Whammy raised to the power whammy - The beginning of the Journey

Phineas 808

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Staff member
Moderator
Hi, akpal2!

I know it may all seem so complex, when to have sex- if to have sex- what constitutes (for you) a reset or not...

Just be clear as to your own goals, and do whatever you can to break this habit.

Zaraki is right about the pushing our salvation further down the road with every peek. This doesn't necessarily mean that we've undone all progress, but it does mean simply that our habit patterns are strengthened with every little bit of reaction to them. We want to disrupt, weaken, abstain, ignore and dismiss our urges when they come- no matter how strong.

Sex with our wives, in my opinion, is something that we should never have to exclude from our rewiring. Our rewiring and rebooting should be always toward real-world sex whenever possible. My situation is a little different than many, but not uncommon, and that is- I can actually neglect my wife sexually for long periods of time, even during a reboot. I know in the midst of my addiction, it would be the nonexistent women on the screen I preferred. But, I try to have sex with my wife at least 1x a week... Sex is designed to create deeper and deeper emotional connections to our partner, and unfortunately, we've been doing that with a computer screen, or an iPhone+, and not our wives.

Recovery in general, and our reboot is not always black-and-white. It's not always linear, but the question is, and you actually touch on it above, is can we come back into control? It's the All-or-Nothing approach we want to be careful with, as it implies that we're not successful. Now, with my own reboot I have an 'All-or-Nothing' approach, it would seem, but I know that if I have to reset my streak, it only 'looks like' I'm starting from 0, but really, I've been more and more seriously trying to stop since June, and before that, for years.

You have to know your threshold, what constitutes a reset for you? I know that for me, p-subs (non-nudity) and edging will eventually lead to p and m/o which are a reset. So, that kind of serves as a buffer. However, playing around with that (as I've known myself to do) will undermine a serious attempt at recovery.

 

zaraki888

Active Member
Hello akpal2,

That is already great you didn't binge! This already makes you stronger. Like a muscle we train our willpower every time we decide not to give in. Yes being more mindful. :)
I didn't know you have a wife. Unfortunate I don't have experience rebooting while in a romantic relationship.

25 days is great! Keep going. Well done you deleted whatsapp quickly! As far as I know there can be no erection, no arousal, nothing happening when there are no thoughts, no feelings, no visuals.

Take care




 

akpal2

Well-Known Member
thanks guys for the words of encouragement. Yesterday wasn't ideal because I slipped up in terms of some pics and vids and there was definite dopamine release but I stopped myself from binging. Which was progress. Last night my sleep was really disturbed. I ended up edging this morning on autopilot. Had to drag myself back to sanity. So yeah, things are starting to fall apart and if I don't take corrective action now, I will be back into a full blown relapse.

So after the autopilot this morning I have managed to calm myself down and look forward to building myself again.

I do agree with Phineas that while this relapse has set me back somewhat, I feel not all progress is lost, YET. If i now start bingeing, i will quickly lose everything.

So, I am motivated to not edge, look at p or p subs, and picking myself back up.
 

zaraki888

Active Member
akpal2 said:
thanks guys for the words of encouragement. Yesterday wasn't ideal because I slipped up in terms of some pics and vids and there was definite dopamine release but I stopped myself from binging. Which was progress. Last night my sleep was really disturbed. I ended up edging this morning on autopilot. Had to drag myself back to sanity. So yeah, things are starting to fall apart and if I don't take corrective action now, I will be back into a full blown relapse.

So after the autopilot this morning I have managed to calm myself down and look forward to building myself again.

I do agree with Phineas that while this relapse has set me back somewhat, I feel not all progress is lost, YET. If i now start bingeing, i will quickly lose everything.

So, I am motivated to not edge, look at p or p subs, and picking myself back up.

True, you do not lose all progress akpal2! If you manage to not give in, you have become even stronger than before. Just hold on a bit longer until the day is over. You can do it!
 

akpal2

Well-Known Member
zaraki888 said:
akpal2 said:
thanks guys for the words of encouragement. Yesterday wasn't ideal because I slipped up in terms of some pics and vids and there was definite dopamine release but I stopped myself from binging. Which was progress. Last night my sleep was really disturbed. I ended up edging this morning on autopilot. Had to drag myself back to sanity. So yeah, things are starting to fall apart and if I don't take corrective action now, I will be back into a full blown relapse.

So after the autopilot this morning I have managed to calm myself down and look forward to building myself again.

I do agree with Phineas that while this relapse has set me back somewhat, I feel not all progress is lost, YET. If i now start bingeing, i will quickly lose everything.

So, I am motivated to not edge, look at p or p subs, and picking myself back up.

True, you do not lose all progress akpal2! If you manage to not give in, you have become even stronger than before. Just hold on a bit longer until the day is over. You can do it!

Thanks man, today the brain is really giving me a hard time. Went to google and searched around for relatively harmless links and then slowly moved to images and then realized WTF is happening. Dragged myself back again otherwise the pics would have soon become p subs. Brain is craving for dopamine so bad. But I am not going to give in. I gave it a small taste yesterday which was a bad idea. It's driving me nuts today.

Zaraki, buddy, i need to get through today somehow.
 

zaraki888

Active Member
Yes the mind fools us by letting us search for substitutes to get some dopamine. Good you caught yourself on time.

I have some advice I use myself. If you are interested, these are:

If necessary, stay a whole day away from the computer and mobile phone. Sleep well because this could also affect willpower to stop ourselves. If there are things to do or work have to be done related to stress, if possible avoid those until 2 days.

This is what I do, avoid all cue's and triggers. I even avoid the pc and mobile phone when necessary and put my time and energy in things I would like to do.

Is there something else you love doing? To reward yourself with something else? To redirect attention.

Try to watch and observe your thoughts whenever you can and when they turn wrong, turn them back into positive.

You are doing great! Keep going.

If this all does not help, there is another way:

You may already know about doing push ups until cravings go away or taking cold showers.

Or you could use the following meditation. However it didn't work for me though:
''close your eyes and let the feeling take you over for a moment. Allow the feeling to move through you. It will subside if you don't resist it. '' Start with taking three deep breaths and with every exhale, visualize negative energy goes away.

Take care


 

imsorrynotsorry

Active Member
To the last part of zaraki888's advice i want to add:

Sit down comfortable, on the ground or chair or sofa. Just be comfortable and sure that there will be nothing that could disturb you.

1. Close your eyes and focus on the feeling. Whatever feeling it is, P-related or not, anxiety or embarrasement, doesn't matter, think about the feeling that might is disturbing you
2. Let it exist, just give the feeling the space to exist in you, in your brain and in your whole body. Think about the situation or people involved and try to catch the feeling clear.

Now the hard part comes:

3. Try to accept and welcome the feeling or what happened with positive energy and open yourself to it. You have to be honest to yourself i you can accept it. You might not be ready to do it - and that is aboslutely okay, maybe another day. If possible to you can accept / welcome / forgive than let it pass your barrier and let it be a part of your character / personality / history.

You can repeat this whenever you want.

To handle strong urges you can also try Wim Hof Breathing. Just google it, it's incredible. It does things with your body and brings you very fast in a state of deep stress relieve.

take care
Imsor
 

akpal2

Well-Known Member
Thanks imsor and zaraki. I guess I will use these techniques going forward. They might be useful. For now I don't want to fall into a whole week of bingeing. I have been quite calm since yesterday and had no urges thanks to the M yesterday.

I am livid with myself because I sexted again and edged. I weaned myself off of it but not until i had looked at it for 7 - 10 mins. Then i worried that I had lost all progress and that I won't be able to get hard just to touch. Anyhow, I went to the bathroom and then tested myself. The good thing was i was getting hard to just touch alone without any P thoughts. I tested myself again about two time again in the afternoon and i was indeed getting hard just to touch.

Unfortunately i was enjoying the touch too much. In my third "checking" I realized that I was enjoying this erection to the touch too much. I did it again and noticed that I could get hard and stay hard to the touch even when I am standing (which i can't remember happening the last time) and I was quite liking the feeling. I started edging to touch then (what an idiot I am, I know. I should have just walked away). The edging to touch just built up so much that I couldn't hold myself and M'd so hard while standing. So yeah, crap.

Day 1


 

TheHeartacheKid

Active Member
I know not engaging in that behavior is important for you, but I hope you realize you engaged in it without P.  Sounds like it was entirely you, which is actually quite normal.  Certainly a slippery slope for us as addicts, but idk, if you weren't battling an addiction, you wouldn't think anything of that, nor would anyone else.  So hopefully you still realize the incredible progress you've made!  And don't be too hard on yourself for engaging in a normal behavior!
 

zaraki888

Active Member
Hello akpal2,

I don't think you are on day 1 because you didn't watch p and you made proven progress. Perhaps you could keep going with your counter and only add a couple of extra days on top of the 90 days. This helps to keep going. A common rebooter mistake is thinking we lost all progress on day 1.

 

akpal2

Well-Known Member
thanks guys, hak, zaraki, aussie, thanks for your support. You guys are right, all is probably not lost. I didn't want to M and O other than real sex, but I did. Progress is that I only jacked off to touch but still, i didn't want to go down that route other than sex. So I restarted the counter.

Day 2, woke up to a great morning wood. It was quite solid and it stuck around with me for more than half a minute around 45 seconds when i stood up and walked around with it tenting my pyjamas. Also, I had a dream after a LONGGGGGGGG time where I dreamed of women and it was such a turn on. Of course it was still somewhat porny in that women were topless but it was more like the normal dreams I had as a teenager, where i would like to have sex with women. For the longest time I had lost such dreams and due to my extreme porn tasted whatever dreams i had were also morphing into gayish dreams. So, I was quite happy to have such a nice dream with topless women.

Otherwise generally quite calm today but just received a slight trigger message which I am ignoring.

 

akpal2

Well-Known Member
Day 3: fairly calm except  couple of moments. At one point I went to look at some images but then after looking at a couple which didn't turn me on, I stopped.

Fairly good day overall
 

Chris Oz

Well-Known Member
You have to try to resist the urge man. That can lead to a relapse with time. Don't wet the pool. It's gonna make the urges stronger. I tell this to myself too cause lately I've been loosing it a little too. Let's do better and let it go. Ignore it completely.

Proud of you for the 3 days, keep pushing back
 

akpal2

Well-Known Member
Thanks Chris, you're right. I notice that it's not always urges. Sometimes it's boredom, "need to check if it's working down there", stress, etc. The brain has so many god damn tricks. It's easy to fall for it. Was falling for fantasy now but stopped myself. Had decent MW today.
 

Phineas 808

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
@ Zarachi ~

Perhaps you could keep going with your counter and only add a couple of extra days on top of the 90 days. This helps to keep going. A common rebooter mistake is thinking we lost all progress on day 1.

Man! I had never thought of this...! That's kind of a good idea if it offsets the idea that we 'failed' our reboot or recovery efforts.

I remember back when we had counters (2014-15) that due to lapsing I ended up with two different counters, one for the main PMO, and the other for whatever else I had lapsed to, lol...!



 

akpal2

Well-Known Member
Crap, I have a new problem now.

I have noticed that for the past 2 weeks I seem to get hard just to touch and don't need porn or fantasy to get me there.

This has led me to M'ing a lot more frequently. I was supposed to have sex with wife last night but she had her period. So I M'd today, TWICE, just to touch. No fantasy involved. And whatever little there was (very few mental thoughts) were of real people. But damn it, I am worried that from an addiction to P I might be going in to an addiction of M.

 

TheHeartacheKid

Active Member
Yeah I have that same fear too.  Good news is you don't need P anymore though.  But yes you'll have to be careful, and also M in general can lead to P for addicts.  M is a normal thing, but yeah, we have to be careful as it is a slippery slope.  And my guess is you went so long without it's just the P addiction kicking in again, but right now you've recovered enough not to need P to get aroused (which is fantastic!).  Try to do something else when you get aroused and you can't be with your wife, it'll take your mind off of it and it will go away.  Stay strong ak, you've made a ton of progress, you can beat this thing too.
 

akpal2

Well-Known Member
Thanks hak, you're right, I have to be super careful. Just masturbating to touch alone is new for me. I never did it even in my previous reboot. It might be that my brain is finding a new substitute for P. Heck, I don't want to be wired to my hand after quitting P. Fuck this shit
 
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