grego said:
I'm not off my reboot yet, so I don't have a personal experience with this, but I've read accounts of people that said they'd reboot for a few months, then have sex which led to o and then for some reason flatline again. Why is this? I thought the reboot process cures you of your issues?
There can be many reasons for this. First of all, "a few months" might not have been enough for these guys. Especially younger guys without solid sexual experience can take a long time to recover, but even guys with a lot of prior sexual experience (like GABE iirc) can take a very long time.
Then there is the thing, that recovery is not linear. Just because you can (or want to) have sex doesn't mean your libido and erections are fully recovered. You might just stand at maybe 60% full recovery to your potential and an orgasm in this still weakened state can have strong effects. It is therefore often recommended to reintroduce sex slowly and gently and be careful with orgasms.
This is where I stand myself. I could have sex (on ED drugs) after a month, but it wasn't pretty. And the orgasms would deflate my libido like a needle deflates a balloon. Many would say it was to soon and I probably agree, but i did it for personal relationship reasons. As my recovery continued, this got better from month to month and still improves.
I'd like to say, that seeing a reboot as a "cure" is problematic. Sure, it can "cure" you of ED and many other porn related brain changes like desensitization. For me, a cure implies a beginning and an end though. A reboot at its core actually doesn't have an end - the real goal is to eliminate artificial stimulation (porn) from your life, which is best seen as a new lifestyle for the rest of your life. At some point you get healed by living your life without porn, not by just avoiding it for x amount of months.