Day 37
Thanks
@Escapeandnevercomeback, I loved reading this yesterday. You're right, I'm good to go and porn is almost 40 days behind me. And no matter how stressful life can get, it's not worth going back to porn.
This is a great contribution to the discussion. I absolutely agree with you. It's great to have a place to talk about all the same struggles with like-minded individuals and find a community that cares and empathizes with you. But yes, eventually, it can become as you say, mental masturbation, where you know everything and have read everything, but still have not accomplished what you initially set out to do, that is, quit porn once and for all, like Gabe, Noah and others.
This reminds me of something else I've been "struggling" with for most of my life, money management. I've never been good with my money, no matter how little or much of it I had, it's just a habit I've never learned successively as an adult. However,
I can't tell you how many books I've read concerning money management, books about keeping budgets, working on your financial goals, savings etc. Fuck, I could probably write my own New York Times best seller if I wished to, and everyone would think I knew what I was talking about, unless they actually looked at my financial statements,
where assets and numbers never lie, just like numbers and days in porn recovery never lie. If there was a written test for money management, I'd get a fucking A no doubt about it, but if they actually graded me on my financial results in real life,
in real time, they would flunk me and kick my ass out of business school because I'm a totally disaster financially.
Not being good with your money isn't necessarily a reflection of your character and morals, just like porn addiction doesn't necessarily say anything about you as a person, good or bad, however, numbers don't lie. Period.
Thus, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter which money management philosophy you go with, Dave Ramsey, Warren Buffet, The EasyPeasy method, or anyone else for that matter, all that matters is that
you grind it out, and work on your self control and discipline, so you don't spend more money than you make. I look at porn recovery the same way.
Are we here to grind it out and invest in ourselves and our life savings accounts (our ephemeral time here on this earth) or are we only reading books and arguing over which philosophy is best, but at the end of the day, we have little or no savings in our accounts to show for our "reading"? Just as with money management and going to a financial expert, this isn't about, shame, love or forgiveness, it's just about asking the pertinent question,
are you getting real world results or not? And if not, why not?
Fuck yeah. I totally agree. I think we all have to do this, in fact, it is utterly our duty to be obsessed with getting over this once and for all, just like winning against your mortal enemy. Go all in or go home! So the question is,
what are you going to do to win? What are we all going to do to win? What does it look like to go all in? What does it take to win this once and for all?
Best brother