Hi niskanen91, I read through a bit of your journal. Sorry to hear that you've been struggling with this addiction for so long. But you have great persistence and I saw that you had a streak of about 57-ish days ending on 30/11/2022, so I hope you can see that as proof that you can do this! I have a couple of suggestions for you. The first suggestion is about focusing on the positives rather than the negatives. I notice you have this post from 2/1/2023 that you keep updating: Even if this list keeps getting smaller month by month (eg. less PMOs in May than April, less PMOs in June than May, less PMOs in July than June etc), your mind is nevertheless focusing on the times you've failed. What's your favourite sport? Lets say its basketball. Imagine a basketball player having a list on his wall at home that records each time he failed to make an important shot in a basketball game. Do you think he'd be motivated by that? Do you think he'd be a successful basketball player? It's very important to focus on the wins. That doesn't mean deluding yourself if you fail. Be brutally honest with yourself. But after you've done that then choose to mainly focus on the wins. Build your streaks day by day. You just did 12 days in April. Focus on that win and try and do 13+ days from now going from April into May. If you fall down, get back up. Life won't always be easy, things won't always go your way, but what's important is to get back up and try again. Focus on the wins and this will become easier and easier over time. Before you know it you'll have streaks of 20, 40, 60, 100 days. Maybe also change the title of your thread to "This is a one-way trip to heaven". My second suggestion is to go even stronger with your abstinence. If you've noticed that facebook reels, twitch, escort websites, fetlife etc are leading to relapse, cut them out too in addition to porn websites. Sometimes a BIG change is needed to completely reset the system. For example, an obese person losing weight would do better cutting out ALL unhealthy food rather than just cans of soft drink and chocolate. What's more important to you? Enjoying the temporary thrills you get from facebook, twitch or seeing an escort? Or quitting porn as soon as possible and making your life as amazing as it can possibly be (girlfriend, wife, children, making money, enjoying your hobbies - whatever it is that you want from life)? Not saying facebook/twitch is bad necessarily. You might really enjoy it to relax. But you've noticed it currently leads to relapses. Cheers -tig
Hi @tig, thank you for your post, it's a high quality feedback that I really appreciate. The feedback that I focus too much on negative things is something that I received already (in non-porn context) so you're probably right that I may be a bit too harsh on myself. That's true that while the addiction hasn't been beaten (contrary to the cigarettes, succesfully quitted in 2018), the fact that I didn't give up and continue to fight remains positive. Definitely worth to look at positives as well, the fact that despite struggling in this battle, I've been able to build a successful career etc. Regarding the strategy of addiction, I still think that the only way it can work (e. g. reboot to the point when intimacy is possible) is to completely give up porn forever (just like I did with cigs), otherwise it's just having a very long breaks between porn binges. Regarding your part about different areas of internet, it is also an interesting point but the tricky part is that, while initially FB and Twitch were safe (while escort sites and Fetlife were always sexual), after some time with no porn, almost naked girls on Twitch and AI that learns my fetishes and displays erotic material, suddenly become interesting. However, to be completely fair, for it to cause relapse, I need to actively click on this and watch it, rather than move on quickly.
Over 7 years. 41 pages. Countless binges and loneliness, on the one hand, building a successful career, giving up smoking and leaving (almost completely) video games, on the other. A lot of lessons learnt, few fetish events visited, few hookers visited. I've not given up yet and don't plan to but clearly what I've tried before, doesn't seem to work. So let's think logically, why does that happen? I've been interested in geostrategy a bit and while it may not seem obvious, when a country enters a conflict, it needs a quite clear theory of the victory, e. g. what is the outcome that we want to achieve? The good examples of not having a precise or realistic goal, which led to the insane usage of the fighting forces, were the American campaigns in Vietnam and Afghanistan. When I gave up smoking in 2018, the goal was to... give up smoking (that's quite obvious) but also to replace it with nothing, which was both the goal and the mean to achieve the ultimate goal. The other means were: realizing that nicotine is a drug, realizing that I don't give up anything valuable by quitting smoking and also realizing that I have to cut off nicotine completely and even one puff would send me back to the addiction. And here I am, almost six years later and didn't take a single puff. There are some similarities to porn (e. g. even one peak usually leads to the binge) but there's one big difference - my sexuality doesn't stop to exist, once I'm giving up porn. In other words, I need to replace it with something and here is where it gets complicated. Porn not only provides the constant novelty of naked females (which reality can't compare to), it also feeds my strong preference for aggressive women, which reality can't compare to due to the fact that it's socially unacceptable for adult women in real life to behave like the ladies in the femdom porn do, not to mention the fact that 155 cm 60 kg woman dominating much bigger man, may not seem fake only in the fantasy (that porn or femdom erotica is, even if it's created in my own head). If we add zero effort to access more femdom stuff online, we have a phenomenom that is, objectively, the most arousing and exciting thing that my brain knows. Real life can't compare, my brain isn't really willing to visit the same domme second twice, even if the experience was good, because the novelty factor can't really compare with the internet porn. And, to be honest, if there wasn't a tax for this pleasure (loneliness, PIED, low self-esteem, numbed pleasure etc.), I'd happily keep wanking. If we combine everything I've written above and my previous experiences, and put it into the context of the ultimate goal, it'd be to never watch porn (and artificial, digital sexuality anymore, while keeping in mind that 30, 60 and even 120 days streaks, while looking impressive are just breaks between binges. This strategy related to the demon called 'porn' is easy but what do I do, with two other things, one of them being MO to femdom fantasies produced in my head (those sessions can easily last 1-2 hours) and the second being, my preference towards dominant women? With regards to MO, I've noticed that, while being off porn, women become more attractive, however there's still not enough reaction in my pants. However, trying to eliminate MO entirely, leads to porn relapses. Maybe I should remove MO gradually (not limiting it in the first 30 days w/o porn and then trying to do it less and less) but not being super strict and not writing it down, just like I know that eating KFC or McDonalds isn't a great idea but I forgive myself if I do that? The part that is even tougher, is femdom and, in general, my preference towards aggressive women. This works in porn and in fantasy but in real life, this adds another layer of awkwardness on top of the awkardness created by dick not working due to the (P)MO. Am I submissive? I wouldn't say so. After some healing (mostly abstaining from porn), my natural reaction when seeing a woman with the "dominatrix aesthetics" is not to submit to her but to get closer to her, caress her, I think that's the normal stuff regular Joe's brain wants when he sees his regular but attractive Jane. It's just that in my case, the Jane needs to have a bit evilness in her. This could come naturally, as some women have aggressiveness written on their faces (one of my three spontaneus erections caused by women, happened when walking past the sexy girl with the incredibly bitchy face) or could be also achieved by wearing dominatrix clothes + attributes (which could be acquired for like 50-100 EUR?). Above leads, to the following perfect scenario: 1) Zero porn (everything else may fail but this is the most important rule), 2) MO is bad but can't expect perfection here, 3) Need to be social and not lonely (working from office, parties incl. maybe also femdom parties as I visited fetish events but not femdom ones?), 4) Preference for evil and aggressive women (incl. domme aesthetics), will be there no matter what, intimacy only possible if woman informed about that (up to her if she's game or not), So the end goal is: a) Porn completely eliminated, b) MO not needed to that degree (because of point c)), rare and quite short (but not being very dogmatic about it), c) Relationship with a woman (replacement for porn) Not a textbook woman that would be good to impress family/friends but somebody I feel really good with (which may include her being aggressive ). This goal may need to be broken down into more steps but I'll do that after some time without porn.
55 days without porn. Progress is slow, albeit I can feel it and willing to wait even longer to heal... what other choice is left? I work from the office quite often so no longer that lonely, however the phase in which I feel better each week (usually first month or month and half) is over. Now I feel more or less the same all the time, however if I binged, I'd immediately feel much worse, this is how 40+ days streaks have gone to hell, have to be extremely careful not to fall into this pitfall again.
Had a nightmare that I'm smoking cigarettes again. Woke up and... it's exactly 5 years since the last cigarette!
Had today best ever session with a domme. I will spare you details but she was exactly my type, 21 y. o., did all fetishes I wanted and it was amazing experience. The only negative thing when doing it with a pro is the emotional void I feel afterwards. Like, if this was my gf and we cuddled and talked after, this would be perfect.
