Prelude: So here I am. A 28 years old male with a so far succesfull career as a teacher, owning my own apartment and having a nice life so far. But like most of us I have a dark secret. Yes, I am addicted to porn. How I became addicted I don't remember. All I know is that it has been going on for years without me realising it. Around 2016 it became really bad when I began searching for the most extreme and weird stuff that I don't even want to mention here. Around 2020 when the pandamic started I realised that my addiction was not healthy and that I needed to quit. I tried to stop a couple of times but failed miserabley. When I moved out of my parental home and got a place of my own it even got worse. I've spend hours watching videos and playing porn games that don't make any sense at all. I realised that this had to stop as soon as possible. About a year ago I completed a streak of something around 30 days. The exact amount of days I don't know because at a certain point I even lost track of time because porn was not part of my daily routine anymore. I felt great. Like nothing could harm me anymore. But unfortunatly I relapsed and wasted my time on porn games again. Hours and hours I've spent over the months until a certain point that I wasted a whole day, just to finish a game and jerking off the whole day at the same time. Disgusting. Even my body told me that it was bad. I jerked my meat for so long that I had trouble walking. It was insane. After months of wasting time I'm now working on my second "big" streak. This time I feel confident that I'll make it. Since february I changed my daily routine drasticly. I go to the gym every workday of the week, I changed my diet and I stopped drinking alcohol when I'm on my own. I also started taking long walks and stoped using Facebook. I hope this formula will make me achieve my ultimate goal: quiting porn for good. I need to become me.
Hi, Don't feel you are unusal in moving from vanilla porn to extreme stuff. So have I and many on this site. I give the explanation in the thread The truth about dopamine (under Porn addiction). And you can find it fully explained in Sex and Addiction 190 by Robert Weiss. The book also explains how we get in a 'bubble' where we stop thinking. You say you don't want to mention the stuff you ended up with. I understand that. There are things that I have only said to my recovery partner or accontability partner. The advantage is that we can have daily written conversations (using new conversatioon on your account) where we build up trust. That means that we can end up being totally.frank, however embarrassing the revelations. Welcome to the site.
Chapter one: Don't let the fog take over Foggy. That is the best explanation I can give of what is going on inside my head right now. It is the first time in two weeks that I really felt the urge to watch porn and masturbate. I don't know why. Nothing special happened today. I don't feel particullary sad or alone. It just came out of nowhere. I tried a couple of things to distract myself but nothing worked. I almost relapsed. But instead of giving in to the demons I decided to come back to this forum and write some things down to distract myself and make me reflect on the good things that happened so far. So what did happen the first 14 days? Well, a lot. First of all I experienced what many described as "feeling like a god" the first two weeks. I wouldn't describe it as feeling like god but I felt more confident and enjoyed the hell out of things that I wouldn't that much otherwise . Things like walking to the supermarket instead of going by car, sitting at my balcony and listing to podcasts. But at the same time I also feel limited. I constantly have to "reset" my mind when I have a flashbacks to porn. Sometimes daily things remind me of things or people that I saw in videos. Of course most of the time it doesn't make any sense at all. Then there is also the thing that I stoppped using social media. To make this journey easier for myself I stoped using Facebook so I wouldn't be confronted by beautifull women hanging out in the sun in their bikini or something like that. I still think it was the right decision to do so, but there is also a downside. Although I was never a big user of social media anway, I did scroll Facebook for at least an hour a day or so. Now that I don't do that anymore there are little moments of boredom. Boredom that can easliy flip in moments of relapse. So far that didn't happen and I'm not planning to do so of course, but it is a risk. Then there are also those nasty dreams. Since day one I have had several dreams where I would relapse without any hesitation. Most of the time I wake up the next morning with a feeling of aniexty. Aniexty about giving up and relapsing. This is a good thing I guess? It's a sign that I really want to get rid of this addiction, right? Or maybe it's just me reacting to the abscense of porn in my life. I don't know. Sometimes its hard to understand what my mind is trying to tell me. I think that is because of the years of porn I consumed over the years. Feeling emotions and how to deal with them became hard. Every time I would feel strong emotions I would watch porn to escape. Even the good emotions would lead to me distancing myself and watch porn at night to "celebrate". This may or may not be one of the reasons that I have had moments that I truely believed that I couldn't feel or even had any emotions at all. The last thing I want to reflect on is my daily routine. So far it works. I'm getting up at 6:00, going to the gym at 7:30 and start my workday at 8:45. I work until something like 16:30 and go home where relax for a bit, cook myself a meal and take an evening walk. Around 22:00 I go to bed. A healthy routine I think. It gives little space to distract myself and let porn take over. For now it works, but I'm not sure for how long I will hold on. Soon there will be the summer vacation here. This means that I will have 6 weeks without going to work. I'm still not sure how I will deal with that. It's a risk, because boredom will occure and I will need to deal with that. It took me around 45 minutes to write this down in somewhat proper English (I'm dutch so English isn't my first languae). Within a minute the urge to relapse was gone. This is good. It means that I have a moodkiller, for now. Untill the next time I guess.
Thanks for your comment man. It feels good to know that I'm not the only one. It really helps me to know that this forum is full of people that know what I'm talking about and don't judge. This makes it easy to just let it all out and write some thoughts down.
Hi, Boredom is a very common trigger, as is being on your own. Why don't you write a list of your triggers and then of what you plan to do to distract yourself if one occurs.
You're making serious adjustments to get better. Don't be too discouraged if you relapse in the beginning, analyse the relapses and avoid the triggers / replace them with something positive. For me being tired is a big trigger too so having a good sleep schedule is good too (also for the muscle recovery for the workout). Then there's also stress management, so it's handy to learn some relaxation methods to avoid relapse.
Chapter Two: The little things that are worth living for Last time I wrote something on here I almost relapsed. I was scared that I couldn't hold on, but I did. It has been 23 days now without PMO. 23 great days. Did I feel the urge to relapse? Sure. But did I do it? No. But why? Why is it different this time? Why didn't I relapse like I did other times? Because I feel like I'm in control and not porn. This sounds pretty obvious but its the truth. Last year when I didn't PMO for over a month I had a lot of struggles. I felt like I was resisting against something that was way stronger than me. Every day was a challenge. Now that is not the case. Were there moments that I felt the urge to relapse? Yes there were, but only for a few minutes. Not thinking about it and distracting myself with random stuff worked so far. Then there are also little things that are different about me that I noticed. Small things that make a big difference. -I'm able to look someone in the eyes for longer. I used to have trouble with this because I didn't feel confident enough about myself. I think this was because of the self hatred that I had, mostly because of porn. -I noticed that some females were actually paying attention to me, flirting a bit and complimenting me. Maybe its just my imagination but gives me confidence. -I used to avoid things like hugs from friends and family because I felt awkward and didn't care. I thought it was stupid. Now I feel like I actually care and don't feel that akward. I even take the initiative myself sometimes. -The last couple of days I suddenly had a high libido. I've never experienced this before and I don't really know what to do with it. Today was the first day that it was not the case. So far so good. I'm enjoying life more than I did a month ago and I look forward to continuing this journey.
I fully agree with the sleep being a thing! I always try to go to bed around 22:00 so I've had a good 8 hours of sleep when I wake up at 6:00. The stress management is a thing for sure. My dad once told me that taking walks often helps you to reflect on the things you've done during the day or during the week. For me it is indeed a good method to relax.
Yeah talking a walk is great, even better when it's in nature. I commute more and more to work with the bike for example and arrive in a much better mood. I can also recommend stress management apps like balance https://balanceapp.com/ first year is free. There's also stuff like walking meditation that you can listen to while walking.
Chapter three: Entering the tunnel It has been one entire month since I last PMO'ed. Looks like I'm near my personal record, which was a bit more than a month I think. Good vibes. But there is also a downside. I'm not sure but I think I'm heading towards the flatline. For the first time in weeks I feel depressed and I'm having doubts about all this. Some examples: -I keep getting these "attacks" of feeling the urge to relapse to "enjoy" my day. Thinking about relapsing feels like thinking about going home. A terrifying thought. -I keep getting flashbacks to porn videos and porngames which feed the urges to relapse. -I caught my self thinking about how I would make my own porn compilation music video(which I used to watch a lot). I've never made one and I'm not planning to. -I started asking myself questions like "Does it even matter that I watch porn or not. I'm not in a relationship, I haven't been in any for years and it doesn't look like I will have one any time soon. Who cares that I have PIED and watch porn? -Instead of enjoying the company of other people I would rather distance myself and be on my own, like I did before all this. -I'm having less motivation for thinks like walks or doing productive things. Now that I'm writing all these things down it all sounds very stupid. I can explain all of my doubts. -Of course I get flashbacks to porn because, sadly, porn has been a big thing in my daily life for years. No wonder that I'm having strong urges to relapse. -Of course it matters that I don't watch porn anymore. I'm not doing it for anyone else but myself. It doesn't matter that I don't have a partner. -Of course I'm distanceing myself from other people. I'm ashamed of myself because of the urges to relapse. I gotta ignore it and distract myself. So it looks like I'm entering the flatline tunnel. So far I've had a lot of confidence about finishing this journey. This week has been one of the lesser, but I got to keep strong. I got to think about my goal: no PMO in my life.
I'm lucky enough to live near a small forest. I often take walks there. Thanks for the recommendations. At the moment I'm about to leave the house for a walk and I'm gonna put on some of that walking mediation. Thanks man.
Chapter four: Setting the clock back. So it happened. After 34 days I relapsed. Why? Because I fell in my own trap. Yesterday I started playing The Sims. Pretty fun game, nothing to worry about, right? Well wrong. I got aroused by the whole man and wife thing and felt the urge to relapse. I got off my computer and started cleaning the house. After I had done some good work I decided to take a break and resume my Sims game. Got aroused again, first only MO'ed and soon after that PMO'ed because I thought like: well I already fucked up so I better enjoy the moment. How stupid I am? Pfff. I was on 34 days. Why did I do this? Guess I gotta set back that timer and start all over again.
So yes. I relapsed. That sucks but its not the end of the world. I did a one month streak twice now, so I know I can do it again. Today is a new day. Day one of the second part of the journey. Some things that came to mind this morning: -At this moment I feel more relaxed than I have in a long time. I think that is because I'm not constantly thinking about my addiction and how to get rid of it. -The relapse of yesterday was one hell of a dissapointment. As in: Is this where I'm addicted to? What a joke. For more than a month I had to resist myself not to pmo and now that I did I see that there is nothing special about it. -Now that I relapsed, do all the advantages of not watching porn instantly go away? I mean the things I talked about before like eye contact, self confidence, etc. I will find out soon I guess. Although I am dissapointed about the fact that I relapsed I'm also glad that I experience this feeling and still feel confident that I can beat this addiction. Day one starts today. Lets try this again.
Hey Thatguy123, I read all your blog and it looks like we are on a very similar journey! Massive congratulations on reaching a month, that is seriously impressive. Don't worry too much about the relapse - the worst thing you can do is wallow. I am sure you can put together another great streak. All the feelings you described in the post above (urges, flashbacks, your brain telling that it's okay to watch porn) are things that I very frequently experience too. You definitely have the right mindset in fighting against your brain and staying on the right path. My problem is that too often I give in to these thoughts and I have to constantly start the cycle over and over again. It looks like you're doing much better at this than me. I would highly recommend listening/reading to Dr Anna Lembke. She has lots of great insights about the science of addiction, and how it works in the brain. Basically, all the feelings you're describing are because your brain is in dopamine deficit and is craving that high again from porn. The good news is that if you abstain long enough then your dopamine levels should return to normal again and the cravings start to fade away. For me, this has been really helpful because it explains a lot of things that happen in my brain and it makes the problem seem much less daunting if I know the science behind it, and that it's just my depressed brain craving dopamine. Good luck on your journey!
Chapter five: A new dawn So I've been away from this forum for around 2 months. My counter said 62 days without PMO but unfortunatly this isn't the case. For 62 days I didn't even bother trying to quit PMO. I was free from work for around 6 weeks and I knew that I would spend a lot of time on my own at home. Trying to quit during this period seemed pointless because I knew that I would fail. Instead I chose the "pick your battles" strategy. Not even trying seemed the best way. And I was right. About 2 weeks ago I started a new streak. Not on purpose. I was just doing my thing. About 10 days ago my vacation was over and I went to work again. I didn't even think about PMO for days. Last week I suddenly realised that I didn't PMO. For a moment I was very happy but than I forgot about it again and went back to my daily things. How cool is that? Now what is my strategy for this streak?. Well its very simple: I don't have a strategy. I think that my last streak failed because I had a strategy. Let me explain that. For weeks I would think about my addiction and my progress. I kept avoiding everything sexual related and I was so happy with my progress that I kept counting the days and kept telling myself that I was doing good. These thoughts made me constantly aware of the fact that I was addicted and that I was trying to quit. Trying not to think about PMO eventually leads to thinking about PMO. I realise that now. Instead of trying hard I shouldn't try at all. I just got to do my own thing. So, what now? Well this week will be my third week PMO free. I've reset my counter, although I don't know exactly when I started this streak. Its a new day, a new dawn. Lets do this.
Congrats thatguy123 on the streak. Your post speaks to me so much. I have also been guilty of being so caught up in my addiction that it ends up being all I think about, and then of course, I end up relapsing because it's just always on my mind. My most successful streaks have always been the times where I've kept busy, got on with my life, and focused on the things that matter. I didn't spend hours everyday ruminating about my addiction because relapsing was just not an option. I need to get back to that mindset. Really glad to hear you've managed to achieve that. I'm sure at some point you will have urges but if you have already built up the mental fortitude which comes from not relapsing for a while, I am sure you will be able to deal with them.
