It Scarred Me

Congrats! 19 months is a big deal and great to hear about. I've logged two one-year streaks myself and I have to say it was my thinking that derailed me each time. It sounds like you stay busy and vigilant - both areas I'm looking to work on. Keep marching forward! I may be jealous but you'll get no crab-in-bucket envy from me!

 

Well done!!

 

Congratulations on such an amazing length of abstinence! I also admire your vigilance and your respect of the power addiction can have over you. What are some of the benefits you experienced in your daily life? Thank you for the inspiration! Keep up the great work!

 

@PotentLife Can I ask a question, on your counter, it simply states P/P Subs and Edging.... do you still involve yourself M and O??

The question I wanna ask though, is how have you managed to stop yourself mentally from P subs?? I am on day 7/8 So far and the urge is strong, I have foolishly since the 6th day, stopped and watched P Subs on Youtube... I wanna know how to also stop P subs, stopping M and O for me has been pretty easy, but the P is constantly drawing my mind in, I hate this feeling.

 

Good job!

 

Hi, Shutdown66,

Thanks for asking the question. Actually, if you read the small text under my counter, it shows that I have been doing no P, M or O whatsoever. As difficult as not viewing P subs may feel to you, to me my recovery feels much easier overall without them, since if I get my juices flowing with the subs it's like pushing lightly on a rock on the side of a mountain. Eventually that rock will be rolling on down and will be nearly impossible to stop. Full relapse will happen.

The less I tempt myself with anything remotely resembling P, especially at this early phase in my recovery, the better.

One thing that has helped me is to consider what good qualities porn use has taken away from me and then imagine myself with those qualities. If I can imagine myself heroic, for example, 99 percent of the time the PMO urges diminish. I mean, what hero holes up in front of his computer masturbating? Sometimes, to help boost my imagination, I'll find a picture that represents the heroism. A song works even better in many cases, but an interesting thing about pictures (or videos) is that they're what had such an effect on you in porn. Here you can change your associations with pictures you find online, changing them from something that has been hindering you into something that can help you.



What would it feel like to be Jason, here, fighting off the skeletons and being victorious in the end? See if you can imagine yourself charged with adrenaline, avoiding the swords and taking apart one skeleton at a time. Notice any temptation fading in you during the moment you're getting into the heroic scene?

This is just an example. Notice what you don't like about your addiction and what problems it causes. Remember that every problem you can name has an opposite. Cowardice has Courage. Depression has Elation or Energy. Helplessness has Prowess. Imagine yourself having the opposite of your worst problem regarding PMO. See if you can use your five senses in this better vision. If porn engages your five senses, using two or three in this new, better, vision won't be strong enough to counter it. Let's see if there's a picture on Google Images for prowess. Here's an exciting image. Notice how when you imagine yourself as the football player getting away with the ball while his opponent crashes, you can feel your body chemistry changing slightly.



How would it feel to be holding the ball at that angle? How would the fresh air of the stadium feel in your nostrils? Would you have that metallic taste in your mouth that can sometimes happen with intense exercise? How much weight is SENSABAUGH pulling from you on his way down?

If you can imagine these things and come up with answers, you're basically turning the porn experience of looking at pictures and getting sensations from them and changing the kind of pictures and the kind of sensations to ones you can be glad to feel in the long run.

How about productivity? Many of us feel that porn wastes time and stunts or reverses productivity.

I typed productivity into Youtube and here is the first thing that came up.



Do you think when I get into this guy's talk I'm going to be thinking as much of P subs, let alone PMO?

It's the change in your body chemistry, your endocrine system, that send the chemical messages that you often would interpret as temptation. Move a muscle, change a thought. As soon as you notice your feelings turning the slightest bit toward wanting a P sub, overwhelm those feelings with the opposite. Fresh air and exercise usually work with me. Telling somebody what I like about them (without expecting reciprocation from them) can turn selfish PMO urges into generous ones. Eating a raw vegetable without seasoning can turn my sugary-binge high into a sense of having control over my urges.

My body has not been sending PMO messages in a long time because I have been practicing sending the opposite messages. I hope you find this idea useful, and please let me know if you have any more questions, because I have a lot more techniques, like doing just one push-up as soon as I feel the slightest bit tempted (or more, if I feel like it, which I usually do), or looking up a Nofap video and identifying with a happy guy on day 100, when I need a boost of encouragement. You can find many of them in my journal.

Have a great day, my friend. I know you can do this. I was once in your position. Just reaching out for help was a step in the right direction.

 

Wow thanks, great reply, I think this will help many people.

 

Here's a pipeline video, Shutdown, since I see you have a surfing pic. If you make a watch list of vids like these on Youtube not necessarily to watch now but to watch as soon as you get a PMO or P-sub urge, you can amass a huge collection, choose your favorite when the P urge strikes and change the nature of your urges by changing your direct response to them. Thanks for your reply, bud. All the best to you! You deserve it!

 

Sweet video!

 

Congrats mate for reaching 19 months.

 

Massive high five! Such a triumph!
CK