Introduction I do not have many posts here because 2.5 years ago, when I found out I cannot get an erection despite having a hot naked girl in front of me, I read several posts on this forum, learnt what to do and then just executed on this. I want to write this post to help other people, because I do know how desperate it feels when you find out you have PIED, in particular the question in my mind - "will this ever be fixed and when?" Where I started About 2.5 years ago I went to bed with multiple girls and could not get an erection with them, despite them being hot. To cut things short ultimately none of the usual explanations cut it for me. I went to doctor, they found out I have above average levels of testosterone (I was lifting weights 3 times a week, very fit, eating healthy, etc.), except I found this forum and Gary Wilson's videos on PIED. I wasn't fully believing it, but I did the PIED test I saw mentioned somewhere: While I could not get erection with girls or masturbating, I tried to watch porn again (I hadn't for 2 months before) and I got a hard erection very quickly. So my conclusion was that while I am still not sure about PIED, best course of action was to assume that's what it is and follow the recommended solution - the reboot. What I did I followed what I sometimes saw here called as "full reboot": No porn, not even naked girls, no pictures of cleavage, stuff like that, the only situation I would see that would be in real life when I was say in a club No masturbation At first due to my career I had less time to meet girls, but over time that changed and I had chance to go on dates and sleep with girls. At first, because my confidence was rock-bottom, I used Cialis. I have seen it as not recommended on the forums around here, but honestly if you don't take much, i.e. take e.g. 5mg at most once or twice a week, not every week, just occasionally, I don't think it does such a harm. I think it helped me in the sense of enabling me to have sex starting from rock-bottom confidence levels. Bearing in mind safety, if you think the girl is safe/hasn't had sex with too many guys, I think it doesn't harm to try sex without condom (make sure she takes the pill of course). The reason is that, at least for me, condom makes a huge difference. Having sex with a condom back then made me think "Why is this sex thing supposed to be enjoyable?". Having sex without condom was completely different. Now I have sex with condom without problems, but still it makes a big difference - it makes me feel much less and many times I can go on forever with it, whereas without it usually I can't last particularly long. Where I am now After 2.5 years I start kissing with a girl and I get rock hard. It doesn't matter if I am tired, sleepy, whatever, I have 0 problems getting an erection now. I never thought this would be possible but it is. I might be about to fall asleep but if I hug my girlfriend sometimes I still get an erection involuntarily. What you have to do is quit porn and masturbation, no exception. It might be hard (somehow the porn bit wasn't too hard for me), but it is possible - it's a question of discipline!
Great post kid ... Quick question though: how long did you give your brain rest from porn and masturbation before you started having sex?
1) I am 28 now - so I started when I was 25. As for the porn use history, I never did as much as I've read in cases where people watch it multiple times a day - I would watch it once a day maybe 5 times a week, for like 20-30 minutes. But this was mostly that vast majority of normal porn wouldn't turn me on towards the end, I literally wouldn't care about sex. So initially I had no problem not watch porn. Now it's different - I really have to be disciplined and it's hard, but the desperation I went through, and the confidence I have about being able to have erection so easily due to not having watched porn or masturbated, really keeps me going. 2) Now I feel definitely cured, I can get erection any time I start even touching my girlfriend. 3) Re multiple times a day I am - in fact now I am away from my girlfriend and when she visits then we have sex normally every morning and evening several days in a row. I wanted to test multiple times at night but honestly due to work after the first time I am really tired.
Great post. Thanks for sharing. I echo the previous question of how long before you started having sex again and was it hit and miss or great every time? Also, had you previously had sexual experience? Cheers and congrats.
Thank you for posting this, as someone recovering from PIED its important to read, re-read, and read again success stories because things can definitely feel hopeless when riding out flatlines, suddenly be able to perform, then flatline again.
30 minutes 5 times a week...I could only wish I PMO'd so little. Awesome success story! Rebooting works.
OK to be honest I did not want to answer the specific 'How long' questions but I guess I want to help other people with this so I answer this in the hope it makes at least one more person in this world consider the discipline required to do this worth it. I think all in, since my last failed attempt at having sex and the first time I had sex again after the reboot, it was 1 year 9 months. This wasn't because I planned it this way but actually I had some much work to move my career forward that I had to forget for a while about dating girls. So it is possible you don't have to wait this long. For me for a long time this wasn't a problem because my libido was so low for maybe the first year and couple of months I just did not understand why other people feel the need to have sex so much. Only towards the end of that period did I get my libido back. By the way, I think in this there is another tip - if you are wondering how to last so long without breaking your discipline, I'd say you should look at filling your life with something that's exciting enough that you don't have time for masturbating/watching porn. I know this because I've noticed I tend to think much more about sex/porn when I am bored/work on something boring than when I am excited, e.g. work with the team on something important. Anyway, in summary, if you are thinking 'dude good for this guy, but I don't know if it'll work for me, what if I am lost forever' - well that was exactly my thinking, and I just decided to try. I am not here to tell you it'll 100% work for you or something, but you have only one way to find out if the reboot works, and you owe it to yourself to try it and give it your full, not just a half-baked attempt!
Hey man, congrats on the progress. I have one question: When you started having sex again, were you essentially healed or did it take some days/weeks/months to get where you are now (erections all the time)? I ask because I can only have sex 1-3 times per week assuming I have not watched porn or masturbated in a while.
To be honest I did not spend much time on porn in the first place as other guys report, for me like 20 minutes every other day was a LOT. I'd say the only notable improvement is that besides your sex drive your motivation to go out and meet girls improves. Porn is like a quick-fix button to satisfy this need and when you don't have it you are more motivated to do things to make your short and long term relationships more successful, such as working out, stopping being needy, etc. Re career it's always been important for me for various reasons and to be honest you can view its effect both ways. Initially I think it's what got me into porn because when you work long hours you don't have energy to invest into meeting girls (and many of the failed attempts this entails), or for that matter socialize generally, when all you need to do is type a URL into browser and see lot of fairytale girls in a couple of minutes. But later on, when I wanted to stop porn, my career helped me in that too because it filled my life with activity so I never felt 'oh I am bored, what should I do', and to be honest I think that helps a lot. Because when I work on something really boring, say have to write a long document, then my mind starts wandering around and I've noticed that when I am doing something really boring, am not pressured to do many things that's when my thinking about porn starts coming in. It's so easy to get to, you already are at the computer, just type the search into your Google and there you are, maybe 2 secs max? So having stuff to do I think is key in recovering because then your mind does not have chance to wander around.
I honestly don't remember but if I was in your situation, then I'd not worry about it. If you don't feel like having sex on a night then don't have it, simple as that. Sex for me is just part of connecting with a girl and it's something I'd do only if both of us want to do it. So if you don't feel like doing it more than 3 times a week than just don't. When I started reboot I was tempted to masturbate just to measure my progress, such as how many seconds it will take me to get it up, etc. But of course that in itself holds back your progress. So when I stopped caring and let go I was fine and nothing bad happened to me.
I just want to make sure I understand correctly. First, I understand that this is just one data point, and everyone is different. But data is data. Are you saying you didn't masturbate for a year, and that's roughly how long it took you to regain your libido?
