As regards my thoughts, here is what I want to share with you and others.
My last post before vacation was about motivation. I just noticed that I'm slipping up in the reboot constantly (and all small perusing of facebook profiles and things like that count towards such slip-ups) because - in all honesty before myself - I am not ranking the addiction as an important enough problem.
Complacency, basically. I do not know why it kicked in but I do know it is a sign of a "half-baked" reboot. In my case, I have been clean for a relatively long time before and I think that I came to a point where I though "it won't do harm if I have at look at this or that".
It will, surprise surprise. It seems an obvious thing but yet the addiction is so strong, it plays tricks with our minds. I have been caught in that.
There is also one more very important factor, which is, I think, of a spiritual nature.
I seem to have found myself in a state of mind where I have a problem with accepting that I can't have everything in life. Seems brilliant, doesn't it?
on a concrete level, connected with PMO, this means that I think I can be like everyone else: "normal guys" can look at erotica, peruse girls profiles on facebook, see P every now and then, it's "normal". I see people discussing racy content and I think, "well if they can watch it, why should I stop myself?". The issue is that if we take for granted that "normal guys" actually can watch such material, then well, I can't - I am addicted, I know that. What I see there will activate novelty and excitement pathways and will put me on track on getting to P. Honestly, this is how it looks like.
This problem of accepting that I can't have everything grows on the idea that "I do not have to sacrifice anything". But it's not true. Cutting of P, M and pixels with women is a sacrifice.
Similarly, I am married to a great woman. Yet, I keep on checking on other girls and women, and thinking "how would it be with them". What is behind is again the thought - I can do that, it's normal. But in my case not so much - it is natural to be interested in other women I do not expect myself not to notice them. But the issue is that I keep gazing at them sometimes with the thought: "lots of guys do that, why should I refrain?". Again, I have problem with sacrificing that.
These thoughts came to me recently because I found myself in a bit of a deadlock. When I started my first reboot I had a strong motivation and clear vision on why I'm doing that and I knew why I had to cut off all the PMO-related activity.
I lost this motivation and vision some time ago, and I want to get it back or build a new one - something that will keep me going in the right direction.
And I just think this cannot be done without sacrifice. For much of last time, which had many slip-ups I kept thinking that it is possible to somehow get the best of both worlds. It is not, I think. I will need to make sacrifices. And the best indicator for me that this is the right path is that I am so reluctant to make them. If you guys know what I mean
