"Why Can't I Stop Watching Porn?"
In this monologue Samir Gardner explains why quitting porn feels harder than it should and offers a practical mental‑framework to make it effortless. He begins with the "white bear effect" and ironic process theory, showing how trying not to think about porn only keeps the urge alive. He then introduces ego fatigue/depletion, illustrated by the radish experiment, to explain why willpower alone fails. Gardner argues that instead of battling urges, viewers should accept and re‑frame them, treating thoughts as background noise rather than alarms. He uses a knife‑vs‑arsenal analogy to illustrate that the simplest path—removing the behavior like cutting an animal—is often ignored in favor of complex willpower training. He advises shifting from a success/failure mindset to guideline‑based learning, encouraging rational internal dialogues (CBT‑style cost‑benefit analysis) when urges arise. Gardner warns about attentional bias from consuming only NoFap content, likening it to Plato’s cave where one sees only shadows. He recommends expanding perspective, seeking meaningful life goals, and mapping a hopeful future (self‑transcendence) to replace porn’s appeal. The talk concludes with a practical invitation to book a coaching call for personalized help.
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There's this issue that I see over and over again, and it's so simple, it's so easy to understand that if you were to really just apply this one little tip I'm about to go over in this video, you're gonna realize that quitting porn was actually easy and it is actually effortless. But the issue is we're not even aware of that problem. We think we're actually doing the right thing when we're actually doing the thing that is blocking us from that freedom itself. And this is what we call the white bear effect. Now, the white bear effect originates from a classic psychological experiment where they've basically told people, try to not think about a white bear. And guess what happened? People thought more about that white bear. And later when they were allowed to just like think freely, they had even stronger rebound of the thought. And then the psychologist in this experiment explained that this happens because of what we call the ironic process theory, where essentially if you say, let me not think about X, then your mind checks, oh, am I still, am I still thinking about X or did I stop? So guess what? The thought stays alive. So the more you try to suppress something, the more your subconscious is going to focus on it. If you think, Am I free from porn yet? It's been 14 days. I'm scared I'm going to relapse as I did last time. Well, that thought itself will probably keep on popping up, and then you'll check, oh, am I still thinking about this? Am I still free? You see how it works? And then to make matters worse, we have what we call ego fatigue or ego depletion. And ego fatigue can be summed up as what you resist persists. So for example, they did an an experiment called the radish experiment. And they saw that those that were eating radishes whilst having to ignore like a bowl of cookie in front of them whilst doing tasks gave up faster on these tasks compared to those that were allowed to eat the cookies in the first place. Of course, in that situation, the participants probably really wanted to eat the cookies, much like the majority of the population nowadays. And most people that I either talk to, I see on the internet when I do research, most people really have that struggle of I have the desire. Let's say for example, and that used to happen to me and I really relate to this and I'm not trying to be passive aggressive or say that you shouldn't feel like this. No, I'm trying to help you understand the problem so that you can get rid of it immediately. But I remember being there and having the desire and I'll try to suppress it. I'll be like, no, don't do it. Don't do it. Don't do it. Like you're gonna feel shame. You're gonna ruin your progress. You're gonna feel like an hypocrite. You're gonna never be successful if you do this. You're gonna go back to square one. You're gonna not feel confident for the next few days. And this is not even rationalization. This is me trying to just suppress something. And then guess what happens? You almost have like this sexual tension for like hours on end. And every like 1 hour or 2, you're really about to give in and then you're like, no, I'm not gonna do it. And you really use your willpower and then The next few hours pass and then by the end of the day, you're just like, you know what, it's more rational for me to do it at this point because it's just like, I'm wasting so much time having this tension. And there is also a biological understanding of this when it comes to neuroscience. They have a very good explanation when it comes to the prefrontal cortex, but we're not gonna dive deep into that because that's just going to confuse you. And if you're a layman when it comes to this subject, then it's not going to be helpful to you. So what can you do? One of the things that you want to do is instead of looking at your thoughts or desires that are obviously going to pop up again, and you want to accept the fact that you're gonna have thoughts and you're gonna have maybe even the desire in the beginning as you want to move on, even if you say, you know what, I'm gonna stop putting so much time, effort, and attention to quitting porn, and instead I'm gonna maybe focus on other aspects of life and really, allow myself to live my life. One of the best things that you can do is that you wanna reframe these thoughts that you're going to have in the, especially in the beginning, as you just leave a behavior behind that you've been probably doing for years as background noise. A lot of people see a simple thought that just pops up randomly about a, let's say a video that they watched, a porn video specifically, or a, beautiful woman that they know of. And they interpret that thought as, oh, look, this is like a fire alarm. Like, this is like, I need to do something about this. And by doing that, they give power to these thoughts. Now, it's kind of like a paradox because your thoughts, like, they're not like separate from you. Your thoughts, like, come from you. But you then give them power and you also interpret them as something that doesn't necessarily come from you, but rather it's like an attack on you. And because of that, they have like this tug of war within their mind. And that is more than destructive. I mean, when you really think about it, okay, I'm, I'm gonna go a bit on a tangent, but when you really think about it, let me give you an analogy. Quitting porn could be done just by taking a knife and killing, let's say, the animal. But instead, what do people do? They try to get as much ammunition as, as many weapons They try to get the most sophisticated weapons like an RPG, let's say for example, and the best rifle that they can get their hands on. And they try to like make sure that they're ready to go and kill that animal properly. And maybe you can see what I'm trying to say here. People, instead of just naturally leaving this behavior behind, which most people do, most people that are outside, and I'm gonna talk about this soon, but most people that are outside of this whole like recovery movement and they never been exposed to such ideology, they naturally move on and they do so pretty fast. But instead, what do people do? They think, no, I need to really make my mind as strong as possible so that I can resist those urges so that I can become the guy that is so disciplined that I have all of this willpower, this self-control. So I know I'm never gonna fall back into it. Oh, I also need to, make sure my environment is free of triggers. I mean, no social media. What people that are, let's say, a level above do is, let me feed myself with as much information as possible on this topic. Let me read about this new book when it comes to quitting porn, or let me go and watch this new video, this new NoFap video, or this new video that is going to help you like debunk this belief. And so they prepare, they prepare, they prepare. They could have just went with the knife and just killed the animal. I talked to dozens of guys in real life. I've been around people that share this passion for self-improvement in general and building personal projects and improving themselves. Like, and like people that are motivated by self-actualization, because I am as well. And talking to these people, I remember them coming up to me and saying, oh yeah, I've been free from porn and masturbation for a long time. I mean, I stopped back in like 2024. I stopped doing it the moment I realized that I needed to focus on my business, or I stopped doing it the moment I got closer to God. I stopped doing it the moment I knew I could be with this woman that I really wanted to be with. And you see how they just naturally move on because they find a good reason to move on? This is the knife, the good reason. That's all people need sometimes. But people instead go with the approach of, no, I have certain flaws in myself. I have certain beliefs that my brain, because of the brain changes, I'm different than anyone else. Whilst these guys, literally, I'm telling you, on average everyone starts watching porn towards the same age. We're talking about like around puberty, maybe before puberty, like the age of 8. I've seen— I see a bit more these days, or after puberty, like at the age of 14, 16, it really depends. And most people have the same sort of story where they got introduced to it by a friend or whilst they were at school, they got exposed to it. But like these people, they never watched the NoFap videos. They never thought, oh no, I feel powerless when it comes to this. They never thought that they could feel powerless in front of porn. They never had this narrative in their mind. And guess what happened? They moved on naturally. Now here's an issue. And I'm gonna give you a very good tip here. A lot of people think, well, yes, Samir, that's true. But in the past, I left porn and I maybe stopped thinking about it for a few weeks, a few months. then I quote unquote relapsed and I went back to square one and then I started overthinking about it again and the cycle maybe kept on repeating. And so this is where you really want to reinterpret your past attempts at quitting porn and to not look at them as success or failure because this is again the, the wrong game that we're playing. If we think about success or failure, you don't want to have success or failure. You want to have guidelines because when you have guidelines, you say, okay, well my intention for example is to quit porn and masturbation. Well, the, moment that if, let's say, for whatever reason you do watch porn again, well, now you're going to be able to say, okay, I watched porn for this specific reason, let me learn from it so now I can make a different decision. Now you go with a rational approach rather than an emotional one, which is what most people do when they quote-unquote relapse. They just say, you know what, I'm never gonna do it again, I, I really don't want to feel like this again, I feel so much shame, this is— why did I do this? And so on. So Instead of interpreting your past attempts of quitting porn, oh yeah, I went 60, 90 days without porn. And because that happened to me, okay, going 90 days, 120 days without thinking that you would be free forever and that now all was said and done. And then you found yourself going back to porn and then you use that as evidence that yeah, maybe, maybe I'll never quit. Instead, you wanna simply say, you know what, in the past I was operating based on an old software. I was operating based on an outdated set of beliefs and I was operating based on false information. I mean, think about it. Look at different aspects of your life. So for example, in the gym, if you go to the gym, you know, at first there's like so many mistakes you make. There, there's so many things that you don't know of. And because of that, it costs you a lot of progress. Like maybe you didn't know that in the gym you had to do your reps properly. And instead you thought that you just had to lift heavy weights. And, and because of that, let's say in the first few months of your fitness journey, you didn't really make much progress. So imagine you were to look at your lack of progress as evidence that you don't have the genetics or you don't have the potential to be in shape, when in reality it's just that you were doing this one little thing wrong, which was to do the reps properly. So you see how interpreting Things here is going to change everything. It's going to change everything. So from this video, from now on, I want you to think, okay, well, I used to think that to become free from porn, I had to learn how to quit porn. I had to learn how to fight off my urges. I had to learn how to be disciplined. Now I'm giving you the tools. You can be like, you know what? I have a new software. So now my computer is going to work. And look, to really move on from something, would you really keep on thinking about it. If you really are free from something or you really moved on from something and it's not a part of your life anymore. Like for example, if you had an old group of friends that you used to hang out with for years, and everyone can relate to this, you had this group of friends, you had a ton of fun with, you had pleasure with, and one day you made the decision to maybe stop talking to them for whatever reason, or maybe based on logistics, you, you just couldn't meet anymore because they were doing a new job, and then slowly you guys didn't meet anymore. Well, if you truly moved on, meaning like you don't really have that same desire and that same excitement to be with them anymore like you used to in the past, well, wouldn't you agree that you'd probably just not really think about them? Or maybe you'll think about them occasionally, like your mind wanders anyways, but you might think of certain moments that you had and think, oh wow, that used to be fun, but now they're not part part of my life anymore. So I can't do that. Let me do something better instead. You see like how that applies. You can apply like the same mindset to PMO. Like, oh yeah, I might think about it occasionally and think, oh yeah, that used to be fun, but now it doesn't really make sense anymore. And I have this job that I'm doing and I love this new project and it's gonna give me pleasure. So there's no point. And that really leads to my next step. And now my next practical advice, Be calm. Have that internal dialogue with yourself when you have a desire. This is basic cognitive behavioral therapy. Like, if you have a desire, instead of being emotional about it or feeling that fear, why don't you look at it like, okay, look, this is a thought. Let me examine it. Let me rationalize with myself. Okay, should I do this? Should I not do this? Okay, could I do this? Could I watch porn? Yeah. Could I watch porn? Or could I not watch porn? I mean, what would be the benefits of each? I'm not saying like you go and write down for 15 minutes the cost to benefit analysis, but I'm saying you really have that internal dialogue with yourself and then you're going to be like, oh, I want this specific thing. Like for example, to watch porn again because of this specific reason. And that's just like dissolves the desire like right away. I remember I used to be like, oh yeah, I really want intimacy. I'm not talking about like PMO. Like I really, really, really want intimacy. And I was like, okay, sure, you want intimacy. Why do you want intimacy, Samir Gardner? And by the way, there's nothing wrong with wanting intimacy. I like, it's a natural desire, but I didn't wanna like just think about it. So I was like, okay, why do I want intimacy? Ah, because right now I don't really feel, and I was honest with myself. I was like, I don't really feel like I accomplished much in my life and therefore I don't really feel as worthy and valuable. Feel like I'm not there yet. and if I were to have intimacy with a beautiful woman, I think I'll feel like I accomplished something. And immediately it made the desire to think about intimacy, 'cause obviously I was in my room, I was not gonna be able to do anything, and to watch porn or masturbate at this point was not an option for me. I just moved on from it. And I was like, ah, this is the reason why. Well, if that's the reason why, do I need to think about intimacy and fantasize about having sex? Well, not really. I can instead maybe think about something like faith. Like I can think about God and remember God. And I think that's going to actually like provide me a sense of like worth and value and a sense of accomplishment. And I can think about my projects that I wanna work on today or tomorrow. And one of the benefit of this approach is also because you look at it, it's not like you fight off the urge. Instead, you really understand yourself And then that leads to kind of like really removing the desire at the roots. Because now that you're aware of something, you're aware of like the unconscious, like you make the unconscious conscious, you also like dissolve that at the root because instead of fighting it, you understand, okay, like this is the reason it doesn't make sense anymore. And so I'll leave you with two other things. There's something that we call attentional bias, or we can call it selective attention. If you really only feed yourself information, you only get exposed to like one idea and one side of the coin. And by that I mean like NoFap, I mean like people that are struggling. You look at a YouTube video and you see people saying, I'm on day 40, oh, I just relapsed, I'm gonna start again. Or you go on a forum, you go in a group, and you see people saying, day zero, I'm gonna be motivated again. And that's pretty much like the bulk of what you see, like that's the perspective that you see. And you see a few stories there and there of people saying, I've became free. Well, guess what happens? It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy because now that's your only reference. That's the only thing you can use as evidence, almost. Seeing people feel hopeless, seeing people fighting this, seeing people say that they fail, that they're defeated because of porn. Well, now you think, okay, well, this must be the reality because this is what people are experiencing. You really just see one side of the internet. And if you're trying to quit porn, then obviously that will be probably the only side of the coin you'll ever be exposed to. Because why would people that are free from porn constantly comment and constantly be active in places where people need help to quit porn? I'm talking more specifically about groups and how to quit porn videos. Go ahead and talk to people in real life. And sure, self-report is not the best source of evidence, but you'll see that people that moved on and people that, for example, have a life that maybe you want to live, or maybe they do things that you want to do, and let's say that they, they stop watching porn for maybe non-secular reasons, maybe for the goals that they have and so on, and overall self-improvement. You'll see that they, they left porn, and it's, it's not like, oh yeah, because of this one technique, and it's more like, oh yeah, I, maybe they, they did try something. They maybe removed the constant sexual imagery that they were seeing on social media. But oftentimes you might see that they're just like focused on something new, and they're like, okay, this is what I'm gonna do, and they naturally moved on. And, and one thing which I really, really want you guys to be careful of is to never feel hopeless. I mean, hopelessness can be defined as a perceived lack of options. You think you can't do anything. You think that this is your reality. And this is again, like why I was talking about, you only see one side of the coin. Objectively, this is not true. Meaning sometimes we only see something. And like I said, like attentional bias, you only see one thing, but if you were to be A bit open-minded, just like I explained in my courses. You've seen it before. If not, go and watch it right now. Plato's cave, where he shows in his cave that there's people that look at the shadows on the wall and they think that this is all there is to life, to reality. They're closed-minded. And when the people that go outside of the cave tell them, actually, there is a place outside of the cave where you'll see the real things, you'll see real life, you won't see just shadows, you'll see the real items behind those shadows. And they say, no, This can't be possible. Let me just look at my shadows. And they just stay there. They stay inside of the caves their whole lives. You need to open up yourself to a new, not just a new perspective, but to new opportunities, to new experiences. And no, I'm not talking about you necessarily go and travel and you go and change your environment and live in a new country, even though that will be probably very beneficial. But I mean, do not stay closed in your room just watching videos and then waiting, like I gave the analogy of, until you have the best equipment, you have the most amount of ammunition, you have the best weapons before you can go and really experience life. Because most people think, I need to quit porn before I experience life. But instead, people will experience life and then they quit porn, not necessarily as a byproduct, but there is a correlation because as their life gets better, they realize, oh look, life is much more than just porn. Or as they experience new things, they're like, oh, the pleasure that I got from this new thing far exceeds the pleasure I got from porn. Or the meaning that I get from this doesn't even compare even 1% to the meaning of the fantasy that I attached to porn. And when you just stay there and you just watch videos on how to quit porn and just do this and this and this, well, you're not experiencing life. You're not meeting new people. And I'm not saying that these are the solutions, that you need to experience something in order to quit. It wouldn't make sense. It's like saying, okay, just take this one pill and then you would quit this behavior, would adopt this new behavior. No, but for your life to go forward, it can't be. And this is, again, I'll leave you with an extra tip. If you feel hopeless, map out your future. What does your future look like? This is one of the best ways to create meaning, but also to create an option where you're like, oh, this can't be my life. Let me work. And I'm not just talking about goals, I'm talking about a version of yourself. And this is what we call self-transcendence. Humanistic approach in psychology talks about like how people are motivated to want to become their best selves. Go in and describe what would that future look like? Where do you want to see yourself maybe a year from now? That's going to give you a lot of hope. And as we know, all based on like real popular studies, hope is like one of the most important things. The moment you lack hope, the moment you feel hopeless, your life will not only stay stagnant, but it will also go downhill. So I highly suggest you go and you stop actually watching so many NoFap videos and you really focus on your life, as simple as it sounds. And you stop thinking so much. And just like I explained with the white bear theory, to think so much about, did I quit porn? Am I there yet? And you really learn to live in freedom naturally. And if you want to really quit as soon as possible and really move on as soon as possible, then go ahead and click the first link in the description. You can book a call with me and I'll see if I can help you.
