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Over 100 days PM free! Lessons learned

Discussion in 'Success Stories' started by Gandalf the White, Nov 28, 2019.

  1. Hey everyone,

    Decided to edit this journal from the top now that I've gotten past the 100 day mark. Originally posted after reaching 30 days. Most of the messages I wrote are the same. But I wanted to rewrite from where I am now.

    Background
    So just briefly, I started with PMO at about 12 right as I started puberty. Won't go into detail but let's summarise with this: I was FAR gone and watched all kinds of genres that I never thought I would be into when I started watching porn. Weird fetishes that I didn't necessarily like IRL but that I escalated to.
    Somewhere along the line I got Porn Induced Erectile Disfunction (PIED), couldn't have sex with my gf about 5 years ago even though I found her very attractive. When watching weird porn I was hard as stone though. So basically, very damaged by porn and couldn't stop. I was so far gone that even PIED with my gf couldn't cure me I still continued with porn for years.

    What I learned the last 100 days:
    1. Accept your responsibility. It's important to get to a point where you truly embrace that whether you watch porn or not a single more time in your life is all up to you. You can stop. Right the same second you decide to. Nobody is forcing you to PMO. And nobody will do the work for you. Sounds easy and kind of cliché to write but getting that mindset is step 1. Yes the porn industry has responsibilities for their product, the same way coca-cola has responsibilities for their sugary drink. But you decide what you eat and what you weigh. And you decide if you consume porn. It can feel daunting but in a way it's a blessing when you truly realise it. It hurts the ego to accept full blame but it also means that you can really start to change when you accept it's up to you.
    2. Take things one day at a time. I've had accounts on here before. Just like many others I fell into the trap of "I'm doing 100 days monk mode". But that just seems daunting. You go a few days and you think "man I've only gotten 5/100 days I'm only 5% of the way there". And you lose motivation. Instead what really worked for me is to take things one day at a time. The very first day I created this account and thought "alright get that counter to 1. Get past the next few minutes. The next hour". The second day I thought "Alright, you proved you can get 24 hours, get past this next urge. Get that counter to 2". And that's how I've approached all my days so far. There has never been a goal in terms of days to reach. After all, why set a goal that way anyway? It's not like you are going to get to 30/60/90 days and then say "ok I did it, great, now back to PMO". So just skip those arbitrary goals. These past 100 days I've just... lived. A little better than I used to. And it has been great.
    3. Identify your bad habits. All success stories I've read seem to have in common that people changed underlying bad habits and lived healthier better lives. If you are a person that does not exercise, socialise, eats poorly, spends too much time in front of screens etc., you are unlikely to wake up one day and just say "no PMO but the rest stays the same" and be successful. Instead you are likely to succeed for a short time and then be right back where you started. Try to identify triggers and why you've ended up in the PMO rut you are in. For me it was obvious that I was staying up too late, watching far too many series and playing video games, sleeping too little and eating too poorly. I changed those things. To an extent. I am still working on it.
    4. Exercise/Sleep. Stay healthy. I've exercised at the gym like a madman, I've gone running, I've slept more than I used to, I've focused on non-processed real food. Staying fit and healthy will help. It will release endorphins without PMO. It will also get you out of your apartment instead of having you sit around thinking about PMO.
    5. Socialise. Especially the first two weeks I socialised loads, even when I didn't want to. Made plans with friends after work, WEEKENDS I was almost out of the apartment the entire time the first two weeks because I would typically relapse on weekends when I had nothing better to do.
    6. Start dating. This one many will disagree with, I see a lot of people saying "focus on yourself first". I found that the fact that I started getting on Tinder almost immediately really helped me. As long as you have no dating life, you have porn fighting against the abstract POSSIBILITY of real life dating. Going without porn because you MIGHT start meeting somebody EVENTUALLY sometime in the future is difficult. Even the dates that didn't go so well were good for me because they were real vs the fake women that I would watch on my laptop. And the good dates obviously felt great and reminded me of why I was giving up PM in the first place.
    General improvements mentally/physically
    Some of these threads make it sounds like you get superpowers from nofap. Like suddenly all women want you and you are just amazing at everything. That's not my experience. But I will say this. I'm in good shape because I've been exercising, I'm confident in myself because I feel like I have control over myself and I use my time a lot better now than when I was at my worst.
    Also I get my sex life back the last 100 days which had been non-existent for about 6 years.
    Confidence is not something you can fake. Once you have self-respect and know that you are in control of your life you will feel more confident and that will reflect in a lot of things you do.
    But obviously if you have other bad habits you need to work on those.

    PIED DEVELOPMENT
    So I had PIED when I started this 100 days ago. I know a lot of others have this so I will be open about my development here.
    I fairly quickly into my PMO free journey started getting wood when writing to girls on tinder and when I thought about sex which I never got when I numbed myself with porn. About 2-3 weeks in this started.
    About 50 days into this journey I had sex for the first time in quite a few years with a girl I met via Tinder. It was not ideal. I was nervous it wasn't going to work and the fact that I had gone PMO free for 50 days made me cum quite fast (only a couple of minutes). I took care of her needs in other ways though so it wasn't a catastrophe. But it wasn't great, and I couldn't get hard a second time after my first orgasm.
    About 25 more days past until my second encounter. This time it went much better.
    BUT I did take 10mg of Ciallis that I ordered online. It helps in the same way as Viagra. It also makes it harder to orgasm than usual. The sex was great. And I've had sex several times since then and it's been good.
    It helps me a lot mentally to that I know that I've taken a pill a few hours before.
    Obviously in the long run I want to be pill free. To be honest I'm pretty sure that I could go without it even now but it gives me peace in mind to know I can get and maintain so even mentally the pills help me.
    I also want to be clear about the fact that I NEVER took pills while I was PMO addicted. The thought had hit me but I thought it was obvious that it was a bad idea to cure an addiction with drugs. By the time I took my first pill I was 80 days PM free, 79 days PMO free, and I got erections all the time and I had had sex once without them in a way that I never could while I had PIED.
    So I do not recommend trying to cure PIED with pills. Probably won't work. I couldn't even get hard when I had PIED.
    I've been PMO free for about 90 days and all days that I have O'd have been from sex.
    So I would say my PIED is "cured" but I'm obviously going to keep going as I have done.

    Important to note that I am not "cured" of my PM addiction. I'll most likely consider myself an addict the rest of my life and I do not belive that I can ever go back to mild/reasonable porn consumption. I'm just starting this journey and there are many people on these forums with longer streaks. But I'm taking this journey one day at a time.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Feb 12, 2020
  2. Still_alive

    Still_alive Fapstronaut

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    One day at a time is my favourite part.
     
  3. That's an important one for sure. I take it you've applied it to get to your 48 days. Congrats on making it so far
     
  4. Finalito

    Finalito Fapstronaut

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    Great reading. Thank you. And congrats!
     
  5. Thank you, hope it can be of some use.
    Good luck on your journey!
     
  6. Shuffledude88

    Shuffledude88 Fapstronaut

    Congratulations man and good work! Very inspiring and relateable as I have told you before. And congratulations on the date. I agree on you on that part actually, I think it's good to "get out there" to find real and healthy relationships, if you do it for the "right" reasons I mean. :) Keep up the good fight!
     
  7. Thanks Shuffle it’s been great havibg your support along the way buddy
     
  8. quit@porn

    quit@porn Fapstronaut

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    Great Gandalf..... Very insightful and realistic I would say. I could corelate with what you said.

    It will be a pleasure to know more about your updates. Keep posting. And best luck.
     
  9. Thanks, glad you feel that way, i’ll keep posting for sure
     
  10. Dag

    Dag Fapstronaut

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    Your story is making me post.
    Its making me doing changes.

    Thank you so much for this post. Kind of what I needed.
     
  11. Glad to hear it Dag good job on posting and starting those changes, will make sure to follow your journey. We can all do this, I have no doubt
     
  12. Deadmemories

    Deadmemories Fapstronaut

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    im just curious, but how can you fap with no hands?
     
  13. AntiRootDrone2230

    AntiRootDrone2230 Fapstronaut

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    Keep going dude, I will be praying for you!
     
  14. Thanks, wish you well on your journey as well
     
  15. Dag

    Dag Fapstronaut

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    You would be blown away by my talents ;)
     
  16. holymonity

    holymonity Fapstronaut

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    Might be a stupid question, but where can I see the counter banner if I don't post/reply that day?
     
  17. control your life

    control your life Distinguished Fapstronaut

    Congrats friend . After around 90 days is much much easier if careful . Good luck
     
  18. Thanks, appreciate that, hoping to feel that difference progressively then^^
     
  19. I don’t know actually. I always go to my journal. Hopefully somebody else knows.
    You could download the app ”I Am Sober”.
    It had a second by second counter
     
  20. James-London

    James-London Fapstronaut

    thanks for your post. I particularly like the "take 1 day at a time" point. I am still doing this soft mode where I allow myself "edging" P+M but with no orgasm. The "O" has a terrible effect on me: depression, brain fog, low motivation, so it is still something of a win to avoid the "O".

    However, your post inspired me to aim for better. I will add in the no porn element too, starting tomorrow. It is important for me to measure my progress, so I will make a note on my wall planner of each day I manage to avoid the P and O.

    Hopefully, the lack of P and O will reduce the M, but I'm not sure? Perhaps a further step would be to limit the M to, for example, 2 hours per day?
     

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