I must crush this vice. I need to

[mousemat1]

Hi TGW.

If it makes you feel any better read my first post in the thread titled 'The Monkey On My Back' to give you some idea of the difficulty I've had in quitting and with relapsing. You are not alone. I know that doesn't take away the disappointment of relapsing but if you read my detailed journal of relapses and then understand that today is my 268th day without porn it might give you some hope that you can beat this addiction. Don't underestimate that this is an addiction and has many of the same difficulties as other addictions.

Just reset your counter and start again. Good luck!

 

[TheGreenWizard]

Hi TGW.

If it makes you feel any better read my first post in the thread titled 'The Monkey On My Back' to give you some idea of the difficulty I've had in quitting and with relapsing. You are not alone. I know that doesn't take away the disappointment of relapsing but if you read my detailed journal of relapses and then understand that today is my 268th day without porn it might give you some hope that you can beat this addiction. Don't underestimate that this is an addiction and has many of the same difficulties as other addictions.

Just reset your counter and start again. Good luck!

I'll definitely take a look at your journal. Perhaps I can learn some new methods in dealing with it and some new ways of looking at this addiction.

 

[TheGreenWizard]

Journal Entry:

Day one is always pretty easy to get through because I always feel kinda drained. It's kinda like a dopamine hangover where I'm just not interested in doing any of that stuff. Day 2-4 is when things get rough because that's when the addiction urges are still fresh and powerful. From personal experience, once I get past the first week, things are still challenging but the withdrawal starts to ease back.

I've gotten back on my sleep schedule to keep me out of my peak risk hours. Moreover I've been trying to focus on working out and creative projects to keep my mind off things. I'm just trying to throw myself 100% in my productive and creative ventures so that I'm either too busy or too tired to think about P.

PMO free: 1/90

 

[Fappy]

yes I think so too. The day after I PMO`d I usually felt nothing - no withdrawal symptoms, no desire to PMO again. It wasnt until the 4th or 5th day later that I would get hit like a train with all the withdrawal symptoms. These lasted until around day 12-14 of being PMO free. There was still a desire to PMO but all the other nasty side effects had subsided.
Yeah definately keep your creativity flowing, wear yourself out with it.

 

[TheGreenWizard]

yes I think so too. The day after I PMO`d I usually felt nothing - no withdrawal symptoms, no desire to PMO again. It wasnt until the 4th or 5th day later that I would get hit like a train with all the withdrawal symptoms. These lasted until around day 12-14 of being PMO free. There was still a desire to PMO but all the other nasty side effects had subsided.
Yeah definately keep your creativity flowing, wear yourself out with it.

Yeah. I think that's why I initially failed. It was approaching that two week mark, I let my guard down and played around when I had no business even doing that. And of course all the addiction needs is a small opening to start playing it's game. It's clear to me that I need to remain constantly vigilant and engaged in something for most of the day, at least during the first two weeks to help mitigate the withdrawal.

 

[TheGreenWizard]

Journal Entry:

Another day down. I'm feeling some of the urges return but it's still more of the calm before the storm. Things don't start ramping up until the next 2 days. I've noticed how the addiction starts to work it's way back in. For me, the first day is nothing because I'm usually drained since I never PMO just once in a day. Maybe I'll get a mild PMO pang here or there but they are easily ignored during this time because of low libido. Things increase on day 2 but it's still as manageable as day 1 if I stay with my self-control, but the cravings emerge in sexual fantasies almost exclusively. They aren't so much memories of a porn scene (maybe influenced by some obscure scene I may have seen many years ago, I'm not sure) but with someone I had a real experience with but a completely new "if we did it again I'd like to do this" type fantasy. I'm wondering if that is a precursor to when the withdrawal really sets in.

That being said, does my brain really want the dopamine from normal places? In the first few days, when it's clear that those normal urges won't be realized, does my mind shift to porn as a substitute to try and satisfy those needs? As I think about it that may be the core reason of why I started looking at porn to begin with. I started wanting sex like every growing person does at that time, I didn't get it (I was overweight, socially awkward, and not "confident" in high school so I was dead in the water almost immediately when the social games started) and thus I turned to porn as a simulated way to experience what nobody at the time wanted to do with me. After that, then addiction began to manifest itself with the standard sensitization, desensitization, escalation process over the years and years the habit was in place. These are questions I never really gave much thought to at the time since my head was just swimming in the porn habit but I'm examining them much more closely now that I am aware of the problem.

PMO free: 2/90

 

[TheGreenWizard]

Journal Entry:

Yesterday wasn't too tough either and I just mostly hung out around the house around all the access. Wasn't really tempted at all. I am feeling a little low energy in general. Probably some depression as some other things have been on my mind and kinda bothering me this week. But on the bright side, I usually turned to PMO to take my mind off depression. While it was no better of a method than just wallowing in being sad, I didn't PMO. I just mostly switched off and played video games yesterday. We all need a switch off day from time to time so I'm not going to sweat it.

PMO free: 3/90

 

[TheGreenWizard]

Journal Entry:

I haven't written on here in a couple days. This past Saturday was rough. I almost failed 2-3 times but I stopped myself each time. I had really high libido that day. I had to MO within the confines of my goals like 3 times. It was just one of those days were you are just in that sex headspace, but since I don't have a situation at the moment where I could make it happen (one of the main causes of my addiction), I was craving some kind of release. In the past that was PMO as the primary method. I need to be extremely careful with that next time though. I was walking a fine line between being healthy and rationalizing. I looked at it once or twice for a few minutes and it got me riled up, I stopped myself because it isn't right but the urge came back so I switched to MO within my goals. I can't let myself do that in the future because it doesn't really help me. I won't reset my counter because I stopped myself from going all the way which technically doesn't go against my goals. However, I can't let that become a common practice because it's way too close to the danger zone and can still feed the addiction I want to beat. It's walking a really fine line and I don't want to let it become a new habit or some loophole I rationalize as okay, since it isn't. It's either healthy MO, sex, or nothing at all. Porn doesn't deserve a place in my life anymore.

Yesterday was okay. Still felt some craving for sex from Saturday though it was possibly the chaser effect or the craving for another dopamine hit. I MO'd again but it was lack luster due to the day before. I'm gonna pick up my MO abstinence goal from before and chill out for at least 7 days, aiming for 9 because it's losing it's enjoyment and I don't want to replace porn addiction with MO dependency as a crutch to deal with the addiction.

Last week was kind of a shitty week. Depression hit me and has still been carrying through even while I write this (though it is going away). I kinda let my goals and efforts slide across the board. I can't be doing that. Not only do I want to beat this and harness my libido as a source of creativity and productivity through sublimation, I want to get fit, and build a business. I can't achieve those goals if I drop them every time I get sad. So yesterday I just gave myself a switch off day to sorta restart my head. I didn't talk to anybody, deal with anything, or check anything. Just played video games literally all day. Fortunately I don't really have anything urgent going on so I could afford it. But it is back in the saddle. I'm hitting the gym shortly after I finish this entry and using today to get things back in order. I'm just tired of having a life that is on the lower end of mediocre. Honestly that's one of the reasons I'm here.

PMO free: 4/90

 

[Fappy]

It's a tough battle isn't it.
But you've fallen and taken your beating, just like all rebooters do, just get up and do it again. And again and again for as long as it takes. As always take a note of the trigger and when external events arise to trigger the urge, eliminate them. It will keep attacking you and will get sneakier every time so be careful

 

[TheGreenWizard]

It's a tough battle isn't it.
But you've fallen and taken your beating, just like all rebooters do, just get up and do it again. And again and again for as long as it takes. As always take a note of the trigger and when external events arise to trigger the urge, eliminate them. It will keep attacking you and will get sneakier every time so be careful

It is. It's a very tough battle. I think my brain doesn't like it that it no longer gets to use porn like it used to anymore.

 

[TheGreenWizard]

Journal Entry:

I don't know what's gotten into me these past couple of days. I have just been craving sex, PMO, and MO much much more than usual. I haven't given into PMO though there were multiple times I was very very close to failing again. The rationalizations are coming more often, in more cunning ways, and are harder and harder to resist. I'm getting triggered by things that haven't triggered me before. I'm hanging in there but I'm doing my absolute best just to keep it barely in control. It's all honestly starting to really stress me out. It's becoming increasingly difficult to handle and focus. I'd like to call this withdrawals but there is a side to it that isn't porn focused. I want sex and in the past when I didn't have a situation accommodating to it (like right now), I always used porn to mitigate the urges. MO on its own has never been satisfying in that respect because of the lack of more fulfilling stimuli of sex or the hyper-intense fake stimuli of porn is absent with just MO. It's just nothing scratches that itch anymore except the shit I'm trying to get away from or the stuff I can't have right now and it's driving me fucking crazy. Maybe the years of near constant porn use has dulled the satisfaction of more simplistic things like straight forward MO. Or maybe this is just normal and now that porn isn't there to fill the gap I just don't know what the fuck to do until I get in a situation that is more accommodating to actually meeting women, talking to them, and having a situation were sex can more readily happen.

PMO free: 5/90

 

[mousemat1]

It's probably not the comment you want to hear right now, but you've just got to weather the storm. The feelings you describe are all to familiar to me. They invariably led to a relapse, which is why I have struggled for so many years to defeat this addiction.

Try to keep yourself busy, but the reality is that sometimes these craving just burn away like sulphuric acid and I have sometimes felt like I'm crawling out of my skin. My brain has rationalised why I should just have one more look so many times, but if you look then you've just extended your sentence in this self made prison. We just have to accept the sentence and do our time.

In my experience, the cravings come in waves. If you can wait this one out, then it will get a little easier. The problem is you just have to prepare yourself for another wave at some point in the future.

You can only do your best but take this as an opportunity to really see this as the life destroying addiction it really is and use that as a weapon against it!

Good luck! You can, and will beat this addiction!!!!

 

[Fappy]

Maybe the years of near constant porn use has dulled the satisfaction of more simplistic things like straight forward MO

Theres no maybe about it. Thats a big, fat stinking YES!
As you said you have conditioned yourself to mitigate those urges through fapping. Over the years of abuse your brain now thinks that the normal thing to do. Gone are the good ole days when you could just treat yourself to a `classic` masturbation without the use of any external stimuli.
But those days will return if you stick this out just a little more.
Besides youre only up to day 5, the first week or so , as you may know, are the toughest and easiest to relapse in. Your addiction is screaming at you to feed it, do evrything you can to ignore it until it goes away.

 

[TheGreenWizard]

Maybe the years of near constant porn use has dulled the satisfaction of more simplistic things like straight forward MO

Theres no maybe about it. Thats a big, fat stinking YES!
As you said you have conditioned yourself to mitigate those urges through fapping. Over the years of abuse your brain now thinks that the normal thing to do. Gone are the good ole days when you could just treat yourself to a `classic` masturbation without the use of any external stimuli.
But those days will return if you stick this out just a little more.
Besides youre only up to day 5, the first week or so , as you may know, are the toughest and easiest to relapse in. Your addiction is screaming at you to feed it, do evrything you can to ignore it until it goes away.

I totally agree.

 

[TheGreenWizard]

Journal Entry:

I did a lot of thinking about this addiction and where I'm at and I want to do a restart for myself. While I didn't really fail this time, rationalizations have been giving me all kinds of hell and I've been in this weird grey area of things that aren't really going against my goal but things that aren't really helping me either. Like I've gotten triggered and switched to regular MO within the confines of what I consider okay. While for someone who has made more progress wouldn't see the harm in that, I feel like I'm less apt to avoid the triggers this early in the game because of that practice. There have been times where I have seen triggers, let it rile me up, and then finished the job with normal MO. To be honest, I think that is pretty much the same motivations as just PMO.

I really think the rationalizations have gotten themselves dug in and are trying to get that dopamine rush anyway they can. So while I don't like it, I'm gonna do a complete reset today and bring myself back to square one so I can reground myself and adapt to this new change. The last thing I want is to replace porn addiction with a trigger and MO addiction. That really defeats the purpose of all of this. I want to be able to stand on my own 2 feet without any crutches. I just feel like I can be doing better than this. I kinda fell into half-assed efforts and those only give you half the results and the progress is only half as strong. I feel like if I half-ass this it would make it all the more easier to relapse in the future or just replace this problem with another. I just think it is in my best interest to get back to basics so I can kick this habit the right way. Right now I feel like I have just as little control as when I was in the thick of the addiction. So starting today, I'm resetting my counter to 0 and starting over because this just isn't the way I want to go about it.

Days PMO free: 0

 

[TheGreenWizard]

It's probably not the comment you want to hear right now, but you've just got to weather the storm. The feelings you describe are all to familiar to me. They invariably led to a relapse, which is why I have struggled for so many years to defeat this addiction.

Try to keep yourself busy, but the reality is that sometimes these craving just burn away like sulphuric acid and I have sometimes felt like I'm crawling out of my skin. My brain has rationalised why I should just have one more look so many times, but if you look then you've just extended your sentence in this self made prison. We just have to accept the sentence and do our time.

In my experience, the cravings come in waves. If you can wait this one out, then it will get a little easier. The problem is you just have to prepare yourself for another wave at some point in the future.

You can only do your best but take this as an opportunity to really see this as the life destroying addiction it really is and use that as a weapon against it!

Good luck! You can, and will beat this addiction!!!!

I'm starting to see where you are coming from with that and I see the wisdom in your words. I decided to do a reset and get back to square one. I wanted to reground myself and readapt to this change because it's ended up allowing me to go about this half-assed. There are things I've done recently that have the same motivations behind just PMO. I gotta keep myself accountable on honest about that. I don't want to cheat myself out of good solid progress in beating this addiction. So while it sucks, I think it is in my best interest to make this call.

 

[Fappy]

ok then good idea. With this type of thing its important to be honest with oneself. Make your tactical retreat, regroup, then get back into it!

 

[TheGreenWizard]

ok then good idea. With this type of thing its important to be honest with oneself. Make your tactical retreat, regroup, then get back into it!

That's what I'm looking to do. I did really well on my initial one. I got pretty lax since then. I am going to readopt that same discipline again. I shouldn't have dropped it in the first place, but here I am. So moving forward.

 

[TheGreenWizard]

Journal Entry:

Today would officially be day 1 so I'm still at 0 on the streak of this reboot. My first original attempt at the reboot still remains my record of just shy of 14 days. Somewhere between then and now I lost that initial discipline. I'm looking to readopt that going forward. There are somethings I did right that I need to put back into practice. I really limited my time on social media where I found myself triggered to most (iFunny and instagram). I have since been fucking around on those sites more. Time to reign that back in to avoid those triggers. I might even consider dropping iFunny completely. It's fun looking at memes and entertaining videos, but they aren't worth it if users want to post lewd pics of pornstars, internet "models", and "art" too. Instagram isn't so bad so long as I limit my time on it's discovery board. Most of it is just vain fitness people fishing for likes so I remain untroubled but every now and then I catch an image that triggers me. I'm less apt to drop instagram because it's one of the methods I keep in touch with friends across the world. 

Those are the two main sources I identify that contain probably 98% of my triggers, the most being iFunny. The rest of it is just saying no when I get the urge to PMO or its sister rationalization of "just taking one quick look" on an image search of some sort of porn or some erotic images. I identify the weakness in my methods to block that stuff because I've since found ways around them too. The thing is though, I don't think getting someone else to make a password or restrict content in some undisclosed way will help me. I'm a very resourceful guy with IT matters. When I was growing up things like parental blocks, passwords, and content filters were things I just laughed at because none of those methods ever accomplished stopping me from doing anything, ever. Instead I've employed them on my own to keep stuff out of sight to prevent triggers and absentminded access while I uproot the desire for PMO. In a moment of weakness, they slow me down to give me a chance to regain my sense and control. Sometimes it doesn't work but short of just trashing all my computers and going to live in the woods, this is the extent of what can be done for me.

I can depend on these content filters and website blockers to a degree as just simple tools but nothing more than that. This isn't about just building crutches for myself to depend on or treating myself like a child. This is about regaining control of myself and my life. To me that means when I know the weaknesses that I should have the good sense to just not exploit them whenever I get the craving. This is all about saying no to the addiction and it's many forms when I just want to say yes. The only thing that will do that is self-control.

Days PMO free: 0

 

[Fappy]

Good.
Keep doing what you gotta do, mate.
Any weapon to defeat it