I want to succeed at this as bad as I want to breathe

Warhawk

Active Member
Thanks brother, you as well. Any weekend without porn, allowing healing, will certainly be a good weekend, even if it does have it's challenges.
 

Warhawk

Active Member
Day 60

Thanks @WinkTinkTillium! The weekend went awesome. I hope yours went great too!

I kept pretty busy, and went out with some friends on Saturday, staying pretty busy all day and into the evening. Sunday I took care of some things around the house, hung out with the lady, and just kept things positive. It can be so easy for me to fall into a weekend slump and just lounge around, feeling crappy, doing nothing, and this weekend was just the opposite.

I also note my sex drive that is starting to feel much stronger. I've woken up with morning wood a few times lately, and just feel more confident that I'll be able to perform properly when the time comes. I actually feel like this break from everything has had more benefit to me than I thought it would. I think that this time has really helped to build a mental stamina and discipline that I've been missing for so many years, and I'm hopeful that it will help me through the rewiring phase when I get to it.

Brains are weird. I'm just happy to feel like I'm making proper progress, though, and I'm doing everything I can to keep on track.

I can't overstate how much I appreciate this forums existence. I'm not sure I would have made it this far without it.
 

WinkTinkTillium

Active Member
Right back at you on the 2 month shout out @Warhawk88 !!! Congrats for sure! I am also really happy to hear that you are noticing some of those other healing benefits, the sex drive, return of the morning wood, the mentality/discipline etc
 

Warhawk

Active Member
Day 63

It's been a couple weird days at work. Work is always weird, but the challenge of "work politics" roped me in this week. Without going into too much detail, it ended up being a very stressful couple of days while I got things sorted amongst myself, my superiors, and my subordinates. It certainly made me feel some stronger urges than I have felt in a few weeks. Fortunately, I stayed the course, and powered through. The strange part of this was that, at a point, I thought about the fact that it may have been possible that my quitting porn got me into the middle of this in the first place (and it very well may have), but I made the mental decision that even if it made the situation worse to stay the course, I was going to, because I know deep down that the only way to recover from all of this is to learn how to make it through my life challenges, no matter what they are, without leaning on the seemingly simple escape of porn in the moment.

Really, even though the situation fully resolved in my favor, it kinda hit me that I would be willing to power through to the point of losing my job to quit porn, and that is a very serious thought. Again, it really didn't end up being that serious, but it was a very real thought for that moment that I was reflecting on it. I think the thing that I appreciated out of myself in this was that, in the past, this could have been a very easy way for me to validate watching porn, going back to the bullshit, and never getting clean by finding an excuse to break my streak, and telling myself I was doing it for "good", which would have been bullshit.

Anyway, fuck porn, and fuck excuses. I'm keeping at this.
 

Blondie

Respected Member
Warhawk, that is a great story! Nice job turning towards your better self. It's in moments like that we become better and stronger.

Cheers to you, and fuck porn!
 

Warhawk

Active Member
Day 65

Thanks @Blondie!

Had some stronger urges for a period of a few hours yesterday. This isn't something I haven't been through before. It's like the "cravings" I've described before, and by shifting my mental focus to some hobbies, it subsided after a few hours. Being that I've been through addiction on different levels before, this isn't an unknown process for me, so I suppose the silver lining to going through those experiences in the past is that it's almost trained me to help through this one. I still remain vigilant, knowing a backslide is one poor decision away, but I'm really trying to put everything I've learned from my past together this go around to give myself the best chance at success.

Long weekend ahead, but I should be able to keep myself fairly busy through it. I have a side hustle for work that I will be working on the majority of today, and a family event tomorrow, which may lead into Monday, so I should have a really good place to focus my energies this weekend.
 

Warhawk

Active Member
Day 70

Had sex with the lady over the last weekend, and while not (even close to) my best performance, it was a good step in the right direction. It was much more of a connected experience shared by both of us, rather than just trying to get off. I can tell I still have a LOT more healing to do, as I had some notable physical struggles, but that's not shocking to me, and fortunately I was able to maintain well enough to not fully disappoint her.

This also opened up the opportunity to discuss that I had been going through quitting porn...again. I explained that, due to rebooting, I'm just "off" right now sexually, but want to work towards getting better. Fortunately, she is understanding. She doesn't seem to really fully understand the whole rebooting process. Not that she doesn't care, she just trusts that I know what I'm doing, and trusts that I'm working on bettering myself, at least in this moment. She doesn't necessarily want to fully understand the science of it, just trusts that I do. She's just happy that I'm working to improve myself for her and us, and that we're going to actively work on building back our sexual relationship. The discussion was a major hurdle in this reboot, and I'm glad to have gotten it out there.

While I feel like the above should be a step forward, I think my poor performance has gotten to my head a bit, and I'm not thrilled about that. Perhaps it just hit me that I have a long road ahead of me, and I'm just unhappy about putting myself here. I don't know. I just know I've had a lot of self-doubt this week, both relating to my sexual ability, and even about work, and other stress points of my life. I have had trouble sleeping due to anxiety, which made things worse. Fortunately, I was able to get a somewhat reasonable amount of sleep last night, and I feel significantly better today. I'm realizing that I probably should have journaled more this week, as I think it helps to let things go by getting them off my chest somewhere, so I will probably look to put a little more effort into doing that onward.
 

Warhawk

Active Member
Day 72

Had sex again last night, and this time it was awesome. My junk worked as well as I could have asked it to, so I'm pretty happy about that. I'm really hoping to keep the ball rolling here, and work into the stage of rewiring for sex with the lady. While I've been through this stage before, I was still open to masturbation in the past, which made it easier to succumb to the chaser effect, and my intent is to maintain my status of no porn, and no masturbation, in order to continue to see growth in the right direction.

I'm still fighting through some feelings of self-doubt in other areas, though; particularly work related. I think I'm just overthinking, so just working my way through it, but it definitely makes me feel "off". Perhaps it's a hormonal issue causing me to think about things in a way I normally wouldn't, so I'm trying to be mindful of this and watch my words and thoughts as I navigate through this.

As of this morning, my girl is headed out to a event with her girlfriends, and I'll be at home on my own. I'm not horribly worried about temptations today, as I have a few things to work on here myself to stay busy.

Overall, I feel like I'm continuing to make good progress, despite having some mental battles this week.
 

Warhawk

Active Member
Day 73

This quest certainly has it's ups and downs, and it's scary how fast things can go south. I had a moment of weakness last night.

I am feeling an overwhelming level of sex drive the past few days, and last night the lady was already asleep, and I was just hanging out and winding down for the day. I was scrolling through Facebook and the "reels" came up with some very suggestive videos of some girls, and I watched one, then another, and before I knew it I had scrolled through more than I knew was appropriate. Part of me knew this wasn't good, and I kept at it for a bit. I was seeking. Finally, I was able to snap out of it, and pull myself away, block "reels" from my feed again, and then I had to take a moment to really internally scream at myself for following this dopamine trail in the opposite direction of where I want to be headed. I felt really stupid in that moment, guilty, and shamed, and decided it was best to just try to go get to sleep to get away from it all, which I did.

It really is a shame that there is no place to truly get away from this type of imagery online. Blocking Instagram was an easy move for me, because I really don't use it for connections with family or friends, and really have only ever used it to follow and look at slutty women online, so it was easy to get rid of because it brought zero value to me. Facebook is one I am having a little more trouble with because I use it to maintain connections with people in my personal life. To add, I am in a TON of hobby and interest groups that I get great value from. I used to be a big forum guy many years ago, but they just don't exist much any more, and most all of the active information has come over to Facebook groups. In this reboot, I have made a point to leave any groups that included "adult" content, and really clean it up. I have also been using the "hide" option on "reels" as it comes back up. The problem is, this "hide" is temporary, and it's only a matter of time before it comes back, and I have to choose to hide it again. I clearly became lax on this again, hence this situation. Since hiding it again last night, it's gone from my feed again. I don't want to have to hide from this stuff my whole life. I want to learn to control myself. I am not sure that I'm ready to commit to breaking away from Facebook forever like I did Instagram, but I'm trying to consider if I need to, because this has been one thing that has caught me up a few different times in this reboot. I want to feel strong enough to control myself enough to be able to use social media responsibly, but fuck ups like this leave me feeling uneasy about it, and the last thing I want to do is fail here, as I feel like I'm making decent progress otherwise

I am annoyed because, while I was able to break away, it took me much longer than it should have to do so. I shouldn't have clicked on the video in the first place. I'm not counting this as a reset here, because though it was revealing women, it wasn't porn, and I didn't masturbate, but I am counting it as dangerous fucking behavior, and am pissed off at myself for it. This is exactly the type of action that leads down the path of failure, and that has to be unacceptable for me.

Ultimately I knew it was only right to post here, explain myself, and accept accountability for a moment of weakness. I am feeling shame for it, and I promise to work on being better.
 

downhillfromhere

Well-Known Member
Good job on breaking away from it and not letting it be more than that! Totally understand the feeling, and the way we sometimes feel helpless when those things appear. It’s like the sirens are calling and we go into a trance. I had a similar thing happen the other day, and I keep thinking of going back and looking. Scary stuff. But keep at it, and it should get easier!
 

Warhawk

Active Member
Thanks @downhillfromhere. It's definitely gotten easier overall, but I made the mistake of feeling over-confident. Just as I state that I wasn't worried about temptation, it hit me like a ton of bricks that very evening. Very humbling, and nothing short of a wake-up call to remain vigilant.
 

Blondie

Respected Member
Good job Warhawk staying strong and moving on from worse content.
Very humbling, and nothing short of a wake-up call to remain vigilant.
Yes, it's very easy to get complacent with ourselves and start thinking we don't need to be as vigilant as we once were.

As far as Facebook goes, that's a tough one if you do use it for good reasons. I guess you could try to give it up for a time, or maybe just do it on a certain day of the week, so you'll be more focused on whatever you use it for. This is the kind of thing where you can easily become black and white in your thinking, which is fine, but sometimes it can be unproductive to our recoveries. You have to figure out what works for you, and more importantly, if YOU can handle it at this time in your recovery. In five months you might be totally okay with it which is something to also keep in mind.

Eventually, at least how I see it, you're going to want to get to a place where you're not panicking every time you "accidentally" or even "purposely" see and ad or whatever. Unfortunately, the world is how it is, and I don't plan on hiding behind a rock every time I see something triggering. But yes, until we get there, especially when starting out, it's best to have a plan in place and maybe even go to extremes just to get a head start on this nonsense.

I'm not quitting porn to hide in the shadows, I'm quitting porn to live again and be free!

Best brother.
 

Warhawk

Active Member
Thanks @Blondie I appreciate your insight. To your point, that's what I'm trying to avoid, is being in a place where I'm hiding from things, because that's not truly recovering to me either. I want to be able to live a casual life, and see things without it bothering or triggering me. For the most part, I've been ok with this. I've watched movies or other content that ended up having partial nudity, and it's not a big deal, because I wasn't seeking it. In this case, what started as a glance, crossed over into me intentionally seeking more, just to feed that dopamine rush, and that's what bothered me so much about it. It caught me up like @downhillfromhere referenced, and I got into that trance.

I suppose this is an opportunity to learn how to be better. You're right, perhaps it's worth looking at short term workarounds, to work myself into the long term goal of freedom from this ugly addiction, so I can live among "normal" content of the modern world without worrying about being sucked in and going back to a place I never want to be again. I guess I'm just not there quite yet.
 

Blondie

Respected Member
without worrying about being sucked in and going back to a place I never want to be again. I guess I'm just not there quite yet.
Well, that's good to know.

You saying you're "not quite there yet" is true but also down plays where you're at. In all reality, you're in a great place, a place of acknowledgement. Realizing that you're at a place of accepting your current reality, is much better than the other reality, relapsing and all the guilt and shame that brings.

I would definitely prefer this place to the latter! :cool:

Best brother
 
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