30 Days, Why NoFap Has Become Essential for My Growth

TLDR Version: Shy growing up, got addicted out of highschool, completely overtook my life and prevented me from living a fulfilling life, worked hard over 2 years to break the addiction, life has improved tenfold by quitting.

Ever since I was around 17-18 pmo has been a part of my life in some way. I am now 30, and from around 21-28 I was heavily addicted, doing it multiple times a day, and almost always at night, as a way to feel better about my shitty days. During these years I worked pointless retail jobs and had dropped out of college when I was 21. I was beginning to become deeply addicted to pmo, because at that time all I cared about was that and video games. I've never had anyone in my life to push me to improve myself so it became extremely easy to just get lazy and only do things for my own self-pleasure, whether it was PMO, video games, overeating or buying random crap I didn't need on the internet.

Growing up I was always a shy kid with some anxiety issues relating to social interactions with other children, but I wasn't too bad off. During my last year of highschool I had lost around 40 lbs and found a new confidence I had never tapped into thus my senior year was my best and most memorable, even though I still had yet to get a girlfriend and never went to prom. This was the beginning of my issues with girls, as I still didn't have the self-confidence to flirt and talk with them, even though I had multiple show me interest.

Flash forward to college and all my friends moved away. Thus I found myself stuck and starting to become depressed because I struggled to make new friends. I ended up getting a gaming laptop and eventually discovered the tube sites and thus began what would become 7 years of depression, social anxiety and living like a zombie. I had no interest any longer in anything but my addictions and would often base my day around them, which led to my grades falling and losing complete interest in school. I found a job working in a warehouse where I could keep to myself, thus completing the puzzle to my miserable life.

All during these years I had zero friends, gained back my weight and then some, squandered all my money on pointless crap (and porn too) and was basically living in limbo, just existing. Around 2013 I got fed up with my weight and thought that was what was holding me back with my social anxiety and failure with talking to girls so I started to take some steps to lose the weight. By 2015 I had lost around 50lbs but was still depressed and no better off at talking to girls. By some stroke of luck I found out about NoFap on a social anxiety forum and decided to do some research on it. That day my life completely changed.

All the negatives associated with pmo addiction I had and I finally knew what I needed to do to improve my life. To give an idea of how bad I was addicted, I've had close to 100 relapses since deciding to quit pmo in August of 2015. I would get frustrated with myself because I kept failing and eventually let the addiction get the best of me. Even though I knew I had to break it, I couldn't, it was ingrained that deep into my daily habits and lifestyle. Last year I made great strides and had some great streaks, my biggest being over 100 days no porn. But I got lazy when I wasn't pushing myself socially and bam, right back to square one.

This summer's been different. I've finally made the commitment to live my life free from porn use and haven't been happier. I can safely say that porn is no longer a part of my life and I am more excited than ever to pursue my hopes and dreams. I have re-enrolled in college and am 2 semesters away from graduating, which I will become a personal trainer so I can help others who are struggling. I no longer feel miserable about my situation and am excited for my future. I've began training in a crossfit gym and it has helped me tremendously to find a purpose. One day I hope to become a crossfit coach.

Regarding "super powers" most are real, but you still have to work for them, they don't just magically appear. I am no doubt more confident and find myself constantly happy and positive on a regular basis, but this required work as well to get to this point. Girls no longer intimidate me, but I still struggle with talking to them, but that's because I've still yet to try hard enough. Now I have the passion to constantly be improving myself, which includes my relationships with girls, and I am confident any issue I used to have with them will get better as I've seen other areas of my life improve if I put in the effort.

I am going to leave you guys with this, porn is completely unhealthy and adds nothing positive to your life, it only serves to drag you down and keep you from being the best version of yourself. Don't let something as trivial as that ruin your life, you're too good to not live your life to the fullest. It might take years to break, as it did for me, but know it is absolutely the right thing to do and your life will improve dramatically if you make this change, as it has opened so many new doors for me.

Stay strong brothers!

 

Thank you all for the replies, one of the reasons I am motivated to share my story is to help others who are struggling. When I was starting out, reading success stories really helped push me. I could post more about my success and struggles with pmo but honestly I'm at a point in my life where I don't want to think too much about my past, because it only serves to remind me of where I've come from.

About a year ago I told my sister about my addiction and she basically said, "so what". It upset me but we got to talking again recently about it and she told me that she couldn't relate and understand it, basically apologizing to me about not being more supportive. She then went on to tell me about her struggles with an addiction to pain killers that I had no idea she had. This made me feel better and honestly, just telling anyone instead of just posting about it online felt great to get that burden off my chest. We also grew closer by talking about our struggles.

Do it for yourself, don't worry about the other person's reply or thoughts on it. If they don't understand or support you don't necessarily blame them, porn addiction isn't mainstream like smoking, drugs, alcohol or food is, so to some people they might not really believe you or understand the negatives of using it.

 

Thanks. What helped me with the urges was to constantly remind myself of why I'm doing this and how PMO and relapsing has done nothing positive for me in my life. Writing down the pro's of being free of PMO versus the cons of doing it helped too. And honestly, once I get to about 2 weeks the urges are very tiny to pmo. I still have sexual urges but not to look at porn anymore. Now I know if I were to look at porn I would have to go out of my way, instead of like I used to just casually pull up the websites.

As to my journey in general, with anxiety and talking to girls, it all comes down to pushing myself and getting out of my comfort zone. Quitting pmo alone has made this easier for me because I feel more at ease in my body and don't get so anxious to talk to people anymore. Somethings still make me nervous, but it's just because I haven't done them enough to make a habit out of it. That's my next step, to continue to push myself forward.