It's time to change

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logicprox

Well-Known Member
I have been sticking to most of them most of the time, but in some cases modifying to save time since work has been so crazy. I had intended to implement more but haven't been able to with work. But one of the main projects killing me is over Monday so will be able to start getting back to forward progress.
 
Blondie

Blondie

Respected Member
This is great @logicprox. That's the beauty of this method, just stick to the course, and it does get better. There will be moments when it comes back with a vengeance, but the strength of these moments become lesser and lesser and fewer in between, until you wake up one day wondering why the hell did you ever need this crap in the first place.

Best
 
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logicprox

Well-Known Member
Blondie said:
This is great @logicprox. That's the beauty of this method, just stick to the course, and it does get better. There will be moments when it comes back with a vengeance, but the strength of these moments become lesser and lesser and fewer in between, until you wake up one day wondering why the hell did you ever need this crap in the first place.

Best
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145 days.

Absolutely, definitely been seeing this happen. Even with what I posted yesterday, it's not really that the inclination to use didn't arise at all. It's that it popped up but so weakly that I just shrugged it off effortlessly. That's not to say that I have won the war yet. i know the harder moments will still come.

I have had no porn lapses in this super busy time at work (which isn't fully over yet, just through the absolute worst of it). But that doesn't mean all is well. I haven't had time to talk about it and i knew I would get through the period alright, but there are warning shots that have started to fire.

I think when you get to this stage in a "streak", it's not likely to go from absolutely crushing it to relapse suddenly (though this is my first time here so my supposition could be wrong). I think what happens is you start to get less rigorous about certain things, whether due to overconfidence or life stress or whatever else, and it starts to gently, almost imperceptibly reignite the parts of your brain that are still addicted. You sow the seeds of a relapse days or weeks before it happens.

I do think that those seeds started to be sowed during this work period. I posted a while back about getting fantasy under control. It's because I think fantasy was one of those seeds. I improved on it, but didn't completely cap it. I made some excuses due to being stressed and having trouble falling asleep. This also led to MO more than I should have the last couple of weeks (though less so since that post). As I said in another post, mostly kept doing my habits, but the key word is mostly. It was 100% without fail before.

All that to say, I have work to do to get back on track. Which is fine because I'm going to do it. This week is still going to be a little crazy for work, and I'm very tired from the last couple of weeks, but here is what I am committing to to finish out this week:

1. No fantasy at night
2. No MO
3. Other than this morning (flew home late so I'm just a little off time and exhausted) doing my habits 100% like I designed them.

I'll report on these through Sunday to keep myself accountable, then it's time for step 2.
 
Blondie

Blondie

Respected Member
logicprox said:
I think when you get to this stage in a "streak", it's not likely to go from absolutely crushing it to relapse suddenly (though this is my first time here so my supposition could be wrong). I think what happens is you start to get less rigorous about certain things, whether due to overconfidence or life stress or whatever else, and it starts to gently, almost imperceptibly reignite the parts of your brain that are still addicted. You sow the seeds of a relapse days or weeks before it happens.
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This.

You're absolutely right, it won't happen in a night or maybe even in a week, but over time it can slip up on you. It took me about three weeks when I blew it years ago after my 500 day streak. My life had hit the shit fan, and I had become complacent in my routines and outlook, and over those three weeks I lost my will power to fight and eventually gave in.

Nothing to be afraid of, just something to watch out for.

Best!
 
L

logicprox

Well-Known Member
147 days.

No fantasy. No MO. Checked the habit boxes with one exception...because I spent too much time on this site in the morning yesterday and didn't have time to do everything for the full planned time. I hadn't been able to participate here much for a few weeks and I guess I just crammed it into one morning. I'll allow it this once.

It is interesting how similar good habits actually are to PMO. The things I had let slip in my routine the last few of weeks came right back as soon as I put the needle back in the groove because I spent months turning them into rock-solid behaviors. The good routines and scripts that I established are still there, ready to be used, they just get weaker the longer you go without operating them. I felt them weakening a little as I got lax the last few weeks but as soon as I decided to bring them back it was natural again.

The same thing applies to PMO. The longer you go without using, the weaker the script gets in the mind. But it's still there waiting. i suspect if you get far enough it gets so weak as to be largely irrelevant. Not there yet, but that's where I'm moving.
 
Blondie

Blondie

Respected Member
logicprox said:
The good routines and scripts that I established are still there, ready to be used, they just get weaker the longer you go without operating them. I felt them weakening a little as I got lax the last few weeks but as soon as I decided to bring them back it was natural again.
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Nice job @logicprox on getting back into the groove of things. These little things can add up, and sometimes, real quickly!

Have a great weekend.
 
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logicprox

Well-Known Member
150 days.

I realized that I have stuck to MOST of the habits I had set up but there are a few things I had let go even before work got crazy. So next step is re-implementing those over the next couple of weeks. Work is still crazy, just less crazy, so a couple of them will probably need to wait until mid June when the next of my projects ends and finally gets things back to normal, but there's definitely some I can implement now.
 
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