36, PIED, new plan

[logicprox]

first of all congratulations on 43 days. nice series. What I want to ask is, do you feel depressed, relapsed, regressed in the series after wet dreams?

I don't think the wet dreams have had any impact on my progression or recovery. What my brain is trying to recover from is a pattern of behavior where I use PMO or MO in order to relieve negative feelings (including the withdrawal symptoms from PMO), and the attendant addiction to dopamine. I do not believe ejaculation itself has anything to do with my brain's recovery when disconnected from those behaviors or the dopamine seeking.

I tend to think when people feel the way you describe above about wet dreams it is either

1. A misunderstanding of what the brain is actually trying to recover from and therefore it's "in their head" or
2. Tiredness because the wet dream interrupted their sleep

I could definitely be wrong about that, but that's my take.

 

[Deleted member 27008]

In some of my series, I felt depressed for a short time as if I had relapsed after a wet dream. I asked because I was wondering if you were alive too. Thank you for the answer. Good luck with your series.

 

[logicprox]

44 days.

Yesterday was the last crazy day at work and all the stress I've been trying to ignore finally "broke" and I was completely overcome with exhaustion at the end of the day. I almost mindlessly fantasized a couple of times lying in bed trying to fall asleep but managed to remember I don't do that anymore each time. All that stress gave me some pretty bad sleep too. But it's over. Today I can begin recovering from it, getting back to all my good habits, and back to good sleep. I am stoked.

So many good things coming to replace the void PMO created.

 

[Blondie]

Right on. I wish you well in your new free time. Nice job getting through that stress without fucking up! Kick ass.

 

[logicprox]

45 days.

Women in real life are becoming more interesting, but not in the porn fueled and themed way. Just like, the way I felt about them before I started using porn. This feels better.

 

[logicprox]

46 days.

This morning a friend sent me a text that sort of got my brain off track. My gym partner also sent me a text that he was skipping the gym so I decided to go back to sleep for 15 minutes (the time we go at is mostly based on his schedule).

The first friend's text didn't immediately send me off track but over the course of not falling back asleep for 15 minutes I sort of drifted gradually and unintentionally to fantasy for a minute or two. When I realized it, I stopped, no problem.

What was interesting, was that I felt absolutely no urge, compulsion, or interest to use PMO. I've had a couple very brief fantasy instances in my 46 days, and usually I felt at least some minor inclination to use PMO. This time, I was laying there being like "ok get ready for the urge" but it never came. I was searching my mind for the urge and there just wasn't one.

That feels like my brain is making some progress.

I have stopped using PMO and there's no reason to start again.

 

[logicprox]

47 days.

Now that my stress level from work has been coming down I've been having more morning wood again. I started to see minor improvement early on but that disappeared when 7 days and 70 hours weeks at work started. Now it's back. Not at 100% by any means, but any is better than where I was when I stopped using PMO 47 days ago. Hopefully it continues to improve.

Regardless, it sure feels better to not be a user.

 

[logicprox]

48 days.

Quitting porn hasn't solved all my problems. But it's solved some of them and the rest it's given me time to work on.

 

[logicprox]

49 days.

Woke up almost completely hard for the first time in a very long time.

 

[GeminiMan]

@logicprox
I see you are adhering all along with easy peasy method ways of reboot journey. I sense it is perhaps working for you. That’s encouraging to read . In some ways I have been using easypeasymethod but not fully into it . I still have this war like fighter attitude towards my addictions, but I guess it’s perhaps easier to turn your addiction into a futile frog that has no worth to be pursued than perceiving as this monstrous enemy in your life . Anyways good progress

 

[logicprox]

@logicprox
I see you are adhering all along with easy peasy method ways of reboot journey. I sense it is perhaps working for you. That’s encouraging to read . In some ways I have been using easypeasymethod but not fully into it . I still have this war like fighter attitude towards my addictions, but I guess it’s perhaps easier to turn your addiction into a futile frog that has no worth to be pursued than perceiving as this monstrous enemy in your life . Anyways good progress

I have definitely found much more success changing my mindset, confronting the underlying emotional states that drive me to use, and restructuring my life to not even experience triggers than I ever did trying to fight with the addiction. Willpower might work for some people, it didn't for me.

 

[logicprox]

50 days.

For a variety of reasons I didn't get a lot of sleep or a lot of calories the last couple of days and got very tired yesterday evening. I haven't been watching tv or movies but let myself watch one because I felt too tired to do much else. It had a very attractive girl in it and although there was nothing overtly sexual, she was sexualized, if that makes sense. It did start to trigger me a little bit. So I changed the movie to a kids' movie for like 20 minutes and then turned it off and went to read. I don't think that it would have caused me to use if I had finished the movie, but I am taking no chances at this point.

Being overly tired has been a historical trigger for me, need to avoid letting that happen again. However, I'm clearly in a much better place than I was 50 days ago in the sense that I did not feel inclined to use at all until coupled with the visual trigger, and even with both combined I did not find it difficult to make the decision to cut the trigger off and move on. My brain has definitely begun to change, just need to keep going.

 

[Blondie]

That is fantastic. Nice job! Yes, being tired is something I have to watch out for as well. It's good to know where we get caught up, so as not to put ourselves in that place.

I'm glad to see your brain is making some changes. 50 days!

 

[particularly_respecting]

@logicprox
I see you are adhering all along with easy peasy method ways of reboot journey. I sense it is perhaps working for you. That’s encouraging to read . In some ways I have been using easypeasymethod but not fully into it . I still have this war like fighter attitude towards my addictions, but I guess it’s perhaps easier to turn your addiction into a futile frog that has no worth to be pursued than perceiving as this monstrous enemy in your life . Anyways good progress

Could you explain more what you mean by the easy peasy method vs. the fighter attitude? I am curious about people's different attitudes toward their reboot and this sounds interesting. Is it a mindset thing?

logicprox, 50 days! Damn that's an amazing milestone! Hope you celebrated!

 

[logicprox]

Could you explain more what you mean by the easy peasy method vs. the fighter attitude? I am curious about people's different attitudes toward their reboot and this sounds interesting. Is it a mindset thing?

logicprox, 50 days! Damn that's an amazing milestone! Hope you celebrated!

Easy Peasy is actually an online "book" about overcoming PMO. It's not a magic pill and its flawed in some ways, but it did transform my mindset and I credit that change in mindset for a significant portion of my success right now.

easypeasy

Painlessly quit pornography without any sense of deprivation or sacrifice.

easypeasymethod.org

And thanks! Every moment away from PMO feels like a celebration already.

 

[logicprox]

51 days.

Pissed. Though technically intact, my streak is no longer perfect in my mind, but I will move on and forward. I can't completely account for last night and sorry if this is TMI.

I remember the event but have no recollection of a lead up. I suppose I woke up in the middle of the night and this must have happened immediately upon waking cause I remember no before. My brain was extremely foggy, apparently I started to MO, I backed off. I can't say for certain I wouldn't have started again but given recent history I think I wouldn't have. But then, for whatever reason, I had effectively an instance of PE where even though I was nowhere near "done" my body just decided to go ahead and ejaculate. I wasn't even very hard. I'm not even sure I technically had O. But there it was.

There was absolutely no porn involved, I didn't really fantasize, though there was sort of the idea of beginning to fantasize in my brain, but honestly my brain was too foggy to picture anything anyway. Because I didn't use P, I don't think it's a counter reset for me, but I do have my old scoring system I created at the beginning of this streak when I didn't think I could actually go straight into a cold turkey no PMO life, and that scoring system takes away a "point" for MO. I'm taking away a point. Part of me wants to duck responsibility and say I was only half awake or something and it doesn't count, but I know where excuses lead.

I then proceeded to have the worst night of sleep I have had in ages. I think whatever caused me to wake up with that brain fog was mostly responsible for that but then of course insult to injury my smoke detector woke me up a bit later cause of low batteries and I couldn't get it to shut up even after I changed the battery. I googled how to do it and the instructions were way too complicated for my foggy no sleep brain so I just cut it at the power breaker lol.

I spent an absurd amount of time laying awake unable to fall asleep. The urge for P never came, as it would have historically, so that's good. I was just laying there fuming about the above M and PE event. I'm still pissed.

It's good I'm pissed. This is righteous indignation. I refuse to go back and I reject anything like MO (or apparently M, PE, no O) that threatens to take me back. This will not happen again.

 

[particularly_respecting]

Easy Peasy is actually an online "book" about overcoming PMO. It's not a magic pill and its flawed in some ways, but it did transform my mindset and I credit that change in mindset for a significant portion of my success right now.

easypeasy

Painlessly quit pornography without any sense of deprivation or sacrifice.

easypeasymethod.org

And thanks! Every moment away from PMO feels like a celebration already.

Wow this looks very interesting. Thank you for sharing!
Painlessly quitting pornography immediately is a big claim. But if it's helped you achieve this streak then it sounds worth checking out.
I am going to grab the epub and put it on my kindle.

Regarding your latest post, yeah, it sounds almost halfway to a wet dream.
I think counters are very personal things, and we all have our own definitions of what constitutes a reset.
But probably if it were me, I would not reset my counter for that. Just my two cents!

 

[Blondie]

I'm sorry to hear about last night. I appreciate your honesty in writing it down here. I don't think what you did was even close to looking at porn, nor do I think you should "start" over again. This is a journey, and last night is a part of that. Learn from it and keep going. The fact that you want to be so honest is highly praiseworthy. Live and learn. Your resolve seems to be strong, so use this to make it stronger yet!

You're doing great man. We all have our off days.

 

[Coming_Out_Strong]

I would look at it as a wet dream. Its unfortunate but I dont think you should reset the counter but thats based off your definition of a reset. Hell I have 2 counters and one has been getting reset every few days lately. It definitely doesn't push back all of the progress you've made in these 51 days of deading porn. Continue moving forward

 

[GeminiMan]

@logicprox You can choose to reset your counter or not . I think It doesn’t matter when you look at the bigger picture. If resetting helps you live sober for next 50 days and makes you feel better in your own witness to carry on abstinence then that’s the way to go I guess
or
if continuing to counting on is what makes you live at most sober behavior then that’s the way I would choose . Either ways

you are already a hero in my eyes !