Restoration "Junkies"

[TheRifleman]

In his book, JOU, Dr. James Bigelow warns about foreskin restorers becoming restoration "junkies," saying a restorer should have a set goal, achieve it, and then accomplish it, without becoming a restoration "junkie."

After giving it a lot of thought, my own view is that a man cannot possibly restore his foreskin without being a "junkie."

I suppose that "Junkie" is a slang term for an addict, and to me, wearing a prosthetic device on a person's body for most of the day, or 24/7 is an addiction.

A good example: I wore hard contact lenses all of my waking hours, and to this day I deeply regret my foolish decision to get a pair of eyeglasses.

Reason: I had worn the hard lenses so long that I had become addicted to them, and I had to be "withdrawn" from the lenses for my eyesight to return to its defective nearsightedness so the optometrist could prescribe the eyeglasses correctly.

The optometrist agreed with me that I was addicted to the hard lenses, although it was a good addiction, in that years of 16/7 wearing had reshaped my corneas and corrected my nearsightedness, where I could see perfectly when I took the lenses out.

Maybe it's just a stupid matter of silly semantics, but some addictions might be positive addictions that benefit a person's body, as with the hard contact lenses.

Even if a man could accomplish his goal of fully restoring his foreskin, during the long time it took to do so I don't see how anyone could deny that he was an addict or a junkie during that time.

I wish I had never withdrawn myself from my hard contact lens addiction, because after that month that my nearsightedness returned, I never got back the correction of my nearsightedness after I started back wearing the hard lenses.

[antibunk]

This is an interesting post. I think that people can become junkies at just about anything, even some things that are considered good for humans. A junkie is slang for an addict. And people can become addicted to things like exercise, dieting, computers. Obviously, people become addicted to drugs. I think that there needs to be more than just the amount of time someone does something to make them an addict. Even if someone did tug basically 24/7, I don't think that would necessarily make them a junkie. There are definitely other elements that need to be present.

I think the other elements that are required for someone to be addicted to anything are 1.) mental obsession/physical compulsion and 2.) detrimental effects in the person's life caused be the addiction. So I would say that if a person is putting too much of an emphasis on restoration and it is interferring with his life, then he could be a junkie. If one NEEDS to tug every single day (even if he has minor penis injury or is on vacation), he may be a junkie. If he puts tugging ahead of other things in you life like work, friends, family, then he may be a junkie. If he devouts far too much time to reading about it and thinking about it to the point where other areas of his life are lacking, junkie. Conversely, a person could tug and retain all week without thinking about it much and live his life to the fullest and be fine.

[Nyc1063]

I have to agree with antibunk on this. It really depends on what definition of junkie you use. To successfully complete foreskin restoration there has to be a certain level of commitment. To live ones life with a goal of restoration without it interfering with any other normal daily activities I believe is fine. From manually tugging to currently using the VLC-X I have been committed to restoration but it has not had any detrimental complications to any of my other daily activities. (ie. work, family, sports, etc.)

As to reaching a goal and continuing to restore I don't really agree with the author. As far as I have read once a goal is reached anything after is really about maintenance and appearance, not the addiction of just tugging to tug.

[JimOZ6]

Echoing NYC.

It makes great sense to have a goal in restoration. I believe our progress is directly related to our commitment to our restoration program we've each chosen. And it does take some intention, observation, and a bit of trials to discover a method one can integrate into their life that doesn't intrude too much (if at all) into all other aspects of their life.

I find it interesting that some guys I've met use excuses (sick, too busy, etc, etc) to put off tugging - and then make statements about their "slow" progress.

At the same time, there do seem to be men who tug to the exclusion of all else. And so there are perhaps "junkie" attributes in some of our brothers. But I believe a true junkie would be our restoring brothers who injure themselves, and either don't take time to recover, or do recover and go back to doing the exact same method that injured them in the first pace.

We need to be clear on the differences between "addiction" and "adaptation". When I wore hard contact lenses, I adapted to them, and there were interesting side effects to that adaptation. But I was hardly addicted. I was not powerless over them where I would destroy relationships, lose employment, etc just to wear them... Sure, some of us might lean a bit towards compulsion in our tugging - but only a few will do it to the harm of all other aspects of their life.

This is coming from a guy with personal experience in areas of addiction as well as adaptation.

Jim

[broken]

When you consider everything that it involves, restoration is a task that requires a very unique level of motivation and commitment. It's no wonder a restorer could be looked upon as being a junkie or an obsessive. But if it's what's necessary to complete the task I don't think it's unhealthy at all.

[TheRifleman]

Great replies, everybody!

[Dr. Cool]

This is like asking: "is a great athlete an athletics junkie?"

[TheRifleman]

Originally Posted by broken

When you consider everything that it involves, restoration is a task that requires a very unique level of motivation and commitment. It's no wonder a restorer could be looked upon as being a junkie or an obsessive. But if it's what's necessary to complete the task I don't think it's unhealthy at all.

I think an obsession can be a good thing, to motivate a person to accomplishments.

It is when a person's obsessions motivate them to do do things that are not constructive, and just waste their time, that obsession can be a problem.

I am not too bothered by what our enemies call me, and fellow Intactivists.

The fact that some enemies or neutral people are now calling us, "so called intactivists," and "intactivists" (in quotations only), show that at least they are using the word we started calling ourselves in the late 1990s, even if they don't like the word.

Semanitcs is largely a matter of who is is charge: when people have to use words they would prefer not to use, they have had to make some concession to their opponents.

My own ideas about Intactivist semantics is that we should use the words, "Cir-" (I just hate that word so much, I can't write it out), and all its variations, "ion," "izer," as little as possible, and instead say, "cutter," and, "cutting," as often as possible, because this short word, gets right to what it is that our enemies want to do to mostly non-consenting persons who have no rights in most human societies.

Has anyone ever asked a cutter: "Do you advocate, and practice, cutting off parts of peoples' sexual organs?"

They can't deny that what they are trying avoid saying, with their eumphamistic monysyllable word, C-, is, plain and simple, cutting off parts of a person's sexual organs.

[Nuruu]

We have tugging junkies, wheres our tugging groupies? lol

[WoundedBird]

Since when do junkies have groupies? lol

I don't think tugging or retaining 24/7 an addict makes. Some people probably become obsessive about restoration due to their desperation to regain some of what was taken from them. I will admit that at one point I continued to tug even after developing a lesion on my dorsal mucosa. But I was just tired of having to take the device off constantly, knowing I wasn't making any progress. Now I know to let my dick rest if I have any sort of injury.

I want a few inches of overhang when flaccid, so I have my doubts that I will ever accomplish my goal...I might have to tug for my entire life. But I definitely have no desire to tug just for tugging's sake. If I woke up with flaccid overhang and partial erect coverage one day, as in a miracle, I would give my tugger to someone who needs it and rejoice...