Low activity on the forum (new / admin input welcome)

Hi,
there was a similar thread a while back that was hijacked by nonsense off-topic posts, so I want to start a new one with the same question. Also, I just saw this post by the "YBR Admin" from yesterday asking why the gaming addiction section wasn't used more frequently. That does seem a bit ironic because there was no official reply in the other "low activity thread", and I would much rather ask why there is no activity on the forum in general...

Every time I come back to the forum after a few months, the activity on here has gone down even further. I'd have to lie if I said I didn't feel a bit sad about this, as I've been a part of this community since early 2013 under an older account.

I dont buy the idea that the general population has somehow lost interest in no fap or no porn or porn addiction in general. If anything, it's never been more prevalent in mass media. Just yesterday I saw someone write about no fap on a totally unrelated, vanilla journal-type site where other people write about their pets and vacations.

I suppose forums are dying in general, but this one seems to be going down much faster than others. At the same time, I do wonder where people would flock to if they're interested in writing in more detail, discussing things in more depth than reddit, instagram and so on allow for.

I remember google blacklisting this forum. Is that still the case?

Honestly, I would really like to know what the plan was when The Underdog handed over the forum, and how that's been working out. And also: what is the plan going forward? The community is going to die eventually if things progress at the same rate. There were just 30 threads updated in more than 4 months in the 25-29 section. I know that since my journal was still on the first page with a post from August.

 

We can only speculate what the reason might be. People could be using alternative sites or perhaps many individuals have become discouraged after being in a recovery-relapse loop.

But I agree it's a shame that activity levels are low as I imagine the support from others is one of the key benefits to posting on this forum.

Off topic but does anyone know I how I would go about uploading an avatar? Every time I try via my profile page it says an error has occurred and that I need to contact an administrator.

 

I can only toss in my two cents, but I discovered this site about three years into my recovery. I knew nothing about NoFap, had never heard the initials PMO and really was unaware this community, or modality of recovery existed. I was the guy who went to rehab and after being done that did 12 steps of SAA for a while and has weekly therapy sessions for as long as I've been sober.

I don't mean this as any kind of indictment on the community, but I know many people who are successful in recovery for years. None have come through the method that is embraced here. This modality seems mostly about willpower, and that's fine, but you only know how strong your willpower is when it fails you. Personally, I believe addition is almost always a coping mechanism for deeper problems. Willpower doesn't address those problems.

While there are guys who have the 500+ banner as part of their sig, it's far more guys on here who habitually can't get past three weeks who keep telling themselves the same thing. If NoFap and anti-PMO works for you, great, but by following many threads on this site and participating in a few, I'm left wondering if people aren't participating (and maybe not reading the site -- I wonder if overall views has dropped) because they don't think that it works. Why keep pumping a dry well? Move onto a different well.

As for the gaming piece, my guess is that people with gaming disorder don't want to participate in what is 95% a porn addiction board. It's like the joke I use in my book....When I went to rehab for alcoholism, people patted me on the back and wanted to shake my hand. When I went to rehab for porn addiction, they wanted to find the hand sanitizer.

Anyway, just my two cents. I think any way you get to recovery is a good way, but on the surface, the lack of success may be turning people off.

 

I'm new here in this community, but I've been using the brazilian forum for PMO addicts for 4 years. The brazilian forum is passing through the same thing, low activity and people stuck in a recovery-relapse loop. What I see as the main reason to that abandonment is that the real benefits of reboot dont match with what most of people expect when stop using porn, mostly the hard users who started as teenagers.

If you read the succes stories, you will notice most of the guys (I'd say more than 90%) who surpass the 90 days dont regain 100% sexual function again, I've observed it in the brazilian community as well. A lot of them even relapse later they succed the reboot because they are not satisfied with the sexual life they are experiencing, they become free of the cicle of PMO, less procrastination, more self-confidence, more productivity at work, and all the life gains they would get with the reboot, but stay having problems with ED and low quality sex until they relapse again.

What Im saying is, maybe there isnt a cure, maybe by accident, in a critical learning phase, we taught our brains that what he likes is porn, not real women and we will never be the same again. That's why these guys dont reagain their sexual function, because they dont have it; and thats why there is so many people abandoning these help foruns, because they know it, and they are hopeless.

Sorry for my bad english

 

Neymar666

I agree. I really do think the time allowed for us to regain 'full fitness' of our brain is something that our time here on earth is not sufficient to do it in.

I'm probably more fucked than anyone else - I'm a virgin who's heading into his 40s and frankly I get more and more suicidal as time goes by.

 

Thanks for all your replies.

I've just had a look at nofap.com and there is a lot of activity in the journal section. More posts per day than in a month on here. That makes me even more sure that it's not about some general loss of interest in this topic all over the internet, but more about this forum specifically, loss of interest on the part of the administration etc (The Underdog used to be online all the time when he was active, now the admin hasn't been online for more than a week. No surprise about the state of the forum then!).

What's important to understand is that this forum has always been made up of the most extreme cases of porn and/or sex addiction. When people were joining nofap on reddit at the same time 5-6 years ago, a lot of them were people who just needed a reboot in the very sense of the word - reboot their system for a couple of weeks, 90 days at most. But here, a lot of people were extremely addicted, had cross-addictions to alcohol or prostitutes, had psychological issues, loneliness, deep depression etc. Thus, a lot of the "many years of flatline and no success" posts came from this site, whereas redditors still thought 3 months would be enough, and thus a lot of people didn't seem to make progress on here. On reddit, I remember reading stories of people who did 200 days no porn on their FIRST attempt and were giving people tips and advice as if they had any clue. That was just ridiculous and in no way comparable to the position most people on here started out from.

Sure, there have always been members who tried to white-knuckle it. I don't think that's unique about this community though, you find the same patterns in AA type support groups.

I've always found that the people I used to follow on here were more interested in going deeper and working on themselves and their issues. See the long post(s) by the forum's founder The Underdog ("My Thoughts on Rebooting"). There were quite a few good in-depth discussions back in the day, like fundamental stuff on what constitutes successful recovery (e.g. total abstinence? abstinence from masturbation as well? what is the endgame?), there was even a kind of book club where people worked on exercises from recovery books and stuff. To be honest, I do miss that part because I had never seen something like that on the internet before, most of my experience on forums or communities has been anonymity, no depth, trolling and so on.

 

It's sad really. I think the site is still blocked by google or so. It would be great if @YBR-Admin (is it Alexander?) could say something about it.

On top of that, I have the feeling that many valuable members have left the site. I remember when Wabisabi used to answer newbies and was very supportive. In general, it is really hard to get a good conversation going. So many threads go unanswered at the moment.

 

Well tbh I felt it was pretty pointless to stay here..
I went away for a long time, but only came back to visit as old habits started creeping out ... thing is, honestly it's so mild it's pretty easy to overcome at this stage.

Time is an extremely precious commodity, why do you think anyone who beat their addiction will want to stay here?

 

So, I just checked out nofap and it's hopping over there. So, I think that, for whatever reason, this site is dying. It happens. People migrate, then other people follow the migrators. It's too bad. Six years ago, when I had my first go-around with PIED and no PMO, this place was a life saver. It's still just as supportive as it used to be, but, fewer opinions and perspectives. Maybe it will come back.

As to other things said on this thread:
I know that abstaining doesn't work for everyone, or, for some people it takes a very long time, but, in my experience, both last time and this it's worked, at least so far as my erectile health goes. Do I see all of the benefits promised in different corners of the interned for those who make 90 days? No. Is it difficult to maintain sobriety? There's a good reason this is recognized as an addiction. Can it be kicked? Yes. Will it always be a struggle? I don't know yet.
I think there may be something to the hypothesis that those who started using P early in life will have a much more difficult recovery. Our brains are so much more plastic at 11 or 12 or whatever than they are at 40 or 45, which is when I first started using HSIP. I think, though, too, that maybe those who aren't recovering aren't, in fact, suffering from PIED, or, at least, from PIED only. ED has been around since there's been humans, essentially. It has many many causes, which can be very very difficult to discover and to treat. But it is usually treatable. Don't give up.

 

I just stuck with this site, because it was the first one that I found and I had a positive first impression. I was noticing the lower activity and checked out another forum recently, because I was feeling like I needed more support. No PMO is somewhat out there in the mainstream culture now, but it is actually really bizarre how relatively little attention is being paid to this now that the information has been available for a fairly long time. Compare this to how much community there would be around weight loss, fitness, etc. I think that I am a minority on this site because I've never had PIED and I proabably perform better than the average sexually overall. However, I do definitely fall into the category of being a hardcore addict with a lot of related deep-rooted psychological issues. Why is Google blocking the site? This makes me suspicious as I imagine that porn is good business for Google.

 

Very true.

 

There is indeed way less interaction here than a few years ago, but at the same time there are always many unregistered guests reading posts. Maybe for the registered users this could be a good motivation to keep journalling, because you are helping and inspiring others anyway.

Also I want to stress the importance of welcoming new people and supporting others. This is what keeps people around. This summer I have seen many people come by, posting a few posts and then disappearing again. That is such a missed chance. Keep in mind that it is most about the fact that you write something and not even so much what you write to others. People are basically helping themselves and all info needed can be found on the board. Just some support can make an enourmous difference.

Also recently I came across this post.https://yourbrainrebalanced.com/forum/index.php?threads/mentoring-walking-this-road-together.7408/. What an awesome idea! Unfortunayely ig didnt work out, but there was an enourmous demand for mentoring. Would it be an idea if this is set up by the adminiatrators so that potential available mentors and mentees (how would you call that?) can find eachother? I would be willing to mentor (ie give regular support and feedback) someone. Just an idea....

 

As someone that generally reads the posts here anonymously for support it is touching. Hopefully the boards gain more active users to revitalize things.

 

I sincerely hope the new site owners continue to maintain this place, because it is pretty much the only extensive source on PIED info aside from the trio of people that continue to raise awareness on the detrimental effects of PMO (i.e. Gabe Deem / Gary Wilson / Noah Church)... and as much as I admire their output, it is very basic content that long-term rebooters like myself don’t really benefit too much from.

The NoFap and RebootNation forums are also nice for starters, but overflowing with newbies that struggle to reach 90 days, whereas YBR has essentially a collection of case study journals of what has worked and what hasn’t – you just have to dig deeper to figure it out. On top of that I feel like the rebooting veterans appear here from time to time in order to update their success stories and give advice to those still struggling.

Going off on a bit of a personal tangent, I would volunteer to become a moderator for this place, as I do intend to check in at least on a monthly basis, but I’d also like to completely recover first before I can legitimately help anyone with their issues. Otherwise it would just be "the blind leading the blind".

In terms of changes I’d like to see, it would be great if the content on the board focused on what is the actual cure from porn-induced dysfunctions, besides rebooting – rewiring. Most members on this board spent too much time focusing on abstaining from PMO, but the step after that, I feel like, is comparatively rarely addressed. Thankfully, more recent success stories stress this point to some degree and it is becoming evidently apparent that it is nigh impossible to recover by solely abstaining from O and waiting for libido to return.

Suffice it to say, I am guilty of this as well, but now that I have been clean for 2+ years, I’m going to give this "be the change you want to see"-thing a try and commit to rewiring as much as possible this year, in order to finally be free of this affliction.

I feel like once one has hit a decent abstinence streak alongside improving yourself, everyone on this forum owes it to themselves to go out as much as possible to at least try and find an understanding partner to rewire or maybe even just rewire with randoms. It would be a lot more useful and exciting if we were discussing our "rewiring adventures" and giving each other advice as opposed to micromanaging our relapses.

 

While the activity has been less recently, the general vibe of the forum has improved and now it seems like a very inspiring place. For a bit there it devolved into a bunch of posts along the lines of "PMO isn't really so bad, just pick up some prostitutes you'll love it."

 

I first discovered this place about 5 years ago. There's always been a lot of wallowing in these forums and I did that a fair amount myself. It comes with the territory, so no worries.

On a completely different-but-still-related note, I was into the PUA scene about 10-12 years ago too. Then I took a long time off it, gave it up basically, and came back after about ten years, only to go back and check it out again a few months ago and find it's almost totally dead as well. Nearly all the big name PUAs from back in the day are out of the game now, most of the old big name PUA web sites are defunct, and the only big name still going (that I could see) was Tyler Durden. You would think a scene dedicated to getting guys good at getting with women would have a perpetual customer base, just like a scene dedicated to porn addiction would, but not so. I was really surprised to find out the PUA scene is dead, I honestly thought it would keep evolving forever.

It got me to thinking about all of these sub-cultures that spring up online for single, frustrated men. NoFap, PUA, the alt-right, a couple others that I can't think of off right now. There's a lot of phases that this cohort have gone through over the last 10-15 years. I think what happens is guys spend a little time in this scenes, gather as much knowledge from them as they can, and then move on to the next thing. I think that's what's happened here. The need for a nofap movement hasn't dwindled at all, if anything it's gotten bigger. But the nofap concept and all the related ideas about PMO's effects are so well known among guys now that folks don't need to hang out on a forum specifically dedicated to it anymore. They can go to places like bodybuilding.com and talk about nofap with their lifting buddies, or on Facebook, where I see references to it from random guys all the time.

So I say, Well done, YBR, you may have less traffic but that's because you did your job so well. Kudos.

 

Hey brother, funny you mention this, I pretty much kicked really bad porn habits back then.
I think it was 12 years ago (before YBO days?), while studying PUA before it became commercialized. (I think I was reading old newsgroup posts and stuff, before mystery became a giant d-bag haha), had massive success with it, man the good old party days haha.

It's really a shame how it devolved into a pipe dream industry, like many other things (reminds me of fitness guros who pretend to be natural but are juicing), guess there's money in the banana stand ey.

I like your post is super positive, ya a lot of people learned tons for sure and moved on to expand their knowledge.
But I still believe YBR-Admin had a very strong point, forums in general are dying, even fitness forums are becoming stale.
My guess is social media is taking over, which is ironically very popular for people with mental issues who are doped hard on anti-depressants (no offense intended, but it is what it is).

Lmao, that sounds like me, but tbh nothing wrong with prostitutes every now and then.

 

I don't know about that. It can definitely be an addiction in my opinion and a self destructive habit. If you look at PMO from a sex addiction perspective, use of prositution is simply a higher up level on the addiction progression than the PMO. Just my opinion though.

 

Guys wtf?!
what is this what you’re talking about?
of course is not enough to stop fapping for a couple of weeks after years of watching porn.

But you’re only hopeless when you give up.
Willpower cannot be your only resource in this fight, but this is a fight that can be won.

We were not made to jerk off in front of a computer screen, and our brain and body will heal with the right actions.