Time to End This Once and For All
- Thread starter dienekes1
- Start date
Day 102
No real urges today. This training course is based heavily around battalion-level operations and planning, and therefore involves a lot of briefing. I know I’ve mentioned this in a prior journal entry, but quitting PMO has improved my public speaking skills exponentially. I always figured I was just naturally quiet and averse to public speaking, but this isn’t true — and never was.
No real urges today. This training course is based heavily around battalion-level operations and planning, and therefore involves a lot of briefing. I know I’ve mentioned this in a prior journal entry, but quitting PMO has improved my public speaking skills exponentially. I always figured I was just naturally quiet and averse to public speaking, but this isn’t true — and never was.
Day 107
Got hit with some pretty difficult urges today. I’ve been away from home (and my girlfriend) for 10 days at this point, and my baser instincts are starting to get a bit restless it seems. Was able to overcome the urges by staying busy and keeping my mind off of the prospect of using PMO.
Got hit with some pretty difficult urges today. I’ve been away from home (and my girlfriend) for 10 days at this point, and my baser instincts are starting to get a bit restless it seems. Was able to overcome the urges by staying busy and keeping my mind off of the prospect of using PMO.
I return home on Saturday, so luckily only two more full days to make it through.
Stay strong!
Day 1
Relapsed pretty hard yesterday. It still feels like a dream (or rather a nightmare) in that it’s hard to believe it actually happened. I figured that since I had 110 days clean under my belt, I was unstoppable. This false sense of security combined with being away from home (and without any sort of sexual release) for 13 days led to a dangerous situation that I was ultimately not strong enough to overcome. It’s insane to think that this addiction is still so deeply-ingrained even after such long periods of abstinence.
While I feel devastated and demoralized right now, my commitment to beating this addiction remains steadfast. The 110-day streak that preceded this relapse was an incredibly happy time for me and one in which a great deal of self-growth occurred. Therefore, I’m going to keep at it and double down on my efforts to overcome this.
The most important thing will be salvaging and maintaining the momentum I built up during this previous streak. However, I think I’ll be able to do it, since I start my job as a litigation attorney next month. This will hopefully provide me with very compelling reasons not to engage in PMO, since I’ll be very busy and am going to need all of my cognitive faculties to do my job well (and porn use destroys my ability to think clearly and make good decisions).
One minor consolation is the fact that I’ll probably never again be in a situation where I’m away from home for this long of a time. If I had someone else with me (such as my girlfriend), I doubt I would have succumbed to the urges that triggered this relapse. I’m not one for making excuses, but being alone in a hotel room for 13 days was a tough situation — but, again, one that I likely won’t ever encounter in the future.
In any case, I’m gravely disappointed in myself but still entirely committed to staying on this path. I have one life to live and I refuse to waste it in thrall to a porn addiction that makes my life significantly less enjoyable. I’m going to beat this thing, no matter what.
Relapsed pretty hard yesterday. It still feels like a dream (or rather a nightmare) in that it’s hard to believe it actually happened. I figured that since I had 110 days clean under my belt, I was unstoppable. This false sense of security combined with being away from home (and without any sort of sexual release) for 13 days led to a dangerous situation that I was ultimately not strong enough to overcome. It’s insane to think that this addiction is still so deeply-ingrained even after such long periods of abstinence.
While I feel devastated and demoralized right now, my commitment to beating this addiction remains steadfast. The 110-day streak that preceded this relapse was an incredibly happy time for me and one in which a great deal of self-growth occurred. Therefore, I’m going to keep at it and double down on my efforts to overcome this.
The most important thing will be salvaging and maintaining the momentum I built up during this previous streak. However, I think I’ll be able to do it, since I start my job as a litigation attorney next month. This will hopefully provide me with very compelling reasons not to engage in PMO, since I’ll be very busy and am going to need all of my cognitive faculties to do my job well (and porn use destroys my ability to think clearly and make good decisions).
One minor consolation is the fact that I’ll probably never again be in a situation where I’m away from home for this long of a time. If I had someone else with me (such as my girlfriend), I doubt I would have succumbed to the urges that triggered this relapse. I’m not one for making excuses, but being alone in a hotel room for 13 days was a tough situation — but, again, one that I likely won’t ever encounter in the future.
In any case, I’m gravely disappointed in myself but still entirely committed to staying on this path. I have one life to live and I refuse to waste it in thrall to a porn addiction that makes my life significantly less enjoyable. I’m going to beat this thing, no matter what.
Yes, that is in fact exactly what happened. The relapse occurred after I had finished the final class of my military course and returned to the hotel room for my final night there. The sneaky, addicted part of my brain figured “you’re finished with the course and don’t have anything important to worry about for the next few weeks — how about a porn binge … one last hurrah!” That cleverly insidious line of thought overcame the defenses I so carefully built up over the last 9 months with more ease than I’d like to admit. Feeling pretty devastated by this failure; today has been one of the saddest days in recent memory for me.
Blondie
Respected Member
Sorry to hear this brother.
I think everyone here can attest to something exactly like that in our own journeys. I know for myself, I blew it after a year and a half clean because of my complacency and thinking I was "over it" and too far out to fall. It's a mistake I had to learn, so I could move on and grow from it. You're absolutely right though, you've learned a lot, and now you can take what you've learned and keep going forward. At the end of the day, that's all we can do.
You got this.
I think everyone here can attest to something exactly like that in our own journeys. I know for myself, I blew it after a year and a half clean because of my complacency and thinking I was "over it" and too far out to fall. It's a mistake I had to learn, so I could move on and grow from it. You're absolutely right though, you've learned a lot, and now you can take what you've learned and keep going forward. At the end of the day, that's all we can do.
You got this.
As the saying goes, "Shit happens." Hopefully you'll return to your new orbit without too much discomfort.