W
William
Guest
Hi tostadora, thanks for the post. Your question is a great question, and it is a bit loaded so the answer is a bit loaded, too.
First of all, why quit porn at all? If porn did not have some negative impact on our lives most would not quit it. So, the question I have for you it, what negative impact has it had? For many the negative impact is erectile dysfunction, which translates to: one cannot get it up or reach O unless with P, meaning one can only climax with PMO.
But that is not you. I have read your posts, all 6 of them, and you discuss having sex with your gf. However, you do talk about not reaching O with her, which means you may suffer from delayed ejaculation, which translates to: one can it up, but one cannot reach O unless with P.
While I do recommend the "hard 90" for the most serious porn addicts, we have to remember what the hard 90 is doing, the purpose of the exercise. The hard 90 is an attempt to desensitize our brain's reward pathways to porn, as in away from porn, to stop the hyper dopamine release we get in response to hypersexualized thoughts (because nothing creates hypersexualized thoughts more than porn, porn being the button we push to get a dopamine release).
For most guys I would say abstain from sex, but then again, in this place there is a disproportionately high percentage of guys who are not having sex anyway, so telling them "no" to sex is telling them "no" to something they are not doing any way. However, you are a guy who is having sex, and you are not, apparently, having erectile dysfunction issues, so my advice to you is to go ahead and have sex, but stay completely away from porn. It is VERY important though that during the reboot if you have sex, you are thinking only of your partner and are not using thoughts of porn or hypersexual thoughts to make it work. If, during sex, you are thinking of porn, you are not helping the reboot. If you have to think of porn to have sex, then I recommend not having sex at all during the hard 90. But, if you can have sex and think of only your partner--and reach orgasm--then you are strengthening that reward pathway, and that is exactly the pathway you want to strengthen. If, on the other hand, you cannot reach O with your partner during the reboot, I would recommend total abstinence for the 90 day period.
Just my thoughts.
Peace.
William
First of all, why quit porn at all? If porn did not have some negative impact on our lives most would not quit it. So, the question I have for you it, what negative impact has it had? For many the negative impact is erectile dysfunction, which translates to: one cannot get it up or reach O unless with P, meaning one can only climax with PMO.
But that is not you. I have read your posts, all 6 of them, and you discuss having sex with your gf. However, you do talk about not reaching O with her, which means you may suffer from delayed ejaculation, which translates to: one can it up, but one cannot reach O unless with P.
While I do recommend the "hard 90" for the most serious porn addicts, we have to remember what the hard 90 is doing, the purpose of the exercise. The hard 90 is an attempt to desensitize our brain's reward pathways to porn, as in away from porn, to stop the hyper dopamine release we get in response to hypersexualized thoughts (because nothing creates hypersexualized thoughts more than porn, porn being the button we push to get a dopamine release).
For most guys I would say abstain from sex, but then again, in this place there is a disproportionately high percentage of guys who are not having sex anyway, so telling them "no" to sex is telling them "no" to something they are not doing any way. However, you are a guy who is having sex, and you are not, apparently, having erectile dysfunction issues, so my advice to you is to go ahead and have sex, but stay completely away from porn. It is VERY important though that during the reboot if you have sex, you are thinking only of your partner and are not using thoughts of porn or hypersexual thoughts to make it work. If, during sex, you are thinking of porn, you are not helping the reboot. If you have to think of porn to have sex, then I recommend not having sex at all during the hard 90. But, if you can have sex and think of only your partner--and reach orgasm--then you are strengthening that reward pathway, and that is exactly the pathway you want to strengthen. If, on the other hand, you cannot reach O with your partner during the reboot, I would recommend total abstinence for the 90 day period.
Just my thoughts.
Peace.
William
tostadora said:
William,
thanks for the answer. I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish and ejaculate with my partner in the future. I thought that having sex with her and not having an orgasm would be beneficial for me, because I won't be getting the big release that an orgasm is. So I don't think I understand why you say that you think is better to refrain from sex if I have DE and can't orgasm with her.
Thanks again!
thanks for the answer. I don't know if I'm going to be able to finish and ejaculate with my partner in the future. I thought that having sex with her and not having an orgasm would be beneficial for me, because I won't be getting the big release that an orgasm is. So I don't think I understand why you say that you think is better to refrain from sex if I have DE and can't orgasm with her.
Thanks again!
Well, I have finally read all 8 pages of this thread. I have to say that this is the most important thread that I've read in all my "recovery life".
You see, I was in the bargaining group, and reading this thread has opened my eyes and made me belong in the "either in or out" group. I expect great things from this and I can't thank you William and others (jkkk, comes to my mind specially) the work you've put here and that probably is going to save my life.
I've another question though. In the "get the tools" part of the motto, you usually talk about internet filters and the like. I'm using those, but I'm wondering which other there were. More specifically, if you were say in the day 60 of the reboot, shaking alone at home, with anxiety, what would you do to not crack? It can be just willpower, can it?
I have made a list of outlets that I could use and I want to know your opinion on these, and also if you think that having a list (and using them) is in the spirit of this school of recovery. Here it is:
- Watch the Gary Wilson video.
- Go to the gym (if it's open)
- Enter and write in this forum
- Call a friend or my parents for help
- Call my GF for help and maybe go see her
- Meet up with a friend
- Read my "reminders" (these are "emails" I send me reminding me of my goals and motivations and what's is really happening in my brain)
Thank you all!
You see, I was in the bargaining group, and reading this thread has opened my eyes and made me belong in the "either in or out" group. I expect great things from this and I can't thank you William and others (jkkk, comes to my mind specially) the work you've put here and that probably is going to save my life.
I've another question though. In the "get the tools" part of the motto, you usually talk about internet filters and the like. I'm using those, but I'm wondering which other there were. More specifically, if you were say in the day 60 of the reboot, shaking alone at home, with anxiety, what would you do to not crack? It can be just willpower, can it?
I have made a list of outlets that I could use and I want to know your opinion on these, and also if you think that having a list (and using them) is in the spirit of this school of recovery. Here it is:
- Watch the Gary Wilson video.
- Go to the gym (if it's open)
- Enter and write in this forum
- Call a friend or my parents for help
- Call my GF for help and maybe go see her
- Meet up with a friend
- Read my "reminders" (these are "emails" I send me reminding me of my goals and motivations and what's is really happening in my brain)
Thank you all!
William,
My progress just gets worse and worse. Managed 68 days of no PMO then relapsed and made it another 3 weeks before having a PMO binge for a week or so. Today marked 2 weeks, but I Just relapsed again... Throughout all my tries, head porn and hypersexual thoughts is and are my biggest trigger and downfall to this. I have self control not to want to sit behind a PC and watch videos; however, as I lay in bed at night I don't have the willpower it seems to fight the head porn which causes me a dopamine high and today it was so bad it caused me to PMO (mainly to hypersexual thoughts).... As much as I want to beat this, it's just terribly frustrating and degrading because it's a consistent 2 steps forward and 4 back.....
My progress just gets worse and worse. Managed 68 days of no PMO then relapsed and made it another 3 weeks before having a PMO binge for a week or so. Today marked 2 weeks, but I Just relapsed again... Throughout all my tries, head porn and hypersexual thoughts is and are my biggest trigger and downfall to this. I have self control not to want to sit behind a PC and watch videos; however, as I lay in bed at night I don't have the willpower it seems to fight the head porn which causes me a dopamine high and today it was so bad it caused me to PMO (mainly to hypersexual thoughts).... As much as I want to beat this, it's just terribly frustrating and degrading because it's a consistent 2 steps forward and 4 back.....
W
William
Guest
@tostadora, thanks for posting, and I am humbled that you have taken time to read the entire thread. Thanks.
Your question is about withdrawals. There is no getting around them, if you are addicted and quitting. We have conditioned ourselves to want that dopamine high and our brains will punish us when we deny it that. The thing I suggest people do is make friends of the withdrawals. They are actually a good sign, incredibly hellish, but a good sign. They mean your brain is protesting you not feeding the addiction. I suppose, in the beginning, when I was first quitting, I created the mental mind trick of loving them, even though they felt so bad, in order NOT to avoid them. There is no substitute for porn abuse, it is a one of a kind high. Just know that the withdrawals fade away, and eventually disappear. Do the hard 90. They don't call it the easy 90.
The Wilson vid is key. Why? It tells you what porn does to your brain. That is important to know when you are quitting it. It is a simple, straight forward, brain chemical reaction to hypersexual thoughts, aka porn. Porn is the button we push for a dopamine high. My advice is, do not quit porn to fix your life. Rather, quit porn first, then deal with your other problems. Quitting porn is difficult enough to do alone, it is much more difficult if it is part of a holistic "I am making a better me" approach. Narrow what you are doing to "quitting porn"; after 90 days hard mode, if you have done it right, I promise you the other problems will not seem so big. Now that you are in the group who is not negotiating, you will understand that any concern about fixing any other problems than the porn problem is just the disease trying to make itself bigger, so big that you can't fix it or believe you can't. Keep the problem small, stimulus and response, keep the solution small, no stimulus, no response, and you will have better success beating it. I like all of the ideas you have listed for helping recover. Don't forget avoiding hypersexual thoughts. Remember, for the addict quitting, porn is not just porn, it is whatever image triggers a hypersexual thought, it is no image at all, but just letting a fantasy run around in there. Avoid a dopamine spike as much as possible.
@Cyrus, remember that porn abuse, addiction, and recovery are 100% about the brain, 100% in the head. Quitting, while I can give you some tips, is ultimately a personal "choice". When it feels like you must relapse, you have to choose to do so, or not. Put another way, you have to choose to endure the torture of withdrawals, or not. Knowing those feelings are withdrawals, and knowing that is necessary to reboot and rebalance, helped me. I felt like hell but on another level, I knew it was a good thing. Just know, if you can hold until 90, it will get easier. On a more practical note, we all have sexual thoughts, but the key, during the reboot, is to not let them grow into fantasy, not to indulge them. This will sound stupid, but you must plan on how you are going to kill that one second thought before it becomes a 10 minute dopamine fest. You have to plan on it, you have to have a distraction pre planned. For me it was making a tusk tusk tusk sound by sucking my tongue off the roof of my mouth. Any time I thought a hypersexual thought that was lasting more than a second, I did that. Sounds stupid, I know, that those three little sounds distracted me, and made the thought stop. Others report wearing a rubber band and snapping it every time they have a thought. Just a little, sharp, something to kill the thought before it grows. I have done the tusk distraction hundreds of time a day in the beginning. Now? I never do, and I can't remember the last time I did, but in the beginning, you must be prepared and plan on having little distractions like that. The fact that you have made it three weeks tells me your will power is pretty strong, but don't just do will power, consciously plan on ways to kill those thoughts before they grow. By the time you get to the end of the hard 90, you probably won't need a technique like that anymore.
Remember, keep going, porn is not an option. There are two types of guys here, the first type, nice guys, are addicts in denial. They don't like porn, they may hate it, but they are addicted to the dopamine high it gives them, and they are here hoping to find a way to control it, but not give it up. They will fail. The other type is the guy who knows porn has become their master, and they don't want to have a master anymore. They have quit porn, expelled it, excommunicated it, defriended it, they don't pal around with it any more, don't play with it, don't keep it in their house, are not nice to it, hate it, avoid it, they don't take its calls anymore. Those guys are going to get free. You, reading this, only you can know which group you are in. You have built your chains one link at a time, don't blame anyone but you. Own it. Now, decide who you are. Are you a guy who is trying to wear his chains fashionably, or are you a guy who is taking them off? I'll tell you this, no matter how fashionably you try to make those chains fashionable, you still look like a slave in them. I invite you to quit negotiating with the disease, tell it to fuck itself, and come to this side of clean. You can do it. You can.
Peace.
WillianOneAndDone.
Your question is about withdrawals. There is no getting around them, if you are addicted and quitting. We have conditioned ourselves to want that dopamine high and our brains will punish us when we deny it that. The thing I suggest people do is make friends of the withdrawals. They are actually a good sign, incredibly hellish, but a good sign. They mean your brain is protesting you not feeding the addiction. I suppose, in the beginning, when I was first quitting, I created the mental mind trick of loving them, even though they felt so bad, in order NOT to avoid them. There is no substitute for porn abuse, it is a one of a kind high. Just know that the withdrawals fade away, and eventually disappear. Do the hard 90. They don't call it the easy 90.
The Wilson vid is key. Why? It tells you what porn does to your brain. That is important to know when you are quitting it. It is a simple, straight forward, brain chemical reaction to hypersexual thoughts, aka porn. Porn is the button we push for a dopamine high. My advice is, do not quit porn to fix your life. Rather, quit porn first, then deal with your other problems. Quitting porn is difficult enough to do alone, it is much more difficult if it is part of a holistic "I am making a better me" approach. Narrow what you are doing to "quitting porn"; after 90 days hard mode, if you have done it right, I promise you the other problems will not seem so big. Now that you are in the group who is not negotiating, you will understand that any concern about fixing any other problems than the porn problem is just the disease trying to make itself bigger, so big that you can't fix it or believe you can't. Keep the problem small, stimulus and response, keep the solution small, no stimulus, no response, and you will have better success beating it. I like all of the ideas you have listed for helping recover. Don't forget avoiding hypersexual thoughts. Remember, for the addict quitting, porn is not just porn, it is whatever image triggers a hypersexual thought, it is no image at all, but just letting a fantasy run around in there. Avoid a dopamine spike as much as possible.
@Cyrus, remember that porn abuse, addiction, and recovery are 100% about the brain, 100% in the head. Quitting, while I can give you some tips, is ultimately a personal "choice". When it feels like you must relapse, you have to choose to do so, or not. Put another way, you have to choose to endure the torture of withdrawals, or not. Knowing those feelings are withdrawals, and knowing that is necessary to reboot and rebalance, helped me. I felt like hell but on another level, I knew it was a good thing. Just know, if you can hold until 90, it will get easier. On a more practical note, we all have sexual thoughts, but the key, during the reboot, is to not let them grow into fantasy, not to indulge them. This will sound stupid, but you must plan on how you are going to kill that one second thought before it becomes a 10 minute dopamine fest. You have to plan on it, you have to have a distraction pre planned. For me it was making a tusk tusk tusk sound by sucking my tongue off the roof of my mouth. Any time I thought a hypersexual thought that was lasting more than a second, I did that. Sounds stupid, I know, that those three little sounds distracted me, and made the thought stop. Others report wearing a rubber band and snapping it every time they have a thought. Just a little, sharp, something to kill the thought before it grows. I have done the tusk distraction hundreds of time a day in the beginning. Now? I never do, and I can't remember the last time I did, but in the beginning, you must be prepared and plan on having little distractions like that. The fact that you have made it three weeks tells me your will power is pretty strong, but don't just do will power, consciously plan on ways to kill those thoughts before they grow. By the time you get to the end of the hard 90, you probably won't need a technique like that anymore.
Remember, keep going, porn is not an option. There are two types of guys here, the first type, nice guys, are addicts in denial. They don't like porn, they may hate it, but they are addicted to the dopamine high it gives them, and they are here hoping to find a way to control it, but not give it up. They will fail. The other type is the guy who knows porn has become their master, and they don't want to have a master anymore. They have quit porn, expelled it, excommunicated it, defriended it, they don't pal around with it any more, don't play with it, don't keep it in their house, are not nice to it, hate it, avoid it, they don't take its calls anymore. Those guys are going to get free. You, reading this, only you can know which group you are in. You have built your chains one link at a time, don't blame anyone but you. Own it. Now, decide who you are. Are you a guy who is trying to wear his chains fashionably, or are you a guy who is taking them off? I'll tell you this, no matter how fashionably you try to make those chains fashionable, you still look like a slave in them. I invite you to quit negotiating with the disease, tell it to fuck itself, and come to this side of clean. You can do it. You can.
Peace.
WillianOneAndDone.
tostadora -> Thank you for your words, it is very nice. This thread is great and it's down to William who is sharing some really deep stuff with us here. Keep trucking bro and share all your doubts, fears and challenges.
The "choice", about which William writes, is key. It's a bit ruthless on us all, but it's true. Ultimately you choose.
Yes, we are addicted. Yes, we are powerless towards our addiction. But powerlessness does not mean we are bound to be destroyed by it. It only means that AN ADDICT CANNOT "NEGOTIATE WITH" OR "CONTROL" THE ADDICTION. This is the boundary of powerlessness. Stay away from thinking you can do a bit of this or that and you will be fine. No, you will be not.
But you can CHOOSE to not negotiate or control addiction and stay away from acting out. Absolutely everyone, even the hardest addict can do that. You need humility, though, to understand that making this choice and staying with it is your only way to survive.
Reboot is hard, for you have to give up things that made you feel good, gave you the rush, gave you dopamine. There is no easy way around that.
The "choice", about which William writes, is key. It's a bit ruthless on us all, but it's true. Ultimately you choose.
Yes, we are addicted. Yes, we are powerless towards our addiction. But powerlessness does not mean we are bound to be destroyed by it. It only means that AN ADDICT CANNOT "NEGOTIATE WITH" OR "CONTROL" THE ADDICTION. This is the boundary of powerlessness. Stay away from thinking you can do a bit of this or that and you will be fine. No, you will be not.
But you can CHOOSE to not negotiate or control addiction and stay away from acting out. Absolutely everyone, even the hardest addict can do that. You need humility, though, to understand that making this choice and staying with it is your only way to survive.
Reboot is hard, for you have to give up things that made you feel good, gave you the rush, gave you dopamine. There is no easy way around that.
J
jsplinter01
Guest
Great thread with a lot great advice. I realize that everyone is different and requires a different approach and understanding when it comes to quitting porn use. The support of this is wonderful and a great resource for anyone who is struggle. If you have been lurking for a while, make an account and make some posts. It helps to get your ideas down in writing.
W
William
Guest
Thanks for all the kind posts.
You ask whether fantasy is a relapse. I ask, are you a guy who can relapse? Relapse implies you are here to change your life, as opposed to...not. As opposed to keeping it the way it is, keeping it comfortable, staying in your comfort zone, keeping porn as a crutch to lean on.
I hate to answer your question with a question, but here goes: What is your goal? What are you attempting to accomplish? What vision of yourself do you have, and what vision of yourself do you want to be? What is the before and after image you have of yourself? Are you here to change, or...not?
I think you need to ask yourself these questions to define your purpose here. There are two types of guys here, and both are great guys. On the one hand there are the guys who love their porn and are dedicated to keeping in in their lives. When I say "love their porn" what I really mean is love the dopamine high/ride porn gives them. You must first and foremost understand you don't really love porn, not really. It looks like it, it feels like it, but it is not really that: porn is just a button we push to get a dopamine high, and we love dopamine highs. This is me starting to answer your question. See, porn is not just porn, meaning we don't just get a dopamine high from porn, we can get it from thoughts alone, as in hypersexual thoughts, as in thinking of porn, remembering it, porn substitutes, and...fantasy. It is not that fantasy is porn, but it is another, alternative button we push to get a dopamine high. This must be understood.
So, back to the two types of guys there are here. Which one are you? There are the guys who are committed to keep using dopamine through artificial sexual stimulation/thoughts. Nice guys, but they will fail here ultimately because ultimately the only solution to porn addiction is to quit porn. That is difficult, but once you have gotten free, it becomes quite easy. I think I am 568 days clean today. I will not struggle with relapse today or ever again. Does that mean I never have sexual thoughts? No, of course not, but I control them now, they do not control me, and I recognize them as a healthy side effect or benefit of being alive, and I recognize their effect on my brain; they create a dopamine rush. I just do not use that rush to get high anymore. I recognize what is happening, and avoid abusing that brain reaction. That brings me to the other type of guy here. Those guys, like me, dedicated themselves to quit dopamine addiction. We have quit pushing that button.
So, to your question. I would not call it a relapse. I would call it a learning opportunity. We, as living, breathing, healthy humans, will always like sex and sexual thoughts. We are wired to that. It is who we are. We are not wired, however, to High Speed Internet Porn; that screws up our brain's sexual reward center. It is the promise of something impossible, endless, novel, new, sexual experiences. In the real world, it just does not happen that way. I think, with the fantasy, understand, you were giving yourself a gratuitous dopamine high. That can be fun for a non addict but for a guy recovering, it is a problem. I suggest the "hard 90", 90 days no porn, no fantasy, no porn substitutes, no PMO, no MO, no O. Once you get 90 days out, ask the question again. At that point I think the question will answer itself.
Peace.
Will I AM.
You ask whether fantasy is a relapse. I ask, are you a guy who can relapse? Relapse implies you are here to change your life, as opposed to...not. As opposed to keeping it the way it is, keeping it comfortable, staying in your comfort zone, keeping porn as a crutch to lean on.
I hate to answer your question with a question, but here goes: What is your goal? What are you attempting to accomplish? What vision of yourself do you have, and what vision of yourself do you want to be? What is the before and after image you have of yourself? Are you here to change, or...not?
I think you need to ask yourself these questions to define your purpose here. There are two types of guys here, and both are great guys. On the one hand there are the guys who love their porn and are dedicated to keeping in in their lives. When I say "love their porn" what I really mean is love the dopamine high/ride porn gives them. You must first and foremost understand you don't really love porn, not really. It looks like it, it feels like it, but it is not really that: porn is just a button we push to get a dopamine high, and we love dopamine highs. This is me starting to answer your question. See, porn is not just porn, meaning we don't just get a dopamine high from porn, we can get it from thoughts alone, as in hypersexual thoughts, as in thinking of porn, remembering it, porn substitutes, and...fantasy. It is not that fantasy is porn, but it is another, alternative button we push to get a dopamine high. This must be understood.
So, back to the two types of guys there are here. Which one are you? There are the guys who are committed to keep using dopamine through artificial sexual stimulation/thoughts. Nice guys, but they will fail here ultimately because ultimately the only solution to porn addiction is to quit porn. That is difficult, but once you have gotten free, it becomes quite easy. I think I am 568 days clean today. I will not struggle with relapse today or ever again. Does that mean I never have sexual thoughts? No, of course not, but I control them now, they do not control me, and I recognize them as a healthy side effect or benefit of being alive, and I recognize their effect on my brain; they create a dopamine rush. I just do not use that rush to get high anymore. I recognize what is happening, and avoid abusing that brain reaction. That brings me to the other type of guy here. Those guys, like me, dedicated themselves to quit dopamine addiction. We have quit pushing that button.
So, to your question. I would not call it a relapse. I would call it a learning opportunity. We, as living, breathing, healthy humans, will always like sex and sexual thoughts. We are wired to that. It is who we are. We are not wired, however, to High Speed Internet Porn; that screws up our brain's sexual reward center. It is the promise of something impossible, endless, novel, new, sexual experiences. In the real world, it just does not happen that way. I think, with the fantasy, understand, you were giving yourself a gratuitous dopamine high. That can be fun for a non addict but for a guy recovering, it is a problem. I suggest the "hard 90", 90 days no porn, no fantasy, no porn substitutes, no PMO, no MO, no O. Once you get 90 days out, ask the question again. At that point I think the question will answer itself.
Peace.
Will I AM.
jay2005
Member
William, I appreciate you reaching out and I'm glad I got to read your post and story. The whole part about keeping things in a stash for a rainy day is so true - I've experienced that. I didn't look at P for about 5-6 months, but gave into temptation and went back to my external drive with some videos. It's always about this justification you create in your mind - I earned this, I've done so good, so watching one video/or binging one night won't hurt me. Then you give yourself the same excuse from time to time - it's terrible. You look like somebody who's all about giving it to people straight and I get that - tough love works for some people and I respond to it. It did take me years to get to this point of signing up for a forum and admitting my problem, but I'm gonna make it happen this time fo real!
PeaceJustillusion
Member
thx dude for sharing your experience, for us (who addict to fu**ing porn)
i imagine world without porn, that will be awesome.
today is day 2, - 88 day again ;D
THX again
Peace,
i imagine world without porn, that will be awesome.
today is day 2, - 88 day again ;D
THX again
Peace,
blindvulture
New Member
Thank you I will return here to educate myself.
Hi William and fellow travellers! I'm Galaxim, from NoFap (http://www.nofap.org/forum/showthread.php?20036-Galaxim-s-journal&p=105881).
To put it short, 180 days clean of no PMO/MO, although the real number would be a little higher than that, as I gave up porn completely 9th May 2014 and I only had two MO relapses after that date.
William made me the honor to invite me here and I though in stopping by. I was an addict during 10 years and thank to the approach that William as described and written so well about, I got myself free of this.
Although I don't think that you ever get "cured", because although I don't feel triggers anymore, somedays there's a voice deep inside my head. I don't act upon it, it doesn't control me anymore, but it's still there and it will probably remain there forever.
I made several guides during my journey, that can be accessed at my signature at NoFap.
I don't have much more to add to what William has already said. I'd like to point out that if there were "schools" inside the rebooting movement, I'd consider myself a hardliner: no more PMO/MO ever again, no more behaviours that have lead to that. I'm not saying that my way is the only way, but I least it worked for me, when nothing else worked during those 10 long and dark years that I nowadays prefer to forget.
So what am I doing here, after all? Well, as time passes, we tend to forget that we still carry that voice within us, and is very easy to let your guard down: you just need an hour or half an hour of stupidity to destroy an year of effort. I've seen it before, several times. I try not to judge others, but I do know that I don't want that to happen to me. I prefer to think myself still as an addict, as still someone who needs help. As William said, writing here and helping others is a way of helping ourselves.
I don't know how's the dinamic here at Reboot Nation in comparison to NoFap, but I needed to post somewhere else. Perhaps I'm being a little selfish here, and I want to get away from the "chronic relapsers", I don't know.
Anyway, if anybody needs me, I'm here.
Here are my links. The last one corresponds to the spreadsheet that I started after my two relapses after 101 days, but I don't update it anymore. I just keep if there if anyone wants to copy the model (all the credit to Darxidius, from yourbrainrebalanced).
The documents that I made are at the Mega link.
http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=5734.0
http://nofapsolideo.wordpress.com/
https://mega.co.nz/#!IklQjKLZ!7wB_rRRnayx4jLskFqZl6Mne1WitOWVi3RdlQYuLk1w
http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=15558.0
https://docs.zoho.com/sheet/published.do?rid=29rl68bd407fa34bf4d58bdadd042b1ba28f6
To put it short, 180 days clean of no PMO/MO, although the real number would be a little higher than that, as I gave up porn completely 9th May 2014 and I only had two MO relapses after that date.
William made me the honor to invite me here and I though in stopping by. I was an addict during 10 years and thank to the approach that William as described and written so well about, I got myself free of this.
Although I don't think that you ever get "cured", because although I don't feel triggers anymore, somedays there's a voice deep inside my head. I don't act upon it, it doesn't control me anymore, but it's still there and it will probably remain there forever.
I made several guides during my journey, that can be accessed at my signature at NoFap.
I don't have much more to add to what William has already said. I'd like to point out that if there were "schools" inside the rebooting movement, I'd consider myself a hardliner: no more PMO/MO ever again, no more behaviours that have lead to that. I'm not saying that my way is the only way, but I least it worked for me, when nothing else worked during those 10 long and dark years that I nowadays prefer to forget.
So what am I doing here, after all? Well, as time passes, we tend to forget that we still carry that voice within us, and is very easy to let your guard down: you just need an hour or half an hour of stupidity to destroy an year of effort. I've seen it before, several times. I try not to judge others, but I do know that I don't want that to happen to me. I prefer to think myself still as an addict, as still someone who needs help. As William said, writing here and helping others is a way of helping ourselves.
I don't know how's the dinamic here at Reboot Nation in comparison to NoFap, but I needed to post somewhere else. Perhaps I'm being a little selfish here, and I want to get away from the "chronic relapsers", I don't know.
Anyway, if anybody needs me, I'm here.
Here are my links. The last one corresponds to the spreadsheet that I started after my two relapses after 101 days, but I don't update it anymore. I just keep if there if anyone wants to copy the model (all the credit to Darxidius, from yourbrainrebalanced).
The documents that I made are at the Mega link.
http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=5734.0
http://nofapsolideo.wordpress.com/
https://mega.co.nz/#!IklQjKLZ!7wB_rRRnayx4jLskFqZl6Mne1WitOWVi3RdlQYuLk1w
http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=15558.0
https://docs.zoho.com/sheet/published.do?rid=29rl68bd407fa34bf4d58bdadd042b1ba28f6
DepressedDude
New Member
Thanks William, I've answered your question in my post
http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=3690.0
Please assist me! give me more advices.... I really appreciate it
http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=3690.0
Please assist me! give me more advices.... I really appreciate it
EverettSmith14
Member
Hi Willaim,
I'm back here to read your posts and advice. You have and share much wisdom.
I saw you wrote this and find myself in a similar place (thank God)....
"Hello Gentlemen, thank everyone for the kind words. As you know I am consciously posting less and less. Now that I have taken the cure for porn addiction I am attempting to cure the cure, by that meaning thinking less and less about the topic. In the beginning I hit the forums multiple times a day, and some days posted as many as 20 posts. I suppose, in a way, I replaced porn with posting and it helped keep me clean, but not so much now. This is a good thing for me, and for all of us, as we can look forward to a time in our lives where not only are we not fighting the addiction, it simply does not occur to us, and even thinking about it becomes a distraction. "
My reaction to stress and other outside factors are is no longer PMO. I find myself tired of even discussing it sometimes. I come back here and to Nofap.org less and less frequently. I do like coaching and sharing my journey to the extent it helps others but I, like you, seem resigned to the fact that many here are simply not ready to quit. I admit to still be nervous about emptying my brain completely of the dangers and I am not 100% convinced I could never fall into this pit again. The defects in my character and stream beds in my brain are still there. They may be dried up and filled with dust, but the potential for another fall will be with me for the rest of my life.
As I have mentioned before, to me, it's like smoking. I used to smoke. 1-2 packs a day. I quit more than 30 years ago. For a long time, I did not smoke, but I did think about it. Particularly at partied or events where others were smoking....particularly if they were smoking my old brand "newports"
But now, I never crave a cigarette. I hardly ever think about it at all. I'm a non-smoker....period!
Now, I am a non-PMOer. Period. Took almost a year.
Thanks for all you have done for me. Thanks for all you have done for so many here.
Keep going!
Everett
I'm back here to read your posts and advice. You have and share much wisdom.
I saw you wrote this and find myself in a similar place (thank God)....
"Hello Gentlemen, thank everyone for the kind words. As you know I am consciously posting less and less. Now that I have taken the cure for porn addiction I am attempting to cure the cure, by that meaning thinking less and less about the topic. In the beginning I hit the forums multiple times a day, and some days posted as many as 20 posts. I suppose, in a way, I replaced porn with posting and it helped keep me clean, but not so much now. This is a good thing for me, and for all of us, as we can look forward to a time in our lives where not only are we not fighting the addiction, it simply does not occur to us, and even thinking about it becomes a distraction. "
My reaction to stress and other outside factors are is no longer PMO. I find myself tired of even discussing it sometimes. I come back here and to Nofap.org less and less frequently. I do like coaching and sharing my journey to the extent it helps others but I, like you, seem resigned to the fact that many here are simply not ready to quit. I admit to still be nervous about emptying my brain completely of the dangers and I am not 100% convinced I could never fall into this pit again. The defects in my character and stream beds in my brain are still there. They may be dried up and filled with dust, but the potential for another fall will be with me for the rest of my life.
As I have mentioned before, to me, it's like smoking. I used to smoke. 1-2 packs a day. I quit more than 30 years ago. For a long time, I did not smoke, but I did think about it. Particularly at partied or events where others were smoking....particularly if they were smoking my old brand "newports"
But now, I never crave a cigarette. I hardly ever think about it at all. I'm a non-smoker....period!
Now, I am a non-PMOer. Period. Took almost a year.
Thanks for all you have done for me. Thanks for all you have done for so many here.
Keep going!
Everett
galaxim said:
Galaxim,
thanks for you post and the resources they're really helpful. I have to say that it's a privilege to have someone with 180 days clean join the site to help us people working on it to get better. I've tried so many times to quit, but never achieved anything. But reading this post changed my mentality, I think, and I'm now at the longest I've ever been without porn.
I've a journal here in this site ( http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=3176.0 ). If you have time and could take a look, that'd be amazing. I'm sure you have some useful things to say to all of us and to me, of course.
Hey Galaxim,
Love to have you here. Please come here, share your experience and post post post!
We need all hands on deck, also for people a bit further down the PMO road - as you put it and I myself have discovered:
I already had long periods of no-dopamine under my belt and relapsed And I just don't want that anymore - discovering YBOP and particularly this community, has been a game-changer for me. So I am here posting, sharing, comforting and waiting to be comforted by others.
Love to have you here. Please come here, share your experience and post post post!
We need all hands on deck, also for people a bit further down the PMO road - as you put it and I myself have discovered:
galaxim said:
I already had long periods of no-dopamine under my belt and relapsed
And I just don't want that anymore - discovering YBOP and particularly this community, has been a game-changer for me. So I am here posting, sharing, comforting and waiting to be comforted by others.Hi tostadora and jkkk! It's good to hear that I can still be of any help. I'll check your journal. As you know each story is different, but I've seen some similarities between those I consider "successful" rebooters and those who relapse after a long period. I'd say that the main failures can be observed in
1) motivation
2) stopping your daily routine
3) going back to unhealthy habits.
1) Motivation: this is the reason why you began this journey in the first place. I'd say that it has to be something more important than recovering from PIED or PE, important in a sense of a spiritual meaning, something that lays deep inside yourself. Although the technical part of my recovery (developing a working routine and sticking to it) was rather quick (a few months since joining NoFap.org), it took me 10 years to reach that point of "no more". From my perspective, to get women is not a good reason enough, because if for whatever reason you fail to "get them", guess where are you going to end? That is why it has to be a reason independent from external circumstances and strong enough to endure through time and adversity. In the end for me this was a search for meaning to my own personal existence, "meaning" in the sense of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning
2) Stopping your daily routine: this concerns the technical aspects of your inner decision: your workout, your interests, those things that got you out in the first place. I'm far beyond the "danger zone" but I still take cold showers, exercise daily and keep track of my daily use of time, as those habits have improved my life in general. I've to point out that I decided to quit when facing out of the most stressful periods of my life so far, but I remember thinking at that moment: "if I can beat this now, I can beat it forever". I used to MO/PMO during my Faculty years, so when I finished my career I said to myself "it's now or never". "Things are not going to get any easier as time passes".
3) Going back to unhealthy habits: "I wonder where that article in the news about sex would lead me?" "This is not porn, just pretty girls at a social network". The middle ground between freedom and porn slavery is full with traps, the "hey, click at me, I'm not porn" traps. During my journey I elaborated some simple rules regarding women: if I don't plan to approach her, to get to know her better, then I'm no interested. How can you approach pictures or videos online? The same with passing women on the street or somewhere. If you can and want to talk, do it and face the results. If you can't or don't want to, just accept it and move on. I think that at this point it's way better to have real rejections from real women than to have fantasy acceptance from fantasy women.
Nowadays for me there are contexts where I'm "picking up", with the intention to put effort into meeting women. But that always happens outside my home, outside my computer.
But for this journey to work -in my opinion- you have to stop living a sex centered life, where you can be alone and persuing your interests of choice and being happy at it. I think we all used to used porn as a kind of sauce that we added to everything "Can I have more souce with my burger? Can I have more sauce with my rice? Can I have more sauce with my drink? -But drinks don't have sauce
-Gimme my FUCKING sauce!!" The same as an alcoholic, we used porn when we were happy, when we were sad, when we just... were.
As William said previously, there's no replacement for that. Someday you'll try to romanticize the habit, the classical "it wasn't that bad after all". Guess what? It was THAT bad. From time to time, I still can hear that voice. Instantly I use my infamous "shit and cockroaches" technique: whenever I see some porn related popping up onto my brain, I imagine disgusting scenarios, involving shit and cockroaches.
As William also said -William has said it all, basically-, this is a dopamine addiction. And I might add that if you learn to conquer your brain, you're safe. But as soon as you let those thoughts roam free, "let's see where this fantasy of mine takes me", you're lost.
As some guys apparently don't understand, being a zealot is much easier in the long term, than trying to gradually adopt substitutes, than going in and out forever. It's painful, it's hard, but it's worth it.
Not so long ago I kissed a girl (several times) again after 6 years of no physical contact with real women. I was open to sex, but sex wasn't the final "objective". I didn't have sex at the end, but I felt really happy about the whole matter, as I was interested in the person, but I didn't use her to "masturbate inside a woman" as a taoist writer wrote.
Something that you get after a long journey is that confidence that you can basically hold on there, living your own life, that you don't need to have the approval of society on how you live your life, that you don't have that pressure to have sex all the time, even to "be happy" all the time. You accept yourself and you accept your inner struggles, because that's part of life.
1) motivation
2) stopping your daily routine
3) going back to unhealthy habits.
1) Motivation: this is the reason why you began this journey in the first place. I'd say that it has to be something more important than recovering from PIED or PE, important in a sense of a spiritual meaning, something that lays deep inside yourself. Although the technical part of my recovery (developing a working routine and sticking to it) was rather quick (a few months since joining NoFap.org), it took me 10 years to reach that point of "no more". From my perspective, to get women is not a good reason enough, because if for whatever reason you fail to "get them", guess where are you going to end? That is why it has to be a reason independent from external circumstances and strong enough to endure through time and adversity. In the end for me this was a search for meaning to my own personal existence, "meaning" in the sense of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning
2) Stopping your daily routine: this concerns the technical aspects of your inner decision: your workout, your interests, those things that got you out in the first place. I'm far beyond the "danger zone" but I still take cold showers, exercise daily and keep track of my daily use of time, as those habits have improved my life in general. I've to point out that I decided to quit when facing out of the most stressful periods of my life so far, but I remember thinking at that moment: "if I can beat this now, I can beat it forever". I used to MO/PMO during my Faculty years, so when I finished my career I said to myself "it's now or never". "Things are not going to get any easier as time passes".
3) Going back to unhealthy habits: "I wonder where that article in the news about sex would lead me?" "This is not porn, just pretty girls at a social network". The middle ground between freedom and porn slavery is full with traps, the "hey, click at me, I'm not porn" traps. During my journey I elaborated some simple rules regarding women: if I don't plan to approach her, to get to know her better, then I'm no interested. How can you approach pictures or videos online? The same with passing women on the street or somewhere. If you can and want to talk, do it and face the results. If you can't or don't want to, just accept it and move on. I think that at this point it's way better to have real rejections from real women than to have fantasy acceptance from fantasy women.
Nowadays for me there are contexts where I'm "picking up", with the intention to put effort into meeting women. But that always happens outside my home, outside my computer.
But for this journey to work -in my opinion- you have to stop living a sex centered life, where you can be alone and persuing your interests of choice and being happy at it. I think we all used to used porn as a kind of sauce that we added to everything "Can I have more souce with my burger? Can I have more sauce with my rice? Can I have more sauce with my drink? -But drinks don't have sauce
-Gimme my FUCKING sauce!!" The same as an alcoholic, we used porn when we were happy, when we were sad, when we just... were.
As William said previously, there's no replacement for that. Someday you'll try to romanticize the habit, the classical "it wasn't that bad after all". Guess what? It was THAT bad. From time to time, I still can hear that voice. Instantly I use my infamous "shit and cockroaches" technique: whenever I see some porn related popping up onto my brain, I imagine disgusting scenarios, involving shit and cockroaches.
As William also said -William has said it all, basically-, this is a dopamine addiction. And I might add that if you learn to conquer your brain, you're safe. But as soon as you let those thoughts roam free, "let's see where this fantasy of mine takes me", you're lost.
As some guys apparently don't understand, being a zealot is much easier in the long term, than trying to gradually adopt substitutes, than going in and out forever. It's painful, it's hard, but it's worth it.
Not so long ago I kissed a girl (several times) again after 6 years of no physical contact with real women. I was open to sex, but sex wasn't the final "objective". I didn't have sex at the end, but I felt really happy about the whole matter, as I was interested in the person, but I didn't use her to "masturbate inside a woman" as a taoist writer wrote.
Something that you get after a long journey is that confidence that you can basically hold on there, living your own life, that you don't need to have the approval of society on how you live your life, that you don't have that pressure to have sex all the time, even to "be happy" all the time. You accept yourself and you accept your inner struggles, because that's part of life.