10 Reasons Why You Relapse In Nofap & How to Overcome It.
Committing yourself to be on a nofap journey for 90 days or for a lifetime is easy. What’s difficult is staying on your commitment.
By the way, how difficult is it to stay in your commitment to be successful on your nofap journey and never relapse?
I mean, how hard that could be!
Let me tell you something.
If you want to travel the whole world on your feet, that could be easier compared to being successful in Nofap.
Nofap relapse is most likely because there is no government to stop us, there is no high council to force us on our journey, and pornography materials are everywhere.
Nofap is something that we have to do on our own.
No matter how strong our willpower is, how strong our reasons are to continue on our nofap journey, we eventually relapse for some reason.
People think, only by controlling their urges they can be successful in it.
They think they relapse in nofap because of their urges to watch porn.
Trust me, that is the least cause to worry about our nofap relapse.
The stronger causes are more subtle than we know. One day you will relapse, and might not know what caused you to do it.
You will blame your willpower and motivation, saying you are not strong enough. But most of the time, it is not the case.
Today, we will discuss the 10 reasons why you relapse in nofap, and what are the solutions to become successful in our nofap journey.
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1. I deserve it
We are always important to ourselves. We try to protect when we sense threats, physically and psychologically.
We also self-worship ourselves knowingly or unknowingly. Whenever we do something productive, or something meaningful, with our conscious brain, we feel good about it.
We feel proud of ourselves.
In the form of self-worship, we try to give rewards to us. A reward always makes us happy.
After a hard-working day, perhaps you decided to go to the bar and have a few drinks with your friends.
After studying for your exams, perhaps you decided to play video games for just a few minutes.
After remaining in nofap for a few weeks, you go back to porn because your subconscious brain thinks you deserve it.
Why not have a moment of happiness after such a long time! Why should I always be miserable!
This is the message your subconscious brain is giving, “You deserve to be happy and you should watch porn for some time. You don’t have to musterbate, just watch for a few minutes.”
If you are aware, you can hear this message.
We all know this is nothing but a trap.
After 30 days of nofap you watch it for a few minutes, but the next day you watch it even more, and sooner than you can think, you relapse.
After the relapse you feel guilty, ashamed, and angry at yourself, thinking you are weak.
Only if I had the motivation and willpower, this would have never happened.
But, this relapse happens because of our unawareness.
2. Stress
Of course, your stress level goes up during nofap. Watching pornography and musterbation was always a stress reliever for you.
Whenever you felt low, stressed, or angry, you immediately made yourself happy by watching porn. This quick gratification is too easy to access, there is no hard work involved.
All your fantasies can come true in this digital world. You are the king of this world because you can control everything.
You can control people, you can watch them do whatever your fantasies are, and here your wildest dream can come true.
But in the real world, things are different, and things are hard.
The real world is filled with misery, sometimes makes us feel like a loser and we cannot catch up with anything.
For a moment of happiness, we need to work hard, we need to pay the price and anything is not instant. We have to work for it to have it.
So, why would I be miserable, if I can be instantly happy just by swiping my phone?
Therefore, we create this link in our brain that whenever we feel stressed or unhappy, the solution is to watch pornography.
The more you repeat this behavior, the stronger the link gets in your brain.
Once you start your nofap journey, your brain gets confused because the link stops working for some reason.
Your brain doesn’t care if nofap is good or bad. All it sees is that your strong neural link has stopped functioning.
So, to make it functioning again, your brain creates more stress, more unhappiness, so that you go back to your earlier routine.
Once you feel these overwhelming emotions, you relapse in nofap.
3. Depression
If you are in nofap for a long time, then probably you have experienced nofap depression.
It is not the nofap flatline where our emotions go flat for a certain time that we know.
This nofap depression is a state of a period where you feel sad and hopeless because you are experiencing the ‘low’.
In this stage, you don’t feel any motivation to pursue your goals. You don’t feel like talking with others or meeting new people.
You start to lose hope that your life will change someday and the goals and reasons to start your nofap journey seems unattainable.
Nofap depression comes in many stages. It is not a one-time thing.
This happens because of your years and years of watching pornography.
Most of us think, just by doing 90 days of nofap challenge, we should recover ourselves and experience all the benefits of nofap.
This is not possible.
In the book, The Porn Trap by Larry Maltz and Wendy Maltz mentioned that just to balance your dopamine level back to normal, it will take more than 18 months.
This doesn’t mean, you will not see the benefits of nofap until 18 months. On the contrary, you will see the benefits from the next day of nofap.
What Larry Maltz and Wendy Maltz want to say is that there will be ups and downs in our journeys.
It may take 2-4 years to completely recover from pornography addiction.
Again, it is the ‘low’ when we are most vulnerable to nofap relapse.
We think the benefits of nofap are fake because you have completed so many months and still you don’t see many significant changes.
Again, your old links of making you happy in times of feeling low get activated.
And, without having any urges or any warning signs, you are back to watching porn.
4. Nofap flatline.
Aah! The inevitable flatline. Everybody doesn’t experience it, but most of us do.
This is a period of nofap, where you don’t have any emotions regarding anything.
You will not feel like talking with anyone nor you will be productive.
You will not even feel like watching pornography.
There will be fatigue and muscle ache and these are withdrawal symptoms.
It is temporary and soon you will start to become happy again.
If you want to read more about nofap flatline, I have written a detailed article on it.
The link is given below:
The complete guide to nofap flatline and how to overcome it.
But, most of us get scared in this nofap flatline. They think something is wrong and they are not enjoying the benefits of nofap as promised.
Now, they are even more confused than before and as a habit of quick solutions, they try to fix this by watching pornography.
This eventually leads to nofap relapse.
There is no libido in nofap flatline, and just to check if they are still functioning sexually, they go back to pornography and relapse on their journey.
Only if they knew, nofap flatline is a part of their journey.
If people don’t relapse in the first nofap flatline, they do in the upcoming flatlines.
There can be multiple nofap flatlines in your journey.
Don’t mistake in thinking that, once you crossed your nofap flatline, you are successful in your journey.
The journey is lifelong because nofap is not a 90 days challenge, it is a lifestyle.
5. Brain Fog
In your nofap journey, there will come certain times, when your level of focus will go down. Your memory will seem weaker than ever and sometimes you cannot solve simple problems in your life.
Your cognitive functions will go down and whatever your plans or goals are in life, it may seem unachievable.
There will be no mental energy and this inability to do the slightest task will frustrate most of us.
Also, your willpower will weaken and you will often give up on your due tasks.
There will be no mental clarity and once there is no clarity, you will remain confused most of the time.
But, all this is temporary.
It is just a withdrawal symptom because of the long history of your pornography addiction.
In this stage people are most likely to relapse, because their cognitive thinking goes down.
They want to do more but they can’t do it.
What you can do is relax. Things cannot get better before time and this obsessive compulsion to improve your life as soon as possible will do more harm than anything.
Don’t be too strong on yourself.
Go and have some fun. Play video games, watch Netflix, or have ice creams.
If you want to quit your bad habits, quit one at a time.
6. Boredom
Boredom can be the number one cause of nofap relapse. In this modern society, people run away from boredom.
They want to do anything except getting bored. But, the truth is, boredom can be the true power of achieving your dreams if you know how to utilize it.
This is a vast subject which I will cover in future articles. You will know, once you welcome boredom, your life will start to change for good.
You will be more productive, you will have better relationships and also you will become financially successful if that is your goal in the long run.
From childhood, the society, environments, and the current trends following the dogma of quick gratification.
Advertisements like the lottery, “Why you need to work, if you can win 100 million in one day.” gambling, “Create your team today, and win millions.” etc promises quick solutions and gratification of our big problems in life.
Whenever we feel bored, we jump into youtube, or Instagram just to make ourselves happy again as if boredom is our enemy.
We despise boredom so much, we even start talking with our enemies if there is nothing else to do that can make us happy.
In nofap, whenever you are bored, you want to view pornography, even after completing a few months in nofap.
You watch it promising yourself that you will just view it for some time and nothing else because this used to make you happy in the past.
We all know how these promises go.
But, once you consciously welcome boredom, your ambition for your goals will grow.
Close your eyes and try to feel how boredom feels.
You don’t need to surrender to your impulses just because you are bored, you don’t need to do anything.
Sometimes, just lying down and experiencing this non-doing is what you need in life.
Once you do this, you will realize something inside you changes, and every time you repeat this behavior, your personality starts to change.
Try it.
7. Forgetting the consequences
Time heals everything. But, something should be remembered.
Most of us go to nofap relapse because we start to forget our previous self or the future self we are striving for.
It will be a good idea to start your nofap journey by keeping the positive consequences in your mind.
This way, you will be hopeful and it will supply an abundance of energy in times of need.
But, when you come far from the starting point, it is also a good idea to remind yourself who you were before you started your journey.
Most of the nofappers go to nofap relapse after 100 days of nofap.
They get used to the new life and start forgetting about the old life.
They think, perhaps the old life was not that bad and if they go back to that old life, they can still be productive, charming and things will keep getting better because they have already built self-esteem now.
They can control their life now.
Wrong.
Once you relapse, the guilt and shame return and also your self-loathing.
This leads to frustration and depression and weakens the mind. This may be a heavy blow to yourself because you got deceived by your own mind.
If this happened, then start again, because, in your next journey, you will be aware of this self-deceiving too.
It is also a good idea to join the online nofap forms and get connected with others who are on this path.
Perhaps the success and relapse stories will keep you up to date about the consequences of the nofap.
You can join nofap.com or r/Nofap community on Reddit. You will get enough materials on ‘Your brain on porn’ website to read about.
The best way to become successful in the nofap journey is by reading materials on nofap until your brain builds strong neural pathways that believe porn addiction is really bad.
It is just like believing in your religion or principles of life.
You have to repeat the same information over and over again with emotions so that it gets imprinted in your brain.
Once it has done, you will never relapse again.
8.Seeing no results
If you are a goal-oriented person, then you will be more concerned about the goals rather than the journey.
When a person in nofap doesn’t see the results he has expected before starting the nofap journey, his motivation starts to go down.
After 100 or even 200 days, he doesn’t feel energized, he doesn’t feel productive and he doesn’t feel loved.
It‘s like whatever he is working for is going in vain.
Also, self-doubts start to show up, thinking that he is different from the rest. He is not going to get those benefits of nofap.
On the other hand, everyday there may be incremental progress that is going unnoticed.
He cannot compare his new self with his old self as discussed above.
Once he goes into nofap relapse, he understands how much he has changed in the journey.
Moreover, the benefits of nofap are not sudden. It is gradual. It develops over time.
Everyone is different and everyone’s history with pornography different.
A porn addict having a long history with porn will take more time to recover than a person who watched once a week or a month.
A 90 days challenge is just a start, but the real benefits come after a year or two for some.
If you don’t see any change in your energy level, don’t feel productive and happy after more than 100-200 days, then you are still recovering from pornography addiction.
You have a long history of chasing the high, it’s time to experience the ‘low’ until it balances.
Feeling low and unmotivated is a symptom that you are advancing in your journey.
Welcome this ‘low’ with your open arms, don’t fight it.
9. Commitment
Committing yourself to become successful in the nofap journey is one of the biggest reasons for nofap relapse.
Wait! What?
Yes, it is correct what you have just read.
I know what you have been taught since childhood to become successful in anything. Commitment.
But, commitment is for those who have strong willpower and motivations.
If we had stronger willpower, we would not need articles and books to become successful in nofap.
We human beings don’t like imprisonment. We are best when we are free.
We thrive in freedom and perish in restriction.
Once you commit yourself to become successful in your nofap journey, you remove all the options from your future decisions.
The only option you have is to not watch porn ever again.
This brings out the rebels within you. We cannot follow orders from others, and not from ourselves too.
We have our own identity.
When we leave us only with one option for future decisions, we are compelled to choose that option. There is no freedom to choose.
There is no power to choose.
But, once you keep all the options open for future decisions, you always have the power to choose.
You are not compelled to choose only one option, you are free and you can choose anything you like.
You have no commitments.
I know what you are thinking.
This sounds complicated at the starting, but once you start applying this concept in your life, you will understand it more deeply.
You feel the power of choosing. Because it is always you who can make decisions for yourself.
This concept is based on the present moment, and not on future events.
If you want to clarify more about this concept, please follow the link below. I have written a detailed article for it.
Nofap Strategy – How to Quit Pornography Addiction
10.Urges
Finally, the urges.
We all know about the urges, the strong force that makes us want to watch pornography.
When we think about nofap relapse, we only think about the urges.
But, as we have seen above, most of the time we relapse in nofap for other reasons.
I keep the urges at the end because I believe it is easier to deal with urges than those mentioned above.
Because you can identify urges when it comes, but the above reasons for nofap relapse are so subtle that if your self-awareness is low, you can relapse anytime.
Again, urges are natural. If you are a man, you will have urges. It’s biological.
The only problem is, we have connected these urges to pornography. We need to break this connection.
Urges are a great way to train your brain. Choosing not to watch porn everytime, whenever you feel like watching strengthens your willpower because you are using your conscious brain.
The more you use it, the stronger it will get.
You should not be afraid of urges, instead, you welcome them. Feel it, realize what your impulses are and you have the choice to make your decisions everytime.
In the above link, (in point 9) I have discussed how to deal with urges. You will realize that avoiding them or diverting your mind to somewhere else is not the solution.
The solution is to face them.
Conclusion
If you broke a long streak of nofap recently, then don’t just fall back to your earlier routine. Nofap relapse is a part of your journey.
Each relapse teaches you something and makes you stronger than before.
That doesn’t mean you should relapse consciously.
You may be successful in a long streak of nofap, or perhaps you have several short streaks of nofap.
Also, you may wonder, why you fall back to old patterns if all you want is good for yourself.
Why does your brain trick you, if you want to progress in your life!
All this happens because of ‘homeostasis.’ A concept I will discuss in future articles.
But, for now, we need to remember that these tricks of your subconscious brain are short-term.
Once you maintain a long streak, nofap becomes a way of life.
A path of happiness.
Best
Ahbab
