How To Stop Porn Addiction

Stopping porn addiction is about teaching your brain to be happy without porn. To survive the start, you have to make it harder to watch porn, prevent yourself from giving in to urges, and fill empty space with healthy habits. 

Recovering from porn addiction takes 90 days to 6 months. During this period, you'll experience 4 phases called the crash, the flatline, the reboot, and the strengthening phase. You also have to learn how to manage relapses, understanding that they're temporary and not a sign of complete failure.

You can recover your sex life by stopping porn addiction since doing so will give your brain time to recover and get used to real sex again. If you fail to stop porn addiction, seek professional help.

Quitting porn cold turkey is often recommended by experts. You can support the cold turkey approach with tools like the QUITTR app, Brainbuddy, and Fortify. There are also excellent books that you can read to help you quit porn.

Understand Porn Addiction And Its Impact

Porn addiction is real and acts like a drug addiction. Porn addiction is often called a behavioral addiction because it is a habit you cannot control. The habit becomes a problem if you try to stop but can't.

When you are addicted to porn, your brain is chasing the dopamine high it gets from watching porn. Over time, you build up a tolerance, which trains your brain to want to watch porn rather than interact with real people.

The negative side effects of porn addiction are that it hurts your mood, body, and relationships. Watching porn causes brain fog, which includes feelings of cloudiness, confusion, and an inability to focus. For men, it can cause PIED, meaning you cannot get physically excited with a real partner. 

Stop The Autopilot

Stopping the autopilot means turning off the mindless habit of watching porn. When you are on autopilot, you have lost control, and you turn to watching porn before your brain even makes a real choice. The key to stopping the autopilot is adding friction, which is making it harder to access porn. Friction gives your brain the time it needs to regain control.

We list the ways to stop the autopilot below:

• Clean Up Your Environment: Keep all phones and computers out of the room where you sleep. 

• Set Up Roadblocks: Install blocking tools like DNS filters or the QUITTR app to remove the option of impulsive clicking. 

• Break Your Patterns: Learn to spot your high-risk times using HALT (Hungry, Angry, Lonely, Tired). When an urge hits, change your physical environment immediately, such as with a cold shower or a walk outside.

Change How You Respond To The Urge

Changing how you respond to the urge means breaking the habit of watching porn. Instead of immediately acting on the urge to watch porn, pause and choose a different action. You must realize that just because you feel like doing something doesn't mean you have to.

We list the ways you can change how you respond to the urge below:

• Watch the Urge: Learn to observe the feeling without acting on it. Change your mindset from "I want this" to "I notice that I have an urge." This separates your action from the thought, and reminds you that a thought is just a suggestion, not a command.

• Wait 10 Minutes & Reframe: The emotional part of your brain is fast, but the logical part is slow. Giving yourself 10 minutes allows your logical brain to catch up and take control. During this time, remind yourself that porn isn't just "fun" but a staged performance.

• Don't Provoke the Urge: Never think you can just look for a second. This is called peeking, and it almost always leads to a relapse because it awakens the addiction. Also, avoid edging or touching yourself without finishing. Both of these keep the hunger in your brain alive and stop you from healing.

Build Out Your New Life

Building out your life after quitting porn means finding something better to fill the space left behind when you quit. The goal is to replace the quick rush of dopamine you get from watching porn with the dopamine you earn from healthy activities.

There are two main ways to build your new life. One way is the "cold turkey" approach. Cold turkey means stopping completely immediately, because even a single peek can trigger a binge. The alternative way is to take gradual steps down. These steps move you from videos to pictures, then to reading erotic stories, and finally to just using your imagination.

Understand Recovery Timelines

The porn addiction recovery timeline is a process that usually takes from 90 days to 6 months. During recovery, porn addicts go through four phases. First, you hit the crash, which is the shock of stopping cold turkey. Next is the flatline, where your brain chemicals drop low. After that comes the reboot, where your mood and drive start to return to normal. Finally, you enter the strengthening phase, where your brain locks in these new, healthy habits for the long term.

The most difficult part of this journey is the flatline, which hits between weeks two and six. During this time, your brain realizes that porn is gone and temporarily shuts down your sex drive to reset itself. This loss of libido is a sign of healing

You will know you are in the flatline if you notice three specific signs. First, you will have zero interest in sex. Second, you will likely feel a wave of low mood or sadness, where nothing seems fun. Third, you will feel a sudden drop in energy, leading to tiredness and a lack of motivation.

Manage Relapses

A relapse in porn addiction recovery means you slipped up and watched porn after you decided to stop. It is common to stumble when learning a new way to live, so don't beat yourself up or think you are a total failure. One mistake does not erase all the progress you made before it happened.

Instead of getting angry when you relapse, reset your count to "Day Zero" and see the slip as a lesson. Figure out what triggered the relaps you so you can fix it next time. This stops the "What the Hell Effect," where you think, "I already messed up, so I might as well binge and watch everything."

How Do I Fix My Sex Life?

To fix your sex life after porn addiction, you have to give your brain a break so it can reset. Eventually, your brain will start responding to real people again. To heal your body from PIED, focus on touching without sex and real-world connections. Cuddling or holding hands with no plan to go further will remove the stress that induces PIED.

When Do I Need Professional Help?

You need professional help if you have tried to quit watching porn many times but keep falling back into the habit. In these cases, you can look for a Certified Sex Addiction Therapist, join a recovery group like SAA, or use apps like QUITTR, which integrate many features that help porn addicts quit.

If your addiction feels out of control, call SAMHSA’s National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP. It is free, private, and open 24/7. They will help you find doctors and support groups in your area.

Should I Quit "Cold Turkey"?

We recommend quitting cold turkey, as recovery experts agree it is the best way to heal. Quitting cold turkey fully cuts off the chemical supply of dopamine that your brain has become dependent on. 

What Are The 3 Best Apps To Quit Porn?

The best 3 apps to quit porn are listed below:

1. QUITTR App: Widely considered the most effective and popular app because it offers a comprehensive solution. The QUITTR app blocks content, helps you understand the addiction, and helps you regain control.  QUITTR is the only app that combines the entire porn addiction recovery process, therefore it is considered by many users as the singe best app.

2. Brainbuddy: Uses a rewiring approach to reset dopamine levels. It offers gamification, community challenges, and encourages daily exercise. However, Brainbuddy is expensive and somewhat technically unstable, and markets aggressively.

3. Fortify: Fortify focuses on education and holistic health. It offers lessons that explain the science of porn addiction, tracks sobriety, sleep, anxiety, and mood, plus connects you with accountability partners. However, Fortify doesn't block porn, has most features behind a paywall, and overly focuses on lessening, making it feel tiresome.

What Are The 7 Best Books To Quit Porn?

The best 7 books to quit porn are listed below: 

1. "Your Brain On Porn: Internet Pornography and the Emerging Science of Addiction" by Gary Wilson. This book explains brain changes and dopamine desensitization in simple language.

2. "The Easy Peasy Method to Quit Porn" by Hackauthor. This book focuses on changing mindsets rather than relying on willpower.

3. "Unwanted: How Sexual Brokenness Reveals Our Way to Healing" by Jay Stringer. This book focuses attention on root causes rather than simple tips.

4. "Your Sexually Addicted Spouse: How Partners Can Cope and Heal" by Barbara Steffens, PhD, and Marsha Means, MA. This book focuses on the emotion of betrayal and post-traumatic stress.

5. "Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction" by Patrick Carnes, PhD. This book correlates sexual behavior with addiction and offers an understanding of paths to recovery.

6. "Every Man's Battle" by Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker. This book teaches quit porn strategies based on understanding the spiritual, emotional, and physical impact of porn.

7. "Finally Free: Fighting for Purity with the Power of Grace" by Heath Lambert. This book shifts quitting porn from the self to relying on the grace of God.