War on Porn! - Extract 2

This is the second part of my book War on Porn! Prepare Your Mind for Battle, which can be downloaded free.  You can read Part 1 here.

STAGES OF CHANGE

Many years ago, researchers DiClemente and Prochaska identified the five stages a person typically goes through in overcoming problem behavior such as smoking, overeating and problem drinking. The stages are as follows:

·        Precontemplation: Not considering making a change.

·        Contemplation: Considering the possibility of making a change; possibly somewhat undecided.

·        Determination: Preparing to take serious action to make the change in the near future.

·        Action: They have a plan and are implementing it.

·        Maintenance: Less danger of returning to previous behavior, although there may at times be slips.

·        Termination: No longer tempted or afraid of the behavior.

For you to have picked up this book, you aren’t in the precontemplation stage. You are evidently already at least in contemplation. The questions in this book are designed to help you to move from contemplation to determination. Once you are there, you will find suggestions on how to move on to the action stage in my other book Porn Escape: Confidently Walk Free from thePrison of Pornography.

So, please, don’t die contemplating! Use this book to help you move from contemplation to determination. Make the change. Stand up and fight! Make the determination that you will never again torment yourself with the defeatist victim mentality of the porn addict. You have the potential to be living an entirely porn-free life this time next year. Studying this book is your first step.

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

Each section opens with a brief commentary. The comments are fairly direct, even blunt on occasion. Don’t be offended. I’m not having a go at you. I respect you greatly for your desire to get free from this trap. I simply want to jolt you into thinking clearly about these questions.

If you are a porn victim, it is because your mind has been corrupted — thoroughly corrupted, saturated with wrong ideas. Over the months, perhaps years, you’ve come to accept these fallacies as the truth. Now it’s time to challenge them robustly. You will be amazed, and appalled, that your mind got to be so thoroughly infected. Porn skews the mind; it introduces distorted thought patterns, which are then taken for granted. Soon it’s difficult to distinguish the truth about porn from wishful thinking. But it’s only the truth that will set you free. Be determined to get to it.

This book is intended to be read meditatively. In other words, you should think and reflect carefully on the questions that are asked. Listen to your conscience. Ask yourself: What do I really feel about this question? Make some notes. If you’re religious, pray about it. If not, just think deeply about it. Try hard to get in touch with your real feelings about porn use.

In an book chapter entitled “The Crystallization of Discontent in the Process of Major Life Change,” Roy Baumeister explained how people begin to make changes. He explains that “the crystallization of discontent” can be “understood as the forming of associative links between problems, conflicts, costs, objections, and other negative features of one’s involvement, so that a broad pattern of dissatisfaction and shortcoming is discerned.” The abstract of this article explains that “the crystallization of discontent links together . . . problems or costs that previously seemed unrelated” and that “a multitude of problems or costs can outweigh a broad pattern of positive features and benefits and can therefore provide the impetus to initiate a major change.” Reflecting on these questions can help you to crystallize your discontent with your present porn involvement and help you to make the major change you are starting to desire.

YOU CAN DO SOMETHING!

You don't have to be hooked on porn!  Millions of people live happily without porn.  You can be one of them.  

Get the follow-up book 

Amazon.com

 Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

In it, you'll learn more than a dozen techniques that can help you get free from your porn compulsion.  You will see:

• Why shame and guilt don't work as motivators and what you can do about it.
• What personality traits can help you overcome your porn dependence.
• Why positive thinking can be lethal to your escape from porn.
• How to develop an escape plan to deal with triggers.
• How to execute your escape plan with the confidence and skill of a pro.
• The right and wrong way to promote success through visualization.
• The winning formula for changing your actions.
• Why you should never count days of abstinence.

WHAT IS YOUR PORN ADDICTION COSTING YOU?

• Money?
• Time?
• Relationships?
• Opportunities to develop skills?
• Peace of mind?
• Clean conscience?

Porn Escape!

WE'VE GOT TO DO SOMETHING!

If the great addiction of the 20th century was tobacco, alcohol or drugs, the great addiction of the 21st century will surely be porn.

We've got to get the message out: Porn is one of the great evils of our time.  If we don't take action now, millions more will get hooked. 

In Homer's Odyssey, the hero Odysseus encounters a race of people called the "lotus eaters," who lived in a constant state of apathy due to eating the narcotic lotus plants that grew there.  This caused them to lose all interest in the activities of normal life.

The modern-day "lotus plant" is pornography!  It is causing millions of people to lose interest in friendship, hobbies and family members and spend hours ever week - sometimes hours every day - indulging their habit.

Have you been affected? I passionately believe that no one should have to tolerate porn addiction.  That's why I wrote Porn Escape: Confidently Walk Free from the Prison of Pornography.

Amazon.com

 Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

In it, you'll learn more than a dozen techniques that can help you get free from your porn compulsion.  You will see:

• Why shame and guilt don't work as motivators and what you can do about it.
• What personality traits can help you overcome your porn dependence.
• Why positive thinking can be lethal to your escape from porn.
• How to develop an escape plan to deal with triggers.
• How to execute your escape plan with the confidence and skill of a pro.
• The right and wrong way to promote success through visualization.
• The winning formula for changing your actions.
• Why you should never count days of abstinence.

WHAT IS YOUR PORN ADDICTION COSTING YOU?

• Money?
• Time?
• Relationships?
• Opportunities to develop skills?
• Peace of mind?
• Clean conscience?

P.S. Don't want to have a book on porn on your Kindle?  There are solutions!

War on Porn! - Extract 1

For the next few weeks, twice a week, I will be serializing my book War on Porn! Prepare Your Mind for Battle, which can be downloaded free.

FOREWORD

The object is this book is to provide you with the motivation you need to completely eradicate every last vestige of pornography usage from your life. What you’re about to embark on is not an easy undertaking. Porn is not a game. Porn is an evil, lethal enemy to be battled relentlessly and ruthlessly until it’s completely exterminated. This is not a walk in the park: it’s WAR!

In Porn Escape:Confidently Walk Free from the Prison of Pornography, I present a practical program to help people break free from the porn habit. The book includes dozens of tips, based on the latest scientific research into willpower and self-control. I’m convinced that these methods work — if people will only use them.  Yet, not everyone is ready to do that. As I’ll explain later in this book, some people need help to move beyond contemplation and begin taking action.

The fact is, you’re not going to get anywhere in your fight against pornography unless your mind is resolutely made up to do so. You have got to be 100% committed. If you aren’t, you’ll fail and you’ll watch porn until you die. The relaxed mentality that got you into watching porn won’t get you out of it. You need to be relentless in your insistence that you will eradicate porn from your life and you will not be denied. You must be courageous, determined, unwavering, dauntless! But how do you achieve that state of mind?

Whatever you do in life, you’re always going to be more successful if you accept the truth rather than fantasy. The first step to resolving any problem is to understand it. The only way to understand the problem is to set aside preconceptions and see things the way they actually are. Not the way you’d like them to be. Not the way you’ve been telling yourself that they are, perhaps for decades. Not the version you give your friends, your spouse or your boss. The truth. The way things really are. This is the truth that will set you free from porn.

If you’re to free yourself from the grip of porn, you need strong motivation, the type of motivation you can only get through very deep introspection, connecting yourself with what is really important to you. You have to relinquish wishful thinking and start seeing things the way they really are, not the way you’d like them to be. Rather than burying your head in the sand, you need to reflect carefully so as to find out the truth about yourself, your life, your thought processes.

No sensible, mature person would analyze this question and conclude that pornography viewing is advisable and beneficial. On the contrary, it is absurd to allow this pathetic compulsion to blight the remaining decades of your life, until you either lose your eyesight or die still addicted to porn.

To borrow some language used by Bertrand Russell, I would say: “Whenever you begin to feel tempted to commit an act that your reason tells you is irrational, futile, self-centered, degrading, exploitative of others and an appalling waste of your time, examine the causes of your urge and convince yourself in detail of their absurdity.” As Russell himself said: “Do not be content with an alternation between moments of rationality and moments of irrationality. Look into the irrationality closely, with a determination not to respect it, and not to let it dominate you.”

I will never cease being astonished at the extent to which porn victims have allowed their minds, their thinking processes, to become warped to the degree that they fail to recognize even the most basic and obvious realities about their condition.  The only cure for this is rational, careful, objective thinking — something porn victims are typically very reluctant to do.

Anyone who carefully considers this question will conclude that there is only one rational choice: Discontinue porn viewing immediately before it does any more damage. For you to become thoroughly convinced of this, you need to spend some time carefully considering your relationship with porn. Is it what you want it to be? Should you continue viewing it? Are you ready to stop? What are you willing to do to be able to stop? How badly do you want it?

By the end of this book, my hope is that you will have come to appreciate just how humiliating, how soul-destroying, it was to have to do the things you were doing. How it made you a slave. How it confiscated your free time and your money. How it debased you, made you feel that you were inferior and that you’d never be good enough. My goal is that by the end of this book, you’ll be absolutely determined that you are not willing to put up with that garbage ever again!

YOU CAN DO SOMETHING!

You don't have to be hooked on porn!  Millions of people live happily without porn.  You can be one of them.  

Get the follow-up book 

Amazon.com

 Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

In it, you'll learn more than a dozen techniques that can help you get free from your porn compulsion.  You will see:

• Why shame and guilt don't work as motivators and what you can do about it.
• What personality traits can help you overcome your porn dependence.
• Why positive thinking can be lethal to your escape from porn.
• How to develop an escape plan to deal with triggers.
• How to execute your escape plan with the confidence and skill of a pro.
• The right and wrong way to promote success through visualization.
• The winning formula for changing your actions.
• Why you should never count days of abstinence.

WHAT IS YOUR PORN ADDICTION COSTING YOU?

• Money?
• Time?
• Relationships?
• Opportunities to develop skills?
• Peace of mind?
• Clean conscience?

This book costs less than five dollars.  If it can help you on your way to freedom from porn, wouldn't that be worth it?

Is Sleep Deprivation Contributing to Your Porn Problem?

In Porn Escape: Confidently Walk Free from the Prison of Pornography , I briefly refer to the importance of a good sleep routine in resisting porn urges, explaining:

It’s been clearly demonstrated that a lack of sleep has serious negative consequences for a person’s willpower. 

 This is confirmed by a recent study published in Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, in May 2015, which indicated that sleep deprivation could affect your ability to say no to porn:

To preserve self-control, it is important to balance personal effort and choices in such a way that the ability to maintain self-control remains stable while replenishing necessary resources. Unfortunately, the energy resources that allow for better self-control are more quickly depleted than replenished. As such, it is common to run low on the necessary energy reserves for self-control as each day progresses. Better understanding how sleep habits could reset and contribute to a stable set of daily energy reserves necessary for self-control opens the possibility of a new research agenda and could be one step toward overcoming the natural imbalance between available vs. used energy stores. In addition, good sleep habits could refuel a person’s ability to make more difficult choices instead of opting for the easier choice or the easier task.

For a more easily digested explanation of the study, see the article How Sleep Affects Your Willpower from the Huffington Post. The article explains:

There is ample evidence from other areas that support the sleep-willpower connection. Researchers who study decision making know that that self-control plays a role in whether or not we choose to do something. So it's not surprising that our decisions, judgements, and attention can all be compromised when we don't sleep well. Without sleep, the capacity for us to engage our prefrontal cortex is diminished. At which point the other part of our brain -- the reward center -- has more influence over our decision making. 

As I explain in Porn Escape, if you want to overcome porn permanently, it's vital you learn to transfer control from your limbic system to your prefrontal cortex.   (Read more about your frontal lobes and limbic system here.)

So, what do you need to do?  Get enough sleep.  Try for eight hours if you can.  Take a nap at lunchtime or during the afternoon or just before the times you might be tempted to view porn.

But what if porn is causing you sleeping problems?  Try leaving your laptop or tablet at work for a few weeks.  It won't kill you.  You might feel a lot better for it.

Amazon.com

 Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

What Stage are You at?

STAGES OF CHANGE

Many years ago, researchers DiClemente and Prochaska identified the five stages a person typically goes through in overcoming problem behavior such as smoking, overeating and problem drinking. The stages are as follows:

·        Precontemplation: Not considering making a change.

·        Contemplation: Considering the possibility of making a change; possibly somewhat undecided.

·        Determination: Preparing to take serious action to make the change in the near future.

·        Action: They have a plan and are implementing it.

·        Maintenance: Less danger of returning to previous behavior, although there may at times be slips.

·        Termination: No longer tempted or afraid of the behavior.

For you to have picked up this book, you aren’t in the precontemplation stage. You are evidently already at least in contemplation. The questions in this book are designed to help you to move from contemplation to determination. Once you are there, you will find suggestions on how to move on to the action stage in my other book Porn Escape: Confidently Walk Free from the Prison of Pornography.

So, please, don’t die contemplating! Use this book to help you move from contemplation to determination. Make the change. Stand up and fight! Make the determination that you will never again torment yourself with the defeatist victim mentality of the porn addict. You have the potential to be living an entirely porn-free life this time next year. Studying this book is your first step.

The above is an extract from my FREE BOOK, War on Porn, which you can download from the following sites:

Amazon.com

Amazon.co.uk

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

Please Help Me Make My Book Free on Amazon!

My book War on Porn! Prepare Your Mind for Battle is currently free in the following stores:

Barnes & Noble
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/war-on-porn-prepare-your-mind-for-battle-luke-knight/1122545761

Kobo
https://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/war-on-porn-prepare-your-mind-for-battle

Smashwords
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/565443

Also available on iBooks.

It's currently 99 cents at amazon.com.

Could you please help me to make it free?  I'd like it to be available to as many people as possible to help them get motivated to leave porn behind forever.


All you need to do is to report to Amazon that it's available for free in other online stores.

To do this:

1) Go to the Amazon page for War on Porn!: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B01357F9IC/

2) Click where it says "tell us about a lower price?" (At the end of Product Details, just before More About the Author.)

3) In answer to the question, "Where did you see it at a lower price?" copy and paste in the link from Barnes & Noble above.  Enter the book and delivery prices as zero.

3) Click on the Submit button.


Many thanks.
Luke

A Porn Habit is Like a Part-Time Job

An extract from Porn Escape: Confidently Walk Free from the Prison of Pornography

I’d like to offer you a part-time job. The hours are flexible: I decide when you come in to work. It may only be a few hours a week, but it may be much more. Whenever I feel like it, I can call you and you have to drop everything and come to work. Unfortunately, it means you will have to miss out good times with loved ones. Sometimes I’ll call you late at night and insist you miss sleep to come in to work.

I won’t ask you to do anything illegal, at least not at first. However, I may sometimes ask you to do some work for me during office hours at your main job. If so you’d better hope your boss doesn’t find out about me. I don’t want you to let anyone know you work for me. If you’re married, you mustn’t even tell your wife. You may have to come up with some excuse or other to throw her off the scent.

Oh, and by the way, did I mention, you won’t be paid? In fact, I may even expect you to pay me for the privilege of being employed by me. And once you start working for me, I’ll make it very difficult for you to ever leave.

That, gentlemen, is porn. Porn doesn’t care about you. It doesn’t care whether it wrecks your marriage or causes you to lose your job. It doesn’t care how many sleepless nights it causes you, how ashamed and guilty you feel. It doesn’t care how many good times you’ll miss out on with family and friends because of your addiction. It doesn’t care whether your tastes become more and more bizarre until you’re arrested and go to jail.

YOU CAN DO SOMETHING!

You don't have to be hooked on porn!  Millions of people live happily without porn. You can be one of them.  

READ

PORN ESCAPE: Confidently Walk Free from the Prison of Pornography.

In it, you'll learn more than a dozen techniques that can help you get free from your porn compulsion.  You will see:

• Why shame and guilt don't work as motivators and what you can do about it.
• What personality traits can help you overcome your porn dependence.
• Why positive thinking can be lethal to your escape from porn.
• How to develop an escape plan to deal with triggers.
• How to execute your escape plan with the confidence and skill of a pro.
• The right and wrong way to promote success through visualization.
• The winning formula for changing your actions.
• Why you should never count days of abstinence.

WHAT IS YOUR PORN ADDICTION COSTING YOU?

• Money?
• Time?
• Family?
• Relationships?
• Opportunities to develop skills?
• Peace of mind?
• Clean conscience?

Amazon.com

 Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

More Insights from Dan Coyle

Last week, I promised some more insights from Daniel Coyle's Little Book of Talent.  So here are a few more points I gleaned that can help you in your escape from porn.

If you've read Porn Escape, then you'll know I recommend giving yourself a small reward when you carry out one of the activities.  (Note that I don't  recommend rewarding abstinence itself, because that gives your brain the message that porn viewing is desirable.  When you look at it in the cold light of day, it's actually a very frustrating and exhausting experience.)  But keeping score can be very motivating.  How many times did you rehearse your porn escape plan?  How many times did you visualize it?  How often did you review your implementation intentions?   You can make a game of it. Well, it turns out that Dan Coyle agrees:

“PLAY SMALL, ADDICTIVE GAMES. ... Playing a series of guitar chords as a drill is boring.  But if you count the number of times you do it perfectly and give yourself a point for each perfect chord, it can become a game.  Track your progress, and see how many points you score over a week.  The following week, try to score more.”

I also recommend keeping a journal of successes and setbacks.  That way, you can analyze what happened and make improvements to your 'game'.  I believe it's wildly counterproductive to expect that after months, probably years of porn viewing, you can just decide one day that you won't do it any more and that it will happen.  It's a process and you must learn from your mistakes.  Note Dan's perspective:

“Most of us are allergic to mistakes.  When we make one, our every instinct urges us to look away, ignore it, and pretend it didn’t happen.  This is not good, because as we’ve seen, mistakes are our guideposts for improvement.  ...Develop the habit of attending to your errors right away.  Don’t wince, don’t close your eyes; look straight at them and see what really happened, and ask yourself what you can do next to improve.”

I also recommend constantly rehearsing your porn escape plan.  This fits in well with Dan's comments on the vaue of repeatedly practising a skill:

“Instead of counting minutes or hours, count reaches and reps.  Instead of saying, ‘I’m going to practice piano for twenty minutes,’ tell yourself, ‘I’m going to do five intensive reps of that new song.’”

 

Finally, I recommend that your porn escape plan should end on a positive note.  After you've carried out your TEMPTING ALTERNATIVE TO PORN, you need to finish off by praising or rewarding yourself in some way.  Look at Dan's comments here:

 “END ON A POSITIVE NOTE:  A practice session should end like a good meal – with a small, sweet reward.  It could be playing a favorite game or it could be more literal.  (Chocolate works quite well.)  My ten-year-old-daughter ends her violin practices with a food-stomping rendition of the bluegrass tune ‘Old Joe Clark.’”

 

You can confidently walk free from the prison of pornography.  You really can.  However, you need to understand how your brain works and you need to work along with it.  I'm constantly researching published material for new insights.  Come back next week to see what else I've learned.

 

 PORN ESCAPE: Confidently Walk Free from the Prison of Pornography.

Amazon.com

 Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

Too Embarrassed to Have a Book on Porn on Your Kindle?

Porn Escape ($4.99) and War on Porn! (99 cents on Amazon; free at Smashwords, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and iBooks) contain valuable information if you're struggling with porn.  

If you're worried about someone looking at your Kindle and seeing a book about porn addiction, there are a number of solutions:

1. Use the Amazon Cloud Reader:  If you buy from Amazon, you don't have to download it to your Kindle; you can just read in the browser it using the Amazon cloud reader.  But if someone plays with your Kindle for long enough, they might be able to find it.
2. Read online using Smashwords: You can buy the book at smashwords.com and view it using the Smashwords online reader right in our browser.  You can use incognito mode or clear your browser's cache afterwards.  My guess is you already know how to do that ...
3. Make an encrypted  PDF.  If you get the books from smashwords.com, you can download them as PDFs and then password protect them, using the instructions found here or here.  You can should also rename the PDF to something nondescript.

Alternatively, there's a lot to be said for telling some trusted friends about your porn problem.  So being discovered could be a blessing in disguise.

 PORN ESCAPE: Confidently Walk Free from the Prison of Pornography.

Amazon.com

 Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

Tempting Alternatives to Porn (TAP)

You can’t simply tell your brain not to look at porn; you have to offer it an alternative that will accept. Something that will give it pleasure without the negative consequences; something that will tempt you away from porn. What might some of the alternative activities be? Here is a partial list:

·        Listen to your favorite music.

·        Exercise.

·        Go for a walk.

·        Play a musical instrument.

·        Have a nap.

·        Take a shower.

·        Do a meditation exercise.

·        Pursue a hobby.

·        Do some cooking.

·        Read a book.

·        Play a video game.

From PORN ESCAPE: Confidently Walk Free from the Prison of Pornography.

Amazon.com

 Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords

Develop an "Escape Plan" for Porn Temptations

"It would be ridiculous to install a fire alarm when your house is on fire.  Likewise, the moment you’re experiencing a porn trigger is not the moment you need to start thinking what to do about it. You have to decide that well in advance. It is vital that you know exactly what you will do the next time you are triggered. You must have a clear, written plan, which you should review multiple times each day until you know it off by heart. ... You also need to rehearse it, both mentally and in real life, until it becomes second nature to you."

From PORN ESCAPE: Confidently Walk Free from the Prison of Pornography.

Amazon.com

 Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Kobo

Smashwords