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My psychiatrist prescribed me a not-so-well-known medication called "Nalmefene" for lust cravings (in Israel, the brand name is Selincro). You take it on an as-needed basis, as many times as you need it, and it lasts for 18 hours a pill. I found that it cut my lust cravings completely for a few days.
It is not approved for this use in the US yet, but it is used in Europe, mainly as a drug to cut alcohol craving, but it worked for me for reducing lust.
I just feel I have somewhat of an achrayus to at least let people know it exists - and I realize that Guardyoureyes is really the proper hishtadlus. ANYWAYS- if you could look into it MAYBE it could be another great tool in this battle.
Here are a few internet links about it:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
https://www.addiction.com/
A few months later, we asked him if it had worked for him and he responded:
Yes, it does work but it gave me terrible side effects. Very nauseaous, weak and a headache, but I was on other meds as well so it may have made it worse. But it was very effective in knocking out the desires for a few days. For example.. I had a strong desire to act out so I took the pill once and for at least a couple of days I had no lust at all... It's on a take-as-needed basis, and each pill lasts for up to a couple days (at least it did for me). Anyway, BH i havent needed it in a long time.
Another user wrote to us:
Hi, Yasher Koach for your work on this.
I'd like to direct your staff to something that has shown to be effective in addressing internet addictions, especially those related to sexual content on the internet. (For clarity, I have no interest financially or otherwise in recommending the below.)
"Naltrexone", a medicine now available in generic form, was originally developed to treat Alcohol addiction. There is some evidence that shows it to be effective in reducing impulse control behaviors, including sexual aspect addictions.
Dr. Bostick out of the Mayo Clinic has a case study on its effectiveness for this. See here: Internet Sex Addiction Treated With Naltrexone
It works on interfering with the addictive opiate release cycle in this and other addictions. I find that it helps me.
What you are working on is very important. I believe it falls under the commandment of "Don't Stand by the Blood of your Brother", a D'Reisa Lo Saaseh. May Hashem bless you for working on it, and bless you with success in doing it.
From A Study:
Method: 21 males between the ages of 13 to 17 (mean age 15.2) who had offended children between the ages of 2 to 12 and had a range of 1 to 37 victims. 19 of them were heterosexual, 1 gay, 1 bisexual. They were administered naltrexone if they met any of the following self-reported criteria: 1) masturbating 3 or more times a day; 2) feeling unable to control arousal; 3) spending more than 30% of awake time in sexual fantasies; 4) having sexual fantasies that regularly intruded into and interfered with their functioning in the treatment program.
Behavioral changes were monitored daily with a fantasy-tracking log and masturbation log.
A positive result with naltrexone was recorded if there was more than a 30% decrease in self-assessed sexual fantasies and masturbation.
Leuprolide was given if naltrexone was not sufficiently helpful in controlling sexual impulses and arousal, and especially if the patient was an aggressive offender or had violent fantasies.
Results: 20 out of 21 reported initial benefit of decreased arousal and masturbation at 100mg/day, which quickly diminished in all but two patients. Their dosage was increased to 150mg daily, and for 11 patients eventually increased to 200mg/day. All in all, 15 patients responded favorably to average dose of 160mg/day.
Dosages of above 200mg did not appear to provide additional benefit.
Masturbation decreased from an average of two times per day to two times per week. Sexual fantasizing decreased from about five times a day to once a day. 15 patients who responded to 160mg/day also reported improved self-esteem, and feelings of self-mastery and control, as evidenced by one patient’s self-report that he no longer needed to cut out “girl pictures” to hide in his room, and another, who reported that his “sexual arousal is no longer controlling” him.
In conclusion, the authors posit that naltrexone at doses of 100mg daily or higher may have a role in the treatment of paraphilic compulsive sexual behavior. They also state that this pharmacological treatment is a safer, less expensive, and less intrusive first step compared with antiandrogens in the majority of adolescent offenders. They concede, however, that this study lacked a true experimental design and was based on self-report. Nevertheless, it is possible that the benefits observed may be useful to the larger population of non-socially deviant hypersexual behavior.