The Main Addiction dropping strategy : Mastering your Relapse Triggers

What are Relapse triggers ?

To give an analogy, let's suppose that you're driving on the road for a long journey, most of the drive is probably very chill due to being on the highway, just need to remain reasonably aware but the road isn't all that complex to drive, it's therefore possible to drive fairly fast while still remaining safe:

but invariably at some point the road ahead will be more complex to navigate than usual, it's not always going to be an easy straight line:

therefore, ideally you must be prepared by remaining aware of the dangerous parts of the road, and on top of that, you must also have in mind how to drive those parts safely, by driving slowly for example.

Because if you drive too fast, and unprepared when going through those dangerous turns on the road you may end up in an accident:

Relapse triggers are exactly like those dangerous turns on the road ahead of you, those are simply parts of your day that are more challenging, and need to be approached more carefully, you can't just rush through them blindly because you might crash (meaning you might relapse by indulging in your addiction once again).

Take for example a porn addict, who's been indulging in PMO (meaning porn, masturbation, orgasm) daily for the last 20 years, even if he's grown to make himself believe that he wants and needs it, it is an addiction exactly like how an heroin addict shoots dope up his veins, the addiction cycle is the same. (for more details on this i recommend reading the excellent easypeasy book, which explains the best method to quit porn, which is also about realizing that you don't want or need it)

For the PMO user, opening up an adult website is his way to escape the discomforts of the day.

For example let's say that his day started easy going, he woke up at 10 am, did some chores, watched some videos, went outside for a walk, ate somewhere and came back home alone. So far no problem the road has been easy to drive:

But at upon going home he just remembered that he had to study for a very important and complex math exam and the deadline was tomorrow, he started to work on it just in time to make it, but the pressure is on him because he has to perform to make it:

Right here the road is much more complex to navigate for him, he has to focus, take it slowly, and grind through the discomfort to make it. This is a relapsing trigger, the addict's brain is probably screaming to him that he should escape that discomfort by opening up the online harem website, due to the past 20 years of daily indulgence into his addiction.

There, whenever faced with a trigger (it can be anything that relates to stress or something completely unrelated) the addict is at a crossroads. His brain presents him with 2 paths:

For an addict's brain, with his 20 years of daily PMO Indulgence, the easy path (addiction relapse by opening a porn website) sounds like the best idea, way above whatever the other path is supposed to be, despite that other path being what he must actually do. and with over 20 years of addiction, there can be a huge amount of potential triggers, lots of carved out paths that the brain defaults to whenever facing anything difficult, leading the addict back into the downward spiral of addiction.

In other words, what you believe you want, and what you believe you need are preventing you from doing what you must do.

This is the basis of the new (as of september 2026) opus nihil mantra:

No matter what happens, i want/need nothing

because especially those false wants and false needs are caused by triggers, we need to not only reject all the false wants and false needs, but also reject all the justifications (meaning the relapse triggers) for indulging into those false needs and wants.

There can be no justification for indulging in an addiction, it is a waste of time, a waste of energy, and in one way or another it is destroying a part of you. Everything that you don't truly want and need must be rejected, along with all of the fancy justifications you had so far for indulging into those addictions.

Tracking relapse triggers

If you're an addict facing a difficult addiction to quit, i recommend tracking your relapse triggers (meaning every event you've used as a justification to indulge in your addiction), and tracking your progress in converting them into justifications to do Opus Nihil instead like so:

Relapse counter	Trigger	Opus Nihil counter
1	studying for an exam	5
5	waking up with a boner	5
8	failing to make something work	2
10	thought of being home alone	5
4	started to see NSFW content, and thinking you have to PMO because of it	3
13	struggling to go to sleep	5

Having a tracking board of all of your addiction's triggers like this can help you make sure you keep them in mind, in order to be prepared for whenever you encounter them. Exactly like remaining aware that the road ahead can have some dangerous turns that require you to slow down and navigate carefully.

In fact, those triggers should be turned into justifications to do the Opus Nihil mantra instead as stated above, it will help you navigate the hard road of recovery better.

So when you first start off on your road to recovery from an addiction, all roads lead back to the addiction:

your brain has reinforced several neural pathways, depending on any number of triggers, your brain defaults to thinking the next logical step is indulging in your addiction of choice.

But when tracking those triggers you can turn those into opportunities for practicing the Opus Nihil Mantra instead of indulging in the addiction:

one by one, make sure that you practice opus nihil whenever you encounter those triggers so that your brain no longer defaults to indulging in the addiction but rather defaults in kicking the habit altogether:

Over time the triggers tracking should look like so:

Relapse counter	Trigger	Opus Nihil counter
1	studying for an exam	99
5	waking up with a boner	95
8	failing to make something work	60
10	thought of being home alone	78
4	started to see NSFW content, and thinking you have to PMO because of it	94
13	struggling to go to sleep	57

When the amount of times you decide to resort to opus nihil greatly exceeds the amount of relapses you had so far, that's the sign that you have mastered those triggers, meaning that you successfully trained your brain to not go down the wrong path anymore. If you succeed in doing that for all triggers you have had so far, you're definitely on your way to kicking the addiction and regaining control.

Destroy all those paths that are lead to your own self-destruction, and instead replace them with paths that lead to self-fulfillment, the best time to regain control is RIGHT NOW.

Nihilist
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