the biggest natural blast of dopamine available to your reward circuitry. One of dopamine's nicknames is the "molecule of addiction."
Although dopamine may be referred to as the pleasure molecule, this may not be technically accurate. Dopamine is more the craving for pleasure, or measure of potential value. Although controversial, the final reward or good feelings is thought to arise from opioids. Dopamine is wanting, opioids are liking. Addiction may be thought of as wanting run amok.
Novelty, novelty, more novelty
Dopamine surges for novelty. A new car, just-released movie, the latest gadget…we are all hooked on dopamine. As with everything new the thrill fades away as dopamine plummets.
Here’s how the Coolidge effect works: The rat’s reward circuitry is squirting less and less dopamine with respect to the current female, but produces a big dopamine surge for a new female. Does that sound familiar?
Internet porn is especially enticing to the reward circuitry because novelty is always just a click away. It could be a novel “mate,” unusual scene, strange sexual act, or—you fill in the blank. With multiple tabs open and clicking for hours, you can experience more novel sex partners every ten minutes than our hunter-gatherer ancestors experienced in a lifetime.
What’s a brain to do when it has unlimited access to a superstimulating reward it never evolved to handle? The brain eventually adapts, which can lead to addiction.
Drugs aren’t the only addictions
It’s common knowledge that dopamine-raising substances, such as alcohol or cocaine, can create addictions. Yet only about 10-15% of humans or rats that use addictive drugs (except nicotine) ever become addicts. Does this mean the rest of us are safe from addiction? When it comes to substance abuse, perhaps yes.
Yet when it comes to unrestricted access to superstimulating versions of natural rewards, such as junk food, or even video games, the answer may be no, although certainly not every user gets hooked.
The reason highly stimulating versions of food and sex can hook us—even if we're not otherwise susceptible to addiction—is that our reward circuitry evolved to drive us toward food and sex, not drugs. Today’s high fat/sugar foods (70% of American adults are overweight, 35% obese) and Internet porn (you’re reading this) have the potential to hook even more people than do drugs. These supernormal versions of natural rewards can override our brain’s satiation mechanisms—the “I’m done” feeling—because concentrated calories and fertilization opportunities are your genes’ top priorities.
All addictions lead to the same major brain changes
Recent research reveals that behavioral addictions (food addiction, pathological gambling, video gaming, andInternet addiction) and substance addictions involve the same major alterations in brain anatomy and chemistry. These include:
It's important to know that drugs don't create any new brain mechanisms. They only magnify mechanisms already in place for natural rewards. The evolutionary purpose of DeltaFosB is to activate the binge mechanism (see below). It's a great mechanism...for another time and environment. These days it makes a porn addiction as easy as 1-2-3.
Science keeps moving on
For political reasons, brain research isolating Internet porn addicts from plain old Internet addicts is not being done. However, several brain studies on "Internet addicts" were publish after this article was written. The studies did not assess what percentage of research subjects were addicted to Internet porn. However, it’s illogical to conclude that high levels of Internet porn use cannot change the brain, when junk food, video games, gambling, and "the Internet" have already been proven to do so (see Recent Internet Addiction Studies Include Porn)
The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) hammered the final nail in the porn debate coffin in August, 2011, ten months after I wrote this intro. America’s top addiction experts at ASAM released their sweeping new definition of addiction. The new definition, echoes the major points made on this website. Foremost, behavioral addictions affect the brain just as drugs do—in all key respects. This new definition, for all practical purposes, ends the debate over whether sex and porn addictions are “real addictions.” ASAM explicitly states that sexual behavior addictions exist and must be caused by the same major brain changes found in substance addictions.
More pleasure leads to less pleasure
One major reason you are addicted to porn is that you have a numbed pleasure response (desensitization). A decline in dopamine signaling and other brain changeshave hooked you on porn. It’s physiology, not morality.
The cycle of porn addiction mimics other addictions:
bingeing→numbed pleasure response→cravings→bingeing escalates→further decline in dopamine receptors→even less pleasure response→cravings→bingeing escalates
And soon you are hooked on porn, because nothing else is anywhere near as interesting to your brain. From your genes’ perspective, it’s the perfect design—to keep you fertilizing frantically—before this "valuable opportunity" slips away.
But that's not all. As desensitization numbs you to all pleasure, another process, sensitization (below) makes your brain more sensitive to anything associated with your porn addiction. Over time, this dual-edged mechanism has your reward circuitry buzzing at the hint of porn use, but less than enthused when presented with the real deal.
Your hijacked binge mechanism
Excess consumption (food or sex) is the signal to your primitive brain that you have hit the evolutionary jackpot.With sufficient stimulation dopamine levels and dopamine receptors begin to decline. This leaves you dissatisfied, craving more. This numbed pleasure response is your genes’ way to get you to gorge on food and mating opportunities.
At the same time, sensitization makes whatever you are gorging on more exciting than anything else. DeltaFosb appears to the molecular switch to activate this process - as it does with drug addictions.
A "binge mechanism" is an evolutionary advantage in situations where survival is furthered by overriding normal satiety. Think of wolves, which need to stow away up to twenty pounds of a single kill at one go. Or our ancestors, who needed to store high-quality calories as a few extra pounds for easy transport to survive hard times. Or mating season, when there's a harem to impregnate.
In the past, such opportunities were rare and passed quickly.
Humans environments have drastically changed. The Internet offers endless mating opportunities, which your primitive brain perceives as real. As any good mammal would, you attempt to spread your genes far and wide, but there’s no end to your mating season.
Click, click, click, masturbate, click, click, click, masturbate, click, click, click. Your binge mechanism is in overdrive. Evolution never prepared your primitive brain for this kind of nonstop stimulation.
"Nerve cells that fire together, wire together”
As the numbed pleasure response compels continued porn use, your brain starts to rewire itself. Rewiring involves overproduction of natural chemicals (delta FosB), and the strengthening the connections between nerve cells, making it easier for them to communicate. This is what happens in all learning. It’s called neuroplasticity. The more intense the experience, the stronger the connections. The stronger the connections, the easier it is for electrical impulses to travel along this new pathway.
With habitual porn viewing, you are deepening a rut in your brain. Just as water flows through the path of least resistance, so do impulses, and thus thoughts. As with any skill, the more you practice the easier it is do. Soon it becomes automatic, without any conscious thought. You've formed a deep pornography rut in your brain - a sensitized neural pathway.
Sensitized pathways can be thought of as Pavlovian conditioning on steroids. When activated by thoughts or triggers, sensitized pathways blast the reward circuit, firing up very hard to ignore cravings.
If these two neuroplastic changes could speak, desensitization would be moaning, "I can't get no satisfaction" (low dopamine signaling), while sensitization would be poking you in the ribs and saying, "Hey buddy, I got just what you need," which happens to be the very thing that caused the desensitization.
A numbed pleasure response (desensitization), combined with a deep pathway leading to short-term relief (sensitization), is the basis of all addictions.
Escalation and rewiring
Developing tolerance (numbed pleasure response) means an addict needs more of his/her “drug” to get the same effect. Heavy porn users sometimes notice that as tolerance builds for their earlier tastes, they move in new directions in their search for intense arousal. Many seek out what shocks them—perhaps because "forbidden" and"fear-producing," when combined with sexual arousal, offer a bigger brain-chemical kick...at least for a time.
So, it's not unusual to start out your porn career with an image of Jennifer Lopez' fine butt—and weeks later find you have "progressed" to girls with goats or violent rape scenes.
The more intense the associated events (orgasm + video), or the more they are repeated, the stronger the wiring. Each experience wires the new tastes into the brain. If your sexual tastes have changed, so has your brain.
Definition of addiction?
Many still believe that only chemicals, not behaviors, such as Internet porn can cause addiction. However, scientists who study the effects of addiction on the brain know differently. Experts in the field define addiction in many ways. A simple model for understanding addiction is to apply the four Cs:
Note that The American Society for Addiction Medicine emphasized this simple concept: exhibiting the signs, symptoms and behaviors associated with addiction indicates the underlying brain changes have occurred.
What makes Internet porn unique?
It’s evident that today's porn is easy to access, available 24/7, free and private. The way it's used keeps dopamine elevated for abnormally long periods, making Internet porn uniquely compelling, and potentially addictive.
Recovery sites often stress that the addictiveness of Internet porn is due to masturbation and orgasm becoming linked to exciting or shocking visuals. Certainly both play a role, but what sets Internet porn apart is:
People arrive here with lots of different symptoms, which they're not always sure are due to their heavy porn use. Confusion is understandable because the symptoms look so different:
Rebalancing the brain
If this phenomenon is underlying your symptoms, you need to restore the sensitivity of your reward system, weaken addiction pathways, and strengthen executive control. We call this process "rebooting." The best way to reboot is to give your brain a rest from all intense artificial sexual stimulation— including porn, fantasizing about porn, chat rooms, erotic stories, surfing for pictures—until it bounces back to normal responsiveness.
Those addicted to porn often find the rebooting process easier and faster when they drastically reduce or eliminate masturbation. This abstinence from masturbation & orgasm isn't a lifestyle - it's a temporary method for deepening recovery and reducing relapses into porn. Obviously, this process is initially very difficult. The brain can no longer rely on the artificially intense "fix" of dopamine (and other neurochemicals) associated with heavy porn use.
In addition to desensitization, porn use strengthened nerve connections linking the short-term relief of Internet porn with any other trigger your brain associates with porn (sensitization). Triggers such as being home alone, sexy images, or stress and anxiety, can activate your brain's porn rut. The only way to weaken these subconscious links is to stop using (reinforcing) that brain pathway, and seek your mood medicine elsewhere. Eliminating porn and porn fantasy leads to rewiring and eventual weakening of sensitized pathways and cravings.
The other half of the rewiring process involves strengthening your executive control, which resides in your frontal cortex (behind your forehead). Assessing risk, making long-range plans, and controlling impulses, are under the control of the frontal cortex. The term hypofrontality is often used when describing how addictions weaken and inhibit these self-control circuits. It takes time, and consistency, to return these circuits to full working order.
Remember: Your freedom lies in balancing your brain. Then you can choose whether you will take your porn-arousal pathway or some healthier pathway. Needless to say, rebooting doesn't guarantee you can safely use Internet porn in the future. The human brain remains vulnerable to a downward spiral from too much of any intense stimulus, and your brain has a strong porn pathway, which will always be easy to reactivate.
Many have stopped using porn and recovered their lives. So can you.
Submitted by Gary Wilson on Thu, 09/01/2011 - 12:42
What happens when you drop a male rat into a cage with a receptive female rat? First, you see a frenzy of copulation. Then, progressively, the male tires of that particular female. Even if she wants more, he has had enough. However, replace the original female with a fresh one, and the male immediately revives and gallantly struggles to fertilize her.You can repeat this process with fresh females until he nearly dies of exhaustion.
This is called the Coolidge effect—the automatic response to novel mates. And it’s what started you down the road to getting hooked on Internet porn.
Like that lab rat, you have a primitive mechanism in your brain urging you to fertilize the two-dimensional females, males (or whatever) on your screen. (Note: Coolidge effect also occurs in females. Studies show that, when given the opportunity, human females are just as promiscuous as males.)
Primitive circuits in your brain govern emotions, drives, impulses, and subconscious decision-making. They do their jobs so efficiently that evolution hasn't seen the need to change them much since before humans were humans.
More dopamine, please
For you, rats, and all mammals, the desire to have sex arises from a neurochemical called dopamine. Dopamine amps up the centerpiece of the primitive part of the brain—the reward circuitry. It’s where we experience pleasure, and where we get addicted.
The ancient reward circuitry compels you to do things that further your survival and pass on your genes. At the top of our human reward list are food, sex, love, friendship, and novelty. These are called ‘natural reinforcers,’ as opposed to addictive chemicals.
The evolutionary purpose of dopamine is to motivate you to do what your genes want you to. The bigger the squirt the more you want something. No dopamine and you just ignore it. Chocolate cake and ice cream—a big blast. Celery—not so much. Sex and orgasm are the biggest natural blast of dopamine available to your reward circuitry. One of dopamine's nicknames is the "molecule of addiction."
Although dopamine may be referred to as the pleasure molecule, this may not be technically accurate. Dopamine is more the craving for pleasure, or measure of potential value. Although controversial, the final reward or good feelings is thought to arise from opioids. Dopamine is wanting, opioids are liking. Addiction may be thought of as wanting run amok.
Novelty, novelty, more novelty
Dopamine surges for novelty. A new car, just-released movie, the latest gadget…we are all hooked on dopamine. As with everything new the thrill fades away as dopamine plummets.
Here’s how the Coolidge effect works: The rat’s reward circuitry is squirting less and less dopamine with respect to the current female, but produces a big dopamine surge for a new female. Does that sound familiar?
Internet porn is especially enticing to the reward circuitry because novelty is always just a click away. It could be a novel “mate,” unusual scene, strange sexual act, or—you fill in the blank. With multiple tabs open and clicking for hours, you can experience more novel sex partners every ten minutes than our hunter-gatherer ancestors experienced in a lifetime.
What’s a brain to do when it has unlimited access to a superstimulating reward it never evolved to handle? The brain eventually adapts, which can lead to addiction.
Drugs aren’t the only addictions
It’s common knowledge that dopamine-raising substances, such as alcohol or cocaine, can create addictions. Yet only about 10-15% of humans or rats that use addictive drugs (except nicotine) ever become addicts. Does this mean the rest of us are safe from addiction? When it comes to substance abuse, perhaps yes.
Yet when it comes to unrestricted access to superstimulating versions of natural rewards, such as junk food, or even video games, the answer may be no, although certainly not every user gets hooked.
The reason highly stimulating versions of food and sex can hook us—even if we're not otherwise susceptible to addiction—is that our reward circuitry evolved to drive us toward food and sex, not drugs. Today’s high fat/sugar foods (70% of American adults are overweight, 35% obese) and Internet porn (you’re reading this) have the potential to hook even more people than do drugs. These supernormal versions of natural rewards can override our brain’s satiation mechanisms—the “I’m done” feeling—because concentrated calories and fertilization opportunities are your genes’ top priorities.
All addictions lead to the same major brain changes
Recent research reveals that behavioral addictions (food addiction, pathological gambling, video gaming, andInternet addiction) and substance addictions involve the same major alterations in brain anatomy and chemistry. These include:- Desensitization (numbed pleasure response): Among other changes, dopamine (D2) receptors dropin the brain's reward circuitry, leaving the addict less sensitive to pleasure, and "hungry" for dopamine-raising activities/substances of all kinds. The addict then tends to neglect interests, stimuli, and behaviors that were once of high personal relevance.
- Sensitization: The reward circuitry surges in response to cues related to the addiction, making the addiction far more compelling than other activities in the addict's life. Also, DeltaFosB, a protein that rises with sexual activity and helps preserve intense memories, accumulates in key brain regions.
- Hypofrontality: Frontal-lobe gray matter and functioning decrease, reducing both impulse control and the ability to foresee consequences.
It's important to know that drugs don't create any new brain mechanisms. They only magnify mechanisms already in place for natural rewards. The evolutionary purpose of DeltaFosB is to activate the binge mechanism (see below). It's a great mechanism...for another time and environment. These days it makes a porn addiction as easy as 1-2-3.
Science keeps moving on
For political reasons, brain research isolating Internet porn addicts from plain old Internet addicts is not being done. However, several brain studies on "Internet addicts" were publish after this article was written. The studies did not assess what percentage of research subjects were addicted to Internet porn. However, it’s illogical to conclude that high levels of Internet porn use cannot change the brain, when junk food, video games, gambling, and "the Internet" have already been proven to do so (see Recent Internet Addiction Studies Include Porn)
The American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) hammered the final nail in the porn debate coffin in August, 2011, ten months after I wrote this intro. America’s top addiction experts at ASAM released their sweeping new definition of addiction. The new definition, echoes the major points made on this website. Foremost, behavioral addictions affect the brain just as drugs do—in all key respects. This new definition, for all practical purposes, ends the debate over whether sex and porn addictions are “real addictions.” ASAM explicitly states that sexual behavior addictions exist and must be caused by the same major brain changes found in substance addictions.
More pleasure leads to less pleasure
One major reason you are addicted to porn is that you have a numbed pleasure response (desensitization). A decline in dopamine signaling and other brain changeshave hooked you on porn. It’s physiology, not morality.
The cycle of porn addiction mimics other addictions:
bingeing→numbed pleasure response→cravings→bingeing escalates→further decline in dopamine receptors→even less pleasure response→cravings→bingeing escalates
And soon you are hooked on porn, because nothing else is anywhere near as interesting to your brain. From your genes’ perspective, it’s the perfect design—to keep you fertilizing frantically—before this "valuable opportunity" slips away.
But that's not all. As desensitization numbs you to all pleasure, another process, sensitization (below) makes your brain more sensitive to anything associated with your porn addiction. Over time, this dual-edged mechanism has your reward circuitry buzzing at the hint of porn use, but less than enthused when presented with the real deal.
Your hijacked binge mechanism
Excess consumption (food or sex) is the signal to your primitive brain that you have hit the evolutionary jackpot.With sufficient stimulation dopamine levels and dopamine receptors begin to decline. This leaves you dissatisfied, craving more. This numbed pleasure response is your genes’ way to get you to gorge on food and mating opportunities.At the same time, sensitization makes whatever you are gorging on more exciting than anything else. DeltaFosb appears to the molecular switch to activate this process - as it does with drug addictions.
A "binge mechanism" is an evolutionary advantage in situations where survival is furthered by overriding normal satiety. Think of wolves, which need to stow away up to twenty pounds of a single kill at one go. Or our ancestors, who needed to store high-quality calories as a few extra pounds for easy transport to survive hard times. Or mating season, when there's a harem to impregnate.
In the past, such opportunities were rare and passed quickly.
Humans environments have drastically changed. The Internet offers endless mating opportunities, which your primitive brain perceives as real. As any good mammal would, you attempt to spread your genes far and wide, but there’s no end to your mating season.
Click, click, click, masturbate, click, click, click, masturbate, click, click, click. Your binge mechanism is in overdrive. Evolution never prepared your primitive brain for this kind of nonstop stimulation.
"Nerve cells that fire together, wire together”
As the numbed pleasure response compels continued porn use, your brain starts to rewire itself. Rewiring involves overproduction of natural chemicals (delta FosB), and the strengthening the connections between nerve cells, making it easier for them to communicate. This is what happens in all learning. It’s called neuroplasticity. The more intense the experience, the stronger the connections. The stronger the connections, the easier it is for electrical impulses to travel along this new pathway.
With habitual porn viewing, you are deepening a rut in your brain. Just as water flows through the path of least resistance, so do impulses, and thus thoughts. As with any skill, the more you practice the easier it is do. Soon it becomes automatic, without any conscious thought. You've formed a deep pornography rut in your brain - a sensitized neural pathway.
Sensitized pathways can be thought of as Pavlovian conditioning on steroids. When activated by thoughts or triggers, sensitized pathways blast the reward circuit, firing up very hard to ignore cravings.
If these two neuroplastic changes could speak, desensitization would be moaning, "I can't get no satisfaction" (low dopamine signaling), while sensitization would be poking you in the ribs and saying, "Hey buddy, I got just what you need," which happens to be the very thing that caused the desensitization.
A numbed pleasure response (desensitization), combined with a deep pathway leading to short-term relief (sensitization), is the basis of all addictions.
Escalation and rewiring
Developing tolerance (numbed pleasure response) means an addict needs more of his/her “drug” to get the same effect. Heavy porn users sometimes notice that as tolerance builds for their earlier tastes, they move in new directions in their search for intense arousal. Many seek out what shocks them—perhaps because "forbidden" and"fear-producing," when combined with sexual arousal, offer a bigger brain-chemical kick...at least for a time.
So, it's not unusual to start out your porn career with an image of Jennifer Lopez' fine butt—and weeks later find you have "progressed" to girls with goats or violent rape scenes.The more intense the associated events (orgasm + video), or the more they are repeated, the stronger the wiring. Each experience wires the new tastes into the brain. If your sexual tastes have changed, so has your brain.
Definition of addiction?
Many still believe that only chemicals, not behaviors, such as Internet porn can cause addiction. However, scientists who study the effects of addiction on the brain know differently. Experts in the field define addiction in many ways. A simple model for understanding addiction is to apply the four Cs:
- Compulsion to use
- Continued use in spite of adverse consequences
- Inability to Control use
- Craving - psychological or physical
Note that The American Society for Addiction Medicine emphasized this simple concept: exhibiting the signs, symptoms and behaviors associated with addiction indicates the underlying brain changes have occurred.
What makes Internet porn unique?
It’s evident that today's porn is easy to access, available 24/7, free and private. The way it's used keeps dopamine elevated for abnormally long periods, making Internet porn uniquely compelling, and potentially addictive.
Recovery sites often stress that the addictiveness of Internet porn is due to masturbation and orgasm becoming linked to exciting or shocking visuals. Certainly both play a role, but what sets Internet porn apart is:
- It affords extreme novelty—hundreds of new sexual partners per session. Novelty is highly stimulating. Today's porn is not Dad’s static, finite Playboy. Users often report that “real sex” grows boring by comparison.
- Unlike food and drugs, in which there is a limit to consumption, there are no physical limitations to Internet porn consumption. The brain’s natural satiation mechanisms are not activated, unless one climaxes. Even then, the user can click to something more thrilling to become aroused again.
- With food and drugs, one can only escalate (a marker of an addiction process) by consuming more. With Internet porn one can escalate both with novel “partners” and by viewing new and unusual genres. It’s quite common for a user to move to ever more extreme porn.
- Unlike drugs and food, Internet porn doesn't eventually activate the brain’s natural aversion system. Aversion is when you don’t like how a drug or too many mashed potatoes make you feel.
- The age users start watching porn. A teen's brain is at its peak of dopamine production and neuroplasticity, making it highly vulnerable to addiction and rewiring.
People arrive here with lots of different symptoms, which they're not always sure are due to their heavy porn use. Confusion is understandable because the symptoms look so different:- distress about escalation to more extreme porn
- copulatory impotence (can get it up for porn, but not partners)
- frequent masturbation, little satisfaction ("feeling like a lust-ball all day")
- severe, worsening social anxiety
- growing erectile dysfunction, even with extreme porn.
- morphing porn tastes that don't match sexual orientation (HOCD)
- inability to concentrate, extreme restlessness
- Depression, anxiety, brain fog
Rebalancing the brain
If this phenomenon is underlying your symptoms, you need to restore the sensitivity of your reward system, weaken addiction pathways, and strengthen executive control. We call this process "rebooting." The best way to reboot is to give your brain a rest from all intense artificial sexual stimulation— including porn, fantasizing about porn, chat rooms, erotic stories, surfing for pictures—until it bounces back to normal responsiveness.
Those addicted to porn often find the rebooting process easier and faster when they drastically reduce or eliminate masturbation. This abstinence from masturbation & orgasm isn't a lifestyle - it's a temporary method for deepening recovery and reducing relapses into porn. Obviously, this process is initially very difficult. The brain can no longer rely on the artificially intense "fix" of dopamine (and other neurochemicals) associated with heavy porn use.
In addition to desensitization, porn use strengthened nerve connections linking the short-term relief of Internet porn with any other trigger your brain associates with porn (sensitization). Triggers such as being home alone, sexy images, or stress and anxiety, can activate your brain's porn rut. The only way to weaken these subconscious links is to stop using (reinforcing) that brain pathway, and seek your mood medicine elsewhere. Eliminating porn and porn fantasy leads to rewiring and eventual weakening of sensitized pathways and cravings.
The other half of the rewiring process involves strengthening your executive control, which resides in your frontal cortex (behind your forehead). Assessing risk, making long-range plans, and controlling impulses, are under the control of the frontal cortex. The term hypofrontality is often used when describing how addictions weaken and inhibit these self-control circuits. It takes time, and consistency, to return these circuits to full working order.
Remember: Your freedom lies in balancing your brain. Then you can choose whether you will take your porn-arousal pathway or some healthier pathway. Needless to say, rebooting doesn't guarantee you can safely use Internet porn in the future. The human brain remains vulnerable to a downward spiral from too much of any intense stimulus, and your brain has a strong porn pathway, which will always be easy to reactivate.
Many have stopped using porn and recovered their lives. So can you.
