Unfortunately alcohol has been made as the popular/accepted vice. I’ve had countless business meetings where I didn’t drink and was looked at negatively. But in the long run I never had a regret about it. tell your friend- you’ll be even more fun when you’re truly happy.
Thanks for your comments @Saville, @path-forward, @LonelyCaz . Oh well too bad, I’ve got bigger fish to fry - have to stop my PMO lifestyle and condition. I can celebrate my second weekend in a row completed and no PMO.
I’m having a bit of a spiritual crisis, which is different to my previous crises. I have gone for more than a week now with much less internet than usual. It has helped me. YouTube and news websites have been very bad for my PMO. Half of my problem has been a compulsive internet habit.
I don't think you find many of us who will say alcohol has improved our lives. I have caught some words of wisdom from Jordan Peterson, Tom Holland and slightly Post Malone on the topic lately. I am working on getting rid of it but my infatuation with 2d pixel ladies seems to cause me more damage.
Glad you found that trigger, and are working to reduce/remove it. Remember GIJoe “knowing is half the battle “ Good to hear about your 2 week streak.
Went fairly well yesterday. Got a tiny bit more done on my Big Thing which I must complete before the end of August. In fact, the other day I woke up at 5:30 and did some work. I think I mentioned this before! Haha I am mentioning it again since it was so unusual. I also listened to audio extracts of the memorial service for Bill Wilson (Bill W was his AA name), the founder of AA, when he died in 1972. AA really resonates with me, I substitute in "PMO addiction" for "alcohol addiction". In AA they call people by their first names and the first letter of their surname, eg "Bob H". It is an inspiring thought to think of people on this forum, visualising thousands of recovery PMO addicts being at their memorial service one day when they die.
Just sharing how my PMO got really bad recently and forced me to take action. Last month, I spent two entire weekends in my bed, fantasising and PMO’ing. On both occasions I only left the house briefly on the Saturday evening to buy food.
Thanks LonelyCaz. Read my journal in the early hours of this morning (from my 30’s and this one, my 40’s). To my future self - you had a really good day today. Did a decent amount of work, met up with friends, bicycled all over town, even made an apple crumble. This thing is worth it.
Weekends are my biggest weak point and I think I’m going to need a higher power to help me on this one. Feel my own disciplines evaporating.
I hope that so far your weekend is going well. Time alone can also a be weak point for me. In the period in advance the voice in the back of my head, telling me about the opportunity to act out, gets stronger every day. What has worked well for me a couple of times is to make a planning and visualize how I will stick to that planning. I visualize how I get up in the morning, go out to do groceries, read the newspaper, keep my phone or laptop in a drawer, etc. The times it worked well for me, also when travelling alone, it was a great boost of self-confidence.
Thanks for these encouraging messages. Yesterday went fairly well Today not so good so far, haven’t started my routine of things to do. Just lying on my back - and occasionally swiping through a dating site, which I can see is a bit of a problem for me personally as it mimics the things I used to do, so I will have to delete that app until I am better recovered.
Happy to report I did eventually get up, go on a decent bike ride, and got a little work done. Not enough work done but it was a start. Back to the grind tomorrow. Today is day 21
Had a very good day today. Just got to be careful here as I have been encouraging F thoughts to linger in my head the last day or two. This is usually how I start to go down.
A fairly successful day. Last night was the first time I read a bit from a book for the first time in ages. Someone said here recently that reading was their number 1 weapon to fight PMO and I know that rings (mostly) true for me - if I am reading in bed, it means I’m not on my phone, and my mind is winding down in a healthy way. In the 30-somethings part of the site, NewHorizons is following the RecoveryNation series of lessons for recovery. Something I want to check out.
First lesson of RecoveryNation - not done yet I’m afraid, just read through. It made me realize I’ve got a problem, namely my main motivation for my current streak is that I’ve got a huge amount of work stuff coming up and I have to be at my best or else it’s all over career wise. In other words, it’s a classic case of me being forced to recover, rather than wanting to recover. What this means is that the day will come when I get over the work hunps (for me that will be two months time)… and then what? if I look at my journal it is clear that all my long streaks have come about this way (when I’ve been forced to be at my best due to huge work tasks) bottom line is that I have been blessed with a golden opportunity right now to have a clean streak of at least 90 days. But I need to make some profound decisions in that time if the recovery is going to be truly lasting
I've just managed to finish and hand in my Big Thing at work that I've been procrastinating for months. A great relief!
