Everything so far, on one page. This is the document you'll come back to when motivation is low, because motivation is unreliable and written commitments made in a clear moment aren't.
It contains: what this is for, in your words. Your goal, stated specifically. Your top three trigger patterns. Your primary measure. What you'll do when you slip. And who, if anyone, knows.
That last one is worth a moment. Accountability helps — the abstinence-journal research found that social support was one of the two things that made abstinence attainable, alongside cognitive-behavioural strategies. But who you tell matters enormously. A person who'll be disappointed in you is not accountability; it's a reason to hide the next slip. Someone who'll ask "how's it going" without a verdict attached is worth ten people who'll be let down.
If there's no one, that's workable — the app can hold this. But be honest that anonymous accountability is weaker, and consider whether that's a gap worth closing at some point.
Takeaways
- One page, written calm, for the version of you who isn't.
- Accountability that performs disappointment is a reason to hide the next slip.
- Anonymous accountability is weaker than a person. Worth knowing, not worth stalling on.
In the app, this lesson ends with a practice
Your plan, assembled from what you've written.
Sources and how strong they are (2)
- 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
- Mixed evidenceA randomised trial of 12-session ACT (n=28 adult men, all but one from the same religious community) found a 93% reduction in viewing against 21% in a waitlist group; 54% complete cessation at post-treatment, 35% at three-month follow-up, with 74% still showing at least a 70% reduction. Small, narrow sample.
- Crosby & Twohig 2016, Behavior Therapy 47(3):355-366, doi:10.1016/j.beth.2016.02.001, PMID 27157029
More on patterns in the app.
The full 41-lesson course is in the app, every claim graded the same way, and an evening check-in that maps your own patterns. Free.
Coming to iOS and Android.