Man_in_30s_trying_to_quit_from_last_10years

Day 10 and I must say it’s a rough patch I am going through barely managing without relapsing but urges are strong and I am diverting my mind and actions to the best I can and closing the day to sleep and wake up . Not sure how long this will last . I will keep pushing
Shift your perspective and tell yourself "I WILL conquer today". Its gonna be hard but its not impossible and the end will be so worth it.

Stop the cycle! We are all in the same pit friend
 

GeminiMan

Well-Known Member
Day 10 I relapsed . It was end of the hope to break this cycle .

I am restarting my quest for pure sobriety again from today .
I am on day 1 now .
I got to get it this time !! Time is running out
 

Wonder

Member
I tried few apps for phone but not sure which one is best for iPhone . Please give me all the info to install and configure safely on apple iphone
I can help only android aplication i use this device. Sorry . But try to fiind any porn blockker aplication with deleting proctection ! or deactivation! and use timer from deactivation . Set the timer min 24 h!
 

GeminiMan

Well-Known Member
I could last 5 days 100% sober in my last try.

Started edging on 26 nov which went until 28th night on and off fighting the urges with momentary relapses and then a big relapse on 28th .that’s where it ended .

I am Starting new today day 1

It was strange that even in the middle of the relapsing moments I could see the big picture of the pattern that I am into for so long now in my life … like … go few days clean then relapse and again and again the cycle repeats … and I thought to myself … “here I go again another relapse cycle .. it felt like I had control over the situation but still I felt like I had zero control over myself to stop myself from accessing explicit content to relapse “ . I think I cheat myself in that very moment when urges are raging , time and time again convincing myself to play powerless so i could relapse , because fighting for self control and sobriety seems so hard and painful at the moment in the face of unlimited pleasure that a relapse could give me . But the amount of pain and disgust and shame I go through after relapse is what I should focus on … to steer clear of danger and make right choices at the right moment .

I want to do something different this time to see if it works . I am sure I will go on a few days this time too very clean and sober say 5,6,7,8 days and then urges kick in .. that’s when I need to hold myself and that’s I need to manage my urges and keep them somehow in check and move on to longer periods of sobriety this time . Allowing myself to heal and improve my odds .


I will give my everything this time to go sober for a long time .

good luck to everyone
Man in 30s
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
I feel you, man. I struggle with a similar problem. When urges hit hard, I only see the pleasure. As you say, this pleasure, in that moment, is promised as infinity but it's not, it goes away, after edging for a while, I see myself saying: "Why the fuck did I start this shit in the first place because now I feel empty, there is no more fuckin pleasure." Keeping in mind the regret/shame/disgust etc. that I feel after a relapse has never worked for me for some reason, I don't know. I don't even get long streaks. The only longer streaks that I got came in periods of time where I pushed myself to the limits through the urges and the unbearable fuckin craving for porn, until I couldn't take it anymore and relapsed. Honestly, I don't know what the fuck to do anymore.
 

GeminiMan

Well-Known Member
Shift your perspective and tell yourself "I WILL conquer today". Its gonna be hard but its not impossible and the end will be so worth it.

Stop the cycle! We are all in the same pit friend
@pornfreeodyssey — I hear you.“Shifting my perspective “… is what I have not been able to do in my life when it matters . I day dream sometimes sitting on my couch … of being able to live sober and also of a life where I have 0 urges and a pure sober normal life going on .

I play this puppet when it’s time to manage the urges like puppets . Instead the mind raging with urges plays puppet with me and indulges me to access explicit content and resulting in relapses , time and time again . All I could do is keep trying at this point in my life . One of my acquaintances died last month because of an accident . I heard of his death and since he was younger than me by couple years I thought … “ look at him he is dead … may his soul Rest In Peace , I pray … but … if I were him I would have died while I was suffering from sex addiction and trying to reboot and heal . It gave me a hope to think that I am still alive … still fighting… and there is still a chance that I could live life the way I want and not the way the addicted mind wants . That was an aha! Moment for sure . So while we are all enjoying the gift of living Let’s continue to improve and heal and reboot no matter how many times we fail . Because trying and fighting is what defines us and it is what will brighten the future for us .

Good luck to everyone trying to live sober .
Man in 30s
 

GeminiMan

Well-Known Member
I feel you, man. I struggle with a similar problem. When urges hit hard, I only see the pleasure. As you say, this pleasure, in that moment, is promised as infinity but it's not, it goes away, after edging for a while, I see myself saying: "Why the fuck did I start this shit in the first place because now I feel empty, there is no more fuckin pleasure." Keeping in mind the regret/shame/disgust etc. that I feel after a relapse has never worked for me for some reason, I don't know. I don't even get long streaks. The only longer streaks that I got came in periods of time where I pushed myself to the limits through the urges and the unbearable fuckin craving for porn, until I couldn't take it anymore and relapsed. Honestly, I don't know what the fuck to do anymore.
@Escapeandnevercomeback - I can feel you. It feels hopeless to me too sometimes after relapses . I felt hopeless today .
But we can’t let the addiction have its way by totally stopping our efforts to heal . Only thing we can do is to keep trying in different ways , over and over again even after a million relapses we should keep trying no matter what ! Because all that effort we put is being counted in favour of us . I saw in a scientific documentary they show in it that for some of us humans the pre-frontal cortex develops only so much untill we get well into our lives may be into late 50s-60s . I am not saying that we should allow ourselves to relapse untill we are into dawn of our lives . But .. we need to keep trying to find that version of ourselves somewhere soon in our lifetime which looks like who we truly want to be and at the same time find that purpose quickly in our life that can help us focus all our energies into something we find enchanting and engaging and positive for ourselves and using it to reduce gradually and then finally eliminating any resources including our mind/thoughts/time/energy that gets hacked into addiction or compulsive behaviors time and time again .in other words breaking that unwanted urge/pleasure/relapse/regret cycles .

I have found a few fun things to do in my life that keep me away from PMO and happy and engaged . But yet , I still have those mental tendencies to tune into immoral pleasure seeking behaviors that needs to be erased completely off my mind and life . It will take a while In this path I guess .but let us keep trying .

so .. to summarize let’s keep finding that something positive we love to do that can help us keep engaged in life and at the same time continue to train and evolve our mind/the pre-frontal cortex and discipline loving peaceful self of ours to lead our days/nights and life towards a positive life full of peace and positive habits and devoid of addictive behaviors.

all this is easier said than done !
let us start doing it before we get thrown into PMO behaviors next time !

Man in 30s
 

GeminiMan

Well-Known Member
I could stay 5 days sober in my last try . I had an urge last night I slipped into chat rooms and then I was able to hold myself out of it and put myself to sleep . Morning I woke up and urges were still active so I slipped into chat rooms again and in my mind constant alerts were pounding that I am not supposed to do this . I stopped myself and got out of there .
3rd time in afternoon I found myself alone as my kids were sleeping and wife out of house for shopping and then I slipped into chat rooms again . My mind was chattering that I should hold myself this time and not allow myself a second to access explicit materials . I could not/did not stop myself at that moment and before I know there I was with glue in my hand feeling disgust about myself and followed by 3 hours or feelings of disgust and shame and helplessness as I tried to forget it all by taking a nap .
Here I am journaling it all .

Day 1 tomorrow and this time I want to make it big streak .
 

GeminiMan

Well-Known Member
I stayed 7 days "sober" this time and then I succumbed to chat rooms and followed by PMO last night. I will keep my pursuit for a long streak of "sobreity" on . today is day 0 . I will be starting over day 1 from tomorrow.

I am seeing that even though I set up porn blockers on my phone and lost the password and even though this time I blocked known websites on router and lost router password , still I found myself last night trying to bypass those router rules by trying ways around it and I could find a loop hole that lead me to the same chatroom to which I have relapsed in the past many times. This time I had a router rule blocking it so I found a way around it and came to the same place bypassing the blockers. This proves to me that Router rules and phone blockers are needed but not the ultimate means to a successful reboot. They surely assist in reboot process but not by themselves completely.

Atleast now I am self aware that technological ways can certainly assist and are needed for me to reboot successfully but I also have to be super vigilant not to allow myself to find ways around the safeguards I put in place for my own safety and well being.

Day 1 tomorrow. This time I want to focus on "other" things that keep me engaged and occupied in positive things and try and make the "sobriety" streak longer with self discipline.
 

GeminiMan

Well-Known Member
again .. I could last 7 days "sober" this time and I succumbed to chat rooms and then MO'ed to milder versions of explicit content. I certainly don't think it is a big progress but it felt like I was away for ages. when I relapsed today its then I am realizing that it had been just 7 days .

I have some access safeguards installed now like my phone is access controlled with a PIN i don't know and my internet router is set up with P blocker rules and they all are still working and in place. I succumbed to chat rooms today and some explicit images which gets shows on search engines which are again milder version of P but it was enough to cause a relapse for me . I guess I should keep myself away from these as well if I want to stay truely sober.

Day 1 tomorrow .try again is the way to go.
 

GeminiMan

Well-Known Member
Here I am on 7th day again .

I was again lonely after a long time and then I spent sometime on chat rooms today and then I decided to keep myself out of there for rest of the day . And then I got urges raging again and turned into browsing some P but soon I lost interest. (P is not at all my trigger it’s actually chat rooms so) . Then I switched to mild YouTube Vedio s which were not P but mild explicit content and I said to myself “I’ve got to do something else not this” and finally I went to sleep and logged onto reboot nation and writing now . I guess it’s a relentless course correction rather than a white and black reboot that is going on here with me . I will keep correcting my thoughts and actions in 2022 no matter what.

this type of relentless course correction and for forbid some pitfalls here and there may not make me a reboot success hero in 2022 , but at-least it will keep me get there some day as long as I keep correcting myself .

Happy New Year to you all. Let us learn from last years mistakes and improve our reboot journeys here in 2022 .

Cheers
MI30S
 

GeminiMan

Well-Known Member
Day 7 was a difficult one . I kept resisting the urge to go to chat rooms after feeling the initial urge and some peeks . And then at the night it was a battle inside my mind in which I was feeling like an “underdog fighting a heavy hitter” which was eventually won by addiction and I ended up O ing and followed by feelings of hopelessness, shame and guilt/regret .

last 6 days I was completely abstinent and then day 7 end again it’s a relapse .

I am doubting my true intentions sometime .
am I kidding myself or am I truly addicted or if it is a combination of both . I don’t know for sure .

but the fact that I am going
0…7 -> 0…7 -> 0….7
tells me that I am unable to break trough that zone and stay sober for longer periods with my current environment and life situations.

I will continue to work towards getting into longer or if I am able to ease into everlasting sobriety streaks something that would look like
0….200 -> 0….300 -> 0…400 -> 0…600
and so on .

It is day 1 today again . A place I didn’t want to return to but I am here now and I have to make some changes to my environment and life for sure to go far this time .

Cheers
MI30S
 

logicprox

Well-Known Member
Have you thought about what you are doing leading up to the urges to go to chat rooms? It sounds like you may need to really evaluate where the urges come from and build a structure around that to avoid the urges altogether.

For me, for instance, most of my urges come in 1 of 4 situations:

1. Playing on my phone, in particular social media, but can be anything
2. Sitting around watching tv/movies/youtube by myself
3. Laying in bed trying to fall asleep
4. Drunk.

To solve for 1 and 2, I have gone on a full 7 day detox where I am engaging with 0 media entertainment and 0 social media (other than this). For 3 I googled things to think of to fall asleep and have been trying those instead of turning to sexual fantasy to relax for sleep. For the 4th I have cut out alcohol. It's been so nice so far, that I am going to keep it going past the 7 days. I may allow myself a little alcohol with friends after the 7 days, but am going to hold it to an amount where I don't get drunk.

Surprisingly, I haven't missed the media I have cut out. It honestly feels way better to not sit around watching things but to engage in the real world and feel productive instead,

The other thing I might suggest you consider, is what else you want in your life, besides to not use porn. Instead of focusing so much on not using porn, maybe focus on planning out and taking concrete actions to get what you want out of life. Since I haven't been wasting time on media, I have finally started learning some coding to work on a project with friends, finally done some organizing around my home I have been putting off for a year and started furnishing my place, been reading a gigantic book on learning technical analysis for trading stocks and crypto, and working on creating a Udemy course to bring in some passive income.

I think identifying urge generators and productive things to focus on instead can go a long way.
 

GeminiMan

Well-Known Member
Have you thought about what you are doing leading up to the urges to go to chat rooms? It sounds like you may need to really evaluate where the urges come from and build a structure around that to avoid the urges altogether.

For me, for instance, most of my urges come in 1 of 4 situations:

1. Playing on my phone, in particular social media, but can be anything
2. Sitting around watching tv/movies/youtube by myself
3. Laying in bed trying to fall asleep
4. Drunk.

To solve for 1 and 2, I have gone on a full 7 day detox where I am engaging with 0 media entertainment and 0 social media (other than this). For 3 I googled things to think of to fall asleep and have been trying those instead of turning to sexual fantasy to relax for sleep. For the 4th I have cut out alcohol. It's been so nice so far, that I am going to keep it going past the 7 days. I may allow myself a little alcohol with friends after the 7 days, but am going to hold it to an amount where I don't get drunk.

Surprisingly, I haven't missed the media I have cut out. It honestly feels way better to not sit around watching things but to engage in the real world and feel productive instead,

The other thing I might suggest you consider, is what else you want in your life, besides to not use porn. Instead of focusing so much on not using porn, maybe focus on planning out and taking concrete actions to get what you want out of life. Since I haven't been wasting time on media, I have finally started learning some coding to work on a project with friends, finally done some organizing around my home I have been putting off for a year and started furnishing my place, been reading a gigantic book on learning technical analysis for trading stocks and crypto, and working on creating a Udemy course to bring in some passive income.

I think identifying urge generators and productive things to focus on instead can go a long way.
Thanks for your advice @logicprox . So for me if I think of the lead upto the day 7 or the day of relapse these things usually happen in a sequence-

1. I would have abstained from all forms of P and sex . I would have abstained completely from even thinking or recalling or actually having sex with wife .
2. I would have typically over eaten the day or the day before relapse a lot of junk food .
3. I would have put myself in a lonely environment that even with actually there is work that needs to be done as part of my job but there are feelings looming in my mind due to various and random reasons like boredom or loneliness or disinterest in what I am suppose to get done or hatred/envy towards someone or something that makes me seek out relief or pleasure via explicit materials on phone .
4. Lonely moments after running clean streak of 5-8 days in which thoughts of previous euphoric moments that resulted due to indulgence in explicit content .
5. I am nowadays not at all sexually active in real life marriage .

so what I think I should do -
1. I don’t have to do anything about 1.
2. I have been trying to get myself disciplined in eating but I am not there yet so 2. Is under works
3. I can think of working on mindfulness or guided meditations For solving 3.
4. again for 4. I need to deliberately keep thoughts of previous euphoric recalls out of my mind somehow with practice and perseverance.
5. I could either start improving my real life intimacy with my partner or wait until I heal from chat room addictions.

so In summary here’s what I should do to heal myself of this addiction-
1. Get super disciplined in eating habits .
2. Practice guided meditations to keep negative feelings or thoughts under check .
3. deliberately put out thoughts of P or chat rooms that arise in mind while I am making clean streak days progress .
4. improve my intimacy With my real life partner (this will the tough one for now)

I believe if I do 1.2 and 3 consistently 4 should fall into place gradually all by itself In a few months .

sounds like a plan . Not so easy to actually do it but I have to if I want to be happy and content .

MI30S
 
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