Relapse , the biggest misconception in the nofap community?

I know little to nothing of "official" addiction nomenclature, but I totally concur with your point and have been acting and commenting accordingly on NoFap. Your point is worth noting!

 

Not creating an argument by any means, but would you say that a serious alcoholic who has gone through their recovery and went out and had a nice hard drink one night, that they didn't relapse if they didn't continue to drink afterward? Do you think it would be just as easy to continue down their road of sobriety after "slipping" and having a single drink in the middle of recovery?

I feel this may apply to PMO recovery as well. If you slip, even just once, it may be extremely difficult to get back on that horse, rather than say to themselves "eh I didn't feel too bad after that one, maybe just one more..."

 

Makes sense, and I can see the logic behind it. At least it's a good thing to know in the back of your mind that even though I am determined to push through 100%, if I do slip up, that's all it is and we are after all, human.

 

Blackout makes a great point. Recovery isn't as "black and white" as we'd like it to be. While I LOVE the "counter", it does tend to have us thinking in terms of "perfection vs failure".

Please keep in mind that the counter has a setting that says "my goals". So we should all feel we can define our progress in our own personal way. If the occasional slip is just that to your own goals, then by all means....just keep right on recovering.
For me, I know that "hard mode" is indicated. Not because I think recovery is a purely binary thing, but because I am aware of my propensity to truly RELAPSE.

 

I completely understand -- as do we all -- the danger of a true relapse and I applaud your hard mode stance. Though I'm technically also in hard mode since I do not have a SO, I've used the counter's "my goals" option for a while now, since I consider all progress progress and because it is hard for me to imagine ever returning to a true pre-NoFap state.

Also, I find binary, white-black thinking inadequate. What in life develops in a straight line? Nothing. Life is cyclical. I see a "relapse" as a return to an old attitude, but at a higher level of experience and consciousness -- like on an upward spiral... you can swing back round but that's not like going back all the way down the spiral. Going up requires effort and you will get tired and need to relax and when doing so you may slide back a bit, but few NoFappers past 30 days would allow themselves to permanently do that.

Of course, while some see rebooting as developing their better side, others see it as a war against their lower nature... glass half full vs half empty.. no problem. As one of the former kind, I question 12-step progams' insistence that one is alway an addict, and I find it sane, realistic, encouraging, and helpful, to question the all-or-nothing "relapse" ... BUT I respect those who find my relativizing view dangerous and their absolutizing one helpful.

 

Good post.