Press CTRL+ALT+DEL to reboot.

[MJ1987]

Full week with no PMO!

Today marks Day 8 of my reboot. Kinda off how quickly time goes by.

The morning woods are slowly returning, which is a good sign I think.
I still can't get an erection based on touch only, so a long way to go.

I also think I had a sexual dream today, I remember it vaguely.
No wet dreams have happened yet though.

The urges are becoming stronger and stronger, the first few days now feel like a cakewalk compared to the urges I'm feeling the last 2 days.

 

[Chuckles]

Today is a lot harder.. i am feeling the Day 7 PMO urge hitting hard today.

i read on some website that apparently it is quite common for most guys to get this unstoppable fap urge at day 7.

i think i have to leave my phone in a different room today.

i came very close to caving and Googleing for porn..
kinda stupid that something so primal manages to control every aspect of our lives

Yeah yesterday was my day 7. It was pretty difficult, but I can already today will be worse.
But yeah do what you have to do to save you from yourself

 

[MJ1987]

Had a relapse today at day12.

though i don’t feel angry or pissed off.
Actually i felt nothing. The porn felt dull and boring.
I felt my body didnt even need the porn, it was all mechanical addiction.

even more important, making it through the first week was a cakewalk. Only at day 10ish the urges became too much. So already a big improvement from the daily PMO seasions I used to have.

eventhough it sucks to start over, i feel like i have learned a lesson today.
And that is that once the cravings start building, ignoring them doesn’t work.
It all started going downhill when i was browsinf instagram for pretty girls.

so today we start again at day 0, with fresh energy and a lessons learned to not act on ANY trigger, even if they may seem harmless.

 

[MJ1987]

This will be my mantra for attempt #2:

If you are looking for a set of rules you will not find them – other than: “No artificial sexual stimulation during your reboot.” By artificial we mean pixels, audio and literature. No porn substitutes allowed, such as: surfing pictures on Facebook or dating sites, cruising Craigslist, underwear ads, YouTube videos, “erotic literature”, etc. If it’s not real life, just say ‘no.’

for everyone reading, this is really key guys!
It’s all a trap to lead you back into porn.

Looking forward to the 14 day mark!
my next goal is to beat my all time best which was around 16 days I think.

 

[MJ1987]

My brain feels like it is on fire today.
Feels like the chaser effect x10 todat.

Don’t understand how I was able to function properly with this addiction in the past.

 

[MJ1987]

extremely low mental focus today. Feels a lot like mental fatigue.
I was at the hairdressers today, and I had to mentally force myself to carry the conversation.

A few days ago I was smooth as butter re social skills.
Further confirms to me that PMO has a huge impact on how you present and carry yourself and you radiate this outward.

My physical fatigue seems to have passed mostly, not sure whether it was related to the relapse.
I guess we will find out if it was indeed related to withdrawal symptoms if it pops up again somewhere in the next few days.

 

[particularly_respecting]

This will be my mantra for attempt #2:

If you are looking for a set of rules you will not find them – other than: “No artificial sexual stimulation during your reboot.” By artificial we mean pixels, audio and literature. No porn substitutes allowed, such as: surfing pictures on Facebook or dating sites, cruising Craigslist, underwear ads, YouTube videos, “erotic literature”, etc. If it’s not real life, just say ‘no.’

for everyone reading, this is really key guys!
It’s all a trap to lead you back into porn.

Looking forward to the 14 day mark!
my next goal is to beat my all time best which was around 16 days I think.

Yeah I definitely agree with this.
In a weird way, those sorts of porn substitutes can almost be more harmful sometimes.
In the (quite recent) past, I spent hours and hours surfing pictures etc., convincing myself I was okay because it wasn't porn.
But it was such a waste of time and energy and focus, and like you say, it always just led back to porn in the end.

Anyway thanks for the journal. It's good to read about other men going through the same struggles.
Hope your mental focus comes back soon!

 

[Chuckles]

Had a relapse today at day12.

though i don’t feel angry or pissed off.
Actually i felt nothing. The porn felt dull and boring.
I felt my body didnt even need the porn, it was all mechanical addiction.

even more important, making it through the first week was a cakewalk. Only at day 10ish the urges became too much. So already a big improvement from the daily PMO seasions I used to have.

eventhough it sucks to start over, i feel like i have learned a lesson today.
And that is that once the cravings start building, ignoring them doesn’t work.
It all started going downhill when i was browsinf instagram for pretty girls.

so today we start again at day 0, with fresh energy and a lessons learned to not act on ANY trigger, even if they may seem harmless.

Yeah I definitely agree with this.
In a weird way, those sorts of porn substitutes can almost be more harmful sometimes.
In the (quite recent) past, I spent hours and hours surfing pictures etc., convincing myself I was okay because it wasn't porn.
But it was such a waste of time and energy and focus, and like you say, it always just led back to porn in the end.

Anyway thanks for the journal. It's good to read about other men going through the same struggles.
Hope your mental focus comes back soon!

I've been doing online dating. And one thing that's somewhat common is a girl will send you unsolicited nudes, in the hopes you'll pay for more, and/or meet up for sex (I assume prostitution). But I kinda convinced myself it was okay because I didn't ask for them. But I knew they were coming my way and didn't choose to stop it.
This stuff is everywhere, and I didn't really realize how much so until I tried to quit.

 

[MJ1987]

I've been doing online dating. And one thing that's somewhat common is a girl will send you unsolicited nudes, in the hopes you'll pay for more, and/or meet up for sex (I assume prostitution). But I kinda convinced myself it was okay because I didn't ask for them. But I knew they were coming my way and didn't choose to stop it.
This stuff is everywhere, and I didn't really realize how much so until I tried to quit.

I had the same with sexting.
I always had 1 or 2 girls that I would regularly sext with.
Sexting was even more 'fun' than the real deal, because it could go on for hours.

I think the sexting + my weird way of wanking (by rubbing my boxers on my penis) has set me up for quite bad case of PIED.


The onyl way to get cured from this curse is to cut out all artificual stimulation.
No exceptions.

 

[MJ1987]

Relapsed again… though this was my own fucking stupid fault.

i was cleaning old boxes and found an old iphone.
Instead of leaving it or just wiping it, i decided to browse it.
Lo and behold, random nudes and clips and before you know it… relapse..

ffs this is frustrating.. mad respect for everyone who makes it to 90 days.

restarting again now..
I’ve wiped the phone and gave it to my brother. cleared any triggers for now.

next time i get a trigger i will:
- leave my phone and go to an other room
- go for a walk outside with no phone

Is there any way i can block adult content on an iphone?
That would be of real help.

 

[Chuckles]

Damn dude, sorry to hear it. Better luck this time

 

[MJ1987]

Feeling positive again today.
Had 2 urges that I was able to succesfully (and easily) disregard.

I've been noticing a pattern though, I'm usually relapsing when I'm bored (mostly due to dull moments at work)..
Sitting behind my desk and doing nothing triggers the old pathways as I would fill in the time with porn.
I'll think about a solution to this over te weekend, but if anyone else has a strategy that works for them let me know!

 

[MJ1987]

Day 4, nothing much to report on.

Weekend was quite easy, had a lot of stuff to keep me busy so no urges to look at PMO.
Started my workweek again, which is always difficult as I get tempted to fall into old patterns and fill the dull moments with looking at porn.

 

[MJ1987]

Relapsed again at day 5..
It's really difficult to reboot tbh.

So i've pulled out bigger guns.
I've turned on parental controls on my iphone and limited adult content.
I've also set a random parental password and saved the code somewhere hidden it on my work laptop.
I'm hoping this will put sufficient delay in my binging for me to realise what is going on and stop it on time.

Let's see how it goes the next few days.

The next step will be to have my partner set a parental password on all my devices, so that I can't disable it

 

[MJ1987]

Day 5 mark again.

For some reason, it's always Day 4 where I get a massive spike in urges and triggers.
Anyone else recognise this?

 

[PowerCycling]

I had relationship during my 28-30th year, with who I could have regular sex, but as soon as I needed to put on a condom I would fail terribly.
Also switching positions was terrible and usually meant going limp.

I had similar issues with my first girlfriend. Not sure if this is still an issue with your wife, but if it is, I'd try without condoms and see how much it helps. In my case it made such a huge difference that, after doing some soul searching and determining I really didn't want to have kids, I went ahead and got a vasectomy.

 

[MJ1987]

Long time no update. I was doing quite well actually, for up to a month with PMO quite minimal.
Then somewhere in april I lost control again and relapsed completely back into old patterns.
Also again started to escalate into more and more extreme porn, and the further I relapsed, the worse my erections got.

I can now see a direct 1:1 relationship between the extremeness of the porn vs the severity of my PIED.
There really needs to be more scientific research on this, the relationship is extreme.
As soon as you cross over from normal sex porn, my sexual performance degrades quite drastically.


So anyway... restarting again.
I'm currently on day 4 of no PMO.
Tried to have sex yesterday, and 4 minutes in I could literally feel my dopamine drop and my sex drive fade.
Erection also faded to not return anymore so that was a nice wakeup call to stop this porn shit.

 

[MJ1987]

Fuck relapsed at day 5.

Restarting again today at day 0.

Does anyone have a 'panic button' like app that locks your phone for 5 minutes or something?

 

[Chuckles]

Fuck relapsed at day 5.

Restarting again today at day 0.

Does anyone have a 'panic button' like app that locks your phone for 5 minutes or something?

You could possibly lock it, then put in the wrong password a few times. I'm not sure how long that would lock you out, or if that's a reliable way to do it though. It might raise some legitimate security concerns IDK.

 

[MJ1987]

You could possibly lock it, then put in the wrong password a few times. I'm not sure how long that would lock you out, or if that's a reliable way to do it though. It might raise some legitimate security concerns IDK.

Good one!
I think it locks for 5 minutes after 5 wrong attempts or something.

I relapsed yesterday after 7 days, which sucks but atleast the cycle is getting longer.
Today marks day 1 of another attempt.

So far the chaser effect is fully there, but have been able to keep myself busy with some renovation stuff on the house and work mostly.