The Prisoner

[tom386]

I have added a new bar to my signature which reflects how many days it has been since I MO to porn. I feel like I am doing really well on one measure and not so well on the other, so I split them up into two bars. My goal is to increase both of them, but any increase I can get I'll take.

As you can see, I didn't do so well with the not looking at porn yesterday, but I didn't MO to it, so that's good. We'll see how it goes today. I'm going to try my best not to look at anything at work.

 

[tom386]

When I got home yesterday I ended up watching a movie. I eventually looked at some porn. I notice that I haven't been M when I get home, although I do get horny eventually, so I think I should probably go back to doing that and see where I end up.

 

[tom386]

This weekend was fairly easy, but I did look at porn on Sunday. After I got home from work today, I also looked at it and M as well. I haven't been very committed to taking care of my horniness as soon as I get home, but I think that if I made that a priority, it would work out better. I'll do that tomorrow, as well as not look at anything arousing at work.

 

[tom386]

Yesterday actually went completely alright! I came home, watch a couple of documentaries, and then took a nap. No thoughts of wanting to look at any porn crossed my mind, and likewise, I didn't do it at work either. I'll try my best to not look at anything at work today as well, and try to carry that though at home again tonight.

I have taken up again a philosophy of life that one should try to control and be the master of, not mastered by, one's urges. Since sexuality falls into that category, I will try my best to resist whatever temptations I have doubly hard from now on.

 

[tom386]

Well, I did very well over the weekend and during Monday with not doing anything, but the urges got the better of me today. I feel hopeful in that I have gone from PMO everyday to every two or three days. I feel like if I can just lengthen this period out more and more, I can get away from it easier.

 

[tom386]

Yesterday I didn't do so good at not looking at porn, however today I have done very well. I think the key is to stay busy when I am at home, which I did today by programming.

 

[tom386]

I have just had quite a long time without looking at any porn whatsoever. My wife was off of work this whole last week, so I was able to abstain the entire time. However, I did look at porn at work today, which is a negative. But, I feel good in that I didn't feel any urges whatsoever to look at porn the whole week. I feel like there really is a way out of this addiction.

I'm going to try to think of my counters in terms of "percentage of days I have looked at P or PMO" as opposed to a counter that resets to 0. I feel like this will give me a more accurate tracking as to my addiction.

On another note: 20 days without PMO! While I haven't conquered looking at porn itself, I have kept myself from completely losing control for quite a while. I'm very proud of myself, and this board is chiefly what caused my currently long streak. Thank you so much!

Percentages (counting multiple times a day as that number):
P: 36.17%
PMO: 2.13%

 

[Username]

I'm going to try to think of my counters in terms of "percentage of days I have looked at P or PMO" as opposed to a counter that resets to 0. I feel like this will give me a more accurate tracking as to my addiction.

I endorse this since I use a similar approach in my journal. As long as one's not trying to downtalk his/her problem, looking at such statistics might prove to be extremely encouraging.

 

[tom386]

Wow, this week has just been incredibly easy, and I think a lot of it comes from my using this new method of tracking my progress. I haven't look at porn in what my timer says is almost 4 days now, and it didn't seem that hard at all. But there could be two reasons for this:
[list type=decimal]
[*]This new way of tracking my progress makes me less scared of a backslide, which makes me less sad. After you backslide and you are back at day 1, it feels that much easier to backslide again the next day and the next day, whereas I know that if I backslide 1 day it isn't that bad, but backsliding more often will hurt my numbers, and it just gets better and better the more time I keep track.
[*]My wife and I are having sex every night now and in order to do this I am not masturbating during the day. We decided to do this because it makes us both feel closer to each other, and it's easier to keep having sex when we are already used to having it every night instead of every few days.
[/list]
I think both things are combining for a beautiful synergy that is making it ultra easy for me to keep the faith. I was initially skeptical that stopping masturbating would make it easier to beat the addiction, but after not having masturbated for a week (but still being able to be satisfied through my marriage) I think that I was wrong in dissing it, and that my addiction to masturbation was fueling my addiction to porn.

Additionally to that, I think if you find the "days since last XXX" system to be very hard emotionally on you when you backslide, I would suggest setting up a google spreadsheet to keep track of your average XXX per day rate, with a line chart to help you visualize your progress. If anyone is interested in this but doesn't know what formulas to put in the cells, I would be happy to make another post outlining the system.

 

[tom386]

As expected, the weekend was a piece of cake. What is surprising though is the fact that I feel as though I have little to no drive now at work to look at porn, which is not usual. I think it has been about two weeks since my wife and I decided to have sex every night, and that is still continuing successfully. I'm not sure if it is the sex every night, my new way of tracking my progress, or my refraining from masturbating that is contributing to this change, or maybe all three.

Now here I am going to ask a question that I would like people to weigh in on. My wife and I talked about my refrain from masturbating for the past week this weekend. While I haven't gotten moody or anything (since we are having sex every day), she doesn't want me to refrain anymore. I know that in the past she has been very turned on by my need to masturbate every day, sometimes multiple times, and I think that this is where it is coming from. However, I feel slightly afraid of starting again, since things have been going so well since I stopped doing it. As the days passed by last week, I felt the need to do it at home lessen to nothing by Friday.

Do you think it is a risk to start again? I'm afraid that the reason for my increased resolve is because I don't let myself get so horny as to impair my thinking. What do you think?

Progress:
P: 32.69%
PMO: 1.92%

edit: At this point I have modified the OP to include an image link to my personal P&PMO percentage chart over the last 60 days, to better visualize how well I am doing.

 

[tom386]

Nothing much to report, I didn't have any urges today, same as yesterday. I also haven't masturbated this week yet, as I haven't felt the urge at home so far. We'll see if I decide to masturbate when/if I get the urge, and how that affects things.

 

[tom386]

Yesterday I backslid a little bit due to looking at some porn at work. I was thinking "why was it today that my resolve slipped?" Well, yesterday was also the first day in the last two weeks that I didn't orgasm the night before, even though my wife and I did have sex. We were both just too tired at that late hour to finish the deed. I think the lack of orgasm made me just that little bit hornier to push me over the edge to looking at porn at work.

When I got home, I was hornier than usual as well, so I decided to masturbate. I didn't look at any porn, and fantasized only about my wife. Usually this would make for a great session, but I just felt empty and bad afterwards, similar to if I had looked at porn. Perhaps the last two weeks without masturbating has caused this to occur. I don't think it's a bad thing, actually, just different. Regardless, it wasn't a positive experience and I don't think I'll be repeating it soon, even though I wasn't previously trying to refrain from it.

So I guess I'm on the "no masturbation" bandwagon as well now.

 

[tom386]

The weekend went normally, I didn't look at any porn at all. I now know that the temptation is greatest when I have not orgasmed from sex in the last day (orgasming through masturbation just doesn't do anything to relieve my temptation at all, and generally feels unfulfilling now). So I will keep that in mind and stay vigilant on those days in which this condition is true (today being one of them). Hopefully this foresight as to which days will be the hardest will make tackling them that much easier.

 

[tom386]

As usual the weekend went well, and I am now at a sub-30% porn rate in the last 60 days, which I am very proud of! The rule which I discovered of when I am susceptible to urges is generally holding true, so this seems like a good way to measure which days will require more effort in advance. Luckily, today isn't one of those days, but I will stay vigilant anyway!

 

[tom386]

Things have been going very well recently. My wife and I have kept up our "sex every night" policy even if both of us are tired. We both feel like it helps us feel closer, and personally it drastically lowers my want to look at P.

I haven't looked at P at work in at least the last week, and it's been 7 days since I last looked at P at all. Currently I'm at 21.67% in the last 60 days, and looking forward to it dramatically lowering tomorrow when a slipup 60 days ago falls out of the data set.

This is the lowest my porn usage has been since I reached puberty. I can't even imagine only looking at porn on average once every 5 days half a year ago, I don't think myself then would believe how well I've done now.

Most days I don't think about porn at all, it's definitely not the struggle it used to be, I think in large part to our increased sexual activity, which decreases the loneliness I feel during the day.

I'll see you all in the next few days with another update! Stay strong!

 

[tom386]

Things have been going really well still. The sex every night thing is still working well. I am now down to having looked at porn only 8 times in the last two months, which is less than once a week. I feel very proud of that and I feel like I'm making great progress in the process of stopping it for good.

 

[Username]

I'm aware that it's a very personal question, but that approach really interests me. Once I'm reunited I might like to introduce that "sex every day" thing myself in order to really bond again. Have you never experienced a day when one of you wasn't that motivated? Has your mutual performance (I still don't approve of this term, but you know what I'm referring to) improved significantly?

 

[tom386]

We have both experienced days where either of us or both of us are not that motivated, but we try our best to consistently do the deed anyway. In terms of performance, it has made her want sex more than normal, which is good for both of us.

In other news, things are going great. I'm at an average of once every 7.5 days over the last two months, which is a lot better than I have ever done, ever! I can't believe that only a few months ago I was doing it every day. It seems like a bad dream, but there it is. I have noticed my want for it has decreased significantly, even on days where my wife and I didn't have sex the night before.