When we feel something pleasurable, our brain releases dopamine. This dopamine hit leaves us feeling you euphoric. It leaves us feeling pleasure and joy and satisfaction.
And every time you masturbated to pornography, your brain released dopamine. And the more you did it, the more dopamine was released.
And now your brain has rewired itself to actually crave that hit of dopamine to even function every day. You may not even feel sexual arousal, but it’s time to go PMO (porn, masturbation, orgasm) because your brain is saying I need that dopamine.
Over time, you actually desensitize yourself to this dopamine. Our brains like to adjust and try to reach a point of stasis with anything. Our brain does not like imbalance. It’s always trying to seek stability. But you have been flooding it with dopamine. Maybe you are PMO just a couple times a week to start out with. And then it becomes three to four. Your brain is adjusting to this new level of dopamine, and it becomes the new baseline. If you aren’t actually giving it that hit three to four times a week, it starts wondering why not.
But don’t forget, that is just to get back to where your brain feels “normal.” You moved where the normal is by repeatedly doing something. And now, the same behavior doesn’t make you feel nearly as euphoric. That three to four times a week doesn’t hold any Joy anymore, it’s just to get you back to normal.
So then you start doing it more. Maybe it’s once a day. Then once a day isn’t enough. So now it’s twice a day.
Unfortunately, Something else is happening simultaneously. Our brain craves novelty. Our brain craves New sensations. We want that feeling of joy and euphoria. So the thing that used to turn us on… It’s still okay, but it isn’t like it was when we first watched it.
Maybe you started with soft core images. I’m old enough that there wasn’t an internet, and you couldn’t just find porn anywhere. The first images I ever masturbated to when I was in 6th grade were bra models in a store catalog.
To a young boy who had never seen anything like that, this was thrilling! It was thrilling for quite a while.
Until I discovered softcore pornography. Actual naked flesh? Nipples and pubic hair? Holy cow, this was even more exciting. And if I went back to the old bra models, they just didn’t do it anymore.
Next, softcore pornography becomes hardcore. The image of sexual acts and penetration. Way more stimulating than that soft core stuff. So to get the same rush and euphoria, I needed hardcore.
You all can see where this is spiraling to, can’t you? I don’t want you to get triggered right now, but if you think about the first thing you masturbated to compared to the most recent thing you used, I guarantee there is a big difference in what it took to excite you.
And these two processes combined, seeking more and more dopamine and seeking more and more stimulating material, this is how you became an addict.
And during all this, Your brain actually changes its neurological connections through the association of P with MO.
Your brain re-wires itself to do this.
But the good news is, your brain is an ever-changing organ in your body. And after a certain amount of time, you can actually rewire it to not have those same neural pathways that were ingrained in yourself for so long.
This process of your brain rewiring yourself is called neuroplasticity. And the younger you are, the easier this will happen. That’s what’s great about all of you who are still pretty young figuring this out. It’s actually much easier for your brains to rewire themselves.
The typical time it takes to reset your brain is about a month. But the older you are, the more time it takes. And everybody’s different, so some people it will take a little bit longer even if they’re younger.
-mvee2
