Let me start by saying I’m a 17 year old male. The thing that helped me a lot was listing all the reasons I shouldn’t and then looking at them whenever I feel the need to. You gotta stop for a few days preferably a couple weeks, that way when you start again you can limit yourself. Otherwise if you try to limit yourself now you’ll think “yknow one more won’t hurt” and you’ll get back to your old habits. And if you find yourself doing that go another week and keep doing that until you can limit yourself. Also try and exhaust yourself before bed and stay off your phone so the only thing you do in bed is sleep. Your ability to persist through this will really improve your character because it can be extremely difficult. I noticed after I cut down I’ve been a lot less depressed, less cognitively slow and more productive, I ended up getting into computer programming and I’m having a lot of fun with it, and I think if you try to distract yourself with something you like doing and something you’ve always wanted to do you won’t even think about it.

I stopped playing video games as well, I’m not saying you have to, I’m just saying as soon as I stopped doing all the things I was addicted to I started doing things that I always wanted to do but never tried doing. Addictions occupy your mind space and your time and if you give in to them you’re not doing what you really want to do in that moment, you’re just doing what your body wants you to do. Last night I was procrastinating my math work and instead of masturbating or turning my PlayStation on I found myself analyzing the lyrics of the music I was listening to, sometimes I read a book, sometimes a watch a documentary but most importantly I enjoy doing those things now because I gave my mind a break from the stuff that was occupying it.

I’m not saying you have to turn into an old person and read all the time never do anything fun again, all I’m saying is try to stop doing what you’re addicted to for a little while and you’ll find yourself occupied by something you genuinely want to do.