My "investment" plan

ddaamm

Member
Hi everybody,

first of all please forgive me for any mistake I will make writing here.. English is not my mother tongue as you have probably already noticed.

Directly to the point: I think of this as an investmen plan. I need to stick to this path strictly and being disciplined every day, otherwise I won't get any benefit..

Many times I tried, but this time for the first time I decided to involve my gf in it (she already knew of my addiction): she knows that I started this mission, she has been told that I need her to ask me about how it goes, if not every day at least every couple of them, and I set milestones with prizes to share with her if reached.

The mission already started, the 25th of June. First milestone reached, yesterday, 7 days.. sushi for prize :)

Every day I commit myself to look at the ipad, where I keep track of this journey, in the morning, when I get to the office (that is the place where I usually collapse, almost never at home luckily). I also take notes about if I had urges during the day, if I had sex or "cuddles" with my gf, even if I had sex-themed dreams, like tonight happened.

The first week went on too easily to be true.. next milestone: 15 days --> icecream by the lake the prize.

I hope sharing this will help me to be strong even more and that it could be helpful for some of you.. I give a lot of importance to the fact that I involved my gf in the path...

Let's see ...

have a nice day everyone!

D
 

AJM

Active Member
Welcome Dam .
Hope you get all the support and feedback from this forum.
stay strong, Day 8 is great.
 

yogi

Active Member
Welcome bro!

Keep posting regularly. Good job getting to day 8.
I would suggest going hardmode (including not having sex with your girlfriend) for a few weeks till your recovery is on track.
 
I don't like the term hard mode actually. It implies that it the most severe so it's natural to fail. Actually hard mode would be watching and not touching, because that will lead right back to relapse.

Instead of hard mode, I would call it the only mode that works...
 

ddaamm

Member
Hi Ajinkya, yogi and Striving_for_Life!

Thank you for your replies.

A quick update: day 12 here. Had some busy days so not a lot of temptations. I usually get tempted when I am stressed at work and in these days I worked in a focus and productive way so I did not look for "comfort zone" that you understand what I mean. I am not doing the "hardmode" but thank you for the advice.

Have a nice day
 

ddaamm

Member
Day 18

I am not doing something special in particular. If something, I would say that I am avoiding looking at pictures or video with girls on instagram, as I identified this as a trigger.

Enjoying the streak and being grateful every day, spending some minutes before start working in the morning contemplating the diary where I keep track of the days of the streak adding up: this give me confidence and focus to stay strong and follow on.

Also the system of "milestones" that I have in mind seems to be working: 15 days milestone reached, now a longer trip to the next.. 30 days. Dinner out in a nice restaurant with my gf as a prize..

Have a nice day
 

ddaamm

Member
day 25

I want to say to everyone who is struggling that I am experiencing urges, but the thing that made me start this journey never showed in 25 days: I am talking about some heavy downfall in my feelings, sort of short term depression.. I have somewhat realized that that very bad mood came everytime I looked at porn and when I realizes this connection I immediately started and found the strenght to resist to the urges.. and I am positively surprised that in these 25 days this bad mood never happened. I hope to continue this way.

Have a nice day
 

Wolfman

Active Member
Hi ddaamm,

Great stuff! But when negative feelings come, let those negative feelings come. Porn addiction has a tendency to mute our ability to feel our real feelings, because we're always too quick with silencing them with intense dopamine and orgasm. Let yourself feel depression, or bored, or not-feeling; whatever it is, it is part of you and they add shades to your nature as a complex human being.

Your reward-system sounds like a good strategy! I wish you plenty of strength and success!
 

ddaamm

Member
day 31

after one month I can start to believe that there must be a correlation between watching porn and the feeling of depression - and all the negative ripercussion that this brings on work, social relations etc..

In these 31 days I never experienced that feeling..

31 days ago my brain realized that there could be this relation.. the same day I quit watching porn and it has been relatively easy till now staying away from it.
 

ddaamm

Member
day 40

everything's fine till now. I still can't believe that all of a sudden something has happened in my brain.. I don't feel urges and did not feel a lot of them during these 40 days.. Most important of all, never experienced deep bad mood even if I have been through a stressful working week.
 

yogi

Active Member
day 40

everything's fine till now. I still can't believe that all of a sudden something has happened in my brain.. I don't feel urges and did not feel a lot of them during these 40 days.. Most important of all, never experienced deep bad mood even if I have been through a stressful working week.
Stressful work yet no bad mood is exactly the rebalancing we are looking for. That is the major part of recovery.
 

ddaamm

Member
thanks yogi for your reply.

I totally agree with you: we relapse when we need comfort, looking for it in the wrong direction.
Realizing that the source of my bad mood could be PMO and not stressful work is having a huge impact on me in two ways: I am enjoying stressful work and I am not relapsing again.

Seems incredible to me... day 46!
 

ddaamm

Member
G'day everyone!

day 63

Please everybody stick to the plan! find your way to motivate yourself and something magic will happen..

63 with no P at all .. I don't know what made the "click" but I gradually got rid of a lot of not productive things in my life and replaced them with others which probably make the magic happen.. for example, not whatching tv series before bed, but going to bed 1 hour earlier, waking up 1 hour earlier and run or bike in the morning before the office.. exit almost completely Instagram (most of my fapping started from seeing hot pictures in instagram and then going to P site)...

The most important thing: every "healthy" aspect of my life improved: self confidence, motivation, work productivity, sex life with GF, relationship with relatives...

just find a way guys!!
 
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