u/Substantial_Cap_4246

Some weeks back, after a catastrophic relapse, I called upon Death to take me to the Underworld to be free of porn and fapping for good. I thought that there is no other way, that I have already exhausted all my options.

But with the unique power bestowed upon us Sapiens, the power to metacognitively build instincts for ourselves, I came up with something that broke the dark chains of porn and masturbation addiction.

I usually relapsed around day 4 or 5. I went as far as day 16 (didn't complete day 16) when a certain mood and realization hit me. But today, today marks the 17th day I'm free of PMO, the longest I have ever been.

I wanted to describe these 17 days as an epic battle, me against Ancalagon the Black, Mightiest of all Dragons, but they were not so. You see, addiction is like the One Ring that the Dark Lord Sauron made in the Lord of the Rings. And I had been Gollum, for 13 years (the addiction started in 2013), sitting in my dark cave, raving, as the Ring consumed me and poisoned my mind.

Many times, I forgot the taste of bread, the sound of trees, the softness of the wind, and I even forgot my own name (I got Depersonalization Derealization disorder in 2018 - for almost a year it was chronic and agonizing, by the end of 2018 I was 95% recovered, and today, my recovery goes on).

At long last, I stopped being Gollum. I created a system, an 'economy', a 'game mechanism', for my battle against porn addiction. But to my surprise, after day 1, it stopped feeling like a battle. The Ring just... pretty much vanished?! Turns out, all those years of suffering were the steps I had taken to come to Mount Doom, and the system I designed was the final blow against the evil of the Ring, a blow that loosened my grip and let the Ring fall into the fire. Then, it dawned on me: I was never a mere Gollum to begin with. I was like Frodo, I was like Lady Galadriel. Yes, I stumbled, many times, I had my dark moments, my hopeless moments, but each time, I got back up, I kept on going, and it got me here. It got me to redemption.

This road to freedom has been unlike any other. Every other time when I went into "porn-free streaks", triggered by an inspiring idea or event, my brain would simply shut down my ability to get an erection. And very soon, it all would start to feel like a battle, in which I always fell into my bed and desperately FORCED myself into getting an erection.

However, this time, there is no barrier to be broken. I can get erections. I get them when I'm asleep. I got them a couple of times when I was fully awake. And it might have stopped feeling like a battle, but sometimes I still get 'images' or 'whispers' in my head, which feel like a minor disagreement or conflict, because I quickly silence them with ease. The system I designed is not there to count "streaks", it's there for a wholly different purpose. I can watch porn and jerk off anytime I want, it's just I choose not to. And I'm so much happier for it. Honestly, once you are out of the shithole, or as I like to put it, once you truly stop wearing the Ring, you'd be like "what's the big deal about porn?!?!!?"

Here's the system I talked about: Click to open

I've made some adjustments (for example, I decreased the daily Data Allowance Reward because it was initially too much). And I'd probably make more adjustments later on. I'd definitely increase Playtime reward to 2 hours and 30 minutes once I get to Day 30.

Wishing you the best intellectually sound method you can come up with. We are the most flexible species when it comes to building new habits thanks to our highly advanced metacognition. Use it.

.........................

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

I've spent hours tinkering with graphic settings in 007 First Light. My PC sports an RX 6600, so these results might not be the same for new High-End GPUs.

Starting with FSR:

Absolutely horrendous. Flickering and shimmering is unacceptable, to say the least, even on Quality. But this is by far the smoothest performance you can squeeze out of the game.

As for TAA:

The massive performance hit is like the asteroid that wiped out land dinosaurs. Don't risk your brain going extinct. The visuals aren't even that good.

DLSS (through Optiscaler):

You want minimal anti aliasing issues? Quality and especially DLAA are your saviors. But even these methods don't do as well as you hope for. Expect 20-35 FPS drop (compared to FSR) and you still haven't eliminated some aliasing issues.

This game is unplayable on DLSS because of how bad the performance is. That's when Frame Generation comes to rescue... Or does it??!

FSR Frame Generation 3:

Enabling this through Optiscaler would give you twice as much FPS. But here's the catch: with DLSS, you'd get shaky/flickering/stuttering UI elements. The only way to fix this is by lowering your Resolution.

Eventually, after so much tinkering, I ended up settling for Optiscaler + FG + DLSS/DLAA + FHD resolution.

I was so disappointed with how badly this game has incorporated upscaling technologies that I wanted to delete the game from my PC and check out whether the PS5 version is any better.

I have an RX 6600, and with FSR4 mods Resident Evil 9 and Stellar Blade look great and run very well. What of 007 First Light? It appears you can't just copy paste a file to get FSR4; you need Optiscaler. But how well does Optiscaler make the game run and look? Is it even worth the trouble? FSR3 makes the game a little bit blurry, but the performance is awesome. Any option to get the best of both worlds?

Exposed to porn when browsing my dad's phone when I was little, got addicted ever since I gained access to internet (2013). Let's skip all the problems and mental disorders porn, sexting, fantasizing, doomscrooling, and social media addiction have caused me. Let's rush straight to the main dish.

I tried religion, science, willpower, community, fiction and drama, shame, honor, love, fear, hate, 'logic', deleting stuff... But nothing ever worked. Until I mixed all the effective stuff together.

Recently, I was so fed up with myself. I couldn't suffer relapsing anymore. And I was so pained to learn the "got you!" moments will never actually save me (it's those moments when my mind, deeply affected by an idea or event, would turn me into the super version of myself and it would go as far as physically preventing me from getting an erection). Empirically, those "got you!" moments always ended sooner or later.

I didn't need a singular entity or technique to save me, I need a rigorous, reliable system tailored SPECIFICALLY for me. And no one knows me better than me. Meaning, only I had the power to design such a system. And I did. I took all the powerful, positive, effective aspects of my mentality and combined them into one system.

I'm an avid gamer, so the system NEEDED to be gamified. It was a must. A gamer's brain is going to think in gaming terms. And a game needs rewards, loots, checklists, mission objectives. But what could possibly rival my urges for porn?! Honor? Future promotion in my job? Getting a girlfriend? None were immediate rewards. Brains do not think in long-term. They look at what's right in front of them. And the only rival I could think of was video games. Good! Thus, game time was set as my primary reward, along with "allowance to download new games." My secondary reward was 'coveted' foods.

For each urge subdued, I would gain 10min of playtime. And for each "Clean Day" (that is, a day without any urges or a day with 3 or less urges), I would get 4 to 7GBs worth of allowance to download a game AND 2hours of playtime. The less the number of urges, the higher the data allowance. Also, for each Clean Day, I'm rewarded with 1+ point, and I can use those points to buy 'delicacies'. The higher the number of points, the richer the food. There are more rewards, but these were the main ones.

This system is very shaky. It relies only on points and rewards, it doesn't have any Damage points, and it doesn't specify how to avoid Urge Areas and Enemy Traps. I had already thought about how to fix that.

My bed + phone in bed was the number one cause of almost all of my relapses. And the number two cause was related to boredom, exhaustion, distress, and curiousity. Meaning, it was never about horniness. Porn was simply a destructive 'defence mechanism' against emotional lows and more importantly, giving in to porn was a learned environmental habit.

Therefore, I created two sets of "Damage systems": Offences and Cardinal Sins. Committing them would damage my Playtime, Game Data Allowance, and Food rewards.

For Offences (-1 damage), I chose "tiny peeks, thinking about having sex/fantasies, doomscrooling, not setting a timer (when I'm browsing social media)"

For Cardinal Sins (-3 damage), I chose "Bed (unless I need to sleep or do yoga), taking my phone to bed, lying on my bedroom floor, skipping scheduling and planning for the next day before I go to bed, full PMO".

Seriously, DO NOT SKIP planning for the day ahead/tomorrow. Also, it's very important to know WHEN your urges usually rise up. I preplan playing video games or cleaning stuff or watering plants or things like that during the times my urges are at the strongest.

I have designed this personally, specifically tailored system in a Microsoft Word file and put it right in front of me, always open, on my Desktop. I have used this program to gamify my students scores and performance for a long time. Now, I'm also using it to gamify my battle against my addiction.

Actually, it does not feel like a battle anymore. It doesn't feel like a struggle anymore. I had about countless urges before I started this. 12 urges on day 1. And now, less than 3 urges just in matter of 9 days. And those 2 or 3 urges DO NOT last for long. They last for 0.5 to 10 seconds. Usually less than 1 second. By that, I mean sex images only last as high as 2 seconds in total in an entire day. From minutes to HOURS of thinking about sex, I went to less than 3 seconds.

I usually relapsed around day 5, but today is day 9 and it's been going smoothly. Working out doesn't feel like a chore anymore. It comes naturally. I wake up anticipating doing Yoga or dancing to music or other healthy stuff like that. If 9 days can be that good, imagine what could 90+ days be.

R2 or L2 get triggered without me even pressing them. Gently hitting the controller a few times fixes the issue, but sooner or later, the problem returns.

The controller has never fell from my hands, so it can't be damaged, right? However, sweat or dust or even hair can have found their way through the insides of the controller.

How to clean the controller now? I fear I might completely break it.