Multiple Addictions

fapfreezone

Active Member
Hi folks. I've been keeping an offline journal for a while, but have just decided I might as well keep an online journal. For one thing, it makes my counters more effective because I can keep updating it and people will keep seeing them. That's reason enough for me.

So I'm 30, I've never had a girlfriend and have only ever had sex with escorts. I would have had sex with "real" girls, but ED got in the way. My first encounter was in 2003, before I had ever used internet porn, so I think the reasons were a combination of performance anxiety and brewer's droop.

I have specific social anxiety, which means I get social anxiety in specific situations (as opposed to most or all social situations, which is called general social anxiety), which sounds good, but it can still be pretty strong stuff. I am also slightly autistic and I have a savant ability - tell me the date and i'll tell you the day of the week. Doesn't have to be from recorded history or even from a time when the Universe existed. Ask me 1st Jan 1 trillion BC and i'll tell you, though it will take a while (Saturday). Calculating dates takes me much longer than the savant's I've seen on TV with this ability (10-20s vs 3-4s for recent dates), so I wonder if the TV programs I've seen simply chose the absolute best at this. By the way, technically, autism in intelligent people is called Asperger's, but I prefer autism as I think Asperger's sounds arrogant.

I have two addictions. One is porn/masturbation and the other is junk food. I am attempting to phase them both out and so far it's working. I am currently 21 days without PMO, with only rare cravings to use now and no immediate desire to even if I watch P and about 6 days without eating at a fast food restaurant, though I did have a trifle today.

The trifle did give me cravings to eat more trifle/confectionary, but not to eat at a fast food restaurant. I think that the two are separate because my cravings to eat at fast food restaurants are diminishing with abstinence from that and that only, but my cravings to eat confectionary aren't and I'm not abstaining from that. I have only just accepted that the junk food thing is actually an addiction, but I think i'll stick with eating dessert for a week or two so that I'm not resisting so much stuff all at once.

I do intend to completely give up all junk food, P and MOing, but I want to do it in stages because doing it all at once was too hard. The relapses you can currently see on my tick mark tracker are due to trying to go cold turkey. Since I've been phasing it out, I've been doing better with no PMO. I think I was addicted to masturbation as much as P and that this strategy will work. It seems to be working so far, but I guess only time will tell.
 

Berens

Active Member
Hi. Have you seen Gary Wilson ted talk? He gives an exemple of a 28 years old guy that was taking antidepressants for years. Abstaining from porn eliminated his depression. If he could, you can too. I believe that your food addiction is related to porn addiction. Everything begins with emotions. For many people that reboot, working out helps a lot. When you will begin working out at the gym, you will must change your diet naturally, and it wont be so painful because you will see the sense of doing that. You can reboot and change your life. You can get a girlfriend of your dreams, dont have any addictions and be a happy person. Now maybe you wont believe it 100% but after resisting pain of abstaining from PMO and unhealthy food you will be strong, confident, healthy man, you will be person that you always wanted to be.
 

fapfreezone

Active Member
Thanks for the support man. As far as this goes:

I believe that your food addiction is related to porn addiction.

I agree completely. When I PMOed in the past and to a lesser extent when I MOed, I would get cravings to eat junk food. It happened less in the other sense of eating food giving me cravings to fap, but they are definitely connected.

Update:
Fantasized this morning about porn, without physical stimulation because I thought it was ok. Since I know that this reactivated my porn pathways, I have added fantasizing to my stricter no P counter so it's totally clear to me and of course I reset too.

No PMO is still going well and I have few cravings to use, though I am now getting cravings to MO sometimes. I still have some desire to eat junk food meals, but this is still less than it was while I was using regularly. I still intend to eat occasional dessert for while longer, as part of my plan of phasing out junk food to make resisting a little easier. I have not cheated on my plan of eating dessert in a few days or on my plan of eating no junk food meals in a week.

Also on the plus side, I keep seeing stories on the YBOP homepage about virgins and guys who've never had girlfriends getting girlfriends/laid and this is very inspiring. Generally I feel that I'm playing a bit of a waiting game right now, but there are still things I can do with my time in the meantime. Specifically, I want to create more positive self-belief through learning new skills with my anticipated reduced screen time. Eventually I want to tackle social skills and socialising (autism is known as dyslexia of social skills). Potential candidate fap free activities include:

Learning to swim
Learning to juggle five or some more/consolidation of three ball tricks
Improving flexibility and learning some basic self-defence combos for self-esteem
Car repair
Learning French
Playing online poker to a better standard (I know, I know, but I want to anyway and I'm definitely not addicted nor do I lose money playing and some screen time is ok)

We'll see how things go and hopefully I'll be able to put something more interesting in future updates as I feel this one was pretty bland. I'll read a few other journals for inspiration.
 

Berens

Active Member
You have a good plan, and one thing that you do great is eliminating an addiction 100% from your life, not only trying to experiment. I read the success stories too and i can relate to your experience. I am virgin and i want to believe that because of rebooting i will get a girlfriend. Cheers
 

benhj

Active Member
Welcome to the forums fapfreezone. I've often heard that addictions go together, especially addictions of the body, which, thinking about it, I guess is what they all are -- addictions of the body. I often find that I trade off work and porn addiction. I get obsessed with work and personal projects, find I can't switch off, hit a brick wall and end up looking at porn to wind down, then throw my self back into work. Kind of yo-yoing. It's a struggle finding that balance and I was grateful to be reminded tonight that I can only do this one day at a time, and a little bit at a time. Keep coming back!
 

fapfreezone

Active Member
Basic update:
I haven't MOed, watched P, or edged since last update, but I have had some cravings to MO, so I'm off to the gym shortly as I believe exercise really helps reduce cravings and they are annoying. At this stage, I've been showering cold an average of six days per week for about two or three weeks an I definitely have more willpower, though I also have done some psychological work.

I also have some fap free activities to add:
Driving range
Chess
Other DIY

I think that fap free activities will make it easier to socialise with guys and girls once I get round to it, because who wants to hear about what level I've gotten to on Theme Hospital? But the funny story where I mixed up the oil and coolant when servicing the car myself (imaginary story, but a friend of mine once greased the contact side of a brake pad) would be much more interesting, if it happened.

I said last time that I wanted to post something more interesting, so here it is. It's a bit long, but I think it's worth a read.

The longer I go without MOing (just over 3 days as of right now), the easier it becomes to get sexual pleasure from visual stimulation alone. Strange but true ? anyone else experienced this? I was rarely premature with porn, so this surprises me. As a result of this pleasure, I become more and more tempted to watch babestation to try to achieve orgasm with visual stimulation alone (I?ll call this POing), because YBOP doesn?t say don?t do that. Well, it doesn?t say it directly (which my brain latches onto), but it does say that if you have to ask ?should I?? then the answer is no. So, actually, YBOP does say don?t do that, it?s just hard for my porn addled brain to accept. Sometimes, I think that I genuinely should watch babestation, but should I, or is this just rationalisation? Hmmm?

If I watch babestation, I reactivate and strengthen the porn pathways I am trying to weaken. I create dopamine release in sensitized areas of the brain. This leads to sensitization and desentization, the main things I am trying to avoid. So clearly, there are downsides to watching babestation and as long as I?m doing that, I?m not going to recover. Plus, of course, there is PMO risk.

Additionally, in terms of neuroplasticity, if I was to PO, then each time I do it, I become more able to do it in future. Clearly this is undesirable if I ejaculate, as it will worsen or possibly prevent me having real sex with real women. However, the only time I POed in the past, it was totally dry and was the best orgasm I?ve ever had without using drugs to enhance things (bear in mind I?ve never orgasmed from PIV, so I?m only comparing fapping with fapping). As a result, there is a part of me that wonders if I could actually improve my sex life by POing.

Could I become multiply orgasmic? Would I have no refactory period since the orgasms are dry? Perhaps these things sound a bit ridiculous, but I don?t understand the science (the dick science) well enough to refute them, so I can?t rule them out and my ?tempted? brain therefore can?t help but find these possibilities appealing. What I do know, however, is that if I do become visually stimulated, I am always premature if I do use physical stimulation afterward. Therefore, if I got into a relationship after having had a PO habit and she stimulated me visually, then I would be premature if we did any kind of physical stimulation whether or not any orgasms I had through the visual stimulation with her were dry. There is an increased risk of this even if I fully reboot and stop using porn, due to neuroplasticity and the brain pathways I would have created with my POing. Since I have no desire to be blindfolded, I think this is a bad idea ? in fact, as a recovering porn fiend, my desire is currently pretty much the opposite!

So, after all that, I reach the conclusion that was obvious from the start. It?s a bad idea because I don?t want to be premature and I do want to reboot. However, writing down the decision making process has made me a whole lot less tempted to watch porn, so I feel that it was a very useful process. This was genuinely a close call this morning. Hopefully, you also found it interesting.




 

Berens

Active Member
Hey man. Yes you should definitely avoid looking at any women on the screen. You have made a good observation. When you abstain for some days from masturbation you get more pleasure from visual stimulation. When abstaining from porn your brain is wanting to get sensitized by any image of the woman on the screen, only to wire the old pathways. You have cheat on your brain for your good.
 

fapfreezone

Active Member
Reset update:
So, I had to reset because this morning I fantasized about visiting an escort. I justified it to myself because it was mostly non-visual, so I didn't think of it as fantasizing at the time. However, thinking about what I would do with her is still fantasizing and it had the same effect as visual fantasizing - sexual pleasure without touch. This is clearly a bad idea so I reset. I think I am still progressing, though, because I haven't PMOed or MOed or watched P or edged. Hopefully this is the last of the fantasizing.
 

Fallen

Member
Hey FFZ (sounds like the next final fantasy game),

I just read your journal & was thinking about the fast food thing. I used to eat a lot of fast food as a contractor & it always made me feel kind of gross afterwards, but I would crave it. I wouldn't say I was addicted to it though. But the thing is, when I started taking bagged lunches to save money & time (mostly time, it wastes a lot of time to leave the job site & find fast food, rather than just open a bag & eat), I found that it stopped tasting good to me. Now when I occasionally eat fast food, generally for convenience, I don't find it satisfying at all.

Hang in there.
 

mouchas

Member
Hello Fap Free Zone

Today while reading your answers, I was eating chocolate on my desk, I looked at my fats and said to my self " Hey man this is like fapping , if I can stop eating this at the peak of taste and leave the rest , I can give up fapping" it is still on my desk and will be taken back to it's original place :)
 

fapfreezone

Active Member
Success update

So, I'm currently 25 days PMO free, 14 days free of fast food restaurants, 9 days free of watching porn in any context, but I MOed this morning (to sensation only), fantasized about sex two days ago and binged on confectionary three days ago.

If you've read my other posts, you'll know I'm phasing things out. Currently, I am PMO, fast food and watching porn free and it's beneficial. I was supposed to also be MO free, but I've been getting lots of cravings and my last O was to fantasy while Ming, so I figured I could accept phasing down to MO to sensation for a few weeks. Binges on confectionary are still allowed because I don't want to have too much stuff to resist at once. Fantasy is out, but I only decided that recently. So, since I'm doing ok, I thought I'd post the benefits I've seen.

Somewhat more beard growth*
Somewhat deeper voice
Less social anxiety
Less cravings to binge on confectionary
Somewhat greater feelings of accomplishment from fap free activities

I've also had variable libido, some flatline and, for a couple days early on, pretty serious depression (a good reason to phase). I've had morning wood pretty much throughout. No, not throughout the day, like 24/7, I mean throughout the weeks but only in the morning! The only time I didn't was for a couple days near the beginning where I was going cold turkey.

*Some people say they think their beard is thicker but they aren't sure. I would say it is thicker. If you have a normal beard, I understand it's hard to tell. I don't have a normal beard. It has never grown properly on my lower cheeks, but now it's starting to grow where it didn't at all before, so there is definitely more hair in my case (thought still not as much as I would like).
 

fapfreezone

Active Member
So, I've binged three times in the last three days (on confectionary) and I'm pretty pissed off about it, so I'm quitting binging on confectionary as well, partly because I'm not getting much in the way of cravings for MO in the last few days, so I think it will be manageable. I've had the confectionary addiction for 5 years and I've binged nearly every week in that time. To start with it was 5-10 times per week, but with treatment (self-help) I got that down to 2-3 average for the last six months (and I've lost 14 pounds).

The acceptable dessert thing (below) comes from the idea that sugar, fat and salt are the main addictive things. So, if I eat something low in those, it won't have a chaser effect even if it is aimed as a dessert. e.g. hot chocolate, which is mostly water. I've tried this and don't get a chaser effect. I do with e.g. bars of chocolate. So it's just more phasing.

I reckon this is my hardest willpower challenge to date because I've tried repeatedly and failed in the past. To help me, I'm gonna stop watching TV with adverts. I don't watch porn subs when trying to reboot, so I don't want to see food close ups ten times per hour when trying to abstain from junk food.

Allowed
MO to sensation only
Acceptable desserts
fruit between meals
TV on BBC, amazon instant video and films by post

Not allowed
PMO
MO to fantasy
Watching P
Fantasizing without P or M
Junk food restaurants
Binging on confectionary
normal TV

 
Hello FFZ,
  I'm glad to read your story.  You seem to be on top of things, phasing addictions out so that you can better manage the dopamine cravings.  I know first hand the danger of transferance (replacing one addiction with another).  Staying honest about fantasy is great, you know deep down if these things are something that is just another trigger or stimulator to the same craving circuits.  The more you get a handle on things I believe the more in control you will feel about your whole life in general.  Discipline is something that has to be exercised to become stronger.  Keeping using your keen wits and keep getting better man!
 

fapfreezone

Active Member
I know first hand the danger of transferance

Thanks for mentioning this, Cerulean. I had two beers last night and the night before (for me this is pushing the boat out!) and I think this is another useful reason not to drink.

Relapse update:
I MOed to fantasy this morning and yesterday morning. Yesterday, I was still a little drunk from the night before, which I blame for my decision to MO, along with a few other incidental details. What actually happened is that I decided to MO to sensation but then gave in and MOed to fantasy at the end. This is the reason that the FAQ recommends not to phase, but it's not that big a deal because I didn't PMO and I still think I'm better off phasing at the moment.

Also, when I drank last night I overate (and I was tempted the previous night, too). So I think it's clear that drinking isn't helping and now that I think about it it's pretty obvious, but I think I needed to do it to totally believe it.

On the plus side, I reached my 30 day no PMO goal, I haven't eaten at a junk food restaurant in over two weeks (so I've saved perhaps ?30), I've been doing some FFA's (e.g. stretching to get into boxercise better) and I haven't watched TV with ads since I made the last post saying I wasn't going to.

So, basically I had a slight blip, but it wasn't that bad and I think things are generally moving forward.
 

fapfreezone

Active Member
So, I've been getting a few more cravings to PMO in the past few weeks, likely because my fap frequency has dropped. Early on in my phasing approach, I fapped to fantasy daily. Then, more recently, I dropped down to MO to sensation every 2-4 days which is what I think caused the increase in cravings (less release).

I did look at porn recently, as you can see on my tracker. I read an article about Kate Moss having done naked pictures and I thought "I've never seen a supermodel naked", so I justified it and googled. My ISP's porn filter didn't block the images so I've got K9 now. I don't know if it's a drawback of phasing or if it's just me or both, but I have a tendency to justify the thing just slightly worse than I am doing. I am well aware that PMO is a definite no-no, so I never do it because I know I can't justify it to myself so I don't even try. However, looking at stills of a supermodel is just stills and with no physical stimulation, it seems almost ok, so I ended up justifying it to myself. This sort of thinking explains most if not all the relapses on my P/fantasy tracker. Anyone else had this problem? Any suggestions on how to deal with it?

Also, I haven't eaten fast food in nearly a month and I haven't overeaten confectionary in just over a week, which is huge for anyone with an eating disorder/food addiction. I never go a week without binging. Until no PMO. Also, I have few cravings to overeat in either way, so I'm thinking i'll start doing some more cardio at the gym for weight loss soon. I'm starting from 5'9 and 166lb, so I don't have that far to go. I would be much heavier, but I estimate that I've burnt off half a million calories at the gym since mid 2011, in 1000 sessions of an average of an hour, 500 calories per session. I've had eating problems since before then and throughout that time. Yes, gym abstinence is part of the fix, but I think I may be able to get back into it now.

In terms of benefits, I am confident that I'm somewhat less pervy now than I was and I'm hoping this will get even better as the DeltaFosB leaves my brain and afterward, when the connections will really start to weaken. That's why I've set my no PMO counter to 180 days - that's 8 weeks to get rid of DeltaFosB and 16 weeks for the connections to weaken substantially. Just my guess at appropriate times.

I'm sure I don't want to MO to fantasy during this time, but I'm unsure about MOing to sensation as DE was a big problem for me pre-reboot and my time is getting down it seems, so I'm unsure whether I can require without it or whether that's just wishful thinking. I kinda think if I'm gonna go back to orgasms again afterward, why does orgasm abstinence help? Surely any connections will weaken just because I stop using P, P subs and P fantasy? So I'm not sure on MO to sensation yet, but i'll need to be sure to stop altogether. Right now I think I should probably stop because what's the point of continuing - I'd be sure to be rebooting correctly if I stop but not if I don't. Not sure that'll give me the force to stop totally, though.


TLDR
Reboot is basically going well. Should I MO to sensation only during my reboot or should I quit now? Why do I need to quit it? I need good reasons to be able to quit completely.
 

Europe1

Member
Hi fapfreezone,

I can totally relate to your last post about justifying a quick look at a pair of tits, of Kate Moss in this case.

I have the same internal debate going on constantly. Sometimes I try to convince myself that there is nothing wrong with looking at just pictures of naked women, because it is all natural etc. But I know my brain is just looking for a substitute. 

Convincing myself of the negative effects works best for me. Sometimes I read and re-read as much as articles on YBOP as possible, for several hours, just to keep repeating the urgency of stopping porn to myself. Otherwise the irrational urges would win it from the rational side.

When it comes to fapping to just the sensation. I really see no problem there. It just helps against being incredibly horny all the time.

I think that fapping as quick as possible is not even half as harmful as being horny all the time and sitting on your hands so you won't go to xxx sites, as when you are horny, you think about sex all the time, whether you want it or not.

 

Fallen

Member
I don't know what is right for you FFZ, but I had been using MO for some time as a release to keep me from the more destructive PMO, and I feel like it was good on the short term (MO better than PMO with lots of wasted time), but counterproductive on the long term. It seems to me the primary point of the reboot is to break the chemical dependency associated with O. Secondly, we want to rewire our brain to associate the endorphin release with healthy things, but if you keep feeding the craving how will you ever overcome that dependency? That's why I'm going cold turkey no O for any reason; but again, I don't know if that's a good idea for you at this point, since each of our struggles is different. By the way, I feel like I should take this opportunity to complain that satisfying your partner without getting your own O can be really enjoyable... until it's over & then it's just extremely frustrating.
 

fapfreezone

Active Member
I feel like it [MO] was good on the short term (MO better than PMO with lots of wasted time), but counterproductive on the long term.

I have been thinking similarly about this recently. I will admit that I do get the occasional craving to PMO, which I think is likely related to my continuing MO habit. Also, I think that currently, I am basically saying to myself that "it's ok to rewire while you're still desensitized", which is pretty clearly false. I think the problem comes from the fact that I have never had sex properly yet (never finished or even felt pleasure during PIV), so I'm still pretty desperate to rewire absolutely as fast as humanly possible in the same way that I would be if I was a virgin and for pretty much the same sort of reason. Plus MO is innately tempting, obviously.

So, my reasons for quitting MO are:

1) Trying to rewire while desensitized prolongs desensitization and therefore may actually prolong recovery
2) Trying to rewire while not rebooted maintains cravings to PMO and is therefore risky

I have changed my second counter to include P and MO separately.

Also, eating is going well and I'm down 2lb to 164lb since last post about weight.
 

Fallen

Member
I hope you see more success with this approach. Regarding the eating, it's hard to imagine 164 lbs being a significant problem. Are you quite short? I'm 6' & 190 lbs & I don't consider myself overweight.
 

fapfreezone

Active Member
@Fallen
I'm 5'9 and 164. I used to be 181, but no, weight was never a massive issue, I just always wanted to be thin and have abs (this is common in bulimia). I have overeaten a lot, but I always worked out loads so I never gained much weight.

Relapse Update:
So, I just PMOed after a 47 day streak. I basically justified MO to sensation and then decided that since I'd broken the rules a bit, I might as well break them a lot and then escalated up through MO to fantasy, watching softcore, watching hardcore and fapping to hardcore.

I don't think phasing would have ever given me good results, though. I think I need to learn to adapt to cold turkey and do it properly. I think I am addicted to fapping as well as porn and I need to give it up for the same reasons. Fapping without porn still stimulates the reward centres and if I am addicted, then I would also get sensitization and desensitization, so pretty much the same issues as porn, just less extreme. So I clearly need to quit both.

I think i need to get used to no stimulation of any kind. No P, no P subs, no MO of any description, etc. This means i consider there's no point trying to rewire to my own hand, even without any visual stimulation, which i had previously thought would be a useful stepping stone for a hard case like me.
 
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