Are you currently doing a pmo reboot?

But you keep relapsing back to porn?

In today's video post we are going to talk about how emotional triggers can be really tough to handle when you are doing a porn reboot.

Disappointment, for example, is one of the nastiest emotional triggers.

Let's take a look at why that is.. 

Disappointment is A Big Trigger For Relapsing Back To Porn

Scandinavian Bob here, hi!

Those of you who have been following me for a while now know that I’ve been involved in the PMO rebooting community for almost 10 years.

The first years as someone struggling to overcome my own porn addiction, finally succeeding, and now the last years I’ve been helping others by making YouTube videos and doing 1 on 1 coaching.

And I’ve always told you that one of the biggest emotional relapse dangers is stress. In fact, so much so that some addiction experts say stress + dopamine = addiction.

Stress is a huge emotional trigger...

Now, I certainly agree to this, but as I’ve coached more and more guys I have started to see a pattern. A pattern of something that’s an even bigger relapse risk than stress. 

Now, during my own reboot I had a rebooting journal writing almost everything down.

Unfortunately I’ve lost some of my notebooks, but I still have most of them and last week when I went back and started reading my old rebooting journals I could confirm the pattern I’ve been seeing in my clients as well.

Yes, the mother of all relapses. Or shall we say emotional triggers. 

It is stress + disappointment.

Stress + disappointment = the mother of all emotional porn relapse triggers...

Now, of course I’ve known for many years that both stress and disappointment are big triggers, but when I started to look closer I noticed how a combination of those ALWAYS led to me relapsing in the beginning of my reboot.

Every single time!

Check this out...

Disappointment means low dopamine...

Ok, so we already know that stress is a huge trigger, as it weakens your self-control significantly. But did you know that disappointment actually lowers your dopamine levels?

Yes, whenever you get disappointed, your dopamine level plummets fast.

And so what do you do then?

Well, for an addicted brain the easiest and fastest way to get a dopamine hit is by resorting to the addiction.

Ahhh, yes, that's right,

But what do I mean by combining it with stress?

My experience with stress + disappointment during my pmo reboot...

Well, look, as I was reading my old journal I could clearly see that whenever I found myself in a really stressful situation, where something happened that made me feel disappointed in myself, the evening ended in a serious binge relapse. 

These were things like for example when I deliberately put myself in some very uncomfortable social situation in order to practice social skills.

Now, since anxiety was involved these situations were stressful and if something happened that made me feel that I significantly underperformed, and I became disappointed in myself, while even making my social anxiety worse, I always relapsed later that night.

When I went on a third date with a girl I was interested in...

I was stressed and anxious, and then the girl pulled the “let’s just be friends card”.

Well there you go...

Stress in combination with disappointment right there.

And sure enough a bad relapse later that night. 

And like I said, this is something I see in my clients as well. Stress + disappointment. That’s really the perfect storm right there.

How I started dealing with emotional porn relapse triggers...

Now, when a perfect storm scenario happens today, I still feel a pull or a need to escape into some low value dopamine activity.

But I manage to avoid it because I start thinking of what Jordan Peterson used to say... 

“Yes, of course you have reasons to be resentful, but if you act out the misery, you’ll make everything you’re complaining about INFINITELY worse.”

And that is so very true right there!

So, do not act out the misery by going on a alcohol rampage, or a big NoFap / porn relapse because, even if we in that very moment feel like nothing really matters, we all know that, oh yes, it can get even worse. 

Feeling stuck? You can transform your life in 13 weeks OR LESS by Downloading my FREE guide below...

It can always get worse...

And here Jordan's words come to mind with the phrase “There’s this idea that hell is a bottomless pit and that’s because no matter how bad things are, some stupid son of a bitch can always figure out a way to make it a lot worse. So how about you don’t go there, ey?”

And man, I needed to hear those words when I was younger.

In fact, I still do.

Most of us do!

So, the next time you happen to find yourself hit by the perfect storm, shut down your computer and your phone for the rest of the day and go for a really long walk to change your state of mind.

And remember: do not act out the misery because that would be the biggest mistake you could make.

Thanks for reading.

-Scandinavian Bob

Related posts:

• Why do I keep relapsing on NoFap?
• I can't stop relapsing to porn (Tried everything)
• Why do I keep relapsing back to porn?