"I can control the Zero. F*ck the Zero"

[jnv]

Day 41:

I've managed to stay away from my d*ck since last Monday and I thought about sex maybe once.

Today started pretty bad and even though motivation/energy level wasn't very high,I was unusually horny compared to the rest of the week. I still managed to do my 1h+ work out session  + studied languages after shower. After this quite productive morning, I was a bit bored since I hadn't planned anything particular. I decided to watch a movie I wasn't very into and then that scene triggered and urge. Before I realised it, I was googling what you know and peeked at Porn (well it was more than just peeking...) my attempts to just close the browser and leave failed, some time passed and I egded once. Some more time passed before I managed to redirect my mind from P to a journal from reddit/Nofap I saved (I've got some motivational journals saved I swore to read before I slip) and then I cut everything.

This day was horrible (probably has been the hardest one since I started my journal), I've never been so horny during the whole day and my workout/cold shower didn't calm me down at all. Hopeufully, reading the journal helped my refocus and I could redirect my energy => I took my bike and went for a long ride.

Stopping both PMO + my intense videogaming dependance seems to be a bit violent for my brain. Damn, thinking how I could have ruined my 40 day streak makes me feel really stupid and mad, I'm gonna go to bed to end this horrible day and hope tomorrow will be better!

 

[fightthefight]

Mate it sounds like you stopped just in time. Wish I had done the same today. Your idea of having motivational journals bookmarked seems like a good one - I will have to try that myself.

I have a question about the 30/60 day target - do you think it's been useful for you to have a closer target than an initial 90 day one? As in more achievable and therefore easier to fight for mentally? I'm beginning to think that I might be preventing myself from getting anywhere by setting the ambitious 90 day target from the off, rather than working to it by setting more manageable ones first. When I got to the 2 week mark, 90 days didn't seem too bad but I've relapsed twice since then and 90 days seems to be getting further and further into the future!

 

[jnv]

Day 42:

Today was far better. It was a day off and I kept myself very busy, I started with my workout and it was a very intensive session, was completely exhausted then I went to do some work in the garden for 4 hours then cold shower. Some acquaintance told me I was in great "V body" shape so my intensive workouts are starting to pay off, that's encouraging and very motivating!


@fightthefight: Yes it seems like it, really yesterday was the first day since the beginning I really felt I could lose all of that I've achieve. Well in practive, I wouldn't have lost everything since I learned from it.For example I know how to counter it better in the future, I know I got some gains during those 40 days and I will adapt/improve some tactic to fight better.

I read this on reddit some days ago:"Rebooting isn't a line-shapped progress bar but a roller-coaster-shapped one with very high and very low..." I think what I experienced yesterday was a very low...nothing more.

To answer your question, in my case I find it easier to set smaller and then easier goals that I can achieve faster and then push back. I started with 7 days challenge, then 30 days, etc...
This is only psychological but in my mind I already saw my progression bar full of green at 100% and I think that it helped me a little yesterday because I didn't want to lose it all. It depends on the approach you have but starting with an initial 90 days challenge would be quite depressing for me since I wouldn't see much of a difference between 20/90 and 30/90 on the progression bar whereas 20/30 and 30/30 seems more rewarding and encouraging. After all, what is 90? Nothing more than a random number just like 7 or 120. Nothing special will happen to me on day 90 and I won't suddenly feel extra powerful right after completing this challenge I guess, so why no set smaller numbers. This approach might work with you too.

 

[jnv]

Day 45:

I PMO'd today. I spent last night with friends partying all night, I came back home drunk and managed not to watch P but today I just couldn't keep myself focused on other things and I ended peeking at P. I managed to stop and keep P at bay for a moment but then was realised that the P peeking from the last few weeks was just a ticking bomb that would eventually explode to my face. So I went back and intentionally PMO to release all the tension/frustration accumulated during previous P peek and decided to make a fresh and clean start.

So I'm going to start my second reboot attemp right now but doing it monk-style right from the beginning.

What I've realised/gained during those 45 days:
- Very little confidence boost (I noticed a little improvement when talking to strangers, apart from that, not much changed)
- I completely stopped my other big addiction (I'm on day 31 today) cold turkey which was Video Gaming (even a bigger addiction than PMO since I could play 10+ h during days off) and the best thing about that is that during those 31 days, not a SINGLE time did I feel the need or the will to play. I just do not think about videogames at all.
- When friends ask me to go out I accept 95% of the time (I used to refure because of laziness)
- I am exactly at day 45 in my workout program and I still stick to it (mostly thanks to all the free time gained from no PMO+playing)
- I read more


To sum up, I think it was too difficult for me fight fight both my addictions at the same time and one of them was meant to make me give in and it was PMO. I'm now better educated on the topic than 43 days ago and better armed now so I hope this second attemp will be as successful.

Okay, so no peek at P at all for Round 2!

 

[fightthefight]

Sad to hear about that mate. It is hard when you look at bits and keep testing the boundaries and then it builds up and up. It's definitely not back to square one for you though - 45 days is a good time to go (I'm looking forward to reaching that far). It is about constantly learning more and more that it has nothing to offer but will steal away a lot of things. The workouts sound great by the way!

 

[jnv]

Yes, that's just like you said, I'm not back to square one and I must stay motivated. Of course I'm a bit disappointed but I think I'll be much more proud of me when I get back to day 45 but with a cleaner streak.
I modified my progress bar so I reset it at the first time I'll peek!
Indeed, the workout gain is very important. I'd decided countless times to start some workout plans but never managed to stick to it for more than 1 month mainly due to videogames leading to laziness.

 

[jnv]

Day 5:
Went camping with some friends at a music festival for the last 3 days. Even though I thought I'd be horny as fuck after seeing that many girls dressed as if we were on the beach (around 150k people at the festival and it was sunny...) I'm doing well now at keeping my mind busy on other things. Let's hope I'll stay that focused in the next days.

 

[jnv]

Day 7:

First week in hardcore mode complete! It was quite easy up until now. Everytime I get some urges I just slap myself to get back on track and focus on something else, it really helps as for now.
I'm trying to mainly work on social interactions (I try not to refuse anymore when friends ask me to go out) so I can beat/reduce the social anxiety. I think it's the main thing I'm gonna work on during this reboot and I can feel it already starts to pay off since I'm documenting myself at the moment reading much self development stuff. Was supporting my country for the World Cup in a pub yesterday with a bunch of friends and was enjoying every moment of it which wasn't necessarily the case in the past.

 

[fnatk]

Hey jnv! Really nice to see that you didn't let your little relapse get you down. I was pretty depressed for a week or so about it but I got my shit together and started over again. I'm going for a bit more hardcore mode myself, (I'll still play videogames!) I've decided to read a book every night before going to bed, I even turn my computer off completely

I'm going to be following in your footsteps so everytime you hit a new week of no PMO I'll be just a few days behind! Reading your journal here really helps and inspires me

 

[jnv]

Hey fnatk, glad to see you are back on track after your relapse as well and indeed, it seems you'll be following in my footsteps.
As to videogames, I prefered to definitely stop because I just couldn't do it "just a little", I used to play to Dark Age of Camelot and I could spend to whole day doing PvP on it during days off. Moderation and videogames just don't together in my case and I now try to spend the free time at home watching movies/series instead. btw, day 34 NoPlay at the moment!
This is my second reboot attempt and I can already feel that I'm much better armed and prepared to keep fighting.

We will make it!!

 

[fnatk]

Hehe, I was completely hooked on World of Warcraft for several years. I've managed to rid myself of that particular addiction, not even buying the new expansion when it comes out haha. I mostly just play Smite with IRL friends now, we call eachother on Skype, chat and play the game together so its a lot more social. Otherwise I do like a few solo games but I'm trying for some moderation there as well.

And I think you're right, we'll make it!

 

[jnv]

hehe I played WoW quite a lot as well but stopped at the first extension. I've just watched Don Jon, quite a nice movie about a guy (hugely) addicted to PMO who tries to stop several times. It was full of triggers but I didn't react to the explicit scenes and it was worth my while. (not sure if that even sounds English) I find it crazy that the theme of PMO is used more and more like that in cinema, the first movie I watched on the topic (which was 4-5 years ago so I wasn't aware of the PMO problem at the time) was Shame with Michael Fassbender and was quite nice as well.

 

[fnatk]

I want to watch that movie but I'm a bit too aware of the triggers it has (I've seen the trailer for it) and I'm quite hot for Scarlett Johansson so its gonna have to wait until I feel like I'm "safe" and can handle a few triggers I wanted to watch Shame as well as Fassbender is one of my favorite actors at the moment but I was wary of the subject (I think I might have worried at the time of its release that I was a bit of a sex addict too!).

The issue of porn addiction is only going to get bigger as the generation after us (Those who are starting or are in college now) have much better access to stable, fast Internet connections (And probably already have their own computer) and the sheer quantity and variety of porn that is now available for free. I would never advocate for any type of ban on porn (except that involving underage participants ofc!) but I do think young people need to be educated on the effects it can have, especially about its addictive qualities on your brain. Moderation, as usual, is key! Looking at it once or twice a month won't harm you... but it can lead to heavier use (as it did for me). Not propaganda or scare tactics, but proper education about how porn can become a very negative aspect of one's life.

 

[jnv]

I totally agree with you. The PMO "problem" is going to get bigger and bigger since many more people will be affected by it. I find it crazy how one can be blind against its own problems. I remember when I watched Shame, even though I admited to myself that I was watching too much of Porn, I just thought that it was normal and that Fassbender was just mentally ill in the movie or somehting like that. Just as if I didn't want to relate to his story (even though his PMO addiction is, indeed, much deeper than most of us on this forum).
For example, in Don Jon, the protagonist says somehting like that to Scarlet Johanson: "Come on, it's normal, everybody watches porn, you can ask to everybody, if a guy says he doesn't, he just lies!"  This is how I tended to act before I ended up on yourbrainonporn because I know that all of my friends watch porn and they all are (at least) as knowledgeable about that topic as I am. What I do not know on the other hand is how much they watch it and how much it can affect their life. I still don't know it because I haven't talked about my NoPMO challenge to any of my friend and I don't think I will.

Day9:

I spent the whole day with a bunch of friends and I must say I'm quite happy today. It's the first day I have been able to notice some changes in me since the first time I started my challenge.
I happened to speak louder in general and with a deeper/manlier tone of voice. I tried to fake it several times in the past without success but this time I was doing it naturally without thinking about it. The second thing I noticed is that more girls looked as me and some very pretty ones even smiled at me. These are maybe some very insignificant changes but they are the first ones I noticed while in social interactions. I'm reading a lot about how to be a better man (body language, better confidence etc) in order to mix it with the NoPMO challenge, maybe I'm starting to see some results now. I guess it must be something related to testosterone level since I've only O'd once in almost 2 months.
Well this is quite encouraging.


edit: came upon a trigger while surfing and ended peeking at porn (deliberately). I said I was gonna do it hardcore so I prefer resetting my counter otherwise I'm just opening a pandora box. (I'm installing K9 as I'm writing those lines, could come in handy)

 

[fnatk]

Ah man, I know that feeling dude, its exactly what I did only I took it to the next level and fapped away for almost 2 weeks. You managed to peek and then stop yourself from doing more, that's a good sign though! Its a learning process this, knowing what can trigger your addiction so hopefully you can stay away from that trigger from now on

Also, good job on installing K9, anything that makes it harder to look at P or borderline material that might trigger you is good! I think you did the right thing in resetting your counter however, if you deliberately looked up P it was your addiction getting the better of you and then you wrestled control back by turning it off. I hope this small setback will only motivate you even more to really get P out of your life!

 

[jnv]

I have K9 installed now. I have set most of the websites I use to visit (which were not already blocked by K9 with the basic P blocking setup) and I have set a password I don't even know now so I can't access K9 options to disable it. Problem with the mozilla addon was that I still could just log in the options by entering the password and just disable the addon to watch P, now I can't do this anymore with the newly installed K9 . Now my concerns is that I hope K9 was well coded and it won't block "normal" famous websites listed as P websites by mistake.

The thing I realised this time is that what triggered it was not really the "trigger" per se, but boredom. Both times when I relapsed were caused when I did everyting I had planned to do that day and got bored very late and then I decided to surf the net and BOOMM. The irony here is that I gave in the same day I explained I noticed positive changes in my behavior for the first time since I started... -_-

 

[stangles]

I tried K9 a while ago but it got a bug and blocked everything and then I had a hard time trying to recover my password so I could uninstall K-9. I have a mac though so probably different software. At the moment I am using selfcontrol. However the problem with that is you have to add websites manually to block so you can always find a website you haven't blocked yet.

 

[jnv]

MMhh, I really hope the PC version works better because I really thought about it a lot before setting a new complicated password unknown by me. I just ticked "Pornographic content" in the list + I manually added 10 other websites but I don't want it to automatically and randomly block every website with little nudity content.

 

[jnv]

Week 1:

First week complete. It's been the easiest week since I started the journey and it is very different from the first week of my first reboot attempt. I've had no urge nor will to watch P during the first 6 days and only today morning did I fantasise a bit in bed because of heavy morning wood. I don't know if I'm slowly entering in a kind of flatline because during the first reboot attempt, I would get horny VERY easily and feel the urge to watch P and this week, I feel close to nothing even when I come across semi nude pics while browsing internet. I suppose that this is the result of not watching P at all and I'd be really happy if it wasin  fact a flatline.

I'm ready for week 2

 

[fnatk]

Good job on hitting 1 week of proper no PMO My first week after the last relapse was actually very much the same as yours, and this second week (Since its technically tomorrow here) has been even easier to be honest. I don't think its flatlining to be honest, I think its just that we've both been there, had those relapses and learned from them!

I have a good feeling about it, like my brain is starting to rewire itself a bit and let go of those pathways that light up whenever porn is involved!