Unfortunately after the relapse you always feel so we all know it is a reaction of the brain now the first days especially are hard in any case you also noticed that you felt better and this must give you the strength to react at least you know which is the way right and you have to make sacrifices to succeed but you can do it don't give up I don't know if a therapist can help you but it could be an option in your case don't be ashamed this is a modern evil that affects millions of people
I need to up my game.
- Thread starter Escapeandnevercomeback
- Start date
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
Day 0
Relapse x 4
Relapse x 4
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
December 13 2021
Day 2
I PMOed 5 times in 2 days plus a little too much edging. The day before, I had started to feel the unbearable craving and the sexual frustration and I felt that I was on the track that was going to lead to the relapse. I tried to avoid it but it didn't work. As per usual, the idea of the "least damaging behavior" started to look like a great idea that would not break me. The memory of the post-binging misery was distant and could not shake me, the thought of feeling better mentally and physically after 11 days of hard mode didn't motivate me at all, nothing mattered anymore in that moment, the thought that I didn't want to lose 11 days, go back to day 1 and have to painfully wait 11 days again meant nothing to me, the urges made everything go away, I only saw the pleasure. Therefore, as per usual, I began masturbating while playing porn fantasies in my head (the least damaging behavior, MO had replaced this a couple of times but then my brain refused the little stimulation of MO), which eventually leads to a lot more. After doing this for a while, the high dissipated and I regretted having started in the first place. I felt that my streak was ruined. But I told to myself that I would stop there and not escalate. I tried to soothe myself that not everything was lost, that it only did a little damage, that I could continue my streak without problems, but I got depressed and angry and I turned everything into a big drama. I didn't resist for too long and I started edging to pictures, edging to porn flashbacks and fantasies and I Oed.
The next day I could not control the chaser effect, watched some porn then edged to pictures and proceeded to Oing 4 times to porn flashbacks and fantasies.
After the first PMO on the second day, I was absolutely fuming. I was mad at myself, I hated myself. I didn't want to come here anymore out of embarrassment. I was embarrassed that that was all I could do.
Now I can make an observation: I have a black and white mentality. I think because of my OCD and perfectionism, I want my streak to be perfect so any small amount that includes the behaviors I want to avoid (porn, PMO and MO) make me feel like my streak is ruined and now I'm back to day 0. This is not a good behavior for me, it won't lead me anywhere.
I wanted to give up this month and start again in January next year. I am really depressed about my small progress. Since summer I've been back to my "same old". The same type of small streaks, the same type of behavior, relapsing in the same way etc. I don't like this at all. This is the true definition of a "Relapse". I don't know how to control my craving for porn pleasure, coming out of a very obsessive, strong sexual frustration.
Day 2
I PMOed 5 times in 2 days plus a little too much edging. The day before, I had started to feel the unbearable craving and the sexual frustration and I felt that I was on the track that was going to lead to the relapse. I tried to avoid it but it didn't work. As per usual, the idea of the "least damaging behavior" started to look like a great idea that would not break me. The memory of the post-binging misery was distant and could not shake me, the thought of feeling better mentally and physically after 11 days of hard mode didn't motivate me at all, nothing mattered anymore in that moment, the thought that I didn't want to lose 11 days, go back to day 1 and have to painfully wait 11 days again meant nothing to me, the urges made everything go away, I only saw the pleasure. Therefore, as per usual, I began masturbating while playing porn fantasies in my head (the least damaging behavior, MO had replaced this a couple of times but then my brain refused the little stimulation of MO), which eventually leads to a lot more. After doing this for a while, the high dissipated and I regretted having started in the first place. I felt that my streak was ruined. But I told to myself that I would stop there and not escalate. I tried to soothe myself that not everything was lost, that it only did a little damage, that I could continue my streak without problems, but I got depressed and angry and I turned everything into a big drama. I didn't resist for too long and I started edging to pictures, edging to porn flashbacks and fantasies and I Oed.
The next day I could not control the chaser effect, watched some porn then edged to pictures and proceeded to Oing 4 times to porn flashbacks and fantasies.
After the first PMO on the second day, I was absolutely fuming. I was mad at myself, I hated myself. I didn't want to come here anymore out of embarrassment. I was embarrassed that that was all I could do.
Now I can make an observation: I have a black and white mentality. I think because of my OCD and perfectionism, I want my streak to be perfect so any small amount that includes the behaviors I want to avoid (porn, PMO and MO) make me feel like my streak is ruined and now I'm back to day 0. This is not a good behavior for me, it won't lead me anywhere.
I wanted to give up this month and start again in January next year. I am really depressed about my small progress. Since summer I've been back to my "same old". The same type of small streaks, the same type of behavior, relapsing in the same way etc. I don't like this at all. This is the true definition of a "Relapse". I don't know how to control my craving for porn pleasure, coming out of a very obsessive, strong sexual frustration.
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@Escapeandnevercomeback I can relate to this buddy . I have not been able to go farther than 11-12 days this year without PMO and chat rooms . I have set up router rules to block all sites that I usually access but I know the password for the router . It’s like I have the keys to the sin room.
see if you can change up your environment. That seemed to have worked for me in the past . Like for example changing diet , changing where you sit for work everyday . You need to change up things and try with renewed commitment.
Be forgiving on yourself too that’s very important. It’s ok we are going to get this but one step at a time . Next time you feel like you are doing good and mind is trying to knock you down please think what else , what can I do to not let myself down this rabit hole now again and then do what seems most appropriate to salvage the reboot journey . I know those moments when you’re thinking like “it’s probably okay to just take a little peek now cos I have made it 10 days now” . That’s when we are being very vulnerable and that’s the time to renew the commitment to full sobriety. Somehow anyhow. Untill we do that , we are gonna be in this vulnerable vicious cycle .
so let’s renew our commitment and reinforce it time and time again until we break our limits and see beyond and realize what’s possible .
I am day 1 today and this time I will look for ways to avoid vulnerable thoughts as I try to make progress .
good effort buddy . Keep at it . We will win
MI30s
see if you can change up your environment. That seemed to have worked for me in the past . Like for example changing diet , changing where you sit for work everyday . You need to change up things and try with renewed commitment.
Be forgiving on yourself too that’s very important. It’s ok we are going to get this but one step at a time . Next time you feel like you are doing good and mind is trying to knock you down please think what else , what can I do to not let myself down this rabit hole now again and then do what seems most appropriate to salvage the reboot journey . I know those moments when you’re thinking like “it’s probably okay to just take a little peek now cos I have made it 10 days now” . That’s when we are being very vulnerable and that’s the time to renew the commitment to full sobriety. Somehow anyhow. Untill we do that , we are gonna be in this vulnerable vicious cycle .
so let’s renew our commitment and reinforce it time and time again until we break our limits and see beyond and realize what’s possible .
I am day 1 today and this time I will look for ways to avoid vulnerable thoughts as I try to make progress .
good effort buddy . Keep at it . We will win
MI30s
EarthWalker
Respected Member
fwiw: I think that doing consistent 10 day something streaks is an achievement non-the-less. Obviously not ideal. But in my lensing we put to much pressure on ourselves with expectations. As I am learning about healing and holding space for myself. Healing is all about being able to allow ourselves to relax, let go, soften. I noticed I used to put a lot of pressure on myself when I relapsed. I find this now counter productive.
It is not easy for anyone, relapses are always lurking and you need to have strong willpower to keep them at bay I am 39 years old and maybe I have some for that too but I risked myself last week with edging then I forced myself not to ruining all the sacrifices made and thanks to my willpower I stopped before relapsing tomorrow will be 30 days and I am very happy with this even if it bothers me that I did edging the other day. Guys don't give up it's not easy but while you are about to have relapses think about how you will feel afterwards and stop for a moment even just 5 minutes with the timer to reflect and your head and your soul will make you stop..stay strong guys
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
Hey, man, thanks for the support.
I know what you're talking about. About the password, maybe you could ask someone else to choose a password and never tell you?
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
But it's not enough for me. 10 days was a big achievement back in the days when my best was 4 days but I got stuck here. I've been stagnating too much. It is around day 7, 8 or 9 that things start getting difficult and I usually relapse or I suffer with the craving and the urges and fail by day 10-11. It's the same circle that I walk. And I need more than this. I haven't made it to more than 11 days in a while. Since summer I've been constantly failing.
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
I have this type of black and white, all or nothing mentality and an episode of edging is enough to throw me off. It's good that you have been able to continue after the edging episode. In reality, if we have a small episode it doesn't kill the entire streak. Only if we edged for 5 hours and PMOed 5 times until 11 PM or something like that, this is an example of something I would do.
EarthWalker
Respected Member
Well I think even just staying at 7-9 day cycle is something you can be proud of. The alternative is PMOing every day. So PMOing every 7-9 day is almost a 10 fold improvement. But imho the key is not to put pressure on yourself. We are our own worst enemy when we judge ourselves too harshly. yes, we need some reality check, but at the same time, what heals is being able to relax and let go, be kind to ourselves and forgive. Forgive yourself for not being where you want to be.
EW
EW
I can totally relate to this, Escape. As a perfectionist, it's typically important for me to not do X, Y, or Z, and if any of those do occur, I feel that I'm not doing a 'clean reboot' or recovery. But you're right, this is black-and-white thinking, also called 'all-or-nothing'.
I've gotten a lot better about this over time and learning.
This is why I've come to approach my own recovery in a way that goes for the win, no matter what it looks like. If I cross my red-lines (P, PMO, MO), I would typically reset to 0. But I would now treat p-subs and edging as 'lesser' (but related) issues, that a lapse is concerning, but not a reset. But again, I've been now tracking my red-line behaviors not as a full reset (if I saw P, but didn't PMO), then as definitely a concern, but not a full reset.
I don't know if any of that makes sense, and it can sound confusing. But it goes along the famous line said in the recovery community: Fake it until you make it.
We have to learn how to navigate our lapses to where, despite the obvious failure, we get whatever win we can out of it so we can go on with positivity and renewed focus. Even if I fall complete on my face today (PMO), I'll take a step back and say, "Well, at least out of the last 30 days, I've only lapsed 5x, for an example.
Like yourself, I want a perfect streak- even now. And I think I get closer to that, but I'll be damned if I'll let a small (or big) struggle with p-subs or edging ruin it for me. So, I relate it with the overall battle, but I compartmentalize it and celebrate if I didn't go so far as to MO, P, or PMO. The same if I've actually did one or the other of those, too.
Does this make sense?
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
Hey, man, thanks for support. It makes perfect sense. I actually like your multiple counters thing. I guess, for me, it also depends how much something like that lasts. If we're talking about edging for 6 hours, I don't think this is a small slip anymore. What we want is to limit our mistakes to as few minutes as possible, preferably to catch ourselves and stop. I know it's difficult, because once the dopamine starts, you get that nagging chaser effect, but it's very important to limit our slips. I haven't really been able to make this work. Once I start, I usually end up binging, which resets all the counters anyway. I guess what we want is consistent time away from porn with (if they happen), very few minutes of watching or edging.
You're welcome. This is related to winning the battle in your mind before it's won on the ground, if that makes sense. For many of us back in the day, seeing a girl on a bill board was all it took to go into our full cycle. But when we can say to ourself, "Yeah, I saw that, but I'm not going to judge that as a failure, even if I ogled it for a while." Yeah, it should cause concern, but at least I didn't fire up my browser, etc, etc, as an example.
You're right, a lengthy edging session for me could cause MO, and perhaps advance soon to PMO. So, I want to get on top of that, how can I change that behavior? How am I feeding that behavior or habit? But during what were 157 day streak (still counting as not PMO'ing), I struggled with p-subs and edging on and off for a while, it even became its own habit! But I managed to treat it separately, and not a full on lapse to P, PMO, MO.
Eventually MO did occur (2x), and P occurred when my wife went out of town... and yet somehow I had the self-control to not turn that into a full on PMO session, or multiple of them. How? These habits and behaviors do change over time, how they affect us, what they mean when we do lapse. The thought coming to me now is 'gradation', like I'm dealing with these things in a graded or gradational sense or by degrees of severity...
I wish I could up load this diagram I have (pic is too big), but it illustrates the black-or-white thinking versus what we're really after, 'control'. The question is, Can I come back into control? And the more power we take back from this addiction, we prove that we can. This comes back to winning the battle first in our mind.
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
I agree that this addiction is psychological first, it's in the mind. That is where we need to start. That's what Easy Peasy method talks about: the brainwashing. It happens in the head. Porn enters deep in the mind and rearranges things in there, it makes us believe very strongly that porn is very important for our lives. What we need to start with is going back in there and rearranging things back into believing that porn is not necessary for us to live our lives.
I give an example of what happened to me with edging I think it was a winning battle in the end because if I went to PMO now I would be depressed again and with a blurred mind like I had before it still hurt me to do it but in a way it made me stronger because I saw that I can control myself it was an important turning point for my self-control. With this I agree that the victory goes through some defeats but every day passed without PMO strengthens us the series of 90 days sooner or later comes also I have a long way to go but I have more faith in myself now and I feel more strong. Then I repeat when I see the improvements I have acquired with the NOFAP my conviction always grows and defeats the urges there are also interesting instagram pages dedicated to NOFAP from which to draw inspiration
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
Good, man. It's good that you regained the control and didn't go all the way. I need to find a way to do this too.
And a big part of that brain washing (though I've not read that book), is in Porn being so magnified in our mind, as if it was this giant dragon, or this irresistible siren or Medusa-like being, that if we get one glance of it, we're turned to stone!
Think about it, we speak about it here on RN with codes like "P, PMO, MO" as if to name it is going to 'trigger' someone. And if it does, it's only because in THEIR mind, it's this evil demon that shall not be named. Grant it, for practical reasons, if my wife read through my journal (here or my hard journal), I do use (mostly) P, PMO, ETC, because it protects me. But, I don't mind calling it what it is: pornography, masturbation, and whatever.
The War on Drugs' campaign: D.A.R.E. to Keep Kids Off Drugs was a big failure. Why? Because it taught teenagers that "drugs" was such a huge and insurmountable problem, we had to "dare..." to keep kids off of it...
In America, the hyper-moralization against drinking, prostitution and "smut" as driven by legalistic (and self-righteous) Christians down through the decades only pushed these behaviors deeper into the shadows of secrecy, and the backlash was an even worse immorality down the line.
Question: why is an English pub no big deal in England without this American stigma? Because they never demonized it over there.
Yes, there's right and wrong- and we all know why we're here, but only grace and non-judgmental understanding can overcome these things, whereas black-and-white legalism only make them worse.
@Phineas 808 well said about demonizing . Many cultures around the world have demonized immoral sex (P, MO, PMO) and I think demonizing worked at some time in the past when this addiction was hardly accessible to everyone. It should work even now if we are receptive to it and we can internalize it thoroughly . But we are not there yet ! Not so mature yet ! PMO Addiction is now available at our fingertips when ever and where ever we are to all people belonging to all cultures , theists or atheists regardless of their background or religion or geography this PMO addiction has put everyone at risk of addiction and pain equally .
I think that the super easy access has changed the game in favour of our enemy and we need to learn and come up with ways in which technology actually puts rebooters at advantage rather than putting the PMO addiction at an advantage.
but going by the “no access would have improved my addiction related issues“ approach I can recall a phase of my life , probably when I was 19-20 I was going to college and living in a dorm with no access to internet or computers but even back then I used to MO fantasizing something or someone I saw out there in public places . And there I was after those MO sessions feeling disgusted shameful and guilty .
I am now 36 and the feelings of shame, self disgust and guilt I have after a relapse nowadays edging to P or chat rooms is the same that used to experience back in the days .
so to speak , I think as we grow old the addictive behaviors change or the way we access them may change but it’s still the same feelings of guilt , shame and self disgust over and over again.
I think what does change as we grow old is how we develop coping mechanisms or our resistance and toughness to fight off this addiction and come on top of it or the lack of it!
so looking at my observations I had above I feel “sobriety” is a way of life . A religion in itself which we are all running towards because we are being chased by pain, grief , shame and self disgust that PMO has caused in our lives .
The way I’m which technology has put us the “rebooters” at an advantage is it has brought all of us together “in it” and we are all learning from each other and being encouraged and cheered by one another.
some of us may master the “sobriety” way of life we are all wishing for our selves before we are gone and some of us may die struggling to attain it , a few may drop out thinking it’s not possible for real . So let us all introspect which one of these we want to be ! in the end !
So let’s keep learning and Let’s keep sharing our experiences and transforming our minds , our inner self and push each other to finish line !
MI30S
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
I'll try something and if it works, I
That's right, you've explained it really well. I found myself thinking about my situation. I remember reading the book your brain on porn and thinking: "Oh my God, I'm finished!" I did not like at all to discover that I was an addict. The truth is actually that we are actually "lucky" to only be porn addicts (for those of us who only struggle with this, of course) because the withdrawal is not dangerous, it's not like Xanax where you can get seizures or even alcohol. There are some addictions where you probably need to be monitored because it's risky to quit cold turkey. It's not the case with porn, we can go cold turkey and nothing happens to us. It's more about psychological manifestations: craving, anxiety stuff like that, but they don't kill. The worse thing that could happen to me is death and this rebooting process won't kill me, I actually have nothing to be afraid of. It's true when you say that some of us see this porn addiction as that hard boss from video games, it's true for me, I tend to start the streak with this feeling of trying to climb Mount Everest in one go. Easy Peasy method says that we should start the rebooting with a feeling of already being free instead of feeling like climbing Mount Everest. Anything that could help you get an advantage over porn in your head, I suppose.
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
Yes, that's true. Without the Internet, we wouldn't be able to gather in one place and exchange experience and information. And also, be able to be anonymous, because opening up about this in person can be scary. I haven't told anybody yet in real life.
That's what scares me: That I could turn this rebooting process into a "Relapse/Restart" treadmill for life. That's why I think I've been kind of desperate lately to make it work. I'm 31 years old. When I was 28 I said that I didn't want to be a porn addict in my 30s. And here I am. I don't want to carry this with me in my 40s but it could happen just like that. Time flies very fast and then one day you wake up and say: "Holy shit! I'm 50 years old, bro!" Then you log in to Reboot Nation and write "Day 1 I can't do this shit nomo, man!" The idea of literally never being able to quit this is a reality that I want to change. But if I keep going in the same way, same routine, the same every year, starting with huge motivation at the beginning of the year, achieving a longer streak by summer, failing and then being exhausted mentally by the end of the year and "letting myself go" a little bit, I will very well "achieve" the great achievement of running the "Relapse/Restart" treadmill in my 50s.
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