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The beginning
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Hey man, good thing you managed to identify the problem and are getting so serious about it to even come here. Tracking your own thoughts and using this forum to reflect and to interact with people, who are in a similar situation, can be really helpful. If you not already done it, check out yourbrainonporn.com. There they have the most informations about porn addictiond and PIED you can find, as well as just helpful tools you can try out to tackle this problem.
One important concept you should maybe eduacate yourself about is the concept of triggers. I just myself had bad experiences with not being aware of my triggers and not taking them seriously enough. Good luck man
One important concept you should maybe eduacate yourself about is the concept of triggers. I just myself had bad experiences with not being aware of my triggers and not taking them seriously enough. Good luck man
Good luck with getting over the day. I also go to a psychotherapist and i think, it can only help.
One thing that gets people off guard is the fantasizing about P. For most peolpe after a certain amount of time fantasies about P are coming up. The problem with that is, that after a while you get urges from watching all this P in your own head, so it becomes nearly impossible not to relapse. You can also call it an iternal trigger, that nearly every addict has.
You probably gotta find a way to deal with those fantasies, because when you start to engage in this fantasies and you loose yourself in it, all willpower in the world wont be able to keep you away from P.
I use a specific technique, called the rabbit hole-technique, which i heard about on the the-brain-rebalanced-show (i think you can find it on youtube and also ybop.com).
The analogy is, that you are like a dog, who wants to hunt rabbits and as soon as you see a rabbit hole (trigger, fantasy) you wanna go in and hunt your rabbit. But as soon as you do that, the more you dig, the more likely it becomes to loose yourself in the hole.
So as soon as you see a rabbit hole, you gotta focus your mind on something else. Therefore you can just look at you sourroundings and start thinking about it. When you see a chair, start thinking about the chair: where did i buy it, when did i buy it, what is it made of, what other things are made out of wood, doors, how do doors work.... You do that until you pass the rabbit hole, meaning until the Image in your head is not hunting you anymore so badly. That technique helped me a ton.
There are surely other ways to deal with this problem. Again yourbrainonporn.com, especially the FAQ's, https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/rebooting-porn-use-faqs/
should be a good place to find stuff. But i am sure without a way for dealing with those fantasies, it will get really tough.
Good luck man
One thing that gets people off guard is the fantasizing about P. For most peolpe after a certain amount of time fantasies about P are coming up. The problem with that is, that after a while you get urges from watching all this P in your own head, so it becomes nearly impossible not to relapse. You can also call it an iternal trigger, that nearly every addict has.
You probably gotta find a way to deal with those fantasies, because when you start to engage in this fantasies and you loose yourself in it, all willpower in the world wont be able to keep you away from P.
I use a specific technique, called the rabbit hole-technique, which i heard about on the the-brain-rebalanced-show (i think you can find it on youtube and also ybop.com).
The analogy is, that you are like a dog, who wants to hunt rabbits and as soon as you see a rabbit hole (trigger, fantasy) you wanna go in and hunt your rabbit. But as soon as you do that, the more you dig, the more likely it becomes to loose yourself in the hole.
So as soon as you see a rabbit hole, you gotta focus your mind on something else. Therefore you can just look at you sourroundings and start thinking about it. When you see a chair, start thinking about the chair: where did i buy it, when did i buy it, what is it made of, what other things are made out of wood, doors, how do doors work.... You do that until you pass the rabbit hole, meaning until the Image in your head is not hunting you anymore so badly. That technique helped me a ton.
There are surely other ways to deal with this problem. Again yourbrainonporn.com, especially the FAQ's, https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/rebooting-porn-use-faqs/
should be a good place to find stuff. But i am sure without a way for dealing with those fantasies, it will get really tough.
Good luck man
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Cheers my bro, you're right it's definitely not easy but it's worth it at the end of the day. For my own physical and mental wellbeing and for me to become a better man, I have to do it. My biggest obstacle will be fighting those thoughts when they do come up again, I know that's what caused the relapse previously
I mean, that can be a fact or that can be a call. Women tend to do this to make you take action. idk where you are at in this relationship but if u show her that you are taking action for your mistakes and willing to not go back, this could be what she needs to hear and see (coz only actions matter to women in these situations).
Just an idea, but u could get that software (i can't remember the name) which allows her to see what you are doing on your pc and that kind of stuff
Instead of "I won't" maybe try a "I'm fighting with the addiction, I give my everything for it" or something like that, that way u don't make a promise u're not sure to keep.
Also, idk how the conversations about that goes but if u're in the accused position and u're trying to justify yourself or whatever, maybe try to take another sit in the room, like the one of the guy that discovered he had an addiction, coz he didn't know at first it was, and who's trying his best to get it off his life. I would say that this is the sit next to your wife, the accusators sits, and u guys are judging the accused which is the addiction.
Great advice in my opinion! Don't be in the defensive position - be offensive against your addiction!
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Day 9:
Things are going somewhat well, haven't watched porn or masturbated since I started the journal but I've been here before and relapsed after a month. Its definitely a fight to prove how much I want to improve and kick the habit for good.
I haven't been motivated to go to the gym or follow my hobby to learn to code and its disappointing. I'm not kicking myself too hard for it, I know I'll get back on track. I get up at 5am for about 5 minutes and argue with myself about whether I should go to the gym and end up going back to bed, its not like me to do so. I was definitely more consistent with gym and coding over the last 2 months and I know I'm missing the feeling I get afterwards of achieving something and learning something new which always kickstarted my day positively.
I spend my mornings in bed sleeping in longer or just mindlessly scrolling through Facebook, its like my mind is looking for any trigger and trying to focus on the short term pleasures.
I've just read this article about short term pleasures over long term goals.
www.inc.com
My goal for the rest of the week is to make up for the lost days and put more focus on the my long term gym and coding goals. I need to give myself small rewards for achieving these tasks everyday or at the end of the week. The same thing worked when I slowly stopped smoking weed, I used it to reward myself on the weekend and worked harder during the week until I eventually didn't want to smoke weed anymore.
I've been looking to get back into gaming and plan to get myself a PS4 at the end of the month but only when I hit my personal work, gym and coding goals; and stay on track with kicking the porn habit. This will be a great reward and it will also give my partner I something to do together.
Thank you all for your support and advice so far.
Lets kick this addiction for good together!
Things are going somewhat well, haven't watched porn or masturbated since I started the journal but I've been here before and relapsed after a month. Its definitely a fight to prove how much I want to improve and kick the habit for good.
I haven't been motivated to go to the gym or follow my hobby to learn to code and its disappointing. I'm not kicking myself too hard for it, I know I'll get back on track. I get up at 5am for about 5 minutes and argue with myself about whether I should go to the gym and end up going back to bed, its not like me to do so. I was definitely more consistent with gym and coding over the last 2 months and I know I'm missing the feeling I get afterwards of achieving something and learning something new which always kickstarted my day positively.
I spend my mornings in bed sleeping in longer or just mindlessly scrolling through Facebook, its like my mind is looking for any trigger and trying to focus on the short term pleasures.
I've just read this article about short term pleasures over long term goals.
Why Your Brain Prioritizes Instant Gratification Over Long-Term Goals, According to Science
In many cases, logical reasoning isn't a strong enough motivator.
My goal for the rest of the week is to make up for the lost days and put more focus on the my long term gym and coding goals. I need to give myself small rewards for achieving these tasks everyday or at the end of the week. The same thing worked when I slowly stopped smoking weed, I used it to reward myself on the weekend and worked harder during the week until I eventually didn't want to smoke weed anymore.
I've been looking to get back into gaming and plan to get myself a PS4 at the end of the month but only when I hit my personal work, gym and coding goals; and stay on track with kicking the porn habit. This will be a great reward and it will also give my partner I something to do together.
Thank you all for your support and advice so far.
Lets kick this addiction for good together!
Yep that's something I did, and I would think a lot of us did, u gotta learn to mastery the "why am I REALLY doing that". I've never been a social media scroller and started to look at insta for like 20-30min in bed in the morning, I got into KR prank with the rationalisation of "aha it's funny" while I was really watching it coz they always have very pretty girl as guests (i'm KR/japanese girl person lol).
When I understood what I was really doing (after 3-5 days), and how I was harming myself because I would have urges all day long and pretty hard, I stoped doing that and always asked myself if i'm genuinly interested in a content or if it's my damn brain looking for dopamine kicks, pretty easy to spot now.
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Day 10:
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Thanks for that bro, I feel like a bit more interaction would add more accountability and would make the whole process a little better
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Day 11:
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So sorry to hear man, my ex also broke up with me in the midst of the rebooting process and it really was not easy. I think, the mindset you are showing is a good way of handling it. Whether that's the end for your reletionship or not, this has to be a sign for you, that you really have to get P out of your life.
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In all honesty, I'm not even sure what is going on anymore. I think it was just a way for her to see whether I would use it as an opportunity to relapse (I didn't) and prove her point that I will never stop with porn. This has caused a lot of uncertainty in the relationship especially from her which is understandable. I'm not one to try and change peoples perspectives on me and after all the times I told her I would stop and ended up relapsing, she has no reason to believe me this time. All I can do is keep up with my progress and let her see the results.
Everything that is happening will serve as a learning experience for me to grow from. I just hope not hurt her anymore.
Can honestly say that I always appreciate the support and encouragement from this group. Reading about all the different experiences that people have had and their journeys has helped me understand that I'm not the only one going through this and that things will always be better on the other side.
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Day 14:
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Oh so she said it's over but u guys still live together. For practical reasons I imagine ?
If that's what it is that's a good observation. Hopefully u get something interesting for yourself out of it. Maybe does it apply in all ur relationships and maybe is it a copying mecanism u had from earlier in life (like it usually is). A way of doing that u learned because of how u interpreted the world at the time, and your world changed but the mecanism stayed as a background program on ur computer (mind).