I started the first five days in the open Porn Addiction thread, but I'm moving my journal to the proper place. I know there are other people who are trying to move on from porn, so I hope to see you hop in and join everyone on this journey. I've seen a lot of great people connect through these journals and I hope I can help someone out along the way. 12/20/20 ( Day 6 ) 10:25AM Last night was the most difficult night so far. My thoughts and my dreams were filled with pornographic content left and right. It was really difficult to think on better things and I know it will be harder from here. This is a common breaking point for me, so I will see it as getting over my first hill of many. Other than sleep, yesterday wasn't filled with a lot of growth on my part. I found myself browsing/ watching youtube. I spent a little bit of time drawing, but not that much. I did however make time to talk to a few friends which felt nice. I saw a website that outlines the porn recovery process and I think I will give it a look. http://www.recoverynation.com/recovery/recovery_workshop_expectations.php
12/21/20 ( Day 7 ) 9:50AM On to day 7 now. There was nothing too out of the ordinary about yesterday and last night. I actually slept well. I made sure to get my phone turned in even though my parents were already asleep. I've been having clear dreams which is something that's been missing as of the last few months. I'm proud that I got a consistent week of journaling. Consistency is not a firsthand trait of mine, but I've been doing well lately. http://www.recoverynation.com/recovery/recovery_workshop_expectations.php I took a look at recovery nation and they brought up a lot of good points about recovery. The most important one to me was the motivation for doing this journal and why I want to recover. I realized that while emotions are really strong, they can't be my motivation throughout this entire healing process. I made that mistake in the past (along with not having a plan to commit to) which led to me relapsing a ton. I really like the website because the creator has a great understanding of addiction recovery. His analogy was hiking up mount Everest. I can't just make my way up (go days on end porn free) without any preparation. The temperatures are extreme, the air is different, and if I'm not prepared then I'll just freeze to death up there. The process is more about learning how to live a healthy life without porn so that we don't have to fall back into it. I'm not an expert on this website by any means, but he has a realistic plan on moving on from an addiction. There are a ton of good lessons and I will be looking at one daily. On the website, I read that shame is a big factor during the recovery practice. If you're here reading this right now, or you have a journal, or you failed at some point, be proud of yourself. You're taking one more step than a lot of people and you want something to change. There's no limit on the amount of times that you or I can fail, so keep going and be proud that you're taking action.
12/22/20 ( Day 8 ) 10:42AM Last night I woke up around 3am and had trouble falling back asleep. My first thought was to play a game until I sleep, but I felt like that was still asking for a slip up. I avoided it and did my best to go back to bed. I looked at the second lesson for the website and the second discussion was values. It was nice to write them out and to think about how I want to invest into them more. Yesterday, I had a bit of an emotional rollercoaster towards the end of the night. Instead of bottling up my thoughts or resorting to porn, I decided to write out how I felt. It was different and it felt weird, but it helped me in the moment. It gave my thoughts a bit of an outlet when they seemed overwhelming.
12/23/20 ( Day 0 ) 8:36AM Had a relapse last night and it's something that learned from. I got my phone turned in and I will continue to do so. It was an instance where sleeping stomach down led to me repeating old patterns. I'll put it down as masturbation and learn from what happened. Every time this scenario comes up, I normally have a fantasy about being needed (in a really unrealistic way) which is just a weird trigger for me. So whenever I start to imagine anything along the lines of that, red flags need to go up on my part. Even with the relapse, I'm happy with the commitment I've put out. I was afraid of failing for a bit, but my old patterns are teaching me a lot. I'm learning about myself emotionally and habitually which will help me in the long run. I did another lesson from the website and I took a deeper look into the things that I value (both the good and the bad). I learned that I don't value as many things as I thought. Values motivate the things that people do, so I think I need to spend some time thinking about who/what I want to value going down the road.
12/24/20 ( Day 1 ) 10:24AM Back to day one. Last night was a good one because my siblings and I stayed up playing games. It made it easy to fall asleep and rest for a good bit. It was also really nice for all of us to connect and I was really thankful for that memory. My parents were asleep, but I made sure to get my phone away from my room. I still need to do another lesson so that I can find practical ways to grow in this journey.
12/25/20 ( Day 2 ) 7:35AM Merry Christmas everyone! I'm on day two now. It felt like an easier night, so nothing to report there. Got my phone turned in, but I forgot to update my handwritten journal. I did another lesson and it went over prioritizing my values. The lesson discussed the importance of making decisions on a value basis rather than an emotional basis. This is something that the guide has gone over before, but it's something I still fail to consider in the moment. Emotions are a good thing, but they tend to influence me a bit too much at times. Values are objective and it has helped a lot to identify what I want to value more going forward.
12/26/20 ( Day 3 ) 11:10AM On to day three now. I haven't been respecting the sleep schedule as much as I should. I have a few weeks left at home before I'm off to college, so most of my time has been going to hanging out with my family. Falling asleep hasn't felt too difficult as of the last few days. I've only had a few provoking thoughts while trying to get shut eye. The thoughts that have taken hold of my mind lately are the ones that bring back painful/ embarrassing memories. They always pop in my mind while I'm trying to sleep and they still have an effect on me. I'm on lesson 6 for the Recovery Nation page and today I made a plan to invest into my values. I don't have a solid foundation at the moment, but having a vision going forward points me in the right direction. I found a tab on love addiction and reading all the red flags hit home with me. It was a good find because it addresses a lot of the issues I had in the past and even the issues that I have now. I've been making sure to be mindful of ways that it shows up in my life so that I can grow out of it. Love Addiction: http://www.recoverynation.com/recovery/lessons/advanced_recovery_workshop_love_addiction.php
12/27/20 ( Day 4 ) 10:08AM Moving on to day 4, Throughout the day, I saw a few things that would normally stick to my mind for the entire night. I'm noticing that looking through my Youtube feed is like walking on ice. There's a lot of things that I can't really avoid even if I tried. This forum and my physical journal are nice grounding places for my thoughts so that I can remind myself of why I'm doing this everyday. This process is a million times easier without my phone in my room. I normally tricked myself into using it as an alarm clock, but that always led to relapse. I have an alarm clock now and I'm getting my phone turned in. I moved onto lesson 7 for the website. The idea is just to refine the plan into an initial first step. There are a lot of relationships that I've put off to the side over the last few months and I think I need to try to invest in them again.
12/28/20 ( Day 5 ) 9:08AM Onto the fifth day. Yesterday was a pretty good one. I made plans to see a friend or two this week. I made time for myself to take my sketchbook outside and draw. It's something that I really enjoy, but I never give myself a chance to do it. I haven't done another lesson, but I will do it after this. Today marks my short term goal of 15 days of journaling! That's a big threshold for me because I suck at consistency. It's never been a strong suit of mine and I'm really grateful for this. Doing this each day has given me a great start and I hope to reach my next goal of 30 days in my online/ physical journal.
12/29/20 ( Day 6 ) 9:59AM Yesterday was a pretty good one. I got to work for most of the day and it felt good to be back. I found that I am still learning to be myself there. I get stressed when I make a mistake or when I do something out of place. I'm very conscious about the things that I do in that environment and I think it would be a good step to find ways to open up in small ways. Louis Rossman has a lot of good videos on doing so and I think I'll give those a shot again to look for some practices. I did another lesson on top of yesterday's and this one was on the topic of honesty. I do deceive myself a lot and there are a lot of things that led to me being here. The lesson made a really good point to recognize your intentions above all else. Learning to be honest with myself and then being able to be honest with everyone else is a key thing when recovering. While I'm not in a relationship at the moment, the author made a good point about communicating to nurture a healthy relationships. I think that's true on a lot of relationships (family/ friends/ gf/ mentor). I don't think this recovery will be something that I want to sweep under the rug when I find a relationship I want to commit to. It's a part of me and my story and if the person is right then I think it will be a necessary thing to share.
12/30/20 (Day 0 ) 9:57AM Resetting the count. I slept on my stomach and I relapsed before I went to sleep. My phone was turned in and I really like having that habit in place. Porn is something that I want to remove from my life, so I'll continue to do it. I think I still need to focus on the things I've learned over the last few weeks. I thought too much about not counting this, but that's probably a sign that I need to address it. I have a 7-8 day threshold before I slip back into my old habit. It has a lot to do with the thoughts I have and I'm finding that I have a lot of issues that lie behind my habit/ thoughts. I still have a hard time letting go of things of the past, I still struggle with independence, I'm still learning to take care of myself, and I'm not the greatest at building into relationships. Lesson 11-12 went over the reasons behind the habits, the fantasies, and the behaviors which point towards all the struggles above. I don't think that's something I could have known prior to journaling, so I will keep this up. I still have counseling to look forwards to for emotional guidance and I believe that will help me learn along the way as well.
12/31/20 (Day 1 ) 11:00AM Back to square one. Last night it was harder to take my mind off of the recent relapse as I got ready to sleep. It's really easy for me to fall into a chain of relapsing if I get down on myself about it. I had the expectation to not make any mistakes going into this, but I'm quickly finding that I had a naïve view of this. I work best when I have a short term goal, so I will shoot for 7 days going forwards. I've been getting ready to go off to college and I hope it will be a good step for me. Independence is something that I want to work on and I believe that I'll grow from this experience if I put in effort to get out there. I enjoy the place where I'm at, but college could be even better. Still scary as shit tho, ngl. Once I get there, I want to get a routine/ schedule going Also, Happy New Years everybody!!
1|1|21 (Day 2 ) 10:16AM Feels weird to slap a two one at the end of the date, but we're here now. I'm off to a new month and I will add a habit or two in addition to journaling. I want them to be small stepping stones so that I can build on them next month. For this month, I want to add consistent exercise, listening to my devotional podcast everyday, and a plan to try new places during college. Exercise is something that I had in mind, but I never gave myself a schedule to follow. As long as the schedule is consistent, I will consider it a success. (Daily basis) Visiting new places consistently is something that will help me spread my wings a bit for the first month. If I see a new spot to draw, I spot a restaurant, or I see an event I'll see what's up and hopefully meet some new faces. (Weekly) Now that I have a chance to reflect over last month, I think that it went pretty well. That's the first time in a while that I've been porn free 18 days and counting*. Masturbation and porn are still two things that have an effect on me, but it's been nice finding ways to take care of myself to work against those two harmful habits. Journaling was a great find and I think it was something that helped me develop a lot. Consistency is now becoming a friend of mine and I think scheduling will be my next venture.
1|2|21 (Day 3) 9:17AM I took some time to setup my journal for this month. I focused more on developing a schedule that I can follow along with. The one that I can work on now is my sleep schedule. I threw that off during New Year's, so I will work on bringing it back towards 10:30PM. I had some pretty strong urges yesterday and they were persistent towards the afternoon. I didn't give myself a lot to do and I think that boredom is one of those things that can lead to a relapse. I want to work on my art, so today I'll focus on that. I want to improve at watercolor and I think that it will give my mind something to focus on.
1|3|21 ( Day 4 ) 12:03PM Not gonna lie, I almost forgot to do my entry but I'm gonna get to it now. I let myself get out of whack when I have a lot to do that day, but I want to work on prioritizing this journal when I wake up. I enjoyed yesterday a lot. I got to do the watercolor practice and I learned a bunch of helpful things. It gave my mind something to hone in on and it helped me relax a bit. I made a workout schedule to follow along and I plan to write about how it goes. I'm looking forwards to the challenge of scheduling myself and I think that I'll learn a lot from it even if I fail. For today I am spending time with my family before I'm off to college in a few days. I will see you all in the same place tomorrow.
1|4|21 ( Day 0 ) 9:13AM I'm back on time today, but I had a relapse while trying to sleep. I made sure my phone was away from me, but that's about the only precaution that I took. Compulsive masturbation is now my biggest problem and I want to look into finding ways to work against it. If anyone has input or past experiences with this, I'm all ears. Thoughts and fantasies are still things that I contribute to the problem, so I need to look for something to help there. Before that I had a pretty good day. I spent the day with my family and we worked out later in the evening. Today I am getting out with some friends and then I'll be packing my stuff. I'm looking forwards to it all, but I'm still determined to handle my bad habit. If you guys have something helpful please let me know.
1|5|21 ( Day 1 ) 7:34 PM I moved into my dorm today and it was quite the adventure. I was running around the entire day, but I finally got everything settled in. The reality that I'm on my own hasn't set in, but I'm digesting it all. I know that being away from home will stress me out, but I think that this type of social growth will help me. I can put my schedule into practice starting tomorrow and I can start attempting to make connections. I still want this journal to be at the forefront of my day, so I will find a set time to start posting here See ya all tomorrow,
1|6|21 ( Day 2 ) 10:37 PM I got moved in, I like my space. Today I will explore the town a bit and see if I can meet anyone. I'll also see if the gym is open so I can get a regiment going. I think the schedule for this journal should be first thing in the morning at 8:30. I'm finding that 10 is a bit late and I'm already trying to do everything else by then. I normally listen to relaxing videos at night, but a lot of the recommended videos are provoking especially that late at night. I think I'll find a relaxing sounds app or something to take Youtube's place. One cool note: I left a few responses in some threads that I saw. I thought they wouldn't do anything, but one actually helped. I'm finding that small things like encouraging people goes a long way. Rebel replied to my journal a bit ago and that was really encouraging. So I think I'll try and reach out more. I've seen a lot of people building others up and I want to be a part of that more. See you all tomorrow at 8:30! If not, I'll have to say I'm late 50x times
