Has anyone succeeded without going hard mode ?

I'm on Day 36 without porn. That's good ! I have a few urges sometimes but I'm able to overcome them. I feel a bit better now, still not as good as I'd like but hey, I won't defeat a 10+ years porn addiction in a week.
But the truth is, I'm not going hard mode (= I still masturbate sometimes). Before stopping porn I'd masturbate like 4/5 times a day, everyday, with and without porn.
Now I only masturbate 3 or 4 times a week that's a huge improvment and I hope to be able to stop MO as well one day, but right now I can't.

I wonder if some people were able to reboot successfully while still masturbating from time to time ?

 

From my experience I felt more effects when I did hard mode but I could only muster 68 days when I did that. But that was years ago. Currently I've gone just shy of 6 months but I still masturbated almost daily and to be honest I still feel quite anxious so I want to go the next 6 months on hard mode. So right now I'm leaning more on hard mode. Only that it has its drawbacks. It's probably easier to relapse.

Not talking about PIED. But the brain fog and stuff, personally. To me hard mode is better to reboot.

 

I did hard mode for ~3 months 8 years ago, but it wasn't hard I simply had no desire.
And when my desire came back I slowly eased back to MO few times a week, and had multiple relationships since then. (again eased in)

I even watch porn occasionally nowadays, but I actively keep it in check so it doesn't get out of control.

 

I didn't watch porn video's for almost 4 months now so however i did watch some softcore porn and masturbated sometimes

 

Just wanted to add I don't think not going hard mode is bad. Porn is what you want to avoid. Period. But I feel hard mode is faster. So what you can progress in 3 months with hard mode is what you do in one year only avoiding porn. But it's still always a great thing just to go no porn. Because you still progress anyway just slower. I do feel like I everyday things "better" and less of a zombie. I certainly, laugh more but I also feel more depressed sometimes but that's normal since both good and bad things seem to hit harder. But that's a good thing because watching porn is just like being a drug addict.

 

By the way good luck. I'm also on the same boat. About 10 years with this crap. I heard masturbating once a week is optimal if you want don't want to go hard mode. Since testosterone peeks.

 

We are all different, but I am just adding to the discussion what I know from experience. It is better to abstain from masturbating for at least a little while. Usually, masturbation leads to porn further along the way. It is not easy either to moderate masturbation use once started. It is like playing with fire. Once an addict always an addict. I also think abstinence from any form of lust be it fantasising or ogling is the safer way to go. That said, porn is the main addiction that you are trying to conquer, so do not interpret MO as a failure and an excuse to relapse. Progress not perfection. If you can find a way to avoid using porn and carry on masturbating and feel that this path is right for you, then that is fine. However, I have doubts that such a middle way is sustainable in the long run.

 

I agree. its a slippery slope. You will notice that you masturbate one time and then you notice that you feel a chase effect and start to look more at nude pictures and start masturbating more and more

 

Define your own success and you will succeed:
https://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/forum/threads/how-i-beat-shame-and-porn-addiction.37458/

 

There is no "hard" mode. It's "hard" b/c you convince yourself it is. M/b for me just turns into more and more and eventually I need more stimuli, so it's back to online images/videos.

 

Recovery from any addiction is 'hard'. There is no way to get around that. But essentially I agree, going without masturbation is not as bad as you think it will be. On this journey we learn that it is possible to live without what we were chronically addicted to. I get cravings occasionally, but most of the time I don't miss masturbation at all, and I am a 24 year old virgin who has had no sexual release for 10 months.

 

I masturbated multiple times per day for probably 30 years. As the ******** says, the m/b didn't really provide pleasure, it provide temporarily relief from the withdrawal discomfort(masked as hornyness, pleasure craving). And these cravings were created by the overflooding of the reward circuitry of excessive m/b to porn. So you're participating in something to relieve the withdrawal that the action itself is creating. So you're going in a big addiction circle. Same way any other drug addiction works. Heroin addiction creates the withdrawal, you use to get rid of the pain temporarily, and the cycle continues.

I rarely ever m/b now and I thought I couldn't get through a day without it. Once the initial withdrawal is dealt with, than it's really a matter of not being brainwashed by the addiction.

 

Masturbation can be an addiction in and of itself, this isn't news. It's for each individual to decide what is excessive vs what is moderate.

 

I've never thought of the 'hard' in hard-mode or hard-reboot as meaning difficult. Which isn't to say that rebboting (hard-mode or soft) doesn't require concerted effort, just that in my mind, hard-mode is more analogous to doing a factory-reset. Even though thats prolly not the best analogy when where talking about the brain, as it's not a machine. It's constantly changing and it's likely not possible to ever over-write those pmo-related neural networks, completely.

 

Except most people on this site are/were addicted to masturbating to porn. So they're going to switch to "healthy" masturbators? In most cases that just ends up in excessive masturbation.

 

This is how i experience masturbation during early reboot:


You start off with jerking off without anything and say to yourself I only jerk of once a week.


After you orgasme you feel the chaser effect and are extremely horny. and want to masturbate more then you actually want to you.


A few days later you masturbate to some nude pictures because you where so horny. You say to yourself not a big deal its just pictures at least I didn’t watch video’s.


A few days later you watch some softcore video’s(girls in bikini’s and masturbate and you say its not a big deal.


Few days later you are bing watching massive amounts of porn video’s.


This is how I experience masturbation during a reboot. The chaser effect is a nasty side effect wich you should avoid by not masturbating.

 

My experience, exactly.

 

I am somewhere around day 150 of no porn. I made it to 100 days on hardmode. Somewhere around day 100 and 110 I MOed - no fantasy just sensation. I also had sex with a hooker somewhere around day 110. Since then I don't have the urge to masturbate or watch porn. My urges seem to have disappeared without porn.

I tried to abstain a few years ago. First I left the porn out. I masturbated when I had urges to do so. The urges became less and less. And I ended up on a 2 month streak on hardmode. Someone else may become a serial masturbator just without porn, but for me it was a good way to come down from PMOing 5 times a day to MOing once in 2 or 3 days to a 2-months-hard-mode-streak. Why I came back to porn is another story.

 

What gets you hooked on porn in the first place is the overstimulation from what you are viewing or whatever.

So as long as you aren't overstimulating yourself by watching porn then I suppose it would be fine to masturbate if you were just trying to quit porn.

But then if you are still regularly masturbating then you won't get the benefits that you get from abstinence.

 

Thanks for sharing. Your story illustrates once again that one size deffinately not fit all, it's important for us to keep this in mind, I think.