Why do people relapse after 90, 150, 200 days?

Im assuming the Libido starts coming back. That's what gets me everytime.
but I have to say this time I'm not going to fall for it.
Ive been denying porn is the reason for my poor mental state, but Ive eliminated every other possibility. It's been a long road to finally stop bullshitting myself

 

After a while, you let your guard down. It only takes a minute.

 

I can't speak for past 90 but on day 84 I thought I was over the addiction. I let complacency sneak in. Once you fail once your brain can play the 'just one more, you already failed' card.

 

They focus on the counter.
That means, they stay focused on PMO.
(focusing on not-PMO is still focusing on PMO....)

The human brain work with prestige feelings.
If I do this or that, then......

(I will be loved.... right?)

That prestige system sucks all the way.

 

I've been there too. Indeed, it only takes a minute of weakness to fall back.

Especially when you can't have real sex the temptation is really strong after 6 months or so. What I've noticed is that for me it's more of a temptation when I'm upset and when I'm looking for comfort. PMO seems like a good option but it never is. So yes, just weakness basically. Giving in to the empty lies that PMO offers. Then regretting it and re-starting the cycle all over again.

Number one thing we should learn is to try and deal with negative emotions and not looking to pmo for comfort. All credit to those who go 90 days and more though, says a lot about people. Why I've relapsed after so long is beyond me, but I think a lot also has to do with the increased confidence of abstaining for so long. You are basically thinking that it won"t hurt this time after such a long period of time but it will. It definitely will. Once turns into twice and binging for a week.

Another thought that could cross your mind after 90 days or so is doubting the benefits of nofap. Looking for excuses. Never worth it. The effects of PMO are clearly there after each relapse and they are far from pretty. Past experience is the best motivation! We fall but we get up again. We can be proud of ourselves for trying, persevering, and succeeding. It's never too late. When we fall, we get back on track. We learn from our mistakes. We should have started sooner, but it's never too late. Fuck pmo and its empty promises. The purity that comes from nofap, the peace of mind, that incredible feeling of not having to be ashamed of yourself, hiding things in secrecy, that is where the true happiness and vitality is found.

We need to remember this and always stay strong. It has to be a mental blueprint. pmo can no longer be an option. Let's grow balls and become the men we are meant to be.

Cheers

 

Because people think they're "rebooted" after a certain number of days, and stop doing the things that got them away from PMO in the first place.

This is not a challenge to abstain for a certain number of days, this is a lifestyle change for the rest of your life.

 

That's so crazy isn't it?
How much did I fell into that trap?
Sometimes I was just fine and felt fresh and clear, and before I knew it, I was watch the crap again destoying what I had build up so far.
Be free is very strange and feels weird if you have been enslaved all your life.
Therefor, it is a process. Slowly, step by step, day by day.

Well said!
For me personally being here around helps me enormously.
Reading stories, helping others, liking posts, giving encouragement. Sharing my own struggles and receive encouragement.
My brain is constantly feed with "what will happen if you give in". I finally found a place where I really can show myself. For years I felt so alone with my issues.
And I know I will not be judged here. We all are in the same boat, just helping each other. It's wonderful to me.
And that helps me a lot to stay alert.

I heard that that is one of the results when doing nofap

 

Pride

 

My guess would be that they spend so much energy on achieving these nofap 'goals' that they forget they are leaving porn and not just abstaining from it.

So when they reach their goal they get a sense of they do not have to worry because their goal is met so they relapse.

 

Because NoFap is a life long challenge and some people believe that once they hit 90 days that there "cured" and let there guard down.

 

The counter is a double-edged sword. You need to go into this without taking that counter too seriously. The goal is not to notch up the days, but to eradicate the urge. You have the lapse here and there, yet in the larger scheme it is no big deal as those lapses become less frequent... in the hope of them disappearing altogether.

 

I've written several posts on this topic of long-term relapses. I've had at least two streaks over 400 days in the past seven years. You'd think failing the first long streak would've taught me that complacency kills and had me vigilant enough not to throw away all the effort a second time. I probably had a dozen relapses or so in the past year since I relapsed my last long one in April 2016. Took me this long until I finally feel like I'm on a real streak again. So relapsing long-term ones hurts and it's hard to create another one, at least for me.

Anyway, there is no cut and dry answer to your question. The road to how you get from 400+ days back to relapse is a murky one. Some themes are subtle pride, as one poster said. PMO is so distant you might start to feel like you've solved that problem.. you've overcome it for good and you take your resistance to it for granted. Another is slow deterioration of quality of life. In small ways I think I stopped taking care of myself as much. Let myself get bored and lazier at work. It's natural to pull back from communities a little bit when you don't need them as much, but perhaps I got a little too private and felt accountability less strongly.

Made small compromises, like looking through a cosplay community where some females were dressing suggestively; not being very strict on what literature and media I watched, and being exposed to some sensual themes through those. None of these things dealt a death blow but small faults stacking on top of each other for a few months slowly eroded my resolve. But still there were other times in the 400 days where I might falter a bit and get back on track quickly. Don't know why I was infected with more apathy than usual on the last decline. It's good to learn from past mistakes but the interior self will always be somewhat mysterious. Best to focus the majority of our energy on the present day and living a healthy life in the now. The more and more we can make that a consistent habit the further away we'll be from getting sucked back into these unhealthy pits.

 

@Border_
I would like to add:
The more you live a life that really fulfills, the less you need surrogate.

 

This just reads a bit puritanical to me. Wouldn't it be better to get to a point where the scantily clad lass at the bar just doesn't have the same affect on you.... that is, you aren't so much guarding against exposure to what not, but becoming more resilient to that exposure... which will always come.

I can't do much about the exterior, but I can do something about the interior.

 

I can agree with that. I definitely don't want to come across sounding like it's binary. It's a gradient to properly balance, or at least oscillate around an acceptable happy medium. We definitely shouldn't be aiming to live within a box, blind to the world.

I just know for myself personally if I'm watching R movies with implied sex and/or nudity, or reading books that suggest those things to my mind past a certain level of detail, it's going to be a lot harder to successfully maintain a no PMO streak and especially be free from intrusive temptations.

Perhaps with enough time and work I could become somewhat impervious to those triggers, but in humility and prudence I can't ever see myself wanting to test that. And of course I don't want to become scrupulous or overly rigid either.

 

Very very VERY true. Glad you're back and not only lurking, @Porn Free Wanderer