I know I can do it. I can feel myself getting closer to success.
- Thread starter jonazo91
- Start date
jonazo91
Active Member
I relapsed twice today, once after waking up and then again about 15 minutes ago. I don't have much to say. I've been avoiding making posts on here after relapsing, because it's just embarrassing and I feel pathetic saying the same shit. Right now I feel hopeless. That's definitely the dominant emotion. I've been more down in the dumps before after previous relapses, right now I just feel numb. Like it doesn't matter at all what I write here or tell myself. But I just can't imagine giving up on quitting. I'll never be "okay" with my porn viewing habits again (although I was for years). But this trying to quit and making no headway sucks.
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
I feel you, man. My experience with rebooting presents similarities to yours. I, too, use to relapse a lot with short streaks. It's taken me a lot of time to get this streak now. If you read some old posts, it's a sad show. What helped me to make it to almost 2 weeks was reading success stories for motivation. It all started with a post on nofap that made me pissed off, it was one of those "This was me before/This is me after 150 days on nofap" or something like that. The "Before" part was something I would write. "I had social anxiety, I couldn't stare people in the eyes, nobody took me seriously, people registered my shit energy and thought I was weak" this type of thing. So far exactly how I am when I binge. The "After" part is what I'd never had and I got so mad, I said: "Wtf bro, am I going to live my life in the before part? When the fuck am I going to stop being mediocre? I want to experience what is this guy saying!" And I got this determination in me, I was so motivated but then... I relapsed on Day 12. I was very embarassed, because I had come here to write the most motivation shit ever, like "I'm going to do this, I will never relapse, never ever again, watch me!" Then I fell. I didn't even want to come here to say it. I spent 2 days in depression and then I remembered: "Yo, what the fuck are you doing? Didn't you get mad after reading that thing?" So I came here I wrote "Day 2" and I started again. And I beat that streak. I've been reading success stories, everything I could find where guys talked about "this is how I was/ this is how I am now after a year on nofap" I motivate myself with this. I read it a lot because I really need to drill this into my head: "This could be you if you stop living for porn". But bear in mind that this is my situation. Porn fucked up my mental health and turned me into a mediocre guy. And I know that without porn, the chains are off and that won't turn me into a superman right away but it will open the door for me to start the superman journey. You can't when you are locked up inside.
As always, I like to follow this simple plan: Urges management, mistakes management, "the suck" management, read everything you can, watch everything you can. Read "Easy Peasy method".
1) Urges management: Urge surfing seems to be the best way. I'm not perfect with it but I'm working on it, I haven't found yet anything that beats this thing. (Shout out to Phineas cause he told me about it).
2) Mistakes management: Putting on a "Mistakes list" every mistake from the past that has led to a relapse and making an effort to never repeat it no matter what.
3) "The suck" management: If you medicate things with porn, like depression, sadness, boredom, "feeling low", loneliness etc. They will come back really strong and will knock you down. How do you get up and face them? Also, the rebooting itself can bring or make things worst. Your anxiety could get way worse, you could have panic attacks, depression etc. Again, if we don't have a way to deal with those we go back to porn.
Pay attention to the moments that generate urges and see what triggers them. Poor sleep and being tired are things that generate massive urges for me. It's happened to me recently and before going to sleep I read some success stories to remind myself why I was doing this, then I went to sleep.
You can do it man. What do you really want to achieve with this porn rebooting thing? Be honest with yourself and get very determined. Repeat in your head when you have urges: "Porn is not an option. I'm done with porn." Refuse to be mediocre! Do everything in your power to succeed! First to succeed in quitting porn and then more.
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jonazo91
Active Member
Day 0
Here we are again. After about 3 successful days while on a trip with some friends, I got home and since last night (really early this morning) I've been on a bit of a bender/binge. But it stops here. It's time to pick myself and start moving forward again. I'll never do this if I don't put in some serious effort and really try to change myself. I can't just sit around feeling miserable.
It's time for a reset. I'm about to be going through some big changes in my life and I have to meet them as a full man. I can do this. I owe it to my girlfriend and all my loved ones and myself.
Here we are again. After about 3 successful days while on a trip with some friends, I got home and since last night (really early this morning) I've been on a bit of a bender/binge. But it stops here. It's time to pick myself and start moving forward again. I'll never do this if I don't put in some serious effort and really try to change myself. I can't just sit around feeling miserable.
It's time for a reset. I'm about to be going through some big changes in my life and I have to meet them as a full man. I can do this. I owe it to my girlfriend and all my loved ones and myself.
You can do it, Jonazo!
Get mad, get angry at this thing (but not at yourself)! Gather all your focus, but don't rely on will-power only. Find what works for you. What were your longest streaks? What did you do differently then? What are some obvious things tripping you up? Delete, unjoin, purge.
You have to set yourself up for success, and not failure.
Get mad, get angry at this thing (but not at yourself)! Gather all your focus, but don't rely on will-power only. Find what works for you. What were your longest streaks? What did you do differently then? What are some obvious things tripping you up? Delete, unjoin, purge.
You have to set yourself up for success, and not failure.
jonazo91
Active Member
Day 0 again
I feel pretty much at the mercy of my urges at this point and am just hoping they don't come on too often. I've been resisting stupid-ass urges to "search up something" for no reason, with varying levels of success. Sometimes it feels better just to give in so that I can start over. But there has to be an end point. I don't want to declare it right here right now, and then come back in 12 hours and tell you guys I failed again. But I've gotta stop. At this point I'm just trying to use the parts of my day when I'm NOT focused on P and use them as wisely as possible. Even if I've relapsed, I should try to get to bed early and get good sleep, so that I'm in a better state of mind tomorrow. That sort of thing.
I'm about 15 minutes off of my last relapse. That's pathetic. But I'm back here, which means I still care about quitting and I still want to be done. How to take this feeling into my inevitable next wave of urges? That's the question. I can only try my best. Sorry everyone.
I feel pretty much at the mercy of my urges at this point and am just hoping they don't come on too often. I've been resisting stupid-ass urges to "search up something" for no reason, with varying levels of success. Sometimes it feels better just to give in so that I can start over. But there has to be an end point. I don't want to declare it right here right now, and then come back in 12 hours and tell you guys I failed again. But I've gotta stop. At this point I'm just trying to use the parts of my day when I'm NOT focused on P and use them as wisely as possible. Even if I've relapsed, I should try to get to bed early and get good sleep, so that I'm in a better state of mind tomorrow. That sort of thing.
I'm about 15 minutes off of my last relapse. That's pathetic. But I'm back here, which means I still care about quitting and I still want to be done. How to take this feeling into my inevitable next wave of urges? That's the question. I can only try my best. Sorry everyone.
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
I feel you, man. Urges are my biggest problem too. Actually, the craving, not necessarely urges and I'll explain what I mean by this. It's what "Easy Peasy" method talks about, they call it "brainwashing". It's the "Porn is something important in my life" type of thing, that's where the craving for it comes for me. And when I crave it, urges are pretty much a torture. It becomes very frustrated because I'm forcefully depriving myself from porn and when you think about it, at the end of the day, I don't need porn but I still can't do something to change this in my head... I don't know, I will probably keep crave it and probably I will only escape by going through the suffering of craving it. Or else I won't. I've been trying different things said around the Internet and I still feel deep in this shit. Honestly, I don't really feel that I've made any significant progress, I still feel just like 3 years ago when I came here... Once in a while I get a longer streak then I come here and speak as if I found the ultimate solution, writing motivation stuff and shit only to relapse and feel embarassed about talking as if I have the cure.
I get where you’re coming from on this very heavily. I don’t even have that long of streaks to even look back onto. One thing I noticed when I have p cravings. My mind convinces me that I am not just a voyeur but a participant. It is a weird feeling and logically speaking I will break out of it and remind myself what my mind is trying to get me to do. It is not to participate but to be a voyeur.
Determinedtosucceed
New Member
I’m at day 7 and it’s one of my longest streaks yet.. need to keep going but feeling urges today. Let’s stay strong guys
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
We're still trying, yes. Without trying, there is no success. But my biggest fear is that I will keep trying for life, until I'm old and still writing "Day 1" here. The "Relapse/Restart" treadmill. I hope I'm wrong.
jonazo91
Active Member
Day 0
Sorry I've been absent lately, it's just that I'm making no progress and it really sucks to keep coming back here and writing the same stuff. But I'm sure as hell not going to make any progress if I give up on this community and the support and understanding it provides. I just don't feel the motivation right now and I have very shitty impulse control in everything. It's so hard for me to just say no to myself. Right now, my porn consumption feels like it's at an area where it hasn't gotten much better or worse in the past few years but stayed about the same. But that is fucking unacceptable. I'm not okay with my porn habits. They make me sick. I feel stuck with them but that's just not true. But like, where is the real "me"? Someone with my body and brain was sure comfortable watching porn very recently. How do I know that's not the real me? How do I get rid of that version of myself?
I never want to think I'm at the point where I need professional help. But I have no idea how to help myself it seems. I need to grow the fuck up.
Sorry I've been absent lately, it's just that I'm making no progress and it really sucks to keep coming back here and writing the same stuff. But I'm sure as hell not going to make any progress if I give up on this community and the support and understanding it provides. I just don't feel the motivation right now and I have very shitty impulse control in everything. It's so hard for me to just say no to myself. Right now, my porn consumption feels like it's at an area where it hasn't gotten much better or worse in the past few years but stayed about the same. But that is fucking unacceptable. I'm not okay with my porn habits. They make me sick. I feel stuck with them but that's just not true. But like, where is the real "me"? Someone with my body and brain was sure comfortable watching porn very recently. How do I know that's not the real me? How do I get rid of that version of myself?
I never want to think I'm at the point where I need professional help. But I have no idea how to help myself it seems. I need to grow the fuck up.
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
I feel you, man. I know exactly what you're talking about as I can relate to it very much. I don't have much success either, I'm only on day 4 but I've realized some things.
Discipline is very important. Finding a routine to follow, good things to do like urges management (stuff like urge surfing, not feeding porn thoughts etc), mistakes management (avoiding what led to relapse in the past), having a Plan A but also a Plan B when things get away from the usual. Porn is complicated. For me porn is something "very important", maybe the "most important" thing in my life and this is pretty sad. Porn for me is self-medication, fun, "sex life". My best streak came when I didn't try to tackle all this stuff and instead follow a routine of not feeding porn thoughts and avoiding the mistakes. It worked. But I didn't have a way to deal with urges and I eventually got exhausted. However, maybe I would've continued well had I not started drinking, which broke the mistakes list. I still believe that a routine, a Plan A would help a lot. Planing the day like I wake up in the morning, I do this then I go to work I come home I spend some time on Reboot Nation, meditate and go to sleep. Using internet only when it's necessary and avoiding the purposeless surfing that can get you in trouble. Avoiding social media and even Youtube if they lead to relapsing. Sacrificing will need to be made, at least for a while until we are done with porn, we have porn as no. 1 priority for the next phase of our lives or we definitely must put quitting porn as no. 1 priority because if this is very important for us but it's no. 5 down the list we won't pay that much attention to it. Also, reading success stories could help and finding something to bring the determination, thinking about moments when porn addiction affected us terribly and thinking about that instead of thinking about porn when we are tempted. Avoiding all the things that have an impact on urges could help too, in my case it's alcohol and caffeine. Caffeine is easy to quit because I'm not a hardcore caffeine consumer but I'm a fuckin alcohol addict and this sabotages me too much. But all those need to go if I want to succeed. How do you find the motivation and determination? If it isn't for how porn affects you then nothing will motivate you. You can even write down all the ways that porn affects you. With me it's easy: My mental health is shit because of porn, I'm barely surviving. If this doesn't motivate me then nothing will. But anyway man, those are just my thoughts, you make your own plan.
This is the most important questions to ask oneself.
Who are you? For one, you weren't born with an iPhone in your hand watching porn. You were born innocent, because that's your true nature.
If you're a believer, you're forgiven of all sins, and have received the gift of righteousness without any input on your part. That's who you are. You need look no further than Jesus Christ to see who you really are.
Whether a believer or not, you're not the guy surfing porn endlessly, you're the guy coming on here looking for answers, looking for inspiration, looking for that right amount of angst to kick this life-sucking habit to the curb! <--- That's who you are!
Challenge yourself to beat your greatest streak! Come on here every day until you've beaten all your goals.
jonazo91
Active Member
Day ~1
Last night I viewed some images and videos and edged for a while, although I was snapped out of it by the fear of getting caught (my girlfriend's parents are staying with us, could you imagine how awful that would be). Regardless of why I snapped out of it, I'm glad I did because it made me think seriously about why I want to quit so bad.
Some positive news: I got engaged! I'm taking this as a big motivating factor in my journey to quit porn. Engagement means commitment and it means no more lies and hiding things. Although my fiancee has expressed tolerance toward my porn habits before, the truth is I hide from her how often I do it and how little in control of it I am. I don't want to be a husband who goes and hides from his wife to watch porn over and over again. That's completely unacceptable to me. It's time to leave that in the past. It's time to get serious.
Earlier yesterday, I had a dream where I was in the seediest strip club imaginable and I was walking around with a large stack of porno magazines that kept on falling all over the place. It was not sexy. The overwhelming feeling of the dream was that everyone in my life knew how much of a pervert I was and I was trapped in this place with a bunch of disgusting lowlifes. At one point I remember being in the bathroom of the place and I was barefoot, and it really felt like a nightmare. I took it as a sign of my anxiety over this addiction. While I wouldn't want to fuel such negative, self-punishing thoughts, it did shock me out of a sort of complacency I've had lately.
So anyway, here goes.
Last night I viewed some images and videos and edged for a while, although I was snapped out of it by the fear of getting caught (my girlfriend's parents are staying with us, could you imagine how awful that would be). Regardless of why I snapped out of it, I'm glad I did because it made me think seriously about why I want to quit so bad.
Some positive news: I got engaged! I'm taking this as a big motivating factor in my journey to quit porn. Engagement means commitment and it means no more lies and hiding things. Although my fiancee has expressed tolerance toward my porn habits before, the truth is I hide from her how often I do it and how little in control of it I am. I don't want to be a husband who goes and hides from his wife to watch porn over and over again. That's completely unacceptable to me. It's time to leave that in the past. It's time to get serious.
Earlier yesterday, I had a dream where I was in the seediest strip club imaginable and I was walking around with a large stack of porno magazines that kept on falling all over the place. It was not sexy. The overwhelming feeling of the dream was that everyone in my life knew how much of a pervert I was and I was trapped in this place with a bunch of disgusting lowlifes. At one point I remember being in the bathroom of the place and I was barefoot, and it really felt like a nightmare. I took it as a sign of my anxiety over this addiction. While I wouldn't want to fuel such negative, self-punishing thoughts, it did shock me out of a sort of complacency I've had lately.
So anyway, here goes.
jonazo91
Active Member
Day 4?
We're gonna call it day 4. I've been on a fairly good run since my last post, but unfortunately I've been complacent about visiting and posting about my progress on here. What often happens with me is that I will have a streak of days during which I really have no urges to speak of, or only the weakest of urges. So I think I'm off the hook, and kind of just try to go about my life without thinking about my recovery journey. So I'm trying to hold myself accountable now. So here I am.
Last night I went to bed at a decent hour and I'm going to really try to make it the new norm, starting tonight. Simply going to bed at the same time as my fiancee is one of the best things I can do to limit my 1) opportunity and 2) temptation to slip up and look at P. Not to mention it always makes her so happy when I do go to bed at the same time as her, because it's such a rare occasion. But, we're not just boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. We're in it for the long haul, and what was acceptable before shouldn't be anymore. A big motivating factor for me quitting P is that I want to commit myself seriously to my relationship and be as honest, open, and invested in our relationship as I can be.
I wish everyone well here and will be attempting to make daily posts again starting today.
We're gonna call it day 4. I've been on a fairly good run since my last post, but unfortunately I've been complacent about visiting and posting about my progress on here. What often happens with me is that I will have a streak of days during which I really have no urges to speak of, or only the weakest of urges. So I think I'm off the hook, and kind of just try to go about my life without thinking about my recovery journey. So I'm trying to hold myself accountable now. So here I am.
Last night I went to bed at a decent hour and I'm going to really try to make it the new norm, starting tonight. Simply going to bed at the same time as my fiancee is one of the best things I can do to limit my 1) opportunity and 2) temptation to slip up and look at P. Not to mention it always makes her so happy when I do go to bed at the same time as her, because it's such a rare occasion. But, we're not just boyfriend and girlfriend anymore. We're in it for the long haul, and what was acceptable before shouldn't be anymore. A big motivating factor for me quitting P is that I want to commit myself seriously to my relationship and be as honest, open, and invested in our relationship as I can be.
I wish everyone well here and will be attempting to make daily posts again starting today.
jonazo91
Active Member
Day 0
I got to bed a little later than I'd liked but still decent for my standards, but then had a terrible night of sleep and couldn't get back to sleep after 7 AM. Instead, I started scrolling through first YouTube and then Twitter, looking for triggers. Very familiar behavior to me, because I've done it many times before. And sure enough, it worked, even though I had plenty of opportunities to just stop before I took it any further and try to get some more sleep.
I'm trying not to dwell, because I have been doing a little better overall lately, in terms of motivation and trying to stick to my goals. But clearly this is a step back. I need to wake up earlier tomorrow so I will need to go to bed early again, and since I'm on only about 4.5 hours of sleep, it ought to be easy for me to get to sleep tonight. So as long as I stay focused the rest of today and get an early night's sleep, I'll have a full day under my belt again in no time. There's a better version of me waiting to come out, I just need to stop shooting myself in the foot.
I got to bed a little later than I'd liked but still decent for my standards, but then had a terrible night of sleep and couldn't get back to sleep after 7 AM. Instead, I started scrolling through first YouTube and then Twitter, looking for triggers. Very familiar behavior to me, because I've done it many times before. And sure enough, it worked, even though I had plenty of opportunities to just stop before I took it any further and try to get some more sleep.
I'm trying not to dwell, because I have been doing a little better overall lately, in terms of motivation and trying to stick to my goals. But clearly this is a step back. I need to wake up earlier tomorrow so I will need to go to bed early again, and since I'm on only about 4.5 hours of sleep, it ought to be easy for me to get to sleep tonight. So as long as I stay focused the rest of today and get an early night's sleep, I'll have a full day under my belt again in no time. There's a better version of me waiting to come out, I just need to stop shooting myself in the foot.
jonazo91
Active Member
I haven't been posting here because 1) I'm notoriously bad at sticking to things and 2) I've made no progress at all since first making an account here.
But I realize I can't do this alone. And I'm only going to get better by sticking to it, and that includes sticking to posting here and holding myself accountable. I haven't given up.
I feel like I've always been waiting for something to *click* and then all of a sudden I just don't need porn anymore and I know that I'm cured forever. But that's not really how it goes. I don't know if this will be the last time. I could relapse within the hour of posting here (wouldn't be the first time) or I could never again. I don't know the future. I know that right now, I am trying to do the right thing and I want to stay in the mindset of doing the right thing as much as I can. I feel good about myself when I'm in this mindset. I feel like I can make good decisions as long as I'm in it. That's the only goal.
But I realize I can't do this alone. And I'm only going to get better by sticking to it, and that includes sticking to posting here and holding myself accountable. I haven't given up.
I feel like I've always been waiting for something to *click* and then all of a sudden I just don't need porn anymore and I know that I'm cured forever. But that's not really how it goes. I don't know if this will be the last time. I could relapse within the hour of posting here (wouldn't be the first time) or I could never again. I don't know the future. I know that right now, I am trying to do the right thing and I want to stay in the mindset of doing the right thing as much as I can. I feel good about myself when I'm in this mindset. I feel like I can make good decisions as long as I'm in it. That's the only goal.
Escapeandnevercomeback
Respected Member
I feel you, man. I've written something similar in my journal. I don't know if "something to click" really exists, I think we fight this second by second, living in the moment and trying to disrupt the repetitive nature of this habit. We need to do things differently and break those patterns. How do you relapse? What's the repetitive thing in your way of relapsing and what can you do about it? It could be a thought pattern. In many cases a relapse starts in the mind long before it actually happens and it could be repetitive, starting the same thought pattern that leads to relapsing.