I've been in recovery for a while..

Pra

Member
Thanks for that Wolfman, I'll reply to that properly tomorrow hopefully.

Haven't got much time right now, but wanted to keep up my habit of posting here every day.

A very busy day today doing various things, so I haven't had any chance to act out much at all, even if I wanted to, which I don't. I'm a bit annoyed at my mind the way it tempts me sometimes, then criticises me later for giving in to temptation lol. Plus it drives me to bad stuff by means of negative emotions sometimes. Anyway this is all very rushed so take it with a grain of salt.

More tomorrow! Have a good Friday everyone.
 

Pra

Member
I've slipped up on my habit of posting here every day, but haven't slipped up on recovery! So yeah, yesterday I would have posted here but my brother invited me over to his place to do something. Had a decent time and I didn't have to deal with "Saturday night" temptations that can sometimes happen. Sunday can be a challenge too but not today as I was busy with this and that also.

Nobody can know the future, but we can have certain attitudes towards it. We can be pessimistic, but what does that mean in our context of PMO recovery? That means that we won't ever recover and so we're fearful. I think PMO recovery and pessimism is a contradiction. We're here because we believe our future does not include PMO, and so we must be optimistic. But isn't a blind optimism, or just wishful thinking, it is a strength of faith in our powers today, tomorrow and every day to come that we will have the courage to stave this thing off and reform ourselves to become who we want to be. Again, nobody can know what will happen in the future, but it seems to me that the path of fear is excluded by us being here. We're already courageous, but what we need is to be more of what we already are, that is, more courage.

(We could be on PMO recovery out of fear, out of fear of ruining our life, but I don't think that's a good source of motivation in the long run. Fear is good in small bursts, not as a continuous, because that is terror. Continuous courage, on the other hand, I think is freedom.)

I'm definitely positive, in the courageous sense. And I think you are too, prasamaccus.

I'm a little different to the average person in some regards as I often have to deal with what's known as "a sense of a foreshortened future", fairly random mood swings and things of that nature. Probably most people deal with those things a little, but for me they're a frequent issue. There are upsides to these problems too, they're not all bad, but yeah. Complicated. But little by little I get better at managing my quirks.

Yeah I'm definitely not a person who is motivated by fear. I don't think it's a great source of motivation in general really, and certainly not for people like me where it's counter-productive, usually.

Thanks Wolfman, likewise.
 

Pra

Member
My mood has been much better today, thankfully. And I stayed clean.

Word for the day: "peace". How can we find peace in our lives? Maybe that's the best thing to aim for.
 

Pra

Member
I've been dealing with an unusual trigger but it's probably best not to talk about that kind of thing too much. It kind of resolved itself anyway, for now.

So a pretty okay day today, apart from the trigger, and being somewhat high-libido in general, and some tiredness at times. And a tad of social anxiety at one point.
 

zackergeet

Active Member
I've been dealing with an unusual trigger but it's probably best not to talk about that kind of thing too much. It kind of resolved itself anyway, for now.

So a pretty okay day today, apart from the trigger, and being somewhat high-libido in general, and some tiredness at times. And a tad of social anxiety at one point.
Good job with dealing your triggers man. Each time you do it you create the strength to say no to them every time they come up.
 

Pra

Member
I missed two days in a row lol. That is, I didn't post anything yesterday or the day before.

Still clean anyway. I've been fairly busy with stuff.

I discovered another very interesting book which I will probably talk more about soon enough. I've also been listening to a lot of podcast discussions about things like mindfulness and meditation in general. I don't currently meditate much except for the 54321 technique and a bit of walking meditation, things like that. I'll probably get back into doing sitting meditation soon. I do have to be a little careful with it because of my mood swing issues.
 

Pra

Member
Back again, still clean.

Not a particularly productive day as far as I can recall, but I did try lol.

Libido is pretty high at times, but urges do pass.

Hopefully a longer post tomorrow, or soon.
 

Phineas 808

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Libido is pretty high at times, but urges do pass.

Hi, prasamaccus! This right here is the 'golden key' to our exit strategy out of this addiction. Whatever behavior you have in mind to quit, if we can just simply 'let the urges pass' without responding to them (for or against), then we're on our way to changing our habit.
 

Escapeandnevercomeback

Respected Member
Hi, prasamaccus! This right here is the 'golden key' to our exit strategy out of this addiction. Whatever behavior you have in mind to quit, if we can just simply 'let the urges pass' without responding to them (for or against), then we're on our way to changing our habit.
I haven't figure out yet this "let the urges pass" thing. I'm guessing because I crave porn that much and I don't want to give up on it? It's like when the urges come, I could let them pass, alright, but I'm craving them too much, that's the point. It's like porn is my medicine and sex life, that's the problem. I've been having a harder than usual time to "surf the urges" like you used to say... :(
 

Phineas 808

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
It's like porn is my medicine and sex life, that's the problem.

Except that P/MO is not real medicine, but actually poison, as it doesn't bring you wholeness, but takes away from true manliness, self-control, attractiveness from the opposite sex, breaks our brain-noodle connection, saps joy and energy away from real life enjoyment, thus making us more depressed. And, it's not 'real sex' either. It's a poor substitution, because it's not a real person- sure, they were recorded doing this and that- but some ugly guy is behind the camera filming them, sometimes against their own will, or in degrading and subhuman conditions. There's no real human-to-human connection going on- our brain is tricked into having 'sex' with a phone screen!

I've been having a harder than usual time to "surf the urges" like you used to say... :(

This is because the neural pathways are so sensitized right now, due to repetition of the behaviors. There's reinforcement going on by reacting to the urges...

But this is good news, because you know that if you can just 'ride out' one urge, or even disrupt a P/MO session with like, "Nope! I'm done!" And suddenly shut your browser, you start disrupting the habit. Even if you set a timer, say, for 3 minutes- of course your body will scream, "That's not enough time!!"- but what happens is you start to disrupt the patterned behavior.

In other words, do whatever you can to not repeat behaviors. But if you do, don't judge yourself, be understanding of yourself. Find ways to change it up. Throw a towel over your pc before bed! Or, put a screen saver on your phone that says, "In Recovery!"- or something motivating.

There's always hope, and you can turn this around- just like you did not too long ago.
 

Pra

Member
This addiction is perhaps more complicated than some other addictions. If you stay away from P long enough, you may well stop having so many cravings for it. However, you may get urges for real sex instead. Fairly natural I guess, however if you're not careful those urges will turn back into urges for P.

Hi, prasamaccus! This right here is the 'golden key' to our exit strategy out of this addiction. Whatever behavior you have in mind to quit, if we can just simply 'let the urges pass' without responding to them (for or against), then we're on our way to changing our habit.

"Without responding to them (for or against)"

I guess there are three ways to deal with an urge.

1. The obvious, negative way(s) that we want to avoid.

2. Taking evasive action: leave the room, brush your teeth, do a chore, distract yourself with music or a podcast etc. etc.

3. "Let the urges pass", a bit like how you might deal with a thought that pops up while you're meditating maybe?


In other news, I'm still clean. Still got a high libido at times. Not necessarily a bad thing if I can channel the energy into other things. At times it can be a bit of a chore dealing with the urges, but oh well. Still much better than giving in to the addiction.
 

Pra

Member
A quick update. Libido is lower, which is a bit of a relief. It's still there though. I'm not sure if I've ever thought that my libido was too low.. But I don't really get flatlines and if my libido is low I probably just concentrate on other stuff and don't even notice it.

Anyway, may as well mention that I had my second Covid vaccine this week. Actually I might regret saying that, in case this thread turns into an argument about Covid vaccines in general lol. After the first vaccine I think I had some resets shortly afterwards, and they were worse than usual. Probably the disorientation of the side effects threw me off balance. This time round I've stayed clean, so far at least. Paracetamol is helping me a lot with the side effects.

I've been slowly getting back into sitting meditation, which is good.

Yeah some mixed feelings right now. Overall fairly good.
 

Pra

Member
I'm definitely not doing so well at my goal of posting here every day lol, but I am something of an inconsistent person so perhaps that's to be expected.

Still clean. Recently I read a longish, popular post on this forum. It was a general guide to recovery from this addiction. It made a good point about how strict we need to be about things, and to be as strict about P-subs as P. Perhaps an exception to the P-sub rule is watching a film or show when you're with one or more other people. So there might be a P-sub or two in it. We can just look away from the screen or something during those moments. I could go on about this kind of thing for a while. I guess we probably can't 100 per cent avoid P-subs. In short, it's complicated lol.

Better go anyway. I had quite a nice day today, although some ongoing things are annoying me a little. They were annoying me a lot more yesterday lol. I managed to get some perspective on them with the help of random things I read here and there. Thanks all for reading, see you soon.
 

Pra

Member
A quick note. I've been busy. When I've not been busy, I haven't been motivated to post I guess.

I'm still clean and this is probably the longest streak I've been on for a while, but not by much. I forget exactly what day I'm on and don't have time to work it out right now.

I'll be going somewhere where I'll probably have little or no internet, for about a week. Expect an update after that! Stay clean.
 

Pra

Member
I'm back a couple of days from my trip. It turns out one of the best things about the trip was being offline! I had no Wi-Fi where I was staying, and I kept my mobile data turned off. I also didn't bother looking for free public Wi-Fi. I had very few cravings for the internet, and my concentration levels improved a lot. I did a lot of reading and things like that, as well as checking out the area, naturally. I just did one thing at a time, generally speaking, and didn't suffer from "decision fatigue". A great experiment!

So now I'm trying to apply some of this back in my "normal" life too. Speaking of which, I have had some stress since I got back unfortunately, and some of that came from checking my emails lol. Anyway, Rome wasn't built in a day..

I've stayed clean so this is by far the longest streak I've been on for a while, whatever day it is. I had one wet dream during the trip.
 

Pra

Member
Unfortunately I have to report a reset. And a chaser. Chat and p-subs. As is often the case, chat was rubbish so I had to turn to the p-subs. But I remain addicted to chat no matter how crap it is.

There is stressful stuff going on in my life right now which is no doubt contributing. It's not all doom and gloom though.

Also on the plus side, that was the best streak in ages. Now to do even better! Must avoid chat, p-subs and fantasising, and manage stress better.
 

Pra

Member
Hi. I'm currently about eight days clean.

I certainly seem to have benefitted from starting this journal, in the sense that I got my first 30-plus day streak in a long time. Pity about the multiple resets afterwards, but it could be worse.

I've also benefitted from writing other journals on other similar sites. However, perhaps I'm better suited to more private discussions with accountability partners (which I have). I think the main issue is reporting a reset or relapse. It's too much for me to do it "publicly" in a journal I think. Those with some form of social anxiety may have some idea what I'm talking about.

So anyway, if I continue writing here, I probably won't talk about resets much. But thanks all for reading and contributing to this thread. Never give up.
 

Pra

Member
Hmm, exactly a month since my last post.

So my most recent streak was nine days, but I had a reset followed by a couple of chasers.

In case you're wondering, yes I changed my name.

I'll admit that I have some psychological problems. A phobia or two, for example. And those are phobias that have a big impact on my life. I kind of know how they started, but that knowledge doesn't cure the phobia. So I'm going to do more reading and learning about this kind of thing.
 
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