I will make it -- Looking forward to taking my life back

First_step_thousand_miles

First_step_thousand_miles

Respected Member
Day 392 (no MO since Day 364) -- Nothing super new to report, my mind feels very clear. Told another friend about quitting porn, he was pretty shocked haha

Mentally I'm not feeling crazy horny looking at girls but not quite dead down there either. It's just an equilibrium where I'm just going my own thing and living my best life? Anyone else out there in a similar spot?

Next big milestones are day 394 (1 month MO free) and day 400. Otherwise I'm looking forward to 90 days MO free (and hopefully longer honestly), maybe even triple digits

Love you all fellas, let's keep at it
 
First_step_thousand_miles

First_step_thousand_miles

Respected Member
Day 396 (no MO since Day 364) -- Made it 30+ days MO free, looking forward to making it to 90 days

I am also getting less mentally 'excited' by fetishes / fantasies that would've gotten me absolutely going 1 year ago and even quite a bit just a few months ago. Maybe this is just the phase of this cycle or maybe it's a more structural improvement. Don't know, but it feels nice
 
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Blondie

Blondie

Respected Member
First_step_thousand_miles said:
Thank you my friend! Kept meaning to post but forgot to. Everything's generally pretty solid on this front, just trying to sustain the fat loss momentum. Not in flatline but also not feeling a ton of urges. Feels like equilibrium I think, just continuing with the program. How are you my man?
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Hey man, glad to hear you're doing well. I hope that fat loss is going well for you. It's a real treat to see what you can accomplish when you get on the scale everyday. I know I've said it before, but I wish we could get on a scale to show us our porn recovery results! I woke up last night at 2 am with a raging boner so I guess that's a good measurement. :cool:

I'm doing well, staying busy with my summer goals and will be going on vacation soon, where I'm going to relax a bit and have a good time, in both drinking and food, I've been extremely clean for the last five weeks.

Keep killing it @First_step_thousand_miles.

Best
 
First_step_thousand_miles

First_step_thousand_miles

Respected Member
Blondie said:
Hey man, glad to hear you're doing well. I hope that fat loss is going well for you. It's a real treat to see what you can accomplish when you get on the scale everyday. I know I've said it before, but I wish we could get on a scale to show us our porn recovery results! I woke up last night at 2 am with a raging boner so I guess that's a good measurement. :cool:

I'm doing well, staying busy with my summer goals and will be going on vacation soon, where I'm going to relax a bit and have a good time, in both drinking and food, I've been extremely clean for the last five weeks.

Keep killing it @First_step_thousand_miles.

Best
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Awesome stuff my man. I love to hear your own fat loss progress as well, keep it coming. It's not easy for sure but that's what makes it worth getting :)

Love you man
 
First_step_thousand_miles

First_step_thousand_miles

Respected Member
Day 398 (No MO since Day 364) -- Been over a month since last MO, feeling pretty balanced right now

I wanted to take the time to reflect. Over the past few years, by Nov or so I've had this feeling of 'another year come and gone.' It's not that I haven't accomplished anything in that year -- if I was to catalogue accomplishments / notable stuff (not always positive) by year since graduation it would be:

2018 -- got my first job at a firm I was happy to work for
2019 -- passed a big industry exam // experienced my first mental health issues
2020 -- recovered from those mental health issues // used Covid to spend a lot of time with family and reconnecting with friends
2021 -- spent a ton of time with fam & friends (really where my relationships solidified) // passed another industry exam // got promoted
2022 -- passed another industry exam // traveled to 5+ countries // started my no porn journey!
2023 so far -- traveled to a couple more countries // got to 365 days porn free! // losing a lot of weight

Hopefully making good progress at work and ideally hoping to get promoted sometime next year (though it's a crazy economy right now!) into the job I've been been wanting for a long time now. It really is my calling and I'm hoping to get it.

However, I can't help but feel in the past few years that time is just flying by and I'm not satisfied with myself. And it really comes down to a 2 things incl 1) getting in shape and feeling proud of myself physically and 2) really getting my romantic life going as it's an essential part of life that I feel I've really only experienced intermittently throughout the years vs. taking charge of it (this is where no porn and no PMO comes in!).

I don't want to feel by end of 2023 that 'another year has come and gone' with that air of melancholy. I want to feel, 'damn, I accomplished so much this year and next year will be even better!' To that end, I'm continuing on my no porn journey and maybe even harder, no MO journey to really recover. And I just had a solid workout, I'm planning on ramping this up much more in July while also making it a priority to eat healthier. Above all, what I want is forward momentum. Be it porn, food, etc, I won't let any of this hold me back from the life I know I can have!

Onwards my brothers, that future we imagined but dismissed over the years is still out there -- we just need to reach out and grab hold!
 
Blondie

Blondie

Respected Member
First_step_thousand_miles said:
I don't want to feel by end of 2023 that 'another year has come and gone' with that air of melancholy. I want to feel, 'damn, I accomplished so much this year and next year will be even better!' To that end, I'm continuing on my no porn journey and maybe even harder, no MO journey to really recover. And I just had a solid workout, I'm planning on ramping this up much more in July while also making it a priority to eat healthier. Above all, what I want is forward momentum. Be it porn, food, etc, I won't let any of this hold me back from the life I know I can have!
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You got this brother, a lot of this stuff just takes time and dedication and years to start slowing paying off in dividends. You've really made some great improvements over these last few years, and congrats on those promotions! I think this year, by the way things are going for you, will be your best. Keep going to the gym and eating healthy and those results will start happening. The romantic thing is always a little trickier because it's somewhat out of your control to some extent, however, everything that you can control start working on daily. Get out there and start talking to people, all people, not just women, and definitely not only women you're attracted to! Women can feel that on a man, when the only girls he's "nice to" or "charming with" are girls he's only attracted to. Don't be that dude. Just get out there and start talking. Maybe learn how to approach a woman when out and about in your world. Not chasing them like you have nothing better to do, but just learning to approach one if she seems friendly and available. It's fucking scary, thus you should probably do it. Also, whatever you're into hobby-wise, join some groups and see who you meet. Either way, I understand the pressures (besides just bodily needs) of finding a partner, but unlike working on your body and other goals, it is something different because it involves someone else, so it's best not to put too much of your self esteem into it, although I know that's easier said than done.

You got this man.

Love you
 
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First_step_thousand_miles

First_step_thousand_miles

Respected Member
Day 400 (no MO since day 364) -- Kind of amazing to reach this milestone. Though I've got my eyes on the real prizes which are 90 days MO free (Day 454) and Day 500

Until then going to keep working on myself and taking the steps to become the man I know I can be
 
First_step_thousand_miles

First_step_thousand_miles

Respected Member
Blondie said:
You got this brother, a lot of this stuff just takes time and dedication and years to start slowing paying off in dividends. You've really made some great improvements over these last few years, and congrats on those promotions! I think this year, by the way things are going for you, will be your best. Keep going to the gym and eating healthy and those results will start happening. The romantic thing is always a little trickier because it's somewhat out of your control to some extent, however, everything that you can control start working on daily. Get out there and start talking to people, all people, not just women, and definitely not only women you're attracted to! Women can feel that on a man, when the only girls he's "nice to" or "charming with" are girls he's only attracted to. Don't be that dude. Just get out there and start talking. Maybe learn how to approach a woman when out and about in your world. Not chasing them like you have nothing better to do, but just learning to approach one if she seems friendly and available. It's fucking scary, thus you should probably do it. Also, whatever you're into hobby-wise, join some groups and see who you meet. Either way, I understand the pressures (besides just bodily needs) of finding a partner, but unlike working on your body and other goals, it is something different because it involves someone else, so it's best not to put too much of your self esteem into it, although I know that's easier said than done.

You got this man.

Love you
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Thank you my friend. What you say here is too true -- talking to people in general I've also found to be the key. Not just women in your age bracket, but also older women, younger women, even just dudes to build up the social skills and get more comfortable

You're 100% right, there's a weird energy that we give off if we haven't approached a girl in a while and then immediately start hitting on her. It is scary for sure. I've had a much easier time doing this at more intimate parties (think 15-25 people) or gatherings (i.e. weddings) than doing this at a bar (and fwiw I hate clubs haha) or just out and about at a bookstore / coffee shop / etc. But thanks for the fantastic advice -- you're right that I need to push myself here much more than I'm doing now.

Much love brother!
 
First_step_thousand_miles

First_step_thousand_miles

Respected Member
I've been wanting to make a post about how widespread the issue of PIED is these days, might as well o it around Day 400. I looked at the data on YBOP at the beginning of the reboot and noticed this trend but wanted to put it down on paper just because the data is so incredible. An average of the below shows that from 2010-2018, 32% of men under 40 suffer from PIED! This is compared to low-single digit rates before the 2000s

Recall that Covid basically supercharged everything digital (video games, streaming TV, and yes porn viewership -- just look at OnlyFans which is such an incredible curse on men). I haven't seen a recent study done post-Covid on this but looking at the data below I would honestly peg the true number today to be close to 50% in the US and similar developed countries.

1687214016192.png

The reason I post this is to show, YOU ARE NOT ALONE. For every guy you see out there under 40 with a girl, there's another who is not because he is also trapped in this porn nightmare. I also think the figures above are UNDERSTATED if anything because how do you know if you have PIED if you have not been with a girl? I had no clue until the first time I had sex. Which means these figures are likely testing men who have been fortunate enough to be in situations where they'd otherwise get laid, so I'd guess this leaves out a big portion of mention who don't count in the above because they haven't been put in such a situation to discover the harmful effects of porn.

I remember Gabe Deem mentioned that even as of the mid-2010s they noticed that for young men under 30 the recovery would often take much longer than 3 months, for some a year and for others even longer. I've been thinking, as a man who's used porn for 8 years (including really shitty subgenres including anime) it only makes sense that my recovery takes as long as it has. I have seen many good signs and improvements. Not 100% but I'd certainly put myself past the 50% mark and I KNOW I will get to 100% one day as countless others have proven through this journey. Never lose hope, we are all in the trenches together
 
Androg

Androg

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Admin
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Do you have a link to the source of that table?

I fear you're right. My guess is that the younger kids start frequently using internet porn, the longer it will take them (on average) to re-condition their sexual desire to real partners. Supernormal stimulation is not good for sex IRL. But brains are plastic. Consistency and patience yield the best results. And time spent around real partners, even if it's just friendly interaction, helps too.

Interestingly, women are now running into the same sorts of issues - both from porn use and sex toy use. This suggests that everyone needs to stop putting performance pressure on each other to reach orgasm...and begin by just enjoying relaxed non-goal-driven skin-to-skin contact. It takes time to rewire...whether you're male or female.
 
First_step_thousand_miles

First_step_thousand_miles

Respected Member
Androg said:
Do you have a link to the source of that table?

I fear you're right. My guess is that the younger kids start frequently using internet porn, the longer it will take them (on average) to re-condition their sexual desire to real partners. Supernormal stimulation is not good for sex IRL. But brains are plastic. Consistency and patience yield the best results. And time spent around real partners, even if it's just friendly interaction, helps too.

Interestingly, women are now running into the same sorts of issues - both from porn use and sex toy use. This suggests that everyone needs to stop putting performance pressure on each other to reach orgasm...and begin by just enjoying relaxed non-goal-driven skin-to-skin contact. It takes time to rewire...whether you're male or female.
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I just used the data from the YBOP website, they have a bunch of studies cited

Pretty wild that women are running into these issues now too!
 
First_step_thousand_miles

First_step_thousand_miles

Respected Member
Jeez the cravings are a bit stronger today. Going no MO certainly makes things harder than just going no porn as you don't really have an outlet by which to avoid cravings for porn. Either way, staying strong -- I'm going to see these 90 days of no MO through to the end
 
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