Quitting Porn for Good

•mireille•3 min read

I've quit porn three times. The first two lasted about two weeks each. The third time, it stuck. The difference wasn't motivation or willpower. It was the setup.

The first two times, I relied on deciding not to watch porn. That works at 2pm on a Saturday. It fails at 11pm on a Wednesday when you're tired and the urge is strong and the blocker you installed is easy to disable with one click.

The third time, I built a setup that survived the moments when my willpower was gone. Here's the setup.


The Blocker

BlockX is a free Chrome extension that blocks 70,000+ adult content domains at the network layer. The sites never load. No partial render, no warning page, just a clean blocked page. I enabled it in incognito mode and added keywords for my triggers.


The Lock

Chrome extensions can be disabled with one click from chrome://extensions. At 2am, one click is all it takes. I used Chrome's managed extension policy to lock BlockX in place. On Windows, a registry entry force-installs the extension and prevents it from being disabled. The toggle is greyed out. The remove button is gone.

This was the part that made the difference. The first two times, the blocker was a speed bump. The third time, it was a wall.


The Environment

I moved the laptop from the bed to the desk. The habit was wired to the bed context. The desk was a work environment, and the urge didn't fire there.


The Time Slot

I filled the 9pm-to-11pm window with reading. Something that required enough attention that I couldn't half-do it while scrolling. The replacement needs to be something you actually enjoy.


The Person

I told one friend. Not a support group. One person. Saying it out loud changed the shape of it.


What Made It Stick

The setup survived the moments that broke my previous attempts. At 11pm on a Wednesday, the urge shows up. It finds the search blocked. It finds the direct URL blocked. It finds incognito blocked. It tries to disable the extension and finds the toggle greyed out. The urge passes before it can complete the path.

The first two times, the blocker was a speed bump — one click to cross. The third time, the blocker plus the lock plus the environment change plus the filled time slot created enough distance that the urge couldn't complete the path. That's the difference between "two weeks" and "for good."


The Honest Part

Quitting for good isn't about being a different person. It's about building a setup that doesn't require you to be. The blocker handles the path. The lock handles the bypass. The environment change handles the trigger. The time slot handles the vacuum. The person handles the accountability.

None of these alone is enough. Together, they create a system that survives the worst moments. That's what "for good" means — not never having the urge, but having the urge find the path blocked every time it shows up.

I still forget the blocker is running most days. Which, it turns out, is exactly the point.

👉 Install BlockX free on Chrome or Edge — build the setup before you need it.

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