A Progressive Challenge-A different kind of challenge- all levels

Go for it!

Sorry to hear that. Get well soon!

Exactly right. Good job!

Welcome!

Keep at it. Be patient and put preventative measures in for yourself. Make your tech harder to turn to.

Believe it or not, Crunchy Leaves, both gaming and pmo are versions of the same dopamine addiction. The games, like the porn, are designed to give you little rewards that keep you playing or looking. Every one of those little or bigger rewards includes a dopamine release. Just like the porn can start out as a bikini picture at first and an hour later be hardcore, the game starts out easy and gets more challenging, holding you there with more and more doses of dopamine. You get "in the zone" and don't notice the passage of time. You think you're going to play the game for 15 minutes and four hours later, you can't believe how much time passed. The games are designed to do this and porn is designed to do this as well. The longer of time you are watching porn, the more into it you get and the time disappears.

This is why I strongly recommend a total fast from computers and phones during the first several weeks of nofap.

Welcome!

Right! Keep on keeping on.

I congratulate you for continuing to work on this. Perseverance is a virtue.

 

Guys, how many of you might not have relapsed last time if you hadn't been checking your phone? Would it really be so impossible to do without your phone for a month? If you keep relapsing because your phone is providing such a temptation, wouldn't it be worth it to cut that appendage off? Is your phone an addiction that's feeding your porn addiction?
Think about these things.

 

Six Month Update

Guys, it's been an amazing 6 months. Five months ago, I created this progressive challenge thread. Since then, I've spent a lot of time and effort here, encouraging and supporting you on this thread and private conversations. That made a huge difference for me, and I've been told by many of you that it was helpful to you, so thank you.

Being here has made sure that my free time was spent in good ways. I built good habits of regular daily time of checking the thread and responding, which is helping me beat my procrastination issues. In the last few weeks though, I've been slowly pulling from the thread. This is for two reasons:

1) This thread has become sustainable and self-sustaining and will long outlast me. You guys have helped create a small, loving community that welcomes new guys like @Gripseeker and @DunbleBoy and takes good compassionate care of its stalwart members like @Single Palm Change, @TC10, @Adam Grundy (whom we want to see again soon) and @AiLy, among many others. That's what I hoped for when I started the thread. Thank you for caring about each other as I have cared about you.
2) It's time for me to graduate from the school of nofap. I now need to turn that regular routine time to my family and my professional life. My pmo-fed procrastination habits are fading now and I am starting to reignite activities that have been on the wane for a long time. I will take the new habits I've gained from running this thread and put them to good work to make my wife happy and take care of things that I have procrastinated on for far too long. Each and every one of you has had a positive role in that whether you know it or not, so thank you.
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Benefits of Success

I report that all the many "benefits" are true, including greater self-confidence, which comes from accomplishing something as wickedly difficult as nofap. Better life, better relations with other people are the long term results. Stopping pmo didn't directly cause those benefits but it led to changes of habit and attitude that led to those benefits. You can do this. You really can and it REALLY is worth it.

The biggest benefit of success, though, is the knowledge that I don't need pmo. I can choose not to do it, which is not a freedom most of you know yet but when you do, and you will if you keep trying, you'll know what I mean and you will feel the most free that you have ever felt.

Conclusion
So thank you all for caring about each other and about me. Thank you for trying so hard to beat this terrible addiction. It really is worth the torture and it really is possible but what it takes is a real commitment to a life choice. Either you want to be free of it or you don't. If you want to be free of it, then you must bypass the compulsive and near-involuntary relapse by making it difficult or impossible to have access to porn. If you can do that for a month, you'll be able to do it for another month and after 60 days, you'll be in a much stronger position. After 6 months, I find that I no longer feel a "want" to m. It's not that I don't have any urges to M or arousal or morning wood. As a healthy and in-shape man, I have all those things all the time. I just don't want to. Occasionally, it's tempting but the temptation is immediately followed by a realization that I simply don't care to do it anymore. That's freedom.

In terms of P, I consider myself a recovering addict never to be fully cured and therefore can never look at it without great risk of total relapse from which I might never recover again. I just won't take the chance. The good news there is that I can now handle any environmental trigger that comes my way, whether on a popup ad or a billboard. I see it and just look away and the trigger fades. It feels so powerful to be able to do that and I know many of you long for that ability. You will get it. Put the tech away. Put the tech away. Put the tech away or severely limit its use for at least 60 days. Putting it away is best. Don't carry your phone on you at home.

I will continue check the thread about once a week to see how you're all doing. I am still available via private conversations and will respond to tags on posts as well. Whether you want me to or not, I pray for you all to beat this foe. You can and will do it. When you reach six months, you can graduate too. Be sure and tag me on that day so I can congratulate you myself!

 

I'm not leaving totally. But I need to reclaim this time for those for whom I have direct life responsibility. I will be keeping a watchful eye here and weighing in from time to time. Thanks for your thoughtful response.

 

You're more than welcome and you can contact me anytime with the private conversation.