Key Takeaway
‘Urges’ is a word you hear often during recovery, it is nothing but a strong desire or an impulse to something. In this case, to do something that is not necessarily good for you. When recovering from any form of addiction, be it substance-based or behavioural, ‘urges’ become a part of your day-to-day life.
What are the sexual urges to watch porn?
With regard to a behavioral addiction like porn addiction, the urges can be very strong. A person who is currently addicted to pornography or recovering from porn addiction, internet porn in particular, normally satisfies his/her cravings by viewing pornographic content in the form of videos and pictures.
Apart from this, due to how evolved the internet and technology is today, porn addiction and its tools have also evolved. Allowing anonymous access to unlimited explicit content across all forms.
Why do Urges Occur?
When you’re trying to recover from an addiction like this, urges to relapse can be quite common. They can arise for various reasons. Some you won’t even be able to fully wrap your head around. Mainly based on your lifestyle and mental plus physical health.
Triggers and cravings are some words you’ll come across often when you’re dealing with an addiction. Especially when you’re trying to recover.
The moment you enroll in any sort of recovery program, the first thing you’ll be asked to do is identify your triggers and the pattern of your craving. Being informed is what helps you beat addiction. But what exactly is a trigger?
What is craving?
Are they different words for the same thing? And why exactly do they occur? These are all common questions. Well, let me explain.
- Triggers vs Cravings
A trigger can be anything, a place, an object, certain memories, or even certain moods. It is basically anything that is capable of bringing back certain thoughts, ideas, and feelings, related to your addiction. Triggers can originate from the most random places and things.
It’s funny how they find the origin in the least expected things. Triggers are caused due to association. They are not the same as cravings, but can often lead to certain cravings.
A big culprit is a device that you walk around in your pocket. Especially all those supposedly interesting apps that have all the cool features that serve as triggers. Here are 5 of them that will be in your best interest to avoid.
Craving on the other hand is caused by the reward center of the brain. They can be a result of triggers or can originate on their own. A craving will make you physically want to do something.
It’s just like when you’re hungry and haven’t eaten in a long time, and at that particular moment, all you’re craving is to stuff your face with some warm comforting food.
When you’re craving something, it’s like life itself is dependent on fulfilling that craving. But, if the craving is related to addiction, then the relief you feel after giving in to the craving will eventually wear, and then once again you’re right back where you began.
It is important you understand that cravings can arise without exposure to triggers. This is a result of the changes in your brain due to the addiction. The addiction alters the brain to create and continue dependency on the substance.
Due to the dependency, pleasure-related brain chemicals are too low when not under the influence, which prompts cravings that tempt you to use. Once you successfully recover from the addiction, over time the imbalance corrects itself, and these cravings and how these triggers affect you will reduce.
Cravings and triggers are normal parts of addiction. Just because you feel them doesn’t mean you have to give in.
What you Can Do to Deal with Urges?
For many, giving in to an urge is the automatic response. This is understandable considering that while dealing with an addiction, a person is extremely fragile and vulnerable. So, one small trigger or craving is all it takes. Learning to say “NO” in such instances can be hard.
These desires are intense and are ingrained into our brains. However, there is a way through which you can understand these desires and teach yourself how to resist them. Here’s how you can do it, using these 4 approaches.
1. Delay
Every Time you have an urge, just calm down and wait. Give your mind and body some time to process it. Normally it should go away over time if you delay it enough and distract yourself. If you’ve given sufficient time and the urge is still there it might be due to the fact that you are still exposed to the stimulus that birthed the urge in the first place.
Just have the willpower to deny giving in for just a few minutes. Make up your mind that you can do this. Just stick to this every time you get an urge and over time watch the number of urges reduces in number.
2. Escape
Once you feel the urge coming up to do something, remove yourself from the situation that is provoking it. Leave that space, physically. If you’re watching a movie with your friend/partner and an explicit scene comes up then there is no shame in excusing yourself from the room or asking to change the channel.
BlockerX can buy you a good amount of time in a situation like this, by cutting out all adult content.
When you focus on getting away from the situation, it should calm the urge down and distract you until you feel secure again. That’ll help reduce the intensity of the urge.
3. Accept
Take the time and patience to understand your urges. Understand what’s causing things and accept why this is happening. Don’t be too hard on yourself with regard to urges. Urges arising from triggers and cravings are completely normal.
So, accept that this is all part of the process. This might make you uncomfortable at first, but it will improve your recovery tremendously. But by accepting and understanding, you’ll learn that it can help you stay calm through cravings and triggers.
4. Substitute
The goal is to distract yourself, as quickly and effectively as possible. The moment you feel an urge creeping in, quickly substitute it with a different thought or activity. Something that you know is beneficial for you and can calm you down
If you’re alone in your room, then get out and surround yourself with the company. Having a company you trust always helps. You can note down a list of things that you can do in order to distract yourself in such a situation. So, when an urge arises, you can quickly pick one from the list.
Will the Urges Ever Go Away?
This differs from individual to individual. But, for the most part, yes they should go away.
One search online and you’ll come across tons of theories about addictive behaviors. Some say, people are never fully able to recover from the “addiction gene” present in their system, which makes a person more strongly addicted to substances.
While there are other studies that believe addiction is hereditary. Just like how you were passed down hazel eyes from your parents, you can also possibly have their addictive behaviours passed down as well. However, there isn’t much scientific explanation backing these theories.
Don’t pay attention to such things you read on the internet. They’ll only plant seeds of doubt in your brain and hold you back from recovering successfully.
- Don’t Worry about Withdrawals
Just remember that every craving or trigger you experience doesn’t mean you are going into withdrawal. You may or may not go through withdrawal. There are people who do not experience any form of physical withdrawal, not even mild symptoms of withdrawal.
Cross that bridge when you get there. Don’t tamper with your recovery by worrying about it right now. You worry about it might just cause it.
Just keep in mind that on your journey through this, you’ll come across something that goes by the name Nofap flatline. That might trip you up, so you can follow this guide here on how to properly identify and deal with the Nofap flatline.
Even if you feel some urges every once in a while, even after recovery, don’t worry. This is normal. They might just come up out of the blue. This is how addictions work, they are unpredictable. Don’t let the triggers and cravings rule your recovery.
Don’t spend all your time trying to avoid them. Yes, the urges will definitely spring up at some point. You’ll need to deal with them. But these urges cravings and triggers are not just what recovery is all about. They are just a small component of a much bigger picture which is your recovery.
Things do Get Better
Trying to avoid a relapse does not just depend on one thing. It takes an entire village. You have to commit to having a healthy lifestyle, remaining focused on your end goal, having a strong detoxification system, and having a trustworthy support system around you.
BlockerX is built with this interest in mind and can help you a lot on your journey. Focus on building a better life for yourself. There’s so much goodness out there, don’t let a few cravings pull you back from achieving your goals. You’ve got this!
