siphus said:
You're my hero 8) Keep this up, and it sounds like this journal has been crazy beneficial for ya. And I dig that you've cut out the other things as well. Your awareness of noticing that you're thinking about the addiction as no big deal is an important realization that we need to remind ourselves of all the time, especially in these early stages. Once I'm 2 weeks in, I start thinking that I don't have to be careful anymore... which is when I need to be 5x more careful, lol.
Don't beat yourself up about the gallery, but just re-commit yourself, seriously, and be honest with yourself. Are there any extra precautions you can add on, or are there any habits that you are forgetting to keep up with?
I got loads of support for you, keep it honest and keep it healthy, and I look forward to your next posts.
-siphus
Yes, this journal is very beneficial and I'm glad and thankful for your support. With the scientific explanations on your journal and the always supportive words on mine you definitely got credit on my initial success! I've been reading on here for quite a time and completely underestimated the positive dynamics of actively participating. I feel committed to a greater project and get a better understanding of my own behavior. While trying to reboot before I never got the "Now or never" feeling of this journal. It's the principal objective of my life to get rid of this addiction and by repeating it I keep reminding myself that porn is not an option. It's totally excluded from my life forever and I'm not going back to this path ever again.
And to clarify the thing about the Facebook-gallery as I wrote kind of mistakable: I didn't click on it, I didn't even open up the page. I just thought about it for a second. If had gone through a non-nude gallery, it would have been a relapse within my definition. My extra precaution is that I browse without images now, I'm still able to read my messages and newspaper but don't get exposed to triggers. Mindless browsing without images gets boring, so as a side effect I've got that under control too.
Day 30: Entering the next level
30 days done, hooray! No time to celebrate, because there are 45 days left to equalize my longest streak and reach my goal of 75 days without porn or porn-substitutes. And although things aren't getting necessarily harder, they get different. The key to success will be to maintain my long-term motivation and my awareness. My addicted mind knows all kind of tricks to try making me leave my healthy path and I need a good strategy to respond absolutely merciless. I will prepare myself with a little FAQ of common thoughts coming up and what to respond.
"You made it X days in, you're not an addict! And even if you don't want to go back to hardcore porn and infinite binge sessions, there is nothing wrong about a little look at non-nude galleries..."
WRONG! I try to overcome this addiction for over three years now and I relapsed a hundred times. I told myself to only go back to controlled porn consumption. It escalated every single time. I am not able to control any sort of artificial stimulation and I never will be. If it's something on a screen, it must not cause sexual arousal. If I get confronted with it by chance, I have to immediately turn my back on it. No exception, no excuse!
"You felt so much better during first steps of reboot, if you relapse now, you will experience euphoria of the first two weeks in again."
WRONG! Maybe I will suffer certain stage of depression from time to time, but there is a bigger picture. And this bigger picture is to break free from an addiction that controlled my life for 15 years now. It may be a temporary desire to overcome depression the easy way, but it's the biggest wish of my life to never return to porn. I repeat: Overcoming porn-addiction is the absolute priority of my life and no temporary mood swing shall risk fulfilling the biggest wish of my entire life.
"You won't make it anyway. It's part of your personality, you lived with it 15 years and you're not going to change within a range of months of abstaining. Don't keep torturing yourself and just give in."
WRONG! My porn-free self is the person I want to look at in the mirror. This is me. This is who I really am. This is my personality. I regret looking at porn and any of its substitutes every single second outside of these horrible binge sessions. The suffering is worth it, I rather go through hell and back than ever experience another relapse.
"You didn't really change a lot and porn wasn't that damaging to your life. It's not worth the effort."
WRONG! I'm a lot more self-confident because I don't have to hide my shame. Porn did consume lots of time and energy of my life that I can fill with actual life. A life that offers me a long-term benefit of being a happy person. I don't skip meals and sleep anymore, I'm not constantly tired or out of shape. This finally feels like a life worth living and I'm not going back anymore to this poor imitation of a life that's porn addiction.
Well, that's the most common kinds of thoughts coming up. I will have to struggle with doubts and carelessness, but they both won't stop me. I had to work really hard to get through the first level and I'm not willing to risk this progress, so I'm going to work even harder, put more effort in and stick to all those healthy changes of the first level with some special additions for the second.