My mind was drifting toward a certain risqué app. So I deleted my account details on the app. It hurts! But it made me think about what the app was "giving" me: Supposedly it promised me a source of beauty to look at, and pleasure, and escape, etc. But it gives me none of these things. It actually twists me away from appreciating true, meaningful beauty, and enjoying satisfying, meaningful pleasure... it feels like escaping when I spend time there, but actually in the real world, the problems wait for me, and are actually worse because I haven't used the time to give attention to those things that will help alleviate the problems, like taking some legitimate rest to recharge my batteries, or making productive use of the time to overcome and crush all challenges. So the app gives me nothing but only hurts me! Glad to not log in there anymore. I'll instead use the time to pursue, true, lasting, satisfying, real-world beauty, pleasure, triumph and joys.
I really want 30 days. I see I've recorded myself jumping ship before getting there 8 times already. The way to get there is not to focus on day counters but to make good choices today, just today.
RG. You have the right attitude. You are aware of activities taking you down a bad path. And you are focusing on making good decisions and having healthy behaviours - one day at a time. keep it up!
Rudolf, 30 days is indeed what some addiction specialists recommend. I know that many on this site are trying for longer, but 30 days should reset the dopamine receptors. Good luck.
Fairly strong urges today. I'm under pressure and to go down the P water slide seems to "the old me" to be a viable means of escaping. Reminding myself of good things. To cave now would take too long, put my head in the gutter probably for days, take me away from my financial and spiritual goals. It would not be any kind of escape 'cos it would actually increase the issues not alleviate them. The way out is through the discomfort. Embracing the discomfort. Engaging with life, not a futile attempt to escape. Let's go - good coffee, good music, crush the to-do list and then do something fun.
Thank you @DBA ! --- Up and down last night. Got it into my head to check if I could find some easily accessible P that hadn't been blocked by my blockers. I caved and spent some time on that. I should have gone through better strategies, I know. Couldn't find anything to look at. I thought, well then, I'm going to turn off the blocker. I went to start that whole process. Then I thought, "I don't want to do this." So I stopped. So that was good. But then I went off on a half-assed fantasy in my head for maybe thirty minutes. So in the end I didn't look at P and I didn't MO. But I did look at some very mild Psubs and spent some time on F. So there are some good things happening there but overall it would have been better to avoid it altogether. I think if I can peg down where I'm at, it's that the battle is raging like never before, I think. This is positive, and it's where the victory will be won, if I can stay the course. Still need to respond better to the initial urge. Whenever I start a streak, at some point, an idea will pop into my head of, say, an image I want to see or search for or revisit. Then I tend to obsess about that idea until I eventually cave (and invariably experience that it wasn't worth it). So there is still that, an urge rattling around in my head, to look at or experience something very particular, a certain kind of smut. I need to make peace with surrendering that idea. Saying goodbye to it and acknowledging that what I have in the real world is, in fact, far, far better than what that indulgence supposedly "gives" me. I can assent to that intellectually - if I think clearly I know P is never worth it - but apparently there is still some kind of base appeal to it, maybe an emotional or physiological appeal. The emotions would be looking for some kind of escape I think, and physically, there's the dopamine of course. The fact that I didn't go all the way to O shows me that maybe it's that dopamine trail that I have a physical craving for. I'm going to take this as progress and not reset the streak. I need to be on guard though.
Grateful for this forum. At the start of the day, or when I'm feeling stressed, it's great to be able to come on and find guys with similar struggles and enjoy some mutual support.
HEAVILY tempted today. But I know it's all b.s. If I go along with the urges I'm just going to have more and more regret. I'd rather face the difficulty of dealing with my to-do list than cave to something, the sum of which I won't enjoy, and have to come back to all the difficulties again after. This week the one thing I have got right is to make very good productive progress in my work hours - this amounts to enjoyment of the progress and satisfaction in my work, even though there is resistance to getting stuck in. Basically going down the P rabbit hole won't be able to compete with that. So let's go. To the work. I would LOVE to get the end of August with a 50-odd day streak! Yes please.
We are with you. Don't give in. Distract yourself with work. The reason you may be finding it difficult to get stuck into work is that you may be depressed, and in that state we find it difficult to find the umph to get going. But if you manage it, you will find you can do it, and the effect is very rewarding.
It really is taking it out of me, to report that after all the good work and encouragement on the forum, I blew it last night. It was once again a mix of Psubs and fantasy. I did not want to come on here and report this. I know you're all going to tell me not to beat myself up... I'm not. I just wish I hadn't done that, it wasn't worth it (obviously. As usual). I'm GLAD to feel remorse today. I'm glad to acknowledge that is the opposite of what I want to be giving myself to in life. I'm glad I still feel lousy after spending time on smut. How I keep falling down: I have a really great support group but I always isolate myself from that before a fall. I have really great strategies to deal with the emotions leading me to P and to redirect them and frame my situation positively, but I stop following the strategies in crucial moments. I have amazing motivation to avoid P like the plague, but I end up justifying use of P to myself in the crucial moment. I think to move forward, I need to intentionally lean into my support structure; I need to lean into those positive emotions and positive redirection of negative emotions; identify and acknowledge high-urge moments so I am aware and on my guard; and use this good motivation to stick to the strategies day by day (and I think twice a day in high-urge moments). I also need to rest better, I think. I am good at making sure I get enough rest during the week but it's low-quality rest like looking at screens, scrolling etc. I'm not taking a mulligan on this, I'm resetting the counter. I had some close calls already and I'm more happy to reset and call it a clean start before the new month begins. I don't want to report a relapse again in August!
I hear you, brother! Feeling extremely tempted myself. For me, time to change my activity and my get busy doing something else.
This is my story too, word for word, Rudolf. August starts on Tuesday, so let's have 3 clean days behind us when the sun rises on that day!
Strength @Mozenjo and @Last 40 Free ! I'm REALLY amped to put some distance between me and this thing
I may not have got as far as I'd like with work so far this week, but I haven't looked at smut. That is a win. I had all the urges yesterday but I didn't go with it. What's helping at the moment: When I see an attractive woman I'm training myself to think, as my first thought: "that's not for me" or "that's not mine". I thought this would make me feel sad and depressed, like, "boo hoo, why can't I have that." But it actually helps me to appreciate their beauty apart from trying to twist it for my own pathetic fantasies. It's just a far better way to think and to live! There are some other thoughts that go along with that. Often if it's a woman who's only trying to lure me into their OF account - when I'm thinking clearly I want nothing to do with that woman. If anything I feel strong disapproval, even anger toward them for feeding into the P industrial complex which is ruining people's lives. And sometimes I feel sympathy for those who are in that life because of emotional baggage or a sense of low self-worth. If anything I feel sorry for them. This is not a person I would ever want to be with if I had the choice. Then, when I see my wife, and I notice her generous curves, or the way her hair falls over her shoulders, I think to myself "THAT'S for me", or even "she's mine!" Which is a joy. How many of those women who want me to look at their profiles, or that I foolishly attempt to engage with in an imaginary space, would ever make an effort to please me physically in the real world? Or when we are texting during the day and I just mention just as part of the conversation "I forgot to bring lunch to the office today" would go out of their way to show up at the office with a pie and cold drink? Or would spend hours on my kids' birthday party to give them great memories? My marriage is heavenly. Yes, it's true, sex isn't "on tap" the way my petty old self would demand it to be, but the we do get to having sex it's beautiful. Being grateful for what I do have - the 95%. Not focussing on the 5% I foolishly hanker after. Maintaining the blockers. The trappings of the technology is that it requires tweaking or resetting after updates, and so on. Sometimes when I've viewed smut it';s been because there's been a lapse in the blocker. This week my blockers were tight and it was enough to make me think in the moment, "no, I don't want to the back steps." And so I stayed away. It will require making sure I can't access THAT site that I have tripped up on several times already this year. The one that comes to mind when the first urges pop up. I've also restricted my social apps to 10 minutes a day which is short enough that I don't get carried away.
Yow. Heavily tempted. I went looking for some stuff again last night but thankfully instead shut down and got close to my wife. But it's back tonight. Fortunately I have an urgent deadline to get to and I'm pretty tired, so most likely it will be just work and sleep. I think when I get a gap tomorrow I need to do some internal and external work. Journalling to stay focussed internally, and leaning into external helps like checking that my blockers are secure, and reaching out to my support structures.
It's stressful being a man. It's stressful being the head provider for a family with multiple dependants. It's stressful when the bank account is low, and also stressful when you are sending large invoices which you now have to deliver on. It's stressful when you are working long hours but there are still paying customers and demanding customers waiting in the wings. I'm not looking at smut and I'm not fantasising. As stressful as things are, I can always make it worse by going there. All I can do is push through, rest when I can, and find more helpful ways t de-stress. I'll be getting out into nature with my fam and some friends tomorrow. Every tasks done, every task scheduled for the right time, every client expectation managed, and every day without smut is a win.
