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What you describe is going to be very, very hard to achieve. Looking at this simply from the standpoint of addition for the sake of simplicity, if you cannot u
by i336_ 10y ago
What you describe is going to be very, very hard to achieve.
Looking at this simply from the standpoint of addition for the sake of simplicity, if you cannot utterly, completely, totally (etc) eliminate every possible chance for you to be able to access what you're trying to access. Whatever you try, you will know that there's a way to work around it and find yourself surprisingly motivated to bypass any limitations you try and impose on yourself.
The best way I can explain this is to reference the example I read that explained this phenomena to me. You can train ferrets to happily sit on your lap and go to sleep, but to achieve this you have to put them on a leash and then make it utterly impossible for them to get off your lap by holding onto the leash and only letting them roam around your lap. It'll take quite a while before they finally give up, accept that they're not going anywhere, and settle down, but they eventually figure out that there is absolutely no way they can change the situation and accept it. Getting yourself to that stage is... you're an IT guy. You can answer that yourself.
On top of that, this whole thing is ten thousand times more intense due to the fact that it's addiction-based.
Now, you could try and get a cellular contract that stipulates an upstream VPN (ie, where the cell signal coming into your phone comes from from a VPN you specify), and do the same for your wired internet (ie, the ADSL/cable/fiber/etc line going into your house also upstreams off a VPN). Configure the server side of that VPN on a machine with a firewall and some scripting that does the blocking. Then, take the private key you logged in with, encrypt that into say a tiny dm-crypt block file, take half the dm-crypt passphrase and keep it yourself, and give the other half of the passphrase to someone else. While the two halves are separate noone can login to the VPN server, guaranteeing noone will snoop or be able to adjust the settings.
So, that would work.... buuut you could very easily just walk down the road and buy a data SIM. Welp.
Unfortunately I think you would need to lock yourself in a room to achieve the kind of solution you're trying to get at.
I saw something really amazing on addiction recently - http://youtu.be/Sh7YB58EFgU http://youtu.be/Sh7YB58EFgU - which I found on imgur of all places (apparently it has its moments). Being criticized for being in such a position is unproductive and unhelpful, and I can't say I think too highly of the couple of commentators who've replied here and mocked you for being candid, straightforward and honest, and being bold enough to say you need help. Kudos.
My practical/viable advice is this (you're going to have to read between the lines so I can keep this PG-13): I suspect it's probably difficult to do what you need/want to do without the porn anymore, and/or difficult to feel satisfied without it. You're going to need to adjust - in workable increments (enough to pinch a little, but not too much; a disciplined amount) - to get yourself completely off of this extra input. By all means do continue, per se; just without the porn.
Remember that our enjoyment of this whole process is just really, really intricate commentary; the main focus is that this is our way of reproducing. It's not the sole purpose; we've been built the way we have so that we're biologically obsessed with it and find it difficult to not reproduce. It's important, though, to remember that reproduction is the foundation of why all of this sort of thing exists; not anything else, for example getting high for its own sake, or forgetting other things in life, or staying wired, or anything else (I have no idea (and don't need) the finer details of your situation; I'm just pointing out some examples to give an idea of what I'm talking about).
I point this out because you may need to spend some time recalibrating your mental model to something that factors reality into the picture.
The way it's supposed to go is, if you're on your own, you have two options - periodically run the photocopier without any paper to keep the mechanism in shape (</euphemism>), or wait for the process to happen in your sleep. The first approach is what most guys use; the second is the body's pressure relief valve and only generally operates when you're already super tense and overloaded. But neither of those options are supposed to be particularly engaging or enjoyable; they're industrial means to an end. The brain is built to find the process noteworthy regardless of cause, but sex is the really enjoyable version.
However, you've (unfortunately) hyperoptimized/trained/specialized yourself to know exactly what makes you super happy, and you've learned how to continuously provide (= source) the top 1% of input that you really like. That's going to need to be discarded - these skills you've taught yourself are effectively useless - because sex doesn't work quite like that, sex is about communication and balance between two (usually) people.
So I have an odd idea for you. I found this a while ago - http://www.nateliason.com/multiple-orgasms-men/ http://www.nateliason.com/multiple-orgasms-men/ - which you may find interesting to throw yourself into. It's sufficiently unusual that if you haven't discovered it before it will be novel and new and help distract you, and it'll also help get you back on track and prepare for relationships. I've heard some urologists freak out about these types of techniques, while others say there's no cause for alarm. I personally sit on the "I haven't seen any actual studies showing catastrophic disasters" fence, so I'm giving this a go myself (the main challenge is remembering to do it, which is proving a little difficult as I don't have a smartphone and can't use the recommended apps).
TL;DR: You need to replace the stimuli you're currently using with other stimuli of some kind. Just flat-out removing it absolutely stupid and not going to work (it'll just backfire very badly and disillusion you in a big way).
- codesmoothie 10y agoThank you for your response. > Unfortunately I think you would need to lock yourself in a room to achieve the kind of solution you're trying to get at. While addictions can be so extreme as you described, this doesn't describe me, and I don't think (correct me if I am wrong) it is very typical of someone who would consider themselves addicted to pornography. Typically before my session, I would be in a worse than normal mood, or just really wanting to release. If my computer suddenly locked up for an hour, I would likely "sober up" and go do something else. > You need to replace the stimuli you're currently using with other stimuli of some kind. Just flat-out removing it absolutely stupid and not going to work. I agree that is very hard to remove a pleasure source all at once, and a plausible route would be to go incrementally. Reading the other comments, I would agree that spending more time with people in general (not just romantically) would be a healthy alternative.
- i336_ 10y agoWoops, took me a bit to get back to this. Hm, I think I got completely sidetracked with the concept of addiction when I was composing my initial response. It's completely reasonable to say that I described a statistically unlikely worst-case scenario, and I'm glad to hear your situation isn't that bad! Looking at it from a different angle, removing high fructose corn syrup and other forms of highly concentrated sugar from your diet is an extremely healthy thing to do; HFCS can become addictive. What we're describing is exactly the same thing, if you ask me; just remove the concentrated/hyperoptimized stimulati, and everything will balance itself back out. Yeah, it'll be a huge adjustment and kind of depressing to begin with but it's for the best. As I said in my previous comment, actual sex is what's enjoyable, and everything else is just a means to an end. IMO, guilt-tripping people into thinking "running the photocopier" (if you will) is unconditionally wrong is itself a hugely imbalanced view to have. Also, /r/NoFap focuses on "short periods of abstinence" - these might be weeks/months long, but they aren't permanent. I'm honestly not sure how people would abstain, myself. Spending more time with others sounds like a great idea, but IMHO it cannot be a full replacement for what I describe in the previous paragraph, and trying to treat it as such may cause you to wind up in some suboptimal situations (continuous distraction leading to, uh, unexpected relationships, etc).