Rewiring is a myth. * Must read for people 3+ years without porn and still flatlining*.

Hey guys check out this post on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/hxlqgt/to_anyone_going_through_long_withdrawalflatline/

This post sums up nicely what I have believed for a long time in my gut, and this was posted by a guy who suffered a 23 month flatline!!

For anyone unfamiliar with my story: https://yourbrainrebalanced.com/for...mo-and-still-in-a-flatline-need-advice.36204/

In short I quit porn nearly ten years ago and still remain in a flatline today. I don’t have low T or any other health issues that could have caused this either. I have have had years of ‘rewiring’ experience too. During the past ten years I have been in a 3 and half year relationship, plus many hookups/flings and I’m currently in a relationship going on 18 months. I have read a lot of success stories and spent countless hours on this forum and others (Reddit, Nofap, Rebootnation, Medhelp).

Now I’m not here to discredit anyones personal experience, but I’m going to share mine over the past ten years. The mentality on recovery forums, especially YBR and Rebootnation seems to be heavily focused on ‘rewiring’. For those that don’t know, rewiring works on the theory that sexual conditioning during adolescence to porn is the reason for recovery taking so long for young guys and why older guys tend to recover much faster. This theory quite nicely explained the trend in the beginning of young guys taking much longer than older guys, but since then we’ve seen virgins who started on high speed internet porn recovering in less than 3 months and also older guys who had lots of real sexual experience without sexual conditioning during adolescence suffer 18 month flatlines. Which disproves the earlier theory. Added to this I’ve spent time on other addiction forums also where guys who quit alcohol, benzos, weed or hard drugs such as crystal meth experienced the flatline just like many of us here. The symptoms can include low/zero libido, ED issues, social anxiety, mild depression, anhedonia and more. The truth is that Flatline=Post Acute Withdrawal Syndrome.

The fact that many of us have been three plus years without porn and still haven't recovered shows that quitting porn alone is not enough. Masturbation, having sex with orgasm and even sexual arousal are keeping us stuck in seemingly permanent flatlines. It can take 1-5 years without a single relapse to reverse PAWS/flatline. Literally one relapse can screw everything up. The only way to tackle this is 1-5 years monk mode. So no porn, no masturbation, no sex, no orgasm and no arousal.

Now I know there have been many success stories of people claiming rewiring to be the key to their recovery, but from reading many of these I found they all share one thing in common; they were already experiencing in and out libido and showing signs of life. In my opinion these guys would have recovered with or without rewiring if they had stayed on hard mode/monk mode and the ‘rewiring’ just slowed them down a little. For us hard cases who have low/zero libido which is seemingly constant; masturbation and sex with orgasm and even arousal will keep us stuck in this state permanently. One relapse to porn, masturbation, sex, orgasm or sexual arousal can mess everything up. So no matter how many years you are without porn, until you’ve gone five years without a single relapse to porn, masturbation, sex and orgasm, you can’t say for sure that you’re incurable. The only exception to this is wet dreams, which for the most part are out of your control, so just ignore them. However please note sleeping on your front, drinking alcohol and indulging in sexual fantasy can induce them though, so strictly avoid these habits.


Here are 8 cases of 1-5 flatline/PAWS recovery cases to keep you motivated


1 - 12 Month Flatline

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/7zmzs6/out_of_a_300_day_flatline_ask_me_anything/

2 - 13 Month Flatline

https://www.reddit.com/r/Semenreten.../?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3


3 - 16 Month Flatline -

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/2cg8in/27_year_cured_after_two_year_flatline_severe_ed/


4 - 18 Month Flatline

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/2rz2bl/very_long_flatline/

5- 20 Month Flatline

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comm.../?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3


6 - 24 month flatline -

https://www.reddit.com/r/Semenretention/comments/famhte/lessons_learned_from_a_one_year_pursuit_of/


7 - 27 Month Flatline

https://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/csqkbw/yes_end_of_27mo_flatline_826_days/

8 - 29 Month Flatline

https://www.reddit.com/r/Semenreten.../?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3




Now since Post acute withdrawal is the brain healing dopamine receptors, we can speed up this process slightly and improve our mental symptoms by using natural methods to up-regulate our dopamine receptors. Now remember that doing this is a bonus, and avoiding porn, masturbation, sex, orgasm and sexual arousal for up to 5 years without a single relapse is the most important thing. Here are some of the best natural ways to up-regulate dopamine receptors.


1- Get your body fat percentage to between 8-14% - Preferably in the 8-10% range and eat enough calories to maintain your weight. MRI brain scans show that leaner individuals have more dopamine receptors. I recommend aworkoutroutine.com for advice on building muscle and getting lean naturally.


2- Quit smoking and avoid drugs/alcohol - MRI brains scans show smokers, alcohol drinkers and drugs user have few dopamine receptors.


3 - Dopamine Fasting - Limit/avoid: TV/Netflix, video games, internet, apps, smart phone use, junk food, social media, music. By limiting and avoiding empty dopamine highs on a daily basis you will be keeping your dopamine levels much lower and therefore help to heal your dopamine receptors by up-regulating your dopamine receptors. Try to read books, socialise with people, exercise and mediate for entertainment. Try to limit the other actives to when you’re with other people like going to watch a movie with a friend. I always feel much better mentally when I’m strict with this.


4 - Anaerobic training (weight training) - Lifting heavy weights regularly in the gym is proven to have the biggest effect on dopamine receptors out of all forms of exercise. Again I recommend aworkoutroutine.com for advice on building muscle. Training fasted with 10g BCAA 10-15 minutes before your workout may increase the effect further.


5 - CDP Choline -CDP-choline (citicoline) is a nootropic compound that converts to both choline and cytidine upon ingestion, the latter of which converts into uridine in the body. Supplementing with CDP choline long term has been shown to have various neurotropic benefits including an up-regulation of dopamine receptors. One study showed that aged mice who received 500mg/kg of CDP choline for 7 months increased their dopamine d2 receptor densities by 18% as compared to the control aged animals that had received no CDP-choline. I recommend long term supplementation with CDP choline at a dosage of 500mg daily first thing in the morning.


6 - Daily mediation - Consistently mediating everyday can help to alleviate mental symptoms of PAWS and help to up-regulate dopamine receptors. I recommend the Pranayama app on iPhone. I simply do the advanced level for 15-60 minutes per day and try to block out any thoughts.


7 - Daily cold showers - Cold showers daily can also help to alleviate the mental symptoms of PAWS and help to up-regulate dopamine receptors. I recommend starting your shower cold and staying fully under water for 5 minutes before turning the shower to warm and cleaning yourself. Yes its tough, but you’ll feel much better afterwards. The water should be 10 degrees Celsius or below.


8 - Intermittent fasting - 16/8 or 20/4 intermittent fasting, which for those who don’t know is eating all of your food between 12PM and 8PM and fasting 8PM to 12PM with water only can help to up-regulate dopamine receptors. Dry fasting is also another option, which may be even more effective.


I’d also recommend ruling out other causes for low libido/ed issues whilst on this journey. Previous use of hair loss drugs, SSRI’s/Neurological medication, health conditions, vitamin deficiencies and low testosterone can also causes these issues. For advice on how to increase and optimise your testosterone naturally I recommend watching Christopher Walker on youtube and downloading his free ebook MasterYourT from www.uzmu.com.


Another thing to add. Stay away from ED drugs! Take it from someone who has learned this lesson the hard way. You may be tempted to resort to using ED drugs so you can have sex, but this isn’t a problem with blood flow. This is a problem with your brain, so it’s likely that only higher doses of ED drugs will help you a little. Which is where the problem lies because taking higher doses of ED drugs regularly can cause many serious health problems such as heart problems, hearing problems and vision problems. There have been multiple reports of permanent vision loss, permanent hearing loss and heart attacks caused by taking ED drugs since they were first approved by the FDA. Which is why the patient leaflets now make users aware of this with warnings. I’ve been off and on ED drugs for the past ten years and have found out the hard way that taking ED drugs at high does regularly is extremely risky because I’ve experienced chest pains, irregular heartbeat and tinnitus, which have all remained for weeks after discontinuing and I’m a healthy young man! I assumed ED drugs were safe when taking them occasionally because the only side effects I used to experience were facial flushing and mild headaches. I was wrong! Taking them regularly is dangerous and many long term users have to stop taking them eventually due to serious side effects. All taking ED drugs achieves is temporarily masking the symptoms without fixing the root cause and at a cost of putting your health at risk they are just not worth it. If your flatline has caused you to have ED issues then you shouldn’t be having sex because all they will do is keep you stuck in a rut and keep you in a seemingly permanent flatline whilst ruining your health. You’ve been warned!


Remember to stay away from porn substitutes too! So R rated tv shows/movies with frequent, noisy and explicit sex scenes must be avoided. Also checking out images of girls on social media and other apps, which includes scrolling through dating apps/sites to checking out gils profile pictures should be avoided too because they are very similar to watching porn and being aroused by a screen should be strictly avoided them same as porn.


Finally don’t put your life on hold during this journey. Focus on improving the other areas of your life rather than waiting for the flatline to end to live your life. I recommend the subreddit Semen Retention for those who are committing to this journey to help keep you motivated. The mentally on that subreddit is more geared toward self improvement and teaching you that there’s more to life than sex, which helps with motivation to keep going on this journey. This is the post I wish I’d come across when I first quit porn ten years ago to give me the information I needed to succeed and keep my expectations realistic. I’m going to practise what I preach and continue working to fix this. A quote I like which helps to keep me motivated and not dwelling on mistakes from the past is this: ‘The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, but the second best time to plant a tree is today’. Good luck to everyone.

 

Thanks for sharing this, and good luck. I had previously read your older posts, and your story struck me deeply. I sincerely hope you will finally recover and live the life you want to live.

 

Yeah I'll keep you guys updated.

 

Thanks man I appreciate it.I hope your journey is much easier than mine. I hope my post can prevent people from falling into the many traps I've fallen into on whilst on this journey.

 

Valuable post.

Though I haven't been the greatest at not using P or Oing, this is a shift in thinking I've recently taken also. I was just noticing too much of the same 'shark eye', 'heat in brain' sensation when having sex. Particularly because I have PE and it increases in intensity when I'm close to O.

For now - aside from usual hardmode requirements - I'm cutting out sexual activity (kissing allowed) with my girlfriend.

Like I said, very recent shift in thinking, day 9 infact. It's literally been like trying to find a new meaning to life. (Yes, I know).

Perhaps those of us trying this method should add updates to this thread at the end of each month.

 

I think it’s a shift a lot of us have to make and not fall into the trap of trying to ‘rewire’. I also notice my symptoms worsen when I O regularly. I also have PE, which is caused by the ED because weak erections=increased sensitivity=PE.


How did you explain wanting to take a break from sex with your GF? What time frame are you planning on abstaining for? Sounds like you're doing the right thing.

I have had a tough time with this before during long abstinence. Feeling like I had no purpose without sex, which is likely a part of the addiction. I really recommend trying the subreddit semen retention to help with shifting your mentality to one more conducive to recovery.

Thats a good idea. For those of us trying this method this would be a good thread to post our updates on each month. I look forward to hearing your progress.

 

Just to clarify a couple of details about my situation.



1 - Before quitting porn I did have a couple of sexual failures with women, due to a combination of PIED, performance anxiety and also a couple of the girls I wasn’t really attracted to. I was able to have sex successfully with a few women I was more attracted to though. I’m not sure you understand PIED fully, so I will briefly explain. PIED usually means guys can achieve erections to porn, but not with a partner. Performance anxiety usually means guys can achieve erections on their own, but not with a partner. Before quitting porn I could achieve an erection through masturbation with or without porn and sometimes had issues with partners, but also managed to have sex successfully. I had libido and could experience pleasure from orgasms.

2 - After quitting porn - I lost the ability to get hard through masturbation, porn and sex. This was accompanied with mental symptoms: social anxiety, anhedonia, low focus. AKA= Post acute withdrawal syndrome.



A few other points to make


1 - All brains are different. The amount of time someone has been addicted to porn doesn’t correlate with the amount of time it takes to recover. It’s the same with all addictions. One person can be addicted for 6 months and take 1-3 years to recover, whereas another person addicted for year might recover in 3 months. All brains are different!

2- Whilst I accept that some people have underlying issues and that porn isn’t a cure all, it is reasonable to have expectations to cure symptoms brought on by quitting porn. My story isn’t all that rare if you spend enough time on porn recovery forums and any other forums where guys congregate (TRT forums etc). There have been many guys who’ve quit porn and lost their erectile function after quitting and some experience mental withdrawal systems along with it (myself included).AKA Post acute withdrawal syndrome. I

3 - Yes I’ve already tried 15 months monk mode abstinence without success, but at the time I hadn’t learnt about PAWS and didn’t know that PAWS can take 1-3 years to heal without a single relapse (porn, masturbation, orgasm). I believe I gave up too early because there have been quite a few cases of guys needing much longer. There are four examples in this thread to prove that. I have a very credible source who has come across recovery stories even longer in porn addiction and other drug addictions.

4 - My ED hasn’t been made better or worse by ED drugs. Yes they do have some nasty side effects and people can become mentally dependant on them, but unless you suffer a priapism then using them shouldn’t cause any physical damage to the penis. In fact I have had many long periods without them when I wasn’t sexual active and I still occasionally experienced fully hard erections in my sleep which proves this. After all this isn’t a blood flow issue. This is a neurological problem.

5 - I think your definition of what healthy male function looks like is not right. A healthy fully functioning man without PIED or suffering from PAWS should: Have a libido/sexual drive that compels him to pursue partners for sex or to masturbate, be able to achieve a full erection from sexual arousal, be able to keep an erection long enough to use a condom and not have to rush so his erection won’t go down, be able to achieve a full erection from masturbation if he wishes and feel great pleasure from orgasms. Of course performance anxiety could still face a healthy young man, but in that case he would have a libido and be able to achieve erections from masturbation still and only sometimes have issues with partners. I know what normal sexual function is because I’ve experienced it for myself, and I’ve confirmed this with reading flatline success stories and also speaking to people in real life. Compare this to my current sexual function without ED drugs: Unable/very difficult to achieve erection from masturbation, Zero libido/sexual drive, can only maintain erection for less than 30 seconds without stimulation, weak/low pleasure orgasm even when full hard, difficult time getting fully hard from arousal to have sex, hyper sensitivity (PE) unless erection is >80%hard. This is not normal sexual function for a healthy 29 year old man.

6 - I’m not obsessed with my ED and I don’t think about it all the time. In fact I’ve gone through long periods taking the ED drugs where I just masked the symptoms and forgot all about it.

7 - Whilst I have had a lot sexual experiences since quitting porn, none of them have been truly pleasurable experiences due the the weak arousal and low pleasure orgasm Ive experienced. The best sexual experiences I’ve had in my life were the ones before quitting porn when I had a libido, no ED and could experience full pleasure from an orgasm. Nothing to do with girls who I slept with either because I’ve been with some very attractive women since quitting.



I hope this clears up your confusion with my story

 

Post acute withdrawal syndrome



PAWS seems to follow a certain pattern when addicts quit their addiction. Whilst the the flatline cases 2 and 4 from above don’t detail how it went for them, 1 and 3 do. The first month they experienced high libido, and super powers for a month before hitting the full withdrawal. I’ve recently realised that the same thing happened to me. The way I quit was a little different though; I quit porn but continued to masturbate without porn for the first year even though I was experiencing the withdrawal symptoms.After eventually stopping masturbation because I realised it wasn’t helping, I experienced high libido and relief from ED and the mental symptoms. I remember the job I was doing at the time suddenly becoming enjoyable even though I hated it during withdrawals. I had suddenly had no social anxiety either during this period. I actually got promoted at work during this period! I couldn’t make it past 7 days without masturbation because my libido was so high. This lasted for around a month similar to stores 1 and 3. Has any one else experienced this upon quitting? I’m not sure wether this always happens with PAWS, but it definitely gives me a little hope for recovery. Here are the examples from stories 1 and 3:

Case 3
Month 0-1: Feeling really good and felt like i had stumpled upon something that gave my life purpose and meaning. Confidence increased, mood increased, physical benefits such as increased skin and better face, sometimes i got female magnetism.
Month 1-24: Deep flatline, extreme social anxiety, mild depression, no emotions, looking dull, looking tired and fat. This was my "Dark night of the soul". Was close to suicide a couple of times, but something inside me told me to kept going. If i turned back to my addictions i would just felt shit anyway, so rather just keep going.

Month 25 up until now: Im feeling so amazing everyday. I got no social anxiety, im happy, my looks have changed, my testosterone is finally high and i can loose fat, i can gain muscle. The most insane female(and male) magnetism i have ever experienced. Its constant, everyday, i get looks, i get approaced, people treat me like im famous and i get offered random jobs and buisness oppurtunities. In my flatline everybody disliked me for some reason, people made fun of me a little bit and treated me like i was worth nothing. Now its the complete oppisite, but i try not to let my ego lead the way. It doesnt matter about this magnetism. Im already bored of it, it was fun in the first 3 months. Other than that i just feel like i have the universe behind my back at all times. Nothing can stop me, my vibration is so high and my spiritual journey is finally evolving and going perfectly.

Case 1
Here is a breakdown of my recovery:

1. Weeks 1-3: Very high libido, high craving for pornography
   
   
2. Week 4: "Superpowers" which include increase in confidence and libido
   
   
3. Months 2-24: FLATLINE. No libido. No desire to have sex. No desire to masterbate. Feeling asexual. My girlfriend of 3 years broke up with me because she felt like I didn't love her. Feelings of hopelessness. The Viagra and Cialis that I was prescribed by my family doctor stopped working. I felt like I would never experience a healthy relationship.
   
   
4. Months 24 to present: Cured of Erectile Dysfunction.
   

 

The abstraction of Post-Acute Withdrawal Syndrome and whether or not it occurs with behavioral addictions is moot here.

The fact remains that many people with porn addiction experience very slow recovery, spanning a very long time period, characterized by cycles of improving and worsening of addiction associated symptoms which tend to reduce in severity and duration with each iteration of cycle. We could just as easily abstract this set of porn-induced symptoms and throw our own anecdotal label 'Porn Addiction Extended Withdrawal Syndrome' (PAEWS) over it.

We already know that behavioral addiction brain changes largely mirror substance addiction related brain changes. We already know the method of recovery is to not engage the addiction circuits. We already know the 'sex part' of the reward circuit is the only behavioral circuit which is shared with harder drugs such as meth. We already know we suffer symptoms for long periods of time which get worse when we engage those circuits.

We already know that our symptoms mirror PAWS.

I argue that whether we are actually experience PAWS, 'PAEWS' or something else, we're best to take note of what our symptoms are most like and proceed from there. As it stands, many guys experience symptoms that look like PAWS. Pragmatically speaking it doesn't matter if it's actually PAWS or PAEWS or something else.


There is absolutely no good reason to believe forcing sex with viagra can be worse than watching and ejaculating to porn.

 

I basically just told her that in order for me to recovery properly I need to spend a good deal of time not engaging in almost all sexual activity. I'm very open about my case with her. I'm now in the position where I must prioritize recovery above everything. That means if she splits up with me because there's no sex, so be it. But I can guarantee our relationship x years from now will be much better if I do this properly now, I told her that and she agreed.

I'm unsure of an exact time-frame so far it's been 2 weeks (I PMO'd 2 weeks ago and have been monk mode since). I would like to go 6 months minimum. I think it will really depend on 2 things: 1. Speed of recovery of non erection symptoms and 2. Wet dreams..

About 1. At this point my PIED is healed enough to have sex without viagra for a short while most of the time (though fades very very quickly if I stop moving or change position), but this doesn't really matter when your PE is as bad as mine. Basically unless I'm close to O, I'm not hard - but I can have sex. My primary motivations for recovery are cognitive. Particularly brain fog which wrecks my ability to study. So once my brain fog clears and I notice other positive improvements such as return of Morning Wood and these improvements are solid for 2+ months, I will try O very cautiously. I expect this to take a minimum of 6-12 months almost flawless hardmode.

About 2. I have very frequent wet dreams which make all of my symptoms a lot worse. So I don't really expect to see huge improvements until these drop back to maybe 1x/month. Whenever I'm hardmode they reliably happen 1x every week or so. Sometimes I've had 3 in a week, other times 2 in one night. I've put together a short transmutation yoga routine after reading some semen retention and articles written by monks. So I'll see if I noticed any improvements from that.

Yeah I checked out the sub reddit after reading some of your links and found it to be great.

I think the 'purpose without sex' effect is very, very real. If you're anything like me (started on P at 11, HISP at 14, now 24), it's no bloody wonder why our brains believe that sex is the end all and be all of this life. Everything I've done up until here has been about very, very strong urges for sex and unlimited Women.. Go to the gym, get a degree, earn lots of money, wear these clothes, talk this way, act this way - All of these things I've done in life are 80% because I think that I will one day be this ultimate player who just gets new pussy on demand. And it's totally ridiculous. Yes, sex is an important part of life - but it should be the icing on the cake. Becoming an integrated Man goes far beyond Women and novel pussy. Becoming integrated can never happen if these things are pedastalized. Mind the crude language, but that's the reality of the situation. These are the things I've been thinking about lately.

 

HISP = High Speed Internet Porn

 

Sorry, I meant to write "HSIP".

Fortunately you started outside of your teenage years, that is very good.

There is definitely hope to recover within 18 months. Do you best to stay away from anything on a screen which makes you aroused. It is also very advisable to not masturbate and not orgasm. You may be fine to orgasm through sex at some point in the future. For now, your brain needs a deep sleep.

Good luck

 

BJ, blowjob
Gf, girlfriend
Wd, wet dream (orgasm in sleep)
Mw, morning wood

 

Ask yourself this: Is PIED something that’s diagnosed by a health professional? Anecdotal evidence and personal experience are just as reliable if not more reliable in my experience. Post acute withdrawal syndrome is undoubtedly a thing. I advise you to research it. High speed porn is highly addictive, and since behavioural addictions change the brain in the same way that substance addictions do, then why do you think PAWS wouldn’t happen in porn users just the same? There is a lot of anecdotal evidence to support this


I’ll accept that I may have prolonged my recovery from doing this. You might be right! We may have prolonged our recovery for not abstaining in the beginning.Unfortunately for me, at the time I quit there wasn’t much information about flatline etc, and the mentality on forums was very much use it or lose it. Real sex and masturbation are fine along as you avoid porn mentality, which I now know isn’t true if you’re flatlining. I don’t believe in the sexual conditioning theory. I believe the reason why young guys generally take longer is as you pointed out that the teenage brain is perhaps more malleable and vulnerable to addiction. All brains are different though. We’ve seen young guys recover in 3 months and older guys experience long flatlines, which clearly disproves the sexual conditioning theory. A healthy man should have some kind of sexual drive, but I know that it's possible to force sex without drive. Its not normal to not have a sex drive though!

 

Sounds like you did the right thing! I may have to have the same conversation with my gf soon, but our relationship has been very rocky lately so we may break up. Either way I’m full committed to this. I’ve always thought that a girl who leaves you over sex isn’t worth being with, so like you say if that’s the case so be it! In the long run I think it will be so worth it for you. How long have you been in your relationship?

Yeah I think six months is the minimum to keep your expectations in check, but if you have no results by then I urge you to keep going even if you’re a hard case like me and need 1-3 years. If your libido comes back fully then that a sure sign you’re ready to test out and see how your body responds to an O. Can you get hard from arousal alone or do you need manual stimulation to get hard? Naturally your sexual function sounds similar to mine, I can get hard sometimes from arousal, but also sometimes need manual stimulation. I’ve also found that I can sometimes only get fully hard only when I’m close to the edge naturally. I definitely think ejaculating when not full erect can keep us guys who suffer from the PIED/PE combos stuck in prolonged flatlines.The ED drugs help with the PE because they desensitise you due to the harder erection, but I urge you to stay away from them.

You’ve definitely got the right mentality.I’m also in this to fix the mental symptoms too.You have the right mentality and I’m sure you will succeed. I look forward to your updates. I’m glad you found the subreddit helpful. Some guys on that subreddit believe they can prevent wet dream all together, so I’d defiantly give that a try if wet dreams seem to mess you up.

I’m literally exactly the same! You have realised this a lot sooner than I did. Being in a relationship has actually helped me to realise this since being with one woman only for an extended period. I literally quit porn, swapped it for a masturbation addiction, and then swapped that for a real life having sex with as many girls as possible addiction. My main motivational force was always so I can be the same huge player, but actually be able to fully enjoy all my sexual encounters. The older I get the more I realise the error in my ways and that I have had the mentality of an addict all these years. The only explanation for why someone without libido would pursue sex so much.I now have plenty of other interests and I’m motivated by self improvement and fixing my mental symptoms just as much as being able to be fixed of my sexual dysfunction.

 

Yeah, fortunately my girlfriend is very down to earth and lives in a delayed gratification mode for almost all things she does. I'm just over 1 year with her. Well whatever happens after that conversation with your girlfriend I hope it brings you what you need.

Oh yeah. I will definitely keep pushing even if I see no significant results after 6 months. I may try experiment with sex after 6 months but that's a decision for future me. My ultimate goal is no P or M for life, only sexual excitement with real Women. Yeah sometimes (particularly during that 1-2week post O spike) I won't need any manual stimulation to get hard, even undressing with my girlfriend will be enough. Surprisingly, when I relapse I don't tend to get hard when looking at P unless I start touching. Yeah mine goes from 60-80% but fades very very quickly and 90-100% when on the edge. Yeap I have used both cialis and viagra in the past and I know what you mean, one time I took a large dose of cialis and I actually almost felt like I had DE lmao. I only used these drugs maybe 10x total and haven't now for a few months. But I agree, they are largely a waste of time. I think they served there purpose for me well though, last year turning 24 and having PIED for 7 years I just wanted to have sex so bad and it was definitely worth it. Now that I've actually had proper sex I feel like I can let it rest because I've 'found out' so to speak.

Same here also, I went from P and then to my GF. When I was with my girlfriend initially I didn't have a single urge for P for months. When the novelty went away the P cravings came back slowly but surely. About the bold text.. That's incredibly accurate.

 

Cool man! She sounds like a good one! I've been in my relationship for 18 months, but there have defiantly been some ups and downs of late. Thanks I hope so too.

Good on you! Yeah there always the option to try karezza at some point, but that could be tricky with the P.E. Although I do believe sex without O can actually help with P.E since you are training your brain not to associate sex without orgasm. I’ve experienced this myself since experimenting with karezza. If you try this I recommend reading the book “Cupids Poison Arrow” first (Its written by Gary Wilson and his wife). I share the same goal with you. I will never watch porn or masturbate again regardless of my libido coming back. I also notice a slight chaser effect and a slight better response after an O sometimes, which can ware off with abstinence. Haha yeah that’s used to happen to me when I first stated taking them, but the effects definitely have worn off over time. You did the smart thing ditching them, since taking them regularly long term can lead to serious side effects. It was the same for me post quitting for a period. I was just so happy that I could have sex that I didn’t care I was using ED drugs. Haha I know right!

 

Sometimes when not using ED drugs; I only achieve full erections after just before the point of orgasm when being stimulated manually.

 

I mean from engaging in foreplay such as kissing, but sometimes kissing isn't enough and I need manual stimulation. I cannot achieve an erection from thought alone since quitting porn, but could before.