Success!

[macondo]

Hi all, it's been 30 or so days since I PMO'd, and I can tell you I'm seeing some amazing results.

I got lucky and found Reboot Nation because I was at my wit's end. A few days earlier, I was with this really, really hot girl, and I absolutely could not keep it up. My erection just died on me, and I was crushed. I went searching for sex therapists becauase I knew I had a problem with porn, and I needed to something, anything. I was really crushed, I can hardly describe it, it felt like I had been castrated really.

A little back story, I've been looking at porn since I was 13, started with magazines I'd find, moved up to videos when I got older and eventually the internet and the worst of all, high speed internet. At some points I was PMO'ing 7 to 8 times a day, I had no control (I work for myself, so it made it easy to do this at a home office). I lost several realationships when my partners found out I was watching P, but I got over that. I just couldn't shake the PMO, and I knew it was horrible for me, but didn't know what to do. I don't use this phrase lightly, but like any addict, I thought I could control it.

I could see it was horrible though, I'm very self aware, and when I was with real women, I wouldn't see them, I would just see porn images going through my head. It was like Clockwork Orange. I don't know what those porn images did, but they certainly ruined my erections. This led to anxiety, ED and depression. And like any addict, I needed more and more intense porn to get it up and PMO.

Fast forward to a month ago. I was with a hot chick, and she was completely sexy, and I totally lost my erection on her. I was crushed and embarassed. I started searching for sex therapists that night, contacting 5. Their rates varied between $100 and $150/hr, and I was ready to drop $500 on sessions. I couldn't afford it, but my sexual health is extremely important to me, and I was desperate.

Somehow I found this site, and read everybody's posts, success, journals, everything. I stopped PMO that night, and my journey has been as bumpy as anybody's. Immediately, I noticed an improvement, like within three or four days, I had small erections in the morning, and there was a bit of firmness. Within 7 days, I noticed a huge difference, I felt more confident, I was getting semi regular erections, and I just felt better. I even had sex with a girl, and I won't say it was perfect, but the erection was sort of there, I'd say 6.5 out of 10, which was a lot better than my past perfomance.

Then it hit, full on flat line. I was with a girl, and my erection just died, and I felt horrible again. That was like 15, 20 days in. I immediately turned to the RB forum reading about other people's experiences, to get some hope. It sucks, flatlining, and it's hard to read about others who've flatlined, gotten better and then flatlined again. I was kinda crushed. But I didn't have a desire to look at P at all, just hoped this would pass.

So fast forward to this weekend, maybe 25, 30 days in. I woke up several times at night with full erections, and with morning wood again. Not to get too graphic, but I was solid, like back when I was in highschool. I went to the beach with some friends, several of them were cute girls, and I was actually getting hard while talking with them, which def hasn't happened since my college years.

This may be a passing phase as well until a flatline, but I can attest that rebooting works. I have seen excellent results in a short time. Gabe Deem, thank you for having the courage to start this site, you have helped me, and I have no doubt you've helped thousands of others.

Good luck all on your journey, I can only speak for myself, but despite the ups and downs, this process really works.

 

[mookie6092]

Good on you

I discovered in Jan 2013 that PMO had been my issue for years. Managed to give it up for about 6 weeks, and I saw big improvements. Sex became a non-issue, whereas for years before I had worried about sexual encounters, as was only sometimes able to get it up, and then the erections weren't great.
Everything was sort of fine for many months, but then I slowly slipped back into old habits, and have found it a lot more difficult to give up this time.
I did manage to give up porn for about a month (perhaps with the odd use of P, mainly on Sundays when I was home alone and bored), say in Feb this year, but carried on Ming to my imagination. I think this was a mistake (and not something I did the first time I tried to give up).
I've also recently (January 2014) stopped taking Citalopram, which may also have been a contributory factor.

Whilst the heaviness of my porn use has been sporadic (sometimes once a week, sometimes 2-4 times a day) over the past few years, i.e. I've not been as heavy a user as I used to be, I would say that giving it up is definitely beneficial to sex, though I'm not so sure about everything else.
I hear some stories where people's general mood, memory, confidence, personality etc, ALL Perk up after abstaining from PMO.
I've not seen that myself, but perhaps it's because I didn't give it up for long enough in the past.

This time around, I am 3 days in! Aiming for 90, though hope to be able to have sex before that (famous last words lol).
Sounds like a long way off...but nothing in this life comes for free.

Keep up (ahem!) the good work

 

[aiminghigher]

Hi macondo,

It's probably a good thing that you stumbled across this forum before you spend a lot of money on a therapist.
I'm not saying therapy cannot be beneficial, but most therapists are not trained to see masturbation and porn as problematic or addictive.
Your story reads a lot like mine. And I have been seeing the same calls of life from down there at night or in the morning as you are describing. Great right

Good luck man!

 

[macondo]

Hey all, thanks for the posts, I didn't write the post to say, "Look at me, look at me," but rather just point out a success which gave me hope when I started out.

Not saying therapy cannot be beneficial, but most therapists are not trained to see masturbation and porn as problematic or addictive.

Totally agree, I've been through therapy, and it's very helpful. Sex therapists are particularly expensive though, not something I could afford right now. This site was exactly what was needed.

One of my goals on the site was too get back my sexual prowlness, I think that's important for a lot of young men, probably more for many on this site since I"m sure many of us our sexual. I've begun accomplishing that goal, and it feels great. I also don't feel the need to go back to porn, I see how destructive it is, and see how it's wasted much of my life. Nothing too permanent, but no need for it to be a part of my life going forward.

Some thoughts:
Impulse control in general can be an issue for me, and the thing that helps the most is removing myself from stimuli. I can binge eat, so I never keep anything that can be immediately eaten (ie. processed or junk foods) in my kitchen. The same goes for porn, some people spoke about sites that block it, and I think it's important to use those if necessary and also to try and stop/control habits that initiate PMO (ie. getting to sleep too late, watching too many stimulating images/videos in a row, wandering low level sex sites and escalating).

I don't think this is easy at all, it was a bit easier for me because I got lucky and had reached such a point where I needed to make a change. But for most this will be an extreme challenge.

All I can say is that there is light at the end of the tunnel, it gets better and this system really works.

Good luck all