Two different things get called withdrawal, and it helps to separate them.
The first is a component of how problematic use is measured. The main research scale is built from six things, and one of them is withdrawal: how you feel when you cannot use. If the answer is "very unsettled", that is one of the six signals of a problem, alongside salience, mood modification, tolerance, conflict and relapse. Frequency is not on the list.
The second is what people describe once they stop. A qualitative analysis of over a hundred rebooting journals found the same experience described repeatedly: a period of dropped libido, flattened mood and quiet arousal, which the communities call the flatline. It is consistently reported and has never been formally studied, so its length, its cause and how many people get it are unknown. Any list of "withdrawal symptoms by day" is invented.
Two things are worth doing with this. Treat a flat stretch during a change of habits as commonly reported and not as evidence of damage. And treat persistent low mood as its own problem: two weeks of not caring about anything is depression, and it wants a GP rather than a streak.
Where this comes from
Read the full lesson: The flatline, and what we honestly know →
Sources and how strong they are (3)
- Well establishedThe Problematic Pornography Consumption Scale measures problematic use through the six components of Griffiths' (2005) model - salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict and relapse. Not every instrument in the field is built this way: the Brief Pornography Screen, which produces the highest prevalence figures quoted at C05 and C06, is a short screen rather than a six-component measure. The tolerance subscale is three items, only one of which concerns content — "I gradually watched more 'extreme' porn, because the porn I watched before was less satisfying" — so most published escalation findings rest on one retrospective self-report question (see C55).
- Bőthe B, Tóth-Király I, Zsila Á, Griffiths MD, Demetrovics Z, Orosz G 2018, "The Development of the Problematic Pornography Consumption Scale (PPCS)", J Sex Res 55(3):395-406, doi:10.1080/00224499.2017.1291798, PMID 28276929
- AnecdotalThe "flatline" — a period of dropped libido, mood or arousal during abstinence — is consistently reported in abstinence journals and is named in the review literature, but it has never been measured prospectively or in a general population.
- Fernandez DP, Kuss DJ & Griffiths MD 2021, Arch Sex Behav 50(2):711-728, doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01858-w, PMID 33403533, PMC7889567
- Mead D & Sharpe M 2020, Int J Environ Res Public Health 17(10):3462, doi:10.3390/ijerph17103462
- Ince C, Antons S, Ashton S, Borgogna NC, Brand M, Briken P, Castro-Calvo J, Chen L, Coleman E, Efrati Y, Fernández DP, Fuss J et al. 2026, J Behav Addict 15(1):32-98, doi:10.1556/2006.2025.00337, PMID 41879870, PMC13132360
- AnecdotalA qualitative analysis of 104 rebooting abstinence journals found abstinence felt impossible at first and became attainable with cognitive-behavioural strategies plus social support. The benefits members attributed to abstinence were a regained sense of control over their use, and improvements in mood, energy, mental clarity, focus, confidence, motivation and productivity, less emotional numbness, and social and sexual functioning. Sleep is not among them — the paper's only mention of sleep is a healthier sleep routine adopted as one of the lifestyle changes made to support abstinence. The same paper is also the only systematic catalogue of what members themselves say triggers them: external cues (electronic media and social feeds, seeing attractive people in real life, being alone in one's bedroom), internal cues, chiefly negative affect, and the "chaser effect" — cravings that follow any sexual activity engaged in during abstinence. Alcohol appears nowhere in it. Self-report only; third variables not ruled out.
- Fernandez, Kuss & Griffiths 2021, Archives of Sexual Behavior 50(2):711-728, doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01858-w, PMID 33403533, PMC7889567
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