Seems like my last entry caused a little misunderstanding and I admit it appears a little confusing (which is because I was confused yesterday).
I did feel like apologizing because I myself always feel bad when reading about other people's relapses. This community is in need of more success stories and I feel like I fucked this up for no reason at day 88 of the "magic" 90.
As I'm using day-counts for myself since 2013, resetting is nothing new to me. I did it easily over a 100 times. This time I made a difference though. Normally I would beat myself up badly for relapsing and relapse again a few hours later. And again. And again. Because my brain would say: "Look: It's day 0 and it will still be day 0 even if you relapse again! Just go for more quick pleasure while you can!"
jkkk said:
There is a fine line between complacency and rigour. I prefer to err on the side of being "too-good" or "too-merciful" with our own (!) selves than to castigate ourselves. My own experience is that for years I treated myself very brutally and treating myself with love is a driving force of a good change. Of course, if in the next week you will notice that you are still edging, then you might be in a position to think on how to react to help yourself. Resetting might help you in just the same way as not resetting can
Looks like we discovered the same thing. My different approach worked for the first 24 hours, as I just managed to ignore the cravings completely (and they were very strong for the first few hours after relapsing!) and instead did all the tasks left at home. I will reset my day-count, but not yet. I will reset it after tomorrow and fill in a sheet for the first 90 days. Until now (with 1 1/2 days left) it says: 1 x edging to p-subs, various short peeks at p-subs, no porn, no sexting, no O to any artificial stimulation.
Yes, I had planned to reduce everything to 0, but if I look at my life, the last three months have been an amazing success. From tuesday on I will start another set of 90 days and try to make them an even better success. I just refuse to center any streak without this addiction or the addiction itself as a measure of success in life. There are other measurements for myself.
As I mentioned, my motivation to finally get rid of this addiction wasn't, unlike many others' here, PIED but my heavy social anxiety that, I'm sure about it by now, is completely porn induced. And it's slowly disappearing. I was suffering from heavy hyperhidrosis that appeared out of nowhere during my 20s. To give you an idea: Three years ago I wasn't able to pay at the supermarket without starting to sweat because of the people behind me and the cashier looking at me. I lived in fear of other people looking at me, because I felt they could think I had something to hide. And I did have something to hide, because most likely I had been looking at all varieties of fetish/out of my natural taste porn for hours right before. I couldn't make eye-contact anymore, was always on the run, got drunk and high to socialize on weekends. Even friends and family detected something was wrong but couldn't tell what. Work made me feel uncomfortable, because unfortunately I couldn't appear drunk. I just wasn't happy with my life, but always tried to escape.
If I'm paying at the supermarket these days, I look the cashier in the eye while greeting, don't care if paying takes longer for whatever reason and even do make a little joke now and then. I didn't drink alcohol or get high in three months now. Although it's still a challenge for me, I do socialize sober and don't get drunk before going to a party. At work I advanced a lot too, got out of my comfort zone and faced the challenge of client contact. I'm doing very well at the moment and will most likely get promoted to a position where I have to give speeches at meetings. While the sheer thought would have terrified me just a year ago, I feel ready to face this now. I'm more and more becoming the person I want to be and there's still a long way ahead.
Yes, I stumbled yesterday. But I already "keep walking"
again and maybe being an addict isn't the worst thing that happened to my life, but my opportunity to turn life itself around!
Thanks for reading and replying, it can't be said too often: This community is my and our key back to life. We do have a choice and porn is not an option!
