The summer of a dormouse

[Moth-head]

So, I got past that one. Feeling the urges a lot less today. Chalk up another victory over the porn demon. Every day counts. While I am not happy about the strong temptations I still feel to this day, I am pretty happy that I immediately knew what path to take to get myself away from that situation. I managed to get out of there fast and came straight here to write in my Blog, which I know made a huge difference in my early days of my reboot. It is a great fall back and a constant reminder of why I am doing this. It was also great to read a few other blogs and identify with fellow sufferes who are conquering their own demons. In addition to this I found it useful to go back and read my early posts. As I was going over them I was like, "Who was that guy?" and "Did I really feel that way?" So I can see I have experienced a lot of change. Thanks Blog, you saved me again.

 

[imaquitter]

Thanks! So good to hear that you resisted the temptation. I have slipped, but i will get up again. Look forward to my 8 month mark!

 

[Moth-head]

Thanks,  imaquitter, I really hope you get there. It can be done!

8 Months (and a little bit more)

Happy to have negotiated some tricky waters and come through without a PMO. I have, as a result of my moonlighting work (soft-core erotic art), encountered some links to some pretty tempting pics and sites. I have turned away from some, and clicked on others my cheeky brain deems "Soft" (basic nudity, with nothing hardcore or explicit). I have told my brain this is a slippery slope, but he is sneaky. He is also a dick.

Anyway, the good news is, not PMO or even touching myself during these periods when I end up in the rough, so to speak. I have often out of there quickly enough. I have even turned away from some pretty big temptations.

I am otherwise in a good zone porn wise, and am not finding it a huge weight on my mind right now. I have my mind set on the year mark and I am determined not to slip now that I am well past the halfway point.

Sex with the wife is still really great, best it has ever been. No ED, no DE and I feel like I have a lot more control of my climax. The wife seems to be appreciating it more too. I am the same as most married men, in that there is never enough, but what we do have is good and I want to keep it this way.

I am not doing this in hardmode, so I do have the occasional MO, but no porn is involved. In fact, increasingly I find that it is thoughts, or fantasies about my wife that get me going, which is really cool. I do find I have far fewer of these though and I do not get a grumpy as I used to when I do not find regular opportunities to take matters into my own hands.

 

[Moth-head]

9 months

I have not visited  or fapped to a porn site for 9 months. Still think about it though, and consider just "checking one out" if only to see what has happened in the world of porn in my absence. But no relapse yet.

I have found other outlets for my erotic interests, which might not be strictly to the code of a true reboot, but I am finding it helps to have an outlet. I honestly do not think I can turn the sex-obsessed part of my brain off. I think my best hope is to manage it and redirect it along non-destructive paths.

I have mentioned that I draw some erotic, pin-up style art, sometimes for profit. I still do this, but have substituted reference pictures I got from soft porn for a 3D modelling program. That has been a big win. I also have been writing some erotic stories recently, working through some imagined fantasies I have had. Whereas before I used to write only a little and then go and look at porn for hours, I am writing a lot more and enjoying the process. I have tried to write about things other than sex, but it never goes beyond a few pages. The last story I turned out was basically a novella.

It feels like a bit of a tightrope, but it is working for me and I am going to keep trying. I will let you know if it keeps working.

 

[Moth-head]

Back to day 1....

Yup, I made it nearly a year and a half and then I went and PMOed a couple of times. It was total bullshit and for no good reason. I am embarrassed and pissed at myself for it. I knew what I was doing and did it anyway, even though I knew it would kill my streak.

So I am starting again. This place worked really well for me last time, so I am back again before I go back down the spiral.

I had a really good year and half though and really felt good without the grip of porn around my life. Now that I feel it coming back though I want to get away from it.

Will keep you updated. Wish me luck

 

[The Unhappy Fapper]

Moth-head that is a real bummer man! What was the trigger that set it all off if i may ask? Also, in comparison to when you started, how were you feeling 18 months down the line?

I wish you well man on this crappy and torrid journey

 

[Lero]

Don't beat yourself up about it. 2 PMOs after a year and a half are in no way the end of the world. Concentrate on not going back to a porn routine (PMO-ing like you used to in the past).

 

[Moth-head]

Day 13

Things have been much smoother than the last time. It hasn't been big battle to ignore the porn urges. I plan on keeping it that way.

Don't beat yourself up about it. 2 PMOs after a year and a half are in no way the end of the world. Concentrate on not going back to a porn routine (PMO-ing like you used to in the past).

Thanks for the support. I am inclined to agree with you. I am not taking it too hard, it was just a stupid thing to do, but after the good run I had previously and the good things it did for my life I am pretty confident I can avoid the downward spiral. Thanks for your advice.

Moth-head that is a real bummer man! What was the trigger that set it all off if i may ask? Also, in comparison to when you started, how were you feeling 18 months down the line?

I wish you well man on this crappy and torrid journey

Thanks Unhappy Fapper. The weird thing is there was no definite trigger. I know from when I started my first reboot that stress was my number one trigger. There were some stressful things going in my life at the time, so that probably was a factor, but it wasn't anything I usually can't handle. It was a lot more insidious than that. I think it started when I suddenly had a late night brain fart to check out an a porn site I used to visit regularly before my reboot. I started to check up on some of my favorite porn stars and what they had been up to in the last year in and a half. Big mistake.

I kidded myself for a while that I wasn't really cheating. I would check out a little bit of a scene and then leave the site. I would then MO later based on the memory. I think those should technically count as PMOs, while I am being honest here.

It just took one scene where I got really aroused, and then I was fapping towards a PMO.

I did that 2 or 3 times before I really realized what I was doing, and then I immediately came back here. As I said, now I am 13 days and counting.

But yeah, stress seems to be a factor. But the scary thing is it doesn't take much of a push at all to start down the path again, even after a long streak. You can't get complacent.

As for your second question, I felt really good after 18 months. Porn was really not a major factor in my life any more and I got some really good stuff accomplished with all the extra free time I had. that is why I am so determined not to slide again. I am not sure where you are at, but if you look back at my previous posts you can track my improvements. I think it was only after day 100 or so that I really started to feel a slight lessening of the grip of porn in my life. It is always there, a whisper in the dark late a night, but it is no longer the deafening scream for attention it used to be. I want to get back to 18 months and go beyond. One thing I can tell you for certain is that it made a huge difference to my sex life and I have not had any hint of ED or Delayed Ejaculation since my last reboot.

Hang in there.

 

[J01]

hi Moth!  Thanks for sharing your story-I hope you will continue to post regularly and keep us apprised of your progress.  I recently pulled a genius maneuver at day 173 or so and am treating it as stupidity instead of going into despair or despondency over it.  I got burned playing with p-subs.
Take care and keep racking up the days!   

 

[Moth-head]

Had a wake up call today after a long run. I have been gradually slipping into some bad habits. I started the predicable way, I just went to "check out" a couple of my favorite old sites. Then I began to visit them regularly just to see what interesting updates they had. Then, when I saw a video pop up I really was interested in I watched a bit of it on old streaming site. Then I started visiting that site nightly. Soon I was watching a couple of videos a night, just to get a little MO fodder. I told myself it was okay because I wasn't having PMOs. lately I have reverted back to watching videos and edging (keeping muself close to climax, without doing it).

My wake up call came tonight when, after a bit of a break due to a busy life schedule, my wife and I tried to make love after about a 2 week break. For the first time in years I experienced both ED and DE and I know it came from the porn. So I am restarting again.

I feel like an idiot who went and gorged on Mcdonalds just before going to a Michelin star restaurant. I want to get back to the great sex my wife and I were having, the best of our lives so far, so I am getting back on the wagon. Or off the wagon. I cn never remember which way round I am supposed to deal with the wagon.

 

[Moth-head]

A week without porn. I had sex with the wife again after this 7 day abstinence. There weren't even any MOs.

Surprise, surprise I have no ED and there is not even a glimmer of DE. If anything there was not DE enough. The wife even said it was the best we have had in a long while. If ever I needed proof of the direct correlation between porn and poor performance, I think I have it now.

Going to try and keep it up (literally and figuratively) and see how it goes for the next while. Work stress and life stress don't make it easy and porn is a wonderful escape. I really do miss how it shuts off my brain for a while. All the issues in my life are things that thinking about and stressing over can't really change. If anyone figures out how to make more money by doing less work let me know. It might be the one thing to cure my porn addiction completely.

I'll let you know how it goes.