Porn is not an option

Blondie

Blondie

Respected Member
Day 323

@WinkTinkTillium Congrats on quitting smoking, I hear that can be a real bitch. I totally agree, once you're over something, having/or seeing something similar can cause you to jump right back in. Abstaining is always easier than trying to dig yourself back out again. No thanks.

@Winnerwhoabstains
Winnerwhoabstains said:
Sure some vigilance and awareness is necessary but it gets easier over time and there's nothing so bad about simply maintaining some semblance of awareness to avoid something that robbed us of so much.
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Truth. The daily things I do and still are learning how to do is 100% easier than crawling out of my self induced shithole.

I like to look in the mirror and love the man I see.
Winnerwhoabstains said:
Like working out perhaps - a SOB to gain muscle but once there it takes a lot less to keep.
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This is completely true. I've been on this mission for four and half years now (give or take) with some really long streaks and some shorter ones, but the more I've done this, the easier it is to quit cold turkey.
 
WinkTinkTillium

WinkTinkTillium

Active Member
Blondie said:
We were involuntary space monkeys for a grand societal experiment that no one let us in on.
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Woaw.... 😐 this is has my brain wheels spinning...

But then
Blondie said:
Anyone here is a fucking hero in my eyes.

So let's all ride off into our own sunsets!
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its followed up with a Fuck Yea lets go!

Appreciate your posts as always @Blondie
 
SmokenMirrors

SmokenMirrors

Well-Known Member
Blondie said:
Day 324

Thanks @Ezel, @SmokenMirrors and @downhillfromhere, you guys are the best.

As far as I see it, we're all kings here at RN. Anyone trying to quit this modern plague should be lifted up on high.

We were involuntary space monkeys for a grand societal experiment that no one let us in on.

Anyone here is a fucking hero in my eyes.

So let's all ride off into our own sunsets!

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I love this!
 
Blondie

Blondie

Respected Member
“Losing is what motivates me and winning is what sustains me.” –Sigi Schmid

There is a difference between motivation and sustainment. What motivates us? For many addicts it is the pain of relapse; our own experience of shame or our experience of the pain and anger the relapse has brought up in others. This motivation helps us to make positive changes to our program, boundaries, and routine. However, what sustains us is a different question. Sustenance is not achieved by avoiding something. We find it in our experience. Sustenance in recovery may be “I like who I am when I am sober,” or “I am able to be the husband/father/friend I want to be when I live my recovery.” Both motivation and sustenance are important.

Stein, Timothy. Gifts of Recovery: Daily Meditations for Men and Women in Recovery from Sex & Porn Addiction (p. 247). Kindle Edition.
 
GBS

GBS

Respected Member
“I like who I am when I am sober” - so SO right. Those of us lucky enough to have partners who are trying to forgive us, are benefitting twice. It is what I say to myself when I look in the mirror as I shave each morning: my wife seems to really like this new me, and I think he’s great too. So what would possibly tempt me to alter this course? Don’t be complacent I hear you say. Got it.
 
Blondie

Blondie

Respected Member
Day 329

Well today I officially go back to school and tomorrow I'll be at eleven months. It's hard to believe but I'm real close to my goal of no porn for a year.

What we think we can do, and what we are capably of actually doing are often so far apart, that to sit at the crossroads of a being a new man, can sometimes cause some real cognitive dissonance. Although it's been almost a year, I still feel that old guy in my bones once in a while, especially in my thoughts, though to be sure he considerably shows his face less and less as time goes by. Thankfully, those old neurons of mine are slowly and inevitably rewiring, but I know they're still there, waiting for me to feel stressed, depressed, or happy (lol) and throw a punch at me when off my guard. Change is possible, and I'm living proof of that, but it's a real slow process, like a log flowing slowly down a river, getting stuck in whirlpool every so often, but winding down the river nonetheless.

So if you feel like you're making no progress in your recovery and think you're constantly stuck in the whirlpool of your former self, maybe it's time to stop trying so hard to have a perfect "recovery" and just sit back and go with the flow. You need to know deep down inside that you ARE a new man and that this sudden change of direction is only a temporary diversion to make you think you ARE not. Please remember, I beg of you, that you are miles away from where you first started this journey up the river, and this seemingly "hugh" eddy is only in your head, and tomorrow you'll be floating down the river as a free man again. Further, you need to know that eventually, those damned eddies will become less and less until they entirely disappear and you'll wonder what the big fuss was ever about.

Breath - relax - and know that the river makes no mistakes.
 
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Ezel

Ezel

Respected Member
I couldn't agree more chamb, these right here are facts. Just to start this journey of abstaining from porn is a life changer, be it 7 days or just 2 days is a great progress and a wonderful start compared to the sus we were all are in a period of our lives. But the challenge it's not only to get to the top but it's also to stay at the top and leave the filth once and for all, even though getting to the top with all the withdrawal symptoms and the crazy urges that you have to ignore is a challenge we all face day in and day out. You know what i mean...
But one day we all gonna make it bruh... Just like you said it's a slow process but it works and we just have to trust it and believe in ourselves...
Keep rocking it Blondie ☺️😉 bless you man...
 
Blondie

Blondie

Respected Member
For the last week, I've been trying to find a passage in a book that was a favorite of mine when I first started this journey over four years ago - today I finally found it! It's a passage from Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield - a hell of a book if you've never read it. It's a fictional take on the 300 story and the battle of Thermopylae, which in my opinion is a story that is hard to beat. What's so amazing about the book is not the epic battles (which are great!) but the mindsets and discipline of a warrior and a warrior society; which I find not only inspirational, but very beneficial to every part of my life, and yes, my battle with porn.

But the reason I mention this book today is because of a particular passage that struck me emotionally when I first read it. The passage describes how Spartan men saw their women and how Spartan society in particular viewed the fairer sex.

This shouldn't be triggering for anyone, but a heads up just in case.

The wives and maidens of my native Astakos, and those of every other city of Hellas, routinely employ cosmetics and facial paint to enhance their comeliness. These ladies are keenly aware of the effect the artificial sheen of their curls or the pink of their lips produces upon any male within range of their charms.
None of this entered into the scheme of the lady Paraleia, nor Arete either. Her peplos robe was split up the side in the Spartan style, revealing her bare leg to the thigh. This in any other city would have been lewd to the point of scandalous. Yet here in Lakedaemon it was unremarkable in the extreme. This is a leg. We women posses them just like you men. For Spartan males to leer or ogle a lady in this dress would have been unthinkable. They had beheld their mothers and sisters and daughters naked since they were old enough to open their eyes, both in the girls' and women athletic training and in the festivals and the other women's processions.
Still these ladies, both of them, were not unaware of their personal magnetism and the effect it produced.

Is this description of Sparta factual? I have no idea, I'm no historian, but it resonated with me when I first read it. I think it's a beautiful thing and I long to have that essence of female appreciation in my life. Of course, the passage goes on to say that the man did feel attraction as did any men in the presence of these Spartan ladies, but it wasn't "body parts" per se (not that they didn't notice) , but it was the essence of the whole that was beautiful.

Yes these women were athletic and in shape, but they were more than just their "hot" bodies. They were mothers, sisters and daughters, not to be lusted over but to be honored and cherished. I sometimes wonder what it would be like to live in a society that doesn't make such a big deal about "nudity" and where both sexes, more or less, live almost completely nude. Would porn even exist in such a society, when almost everyone is naked? Would we even care so much about all of this if we had see it all from childhood? Yes we would be attracted, but wouldn't it be different? Who knows! Maybe I'm fantasizing here, but hell it's better than my old fantasies! :cool:

Lesson learned: we can't help that we were born in a shit culture that seems to sexualize everything while ironically most go without sex! (look at the statistics). But we can have control over what we do with ourselves, not just with our eyes, but more importantly, with our thoughts and how we think about women.

Besides, don't we men have more important things to do than ogle Spartan women? And if you don't know the answer to that most important question, then you just found your problem.

Find your battle, find your passion, and be willing to die for it, and when you do, porn will be just a memory.

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