A lot of people starting out with their porn addiction recovery journey ask me something along the lines of:

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"How do I know when I'm fully recovered from my porn addiction?"

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Well, believe it or not, there actually is a very comprehensive way to know whether you’re fully recovered or not.

Put simply, you’re fully recovered once you have full confidence in your ability to overcome your porn addiction.

Which is to say that you’re 100% certain that you have every possible skill and insight required to deal with every possible situation without relapsing.

If you have that confidence and those skills, then quite simply, you’ll never relapse again.

On the other hand, if you have even the slightest doubt that you’ll be able to deal with any possible situation, then you are not recovered.

For example, do you think you would relapse if a close friend/family member passed away tomorrow? What if you were to find yourself suddenly homeless, or if you ended up losing your job?

If you feel as if you would relapse under those circumstances, then you haven’t fully recovered, because you haven’t developed the skills to deal with those situations.

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Ultimately, porn addiction recovery is about building our tolerance to effectively deal with difficult situations.

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So you may be perfectly fine with only being 80% confident in your ability not to relapse, however obviously the purpose of our recovery is to reach a point of 100% confidence.

And really, coming to understand what it means to be “fully recovered” within this context is super important, because it also tests what we know about ourselves.

Would I personally say that I have 100% confidence in my ability to refrain from relapsing?

Definitely not.

Like, I would say that I’m able to deal with 90% of situations with ease, but for example, if you were to force me to watch an hour of porn, I’m not sure how I would cope.

Of course, part of the problem is that we simply have no idea if we’re going to cope, nor whether what we know about ourselves is even correct.

Which is to say that although we may feel certain at times, this isn’t to say that we truly understand ourselves, let alone truly understand what it means to be “certain”.

And that’s cool, because in most lot of cases it’s merely a matter of experience and testing out our awareness in different situations in order to build that tolerance towards stress, anxiety and all manner of difficult emotions.

In fact, a large part of porn addiction recovery comes down to rediscovering this idea of “certainty” and what it actually means to have those skills and abilities

Sometimes it may help to ask.

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What does certainty entail? Is certainty purely emotional? Is certainty a process?

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How can I guarantee certainty 1 week from now, let alone within 3 months time?

If you don’t have 100% confidence in the answers you have to these questions, then it means you still have some experimenting to do.

And that’s fine, because ultimately this is a process of self-discovery.

There are no cheap hacks or quicks ways of getting around this. The only way to achieve a high level of certainty is to practice meditation and awareness exercises each and everyday.

So you can develop the skills in order to address those tough situations, as well as gradually dissect this puzzle I’m sure you’ve been trying to figure out for a while.

With this said, there’s also no point me telling you what I think certainty is, because it entirely defeats the purpose of what we’re trying to achieve here.

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Only by consistently working on your mental health, will it actually begin to make any sense to you at all.

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Reading about it is simply not enough.

And certainly, part of the issue is that we as porn addicts are often delusional.

Often we think we’ll have it down, only to find ourselves completely depressed and hopeless, even though there’ll be no reason to be feeling that way at all.

Which is also to say that this concept of “certainty” is a funny one.

Essentially, the point I’m trying to make is that your concept of certainty is almost always incorrect, and furthermore, limited by what you currently know.

Thankfully, there’s a way around this.

You see, certainty comes in many forms. There is “knowing” something and then there is “doing” something.

If you’re 100% certain that you’ll always “do” that something then you’ll be golden.

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Personally speaking, I knew I was largely recovered from the moment that I discovered proper meditation technique.

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Because from that moment, I knew I had all the skills necessary in order to be able to deal with almost all the awful emotions and feelings life was willing to throw at me.

That’s when I’d mentally achieved “certainty”.

And within that moment, this whole idea of porn addiction recovery itself became quite clear in my own mind and I’ve proven myself correct ever since.

In essence, although overcoming porn addiction may seem like a game of confidence, this is merely a symptom of the real cause.

Which is skill itself.

When you have a high degree of skill, because you’ve been practicing meditation and awareness execrices everyday, it will provide you with the confidence to be able to approach your porn addiction recovery with absolute certainty.

You just have to commit to improving them everyday.