This post, in a way relates to my prior post in which I discussed weaning yourself off of porn. I said that from experience it is better to go cold turkey than to try weaning yourself off because its too easy to justify looking at more explicit material when you start looking at less explicit images or videos. What I want to discuss here is how long it can take to completely overcome porn addiction compared to other addictions.

I had a problem with alcohol at one point and decided to quit. At first it was hard but after a month of sobriety I found it very easy to abstain. In fact it was so easy that I could literally stare at alcohol in the grocery store and not be tempted to buy it. However, porn seemed a lot more difficult to overcome. A big part of this is because viewing porn is a more intense chemical rush than drinking alcohol. So the withdrawal period can be a lot longer. Not only that but it is easy to make sure there is no alcohol around but it is difficult to get rid of years of porn images in your head that you can refer to anytime.

What I found is that overcoming porn, in many cases, is a lot more gradual. This means that if you’re doing what you need to be doing to overcome the addiction and persevering every time you slip up then the slip ups should become fewer and fewer overtime. Don’t mistake this for weaning yourself off which implies just lessening the level of explicitness of the material overtime, which I do not recommend. What I’m saying is that you quit cold turkey every time you slip and the slips will become fewer and further apart until you aren’t slipping anymore. The key to this method is having a great attitude and persevering no matter what. It is easy to get discouraged and binge but force yourself to start again after the slip up.