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

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Day 633 no porn
Day 21 no MO
Daily meditation
Daily cold showers

3 weeks no MO. I've been 100% disciplined, haven't even looked at anything resembling porn / stimulating porn pathways. I'm going to keep this up, can't wait for day 100. I think I'll truly feel comfortable in my recovery when I get there. Am also working out a lot more and working in more cardio which is great for erectile and overall health. Onwards and upwards
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Fought off some urges today, and some a few days back as well. Urges had mostly disappeared sometime in fall of last year if I remember correctly, but looking at all those images and stuff did not help. So it's gonna take some more time to cleanse my brain and I need to stay strong. Thankfully my brain is in a much healthier place vs. when I first started the reboot so I should flush this stuff out much faster, hopefully within a couple months
 

Blondie

Respected Member
Hey my man, I get this. Just stay the course, and it will correct itself. That's the problem with this stuff, is that we differentiate between porn and pictures of yoga pants etc. but our brains don't, and therein lies the problem. Just stay the course, and it will autocorrect itself.

Love you.
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Hey my man, I get this. Just stay the course, and it will correct itself. That's the problem with this stuff, is that we differentiate between porn and pictures of yoga pants etc. but our brains don't, and therein lies the problem. Just stay the course, and it will autocorrect itself.

Love you.
Thank you my friend, you are absolutely right. I'm not worried about it per se since like you said, just staying the course as I did originally will make it autocorrect. It's just annoying and a bit frustrating to have set progress back on this front but I'll bear with it. Love you man!
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Day 636 no porn
Day 24 no MO
Daily meditation
Daily cold showers

Staying the course on no porn or related material. Had some urges again today but to a lesser extent. Also seeing girls out and about I'm going back to that staring phase which I mentioned a while back (which had mostly gone away as I continued thru the reboot). It's frustrating to have gone backward in this sense but that's ok -- I beat it once and I will beat it again. Again, I have been extra strict these 24 days to not even look any stuff resembling porn. I will keep on this path

I think I'm also getting some withdrawal symptoms, my mood has been out of waack for the past 2 weeks (mood swings). Just getting really low sometimes, sometimes there's some anxiety, I feel this urge to just be alone & isolate myself, easily irritated, desensitization to things I enjoy like good shows or good food, etc. Just all the big stuff and it's been a little scary. This is despite spending time with friends all weekend and also hitting the gym tonight (and last week though only once). Jesus I never want to get anywhere close to a relapse ever again / condition myself to this unnatural shit

I wonder if there's also an element of truth to this where I feel terrible about certain things in my life...I've made it a point to basically quit Facebook / LinkedIn since it was causing me to constantly compare myself to others and feel down. Also minimizing reading the news after work hours and cutting out Reddit. Continuing the cold showers, meditation, and I'm going to go hard on exercise. Even a few weeks ago I would lift 3x per week and maybe 1 day of cardio, I'm going to do 3 days of cardio on top to weights to get that dopamine flowing. Also wondering if I want to start gratitude journaling, I don't want to be depressed ever again as I did when I was 23. It fucking sucks, and while I can definitely beat it I just don't want to go thru that process again. A bit frustrated and upset right now but I need to keep going
 
Last edited:

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Day 637 no porn
Day 25 no MO
Daily meditation
Daily cold showers

Soldiering on. Watched Gabe Deem's video on withdrawal symptoms which I think I'm going thru a wave of it -- guess that's what happens when you stare at pics for hours and stimulate those pathways. I realized and caught myself before PMO'ing thankfully but wish I had just never even started. Have to be aware of such temptations

I'm doing everything he mentioned would help including exercise and socializing. Going to turn the exercise on over-drive and do a lot more socializing as well. Onwards
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
You got this @First_step_thousand_miles. Unfortunately, I'm feeling some slight urges too after this last relapse. Nothing crazy, but still there all the same. Everything we do in this life has consequences, even if it's not "real" porn, it can get you. But we press on.

Let's do this!
Yeah the withdrawal symptoms are pretty brutal, but really helps reinforce staying the course. Let's keep at it man!
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Day 640 no porn
Day 28 no MO
Daily meditation
Daily cold showers

4 weeks no MO. My brain is feeling like it's normalizing. I'm noticing a fair number of random boners, and also boners when I think about some girls I know. All good signs

Hitting the gym regularly and getting better on my diet as well. I'm feeling optimistic for the future
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Day 642 no porn
Day 30 no MO
Daily meditation
Daily cold showers

Let's get it. I don't want to call it too early, but my mood seems to have stabilized a TON over the past 2-3 days vs. feeling wild swings prior to that. We'll wait and see next couple weeks but sheesh pretty sure it was withdrawal symptoms rather than anything else
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Day 647 no porn
Day 35 no MO
Daily meditation
Daily cold showers

Have had some sex dreams and have woken up hard in past week. My mood has also still been very stable since I called it out 5 days ago, seems it really was withdrawal symptoms because I haven't changed much in my life otherwise

Onwards
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Day 649 no porn
Day 37 no MO
Daily meditation
Daily cold showers

Another sex dream last night, though this one was fairly vanilla. Was out at a bar yesterday and my brain went into overdrive with starting at girls (I tried not to since I don't want to be a creep) -- I feel like my brain is trying to substitute porn / pics with girls again.

It's ok though because I went through this before, and eventually that all normalized. I just need to do that again and stay strict for a while and get back to normal.

It's funny, I remember back in college I had a friend who would masturbate before most parties since he said you don't want to be too horny going in. Women can sense that desperation, the times I've been successful with girls is when I go in with no overt intentions at all and just try to have a good conversation...and then often the girl is the one chasing. Hasn't happened a ton of times but pretty much that's been the case 80% of the time I have. Even the girl I was talking to somewhat recently, it was exactly that case -- wasn't super attracted to her so I just interacted with her like a friend and she started chasing me. Just some musings
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
Day 653 no porn
Day 41 no MO
Daily meditation
Daily cold showers

Getting hard just thinking about having sex with normal girls. Last night was laying in bed and didn't even touch myself but was really hard. Good signs
 

First_step_thousand_miles

Well-Known Member
41 days, congrats brother!
Thank you my man! The temptations to MO are strong and I feel 'healed enough' but for peace of mind I really want to make it to Day 100. And to prove it to myself that I have self control. It can only be good to abstain anyway for those of us who have been overloaded with porn dopamine

Nice to see many of the temptations are minimal now as well. There's still some stuff that can spike up from time to time but that's only because of my lack of diligence. Being disciplined for a while will make that stuff disappear as well

How are things going with you my man?
 
Top