My Journal - Yes, I'm a PMO Addict

[Stp215]

I have noticed that for me I have often inserted a step even before the "peek at p" that you mentioned in that I'll find something that is not technically p and is "ok" but that starts the motor running in the same manner.

This just happened to me today. A female friend emailed me with unsolicited pics of her bust augmentation surgery (not nude). Needless to say it was fairly triggering. After feeling a brief twinge, I deleted them without incident. Not long ago I would have taken my phone to a private place and PMO?d to it. It is nearly impossible to totally isolate yourself from all triggers. I?d say the time I already have in the bank, plus the resolve from several relapses, was the difference.

 

[J01]

Wow Stp, that was some challenge-awesome response.  You appear to indeed have some interesting friends.

I guess Deputy Barney Fife was right: "You have to nip it, you have to nip it in the bud." 

 

[Stp215]

Will be clean 28 days tomorrow. Feelings some urges but have been swatting them down. No P within reach so confident it will keeping rolling.

 

[Stp215]

Today marks 30 days PMO free. Before going clean I would take Levitra with decreasing effectiveness. It was difficult to maintain and I could not finish. Yesterday my wife was in the mood and I took a pill. The difference between trying to have real sex with PMO addiction vs. doing it with 29 days clean was noticeable. Was able to maintain and finish. I want to get to a point where I can do it with no assist at all, but wanted to share this experience. Staying clean clearly makes things better.

 

[cranm329]

Well done going 30 days and glad for you that the response is returning to normal. Hope that the medication becomes unnecessary. Tip: try a high nitrite/ nitrate diet ...details can be found on line. For me it works and is definitely not just a mental thing.

 

[Jbow]

Good job stp. That is just one more incentive to stay clean. Every minute of every day you get stronger and your brain heals a little bit more.  What a good feeling to know your hard work is paying off.  Keep up the good work

 

[Stp215]

Hello all, thought it was time to post an update.

The good news: since my last post I went over 100 days clean. Marked the milestones on my desk calendar and stuck with it. The flatline is very confusing and difficult. As I got closer to 100 days, I discovered that the flatline started to go away. The veterans on here are right. I was going on blind faith but have seen the results. I even began having sex with my wife again, and did so without ED medication. I considered it a great achievement, thanks in part to this forum and to the support.

The not-so-good news: I did slip off a bit and PMO sporadically. In total candor, I get bored with the routine of life. My wife and I both have time-consuming jobs and three kids, so the opportunities for sex are limited. If she has to go out of town for a work trip, I am indulging in PMO.

One of the hardest things is how your mind manipulates the situation. Ok, you broke your good streak and did it. Now my mind is thinking, you already did it once, might as well do a few more times before you start clean again. It?s wrong, but it happens IMO from being alone and bored. The old saying about idle hands.

Trying to see this as, I went a long time clean and saw the good results. I know I can do this with the proper focus. The challenge is staying on the right path over the long haul. Thanks

 

[Chicagocold]

Great job on 100 days.  Don't dig yourself deeper in the hole though if you slipped up.  It's a crappy thing when your mind is actively working against you.  If you add a "few more" sessions since you've already slipped up it will be that much harder to stop tomorrow.  I've had it happen to me several times.  The urges will come back x 10 because you made a mistake, then you made the choice to do it.  Bad deal.

Boredom is my killer too.  For me if the subtle urges or subconscious suggestions to "just take a quick look" hit when I'm alone and bored, I have to move.  Get out of the house, go to the grocery, hit the gym, trim the bushes, whatever.  If you can't leave then try to get out of the chair, the room, put the phone down, clean something, fix something you've been neglecting.  I think frequently the trigger isn't an image or video - it's sitting in the same chair, in the same room, during the same time (evenings, whenever) that you used to watch porn.  Your brain recognizes the physical pattern and goes right into trying to get its fix. 

Good luck. 

 

[Stp215]

Hi all, I'm back after several years away. Making another run at PMO-free living after the ups and downs most of you are all too familiar with. I'm 33 days clean as I'm writing this. Last year I had a streak of over 100 days. At that time, I was starting to feel some return of sensitivity down there and some unprovoked wood. Now I wish I had stuck with it longer. Trying to apply that knowledge to the current situation.

I have a long commute to work via train every week, so I've made it a routine to listen to YouTube content that keeps my mind in the right direction. Thankfully, there is a lot of content in that area. I have found videos by Gabe, Noah Church and Dr. Trish Leigh to be helpful. One of the things I heard is that, when you relapse and fall away from clean living, you could have been close to a breakthrough toward reducing or ending your PIED. Every day matters.

That said, there are stretches of days where I am busy and don't even think about the struggle. Then there are other days when it's on my mind. Being in flatline helps with that as the urges are diminished. Still, the preponderance of triggering material is everywhere in our society. Before starting my current sobriety from P, I unsubscribed from every FB group that puts out such content. Part of my job requires me to be on FB and other social media. Even after scrubbing my social media accounts, images still show up on there that I have to remove.

Hope everyone on here is fighting the good fight. I am going to try and post here more frequently for my own sanity and to offer encouragement to others.

 

[GBS]

Good luck @Stp215 - keep journaling as much as you can. Be accountable. Be strong. Be in it for the long haul.

I will read yours every day. You got this.

 

[Stp215]

Hi gents, checking in. Today is 59 days PMO-free. It's hasn't been that bad compared to other times (this is not my first go-round with this), although I had a real trial last night. As I've mentioned, my job requires me to be online a lot. Without even looking for it, I saw a video clip that was highly triggering to say the least. I could almost feel an instant chemical reaction taking place in my brain. I closed it and walked away. Later that night, we had a very stressful situation with one of our children who has anxiety disorders, and we had to call the police to calm her down. Long story short, my wife and I ended up in a dispute over how to handle it. This is EXACTLY the kind of situation in the past where I would go off and PMO as a relief valve. And I freely admit it, I was thinking about that clip I saw and how good it would be to use it and escape for a while.

I then thought of the Dr. Trish Leigh videos I watch on YouTube on P addiction. She says that urge in your head is like a hijacker trying to take control and make you do self-destructive things. I kept thinking of that and said out loud to myself, "It's the hijacker" several times. That, combined with the fact that I am now deep in flatline, prevented any PMO from taking place.

Don't know how much I may have set back my progress by seeing that clip and feeling the chemical reaction, but am trying to see the good side in that I did not go into the PMO ritual as a result. I know that controlling exposure to triggering material is a huge factor in avoiding these situations, so I am taking further steps to avoid them. I have no idea how long it will take until the PIED improves, but it feels like I'm still early in a long, tough process.

 

[GBS]

Hi @Stp215 - I promise you I totally understand the “hijack” moment. Well done for seeing it for what it is. I think this is utterly normal and that fact that you possibly got close to doing the wrong thing I do not think is a setback. It’s virtually impossible not to have your brain take control at some point and the most important thing is that you didn’t go down the rabbit hole. So don’t beat yourself up or be depressed that this somehow takes you back 20 days or something. It doesn’t. The brain is going to keep playing tricks. Mine does and I am 2 years sober!

My only tip, but it’s just me….not saying this is for everyone….is to try hardcore recovery. In other words no MO for as long as possible. The brain doesn’t like you for doing that and it is the fastest way to test out the hijack process. It’s also the best way to order the brain to stop tricking you. The brain doesn’t give up, but it learns a new way of being.

Good luck. Hero.

 

[Stp215]

Hi @Stp215 - I promise you I totally understand the “hijack” moment. Well done for seeing it for what it is. I think this is utterly normal and that fact that you possibly got close to doing the wrong thing I do not think is a setback. It’s virtually impossible not to have your brain take control at some point and the most important thing is that you didn’t go down the rabbit hole. So don’t beat yourself up or be depressed that this somehow takes you back 20 days or something. It doesn’t. The brain is going to keep playing tricks. Mine does and I am 2 years sober!

My only tip, but it’s just me….not saying this is for everyone….is to try hardcore recovery. In other words no MO for as long as possible. The brain doesn’t like you for doing that and it is the fastest way to test out the hijack process. It’s also the best way to order the brain to stop tricking you. The brain doesn’t give up, but it learns a new way of being.

Good luck. Hero.

Thanks. To me, the MO is the most critical part. Since I've been clean, I will run into provocative images (whether real or digital) and can brush them off. Others, like last night, are more triggering. If you're a participant in the world, it's inevitable you're going to run into some of that. But retraining the pleasure centers of your brain to be aroused by things other than PMO is my ultimate goal.

 

[Stp215]

Today is 69 days clean from PMO. Last weekend I had to go on a work trip to Florida. For the last 20+ years, a trip like that would automatically mean there would be nightly PMO in the hotel, at least once per night. This was the first work trip I can recall where no PMO took place. Maybe it's because of the flatline, but the urge to do it wasn't there. Cutting off the exposure to endless amounts of triggering images has served to dial down the number of sexual thoughts in my mind dramatically.

 

[Blondie]

Nice @Stp215!

I love that feeling of your mind becoming cleaner.

Press on.

 

[Stp215]

Today is 76 days PMO free. It's kind of on cruise control now, few troublesome urges thanks to avoiding triggering images. The big unknown is when some relief from PIED will come. Starting to get some natural wood, but no idea when healthy sex can occur. Talked with my wife about resuming intimacy in the near future. Looking forward to it, but would rather wait longer for more rewiring to occur than come back too soon.

 

[Stp215]

Had a low moment yesterday but held it together. The wife and I had a talk about the need for more intimacy, and it seemed we were on a good path. Then we get into an argument over what, to me, was a minor thing she made into a big deal as women will often do. It just got me into a bad pattern of thoughts. I could almost see the devil sitting on my shoulder talking to me. What is all this effort at clean living for? Even if I recover from addiction and PIED, this married life is like a rollercoaster and the intimacy will probably be infrequent anyway. If we start up regular intimacy again, what if the PIED is still in effect? What's the point of living like a monk when there are things I can do to give myself some pleasure in this cold, cruel world?

I was thinking about relapsing, not because I saw some triggering material, but just wanted some small corner of my life that I could control and gave me some pleasure. It seems 99.9% of life is pressure, work, tension, disagreements, etc, It just gets exhausting serving everyone else and having almost zero attention to my needs or what I want.

Long story short, I didn't relapse. Today is 80 days of no PMO. I want to keep going with it. Going through the valleys is no picnic.

 

[Stp215]

Still remaining on course, but having some rough days lately. I've been having a lot of dopamine cravings. It's mostly from the neck up. Catching myself looking at soft-core images online. Because the flatline is in full effect, it would take a lot of intentional effort to relapse into PMO at this point. I really want to heal so am not acting on the cravings physically. Still maintaining the control to not dive into the hard-core stuff that, in the past, has led to relapse. Today is 87 days clean from PMO.