Negative Association

How to apply this to porn addiction. If you’ve been addicted to pornography or masturbation then you have been living in a fantasy world within your own mind. The addiction or prison you’ve found difficult to escape has been largely within the walls of your mind. Your mind and body try to run as effeciently as possible. Many times this means automating processes to save energy. Because you have used pornography and masturbation to feel temporary pleasure you have been associating fantasy-like thoughts with natural sexual urges of the body until the appetite of the body grows out of control. So every time your body feels a sexual urge it immediately and almost automatically associates these urges with thoughts and images of the fantasy world you have created in your mind. Of course you can get this back under control, it just takes work and time.

You need to change the way you see temptations to look at filth or masturbate. You need to start associating these actions with the real consequences and misery they bring. The moment you are tempted you must cling to reality and not let yourself be swept away into the unrealistic fantasies that have brought you into addiction. The reality is you only feel pleasure in the moment then soon after feel very low and miserable. Your imagination has very powerful effects that can be both good and bad. Use your imagination to create a negative image of the true results of looking at pornography or masturbating. Then when the temptation comes have this image ready to go to associate with the temptation. The more you do this the more your mind will remember these negative images and the power of the temptation will be decreased. Use whatever negative associations work for you. Everyone is different. Also, be patient, it will take more than a few times of doing this before it becomes habit. Just keep doing it.

Positive Association

You’ll need more than negative associations to break free of addiction. You have to learn to love your new life more than your old one. This is going to take some persistent positive associations. Here is a good example from workout guru, Pete Sisco, speaking of positive association when working out:

“Finally, take another 10 minutes at a slow pace on the treadmill to gradually cool your body down. Use this time to feel the warm afterglow and sense of well-being that intense exercise provides. Those endorphins are magic! Take a moment to associate that positive, relaxed yet invigorated feeling with going to the gym and doing your workout. For many of us this can shift our psychological focus from dreading a workout and doing it reluctantly to positively looking forward to it and to the sense of well-being it delivers.”

This couldn’t be more true. I’ve put this to the test myself and love going to the gym. So how do we apply this to addiction? Well, when I was struggling, I was using this technique and didn’t even know it. Here’s how. Every time I would have success, a day or two without slipping up, I would sort of meditate and ponder how great it felt to be free and have success. In my mind I would purposely associate these great feelings with abstaining from pornography or masturbation. This only increased my desire to have success. This increased desire helped me to work harder, and get up more quickly if I slipped up. I would think to myself, “I love the way I feel when I abstain from weakness, I don’t want to stay down, I will get up and try again and feel those feelings again.” You see, your mind and body want to do what feels good. You have to decide what feels good. You do this by changing the way you see things.

Go ahead and experiment with this great technique. Don’t expect perfection. Just expect a progressive change of desires. It takes time for desires and feelings to change. This is the work required to do so.

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Like I said, there is the temptation to doubt your success is real. This is exactly the time when you need to let go of the doubts that will hold you back from complete freedom. You have become very familiar and comfortable with these doubts after repeated failures. So they have become your security blanket because they are what you know. However, you must convince yourself that it is ok to let go of these doubts and venture into the unknown new life you are not yet familiar with. In due time, say a month or so, you will start to become quite comfortable and confident in this new way of living.

So how do you start this process of becoming more happy with your new life. First of all you need to decide you hate your old life. That will probably be easy since it has brought you pain. What won’t be easy is consistently hating it and deciding it is not an acceptable way to live when relatively boring times come. You see, you’ve been in the habit of comparing a simple, happy life with no stimulates to an addicting life full of temporary excitement and stimulation. It can be difficult to convince your mind and body that the new life is better when you will feel far less stimulation at first. I call this the “Getting over the wave” stage and compare it to Tom Hanks in the movie “Cast Away”, in which he worked so hard to escape a deserted island. The problem he faced was that the waves were too big and kept washing him back to the island. He even got hurt trying this and just wanted to die. However, he decided to keep trying and come up with a new plan and eventually got over the waves and out to the open sea. You need to get past those huge waves of temptation that will wash you back into your old way of living. You’ve trained your mind and body to misuse the body to have temporary excitement. They will fiercely resist this change at first but then they will learn to enjoy a normal life as you retrain them.

The next thing you need to do to enjoy your new life is to stop looking for some future rose happiness and start finding the happiness of every day living.

“One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon-instead of enjoying the roses blooming outside our windows today.” – Dale Carnegie

“We never live; we are always in the expectation of living.” -Voltaire

Those are some great quotes which sum up nicely what I had to work very hard to learn myself. Its difficult to believe this, especially when your life has been ruled by addiction, but life can be absolutely great every single day. What’s the secret? Well, its no secret at all. You possess it right now and it is called free agency, or choice. You can decide to be happy and productive right now. In fact it is better that you decide right now rather than later. You can decide to replace addiction with healthy, happy, and wholesome things. You can decide by simply waking up every morning and deciding you are the one who controls your life and your attitude. Addiction has convinced you that you do not have this control but that is a lie.

Life is full of ups and downs and plenty of challenges. You must learn to have a positive attitude and see this as an opportunity to learn to be happy in all circumstances in life. External circumstances do not determine happiness. Internal thoughts and emotions do. The sooner you realize that your happiness is your choice the better. If you have a habit of thinking negative towards yourself and others then your efforts to overcome addicton are being sabotaged.

“If we think happy thoughts, we will be happy. If we think miserable thoughts, we will be miserable.” – Dale Carnegie

When you begin to set goals to overcome masturbation or pornography just decide to be stubbornly positive in your thinking. Decide to take joy in the simple new life. This does not mean do nothing. Of course you must get out there and replace addiction with new activities. When you start to have some success and are tempted to worry or doubt, just relax, take a deep breath and decide to stubbornly believe in yourself. Your addiction will at first be stubborn but will eventually succumb to your new way of thinking and living. So look at it as sort of a fight between you and your addiction. Who will be more stubborn? Of course you will because you want your life back. Besides, the joy that comes from a simple, happy and productive life will far outlive the temporary excitement of your old life and the huge difference is YOU will be in control and not the addiciton. In fact, do not associate yourself with your old life anymore. Say, “That’s my old life, that’s not me anymore” and truly believe this.

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There is no doubt that porn addiction or any addiction for that matter, makes us feel even more alone than we felt before. The guilt, shame, and pain make us feel hopeless and unliked by others. Of course this is all a lie and the only reason we start to think like this is because we are blinded by the darkness brought about by addiction. It’s really tough to see the truth when your life is full of lies. That’s the captivity that comes with addiction. We are held captive in part by lies that we find difficult to escape. In fact this is very much a personal war.

One day I came across some training for prisoners of war (POW’s) that really helped me understand how to better fight this war on lonliness and captivity. I found it interesting that coping with an enemy to your country was very similar to coping with the enemy of your soul. So here are the coping methods I came across:

Titled “Pyschological Aspects of Captivity – Coping Methods”

Conviction of Purpose
The most important coping method is to develop conviction of purpose:

How do I fit into the “big picture” from national goals to Service objectives to the unit mission?

What personal standards am I committed to? Develop confidence in your training and professional preparation by focusing particularly on the hurdles and obstacles you have overcome to get to this point in your career.

Faith Keeping – Establish and “keep the faith” with yourself, family, Service, fellow captives, nation, and God.

Reject False Logic – It is false logic to think that survival is contingent upon compliance with captors

Recognize and resolve Conflicting Pressures – Recognize and resolve conflicting pressures from captor and self

Attitude

Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) – Keep a positive mental attitude by being stubbornly optomistic. Resist destructive thought processes. Take heart in any small victory won over captors. Overcome aversions by learning to tolerate discomfort versus demanding the circumstances change. Reduce anxiety by placing captors into patterns of predictability.

Use Directed Imagery –(Structured Daydreaming). Think about the future and positive things. Create mental exercises by inventing objects, making up stories, learning new skills, keeping a mental diary, planning escape, or anything that will keep your mind occupied in a positive manner. Do not focus on mistakes made in the past or let guilt or regrets come into play – your captors want this.

Actions

Be Engaged – An “engaged” captive is not a “passive recipient.” Being a passive recipent leads to hoplessness, helplessness, compliance, or despair (i.e., won’t try to resolve problems or improve the situation. Engaged captives will make some mistakes but they will be able to learn and bouce back.

Take Control – Focus on things within your control (daily schedule, will to resist and communication).

Internal Actions – Order your thoughts, appraise the situation, study and predict the environment(remember, your Situational Awareness is an ongoing, continual process)

External Actions – Be assertive, insist on rights under the Geneva Conventions. Commuicate health and welfare issues to captors. Be persistent.

Health and Hygiene – Improve on sanitary conditions. Get into a physical fitness routine. Develop consistent habits concerning personal health and hygiene.

Recognize Small Victories – Usually by maintaining a sense of humor and turning it against captors. This can greatly improve morale and captivity survival.

Interact with Others

Communication – Directing your focus outward towards other fellow captives helps minimize self-absorbtion, despair and linliness.

Communications brings pespective to the situation and accountability for individual captive and group actions.

Without communication, no organization can exist.

Be consistent, convincing, and persistent in your communication with captors.

Use Humor – Humor can add a positive spin to difficult situations and can raise the morale of the individual captives and the group.

Group Affiliation and Accountability – A sense of belonging to a group engenders commitment to a cause. Being held accountable is an important aspect of keeping discipline within a group. Keeping discipline is the essence of organizing individuals and groups. In addition, discipline usually leads to routine, and routine can be extremely comforting in captivity.

Organize/Strategize

Organize Routine(self and group) – Maintain a schedule(whenever possible)

A personal routine or schedule can be important as a means of gaining control over the captive’s life and the situation in captivity.

Staying occupied mentally at increments or intervals helps to break up a routine that is being forced on the captive.

Exercising regularly is essential to maintaining physical and psychological health.

Captive’s should utilize any regimen or routine they can adapt to their personal situation.

Plan and communicate regularly with fellow captives.

Strategize – For upcoming demands, prepare and rehearse in order to develop confidence. The better the group’s sense of preparedness is, the more the group’s efficiency will increase. The individual of the group can improve their sense of preparedness by setting realistic goals such as:

-Establish goals relative to the captivity envoronment and the developing situation (fatigue, sleep deprivation, etc.)
-Establish realistic expectations for yourself and others
-Focus on internal resolve and conviction of purpose

Adapt

Discomfort – Learn to tolerate discomfort. Remain focused on tasks at hand.

Overcome Aversions – To food, enviromental conditions, poor standards for health and hygiene, etc.

Flexibility – Any inflexibility by the captive will be exploited. Adapt to food language, culture, and fellow captives. Try to understand the motives without openly sympathizing or aiding in their cause.

Stay Stay Alive – Focus on your physical needs, such as food, hydration, sleep, etc.

Bounce Back – A captive should move on from mistakes made by themselves of fellow captives. Don’t dwell on mistakes.

Things to avoid

Worrying About Family – Reaffirm roles, convictions, faith, and confidence in pre-captivity preparations. Thinking about family is a source of strength for some captives. Worrying about them induces emotions and sets the captive up for failure. Remembering the good times and thinking about making them proud by returning with honor can be a great source of strength for increased will to resist.

Thinking Negatively of Self – Captives should not beat themselves down. Captives should learn from their mistakes and plan for the future.

Suicidal Thoughts – Avoid depressing thoughts of thinking about negative things that are beyond any captive’s control. Reaffirm the will to live and think about positive things to return home to.

Other Vulnerabilities – Used by captors to exploit captives. Most captives will experience symptoms of these conditions during captivity.

Captivity Dependency. Defined as the captor’s attempts to make the captive feel safer under their control and reduce the captive’s motivation to escape. The longer captives are in captivity, the more they will be conditioned and become accustomed to the captivity situation. The longer captives are in captivity, the less likely they will look for resistence and escape opportunities, unless they pursue these activities as a matter of routine.

Stockholm Syndrome. An irrational affinity with certain captors based, in part, on concessions of care or more humanizing treatment from captors.

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