The Path of Least Resistance porn addiction recovery method

PORN BRAINWASHING

Let's take a lesson from warfare. A principle from Sun Tzu's Art of War is that the best victory is one you win without any fighting. Never is war just a matter of throwing crowds of people at each other on a flat battlefield. Weaken the enemy first, and you've won the battle.

Porn addiction doesn't attack you while you're strong. It weakens you first. To use a terminology borrowed from another method (see Post #4), watching porn feeds a "little monster" and a "big monster" inside you. The little monster is the physical withdrawal symptoms - IF there are any. The big monster is the brainwashing. Thoughts like these:

• You enjoy watching porn more than real intimacy.
• You're so pathetic, you can't find a real partner.
• You're addicted to PMO for life.
• It's hopeless trying to be free when society pushes porn on you from every direction.
• You're too busy for a real relationship.
• You can't get off to real intimacy.
• Men need to do PMO for health reasons.
• You can have everything you desire with no effort.
• PMO is more satisfying than a real relationship anyway.
• Other people in society respect and tolerate porn consumption.
• You can place healthy limits on your porn consumption.
• Recovery is too difficult and not worth it.
• Etc.

Beliefs like these are food for porn urges. They create the environment that turns a thought, no different from the 1,000 other meaningless thoughts that cross our mind every day, into an "urge" that must be acted upon URGEntly. Without them, a thought to view porn is the same as a thought to try heroin for the first time or expose yourself to a crowd of random people. It has no oxygen and dies within seconds.

It doesn't take more than a few minutes of focused research and debate to break down any one of these misconceptions. This is what would occupy most of the chapters of a good guidebook or source book (see #16). After breaking the internal resistance (see #17), it would deal with the brainwashing, one misconception at a time.

These misconceptions are not rational by nature. No one comes away with these ideas after reading a book or watching an enlightening TED talk. They are delivered in a sneaky way, through images and hypnotic suggestion in popular culture and porn itself. For example, take the simplest human gesture possible: a smile. A smile conveys so many messages: "This person feels happy," "This person is a friend," "You can trust this person," etc. If a simple smile can say all of that, then what about something more complex like an ad? What about a movie? What about porn itself?

The philosophy of the Path is that you have to deal with the brainwashing first. Cut the supply lines of the enemy. If you do that, and do it well, you've won without any fighting. You've taken the path of least resistance to victory.

 

SHORT-CHANGING YOURSELF

One of the biggest risk factors in the Path of Least Resistance is called, in some other methods, "going off half-cocked." That's kind of an old-fashioned phrase that lost its meaning when people stopped carrying six-shooters around. I'll call it short-changing your recovery.

The Path follows a set linear sequence. The most important period of time in that sequence is the time between feeling that you're ready to give up PMO forever, and dealing with all the brainwashing. During that time period, YOU MUST CONTINUE TO DO PMO.

Feel ready to quit -> KEEP DOING PMO while you finish deconstructing all the brainwashing -> STOP DOING PMO

Skipping this middle part is short-changing yourself because it prevents you from building up the necessary potential energy to make a lasting change.

More on this later.

 

NO MUMBO-JUMBO

The Path of Least Resistance needs its guidebook or source book to have a certain kind of writing style. Part of that style is avoiding talk of a spiritual nature.

The best way of writing to get people in line with the Path is to write in a practical, rational, and direct way. You address the person's mind directly and engage with the brainwashing head-on. Avoid fluffy stuff and vague, dreamy talk of a spiritual nature. Stick with the facts, and make it immediately relevant.