Hi everyone, Unfortunately after 12 days of being free I relapsed last night. I logged back onto a dating site and had sex chat with a stranger and masturbated. I'm a little sad and annoyed...I'd say about 40% sad and annoyed. However, 60% of me is stronger and much more positive to beating this addiction. After fapping last night, I knew deep down that it will never fill the void that's in my life. It's never going to fix my problems and in the back of my head I was thinking about how my friends and family would react if they knew what I was doing. I've never told them, I'm not exactly close to my family. But I know they'd be annoyed and ashamed at me. I was stressed out about my job, which I'm extremely unhappy in and that led to me trying to 'fix and relax' everything. It's the stress I need to deal with here. I got absolutely no satisfaction out of chatting to a stranger about sex. What upsets is that I've felt like I've led this stranger on and making a weird relationship with them, that I was taking advantage of them (I've fapped with this person online over the last few months). We've never met, I have no intention of meeting this person but I feel that this person is expecting more from me. It's upsetting me a lot writing about it! Should I explain to this person and apologise? After spending the weekend avoiding sexualised content on the internet, I realised how much rubbish is on tv and the internet. How much sexually explicit and suggestive rubbish is fed to use everyday. It's really awful. I understand the positive benefits of beating this addiction. The last 12 days of being from PMO was the best time I've had in the last ten years. However, I undid all my hard work. But I know now that I'll never do that myself ever again. Just needed to write this and post this as a reminder to myself. I'm not open about these things in life and it feels much better to sit here and get it off my chest, even if it is anonymously. Also, self respect is a big thing I need to work on. Respect everybody else but most of all respect myself. That's been lacking in my for a very long time. Thank you!
Glad you're sticking with it and getting back on the horse. Stories like this are a great reminder to me that there's still a long way to go, and I can't relax in regards to being vigilant about my thoughts and actions. One slip and it's back to zero, but zero doesn't mean that no progress has been made - don't for get that! I have found the support here to be incredible, but at the same time, for me, it's been even better with my friends in real life. I'm not going to continue to be secretive about this and I've begun sharing that I have this problem with some of my close friends. The responses have been incredible, and it's interesting to see what happens when I get this dark secret into the light where it does not thrive. I don't expect anyone else to follow my lead on that, just thought I'd share that it's been helpful for me. Of the probably 8 or so guys that I've shared this struggle with, more than half have said that they have the same problem. The others are understanding, supportive, and even interested to learn more about it as an epidemic. Again, thanks for sharing. Stories like yours keep me focused. I'm sorry you had a slip, and hopefully you won't let it turn into a binge. Keep on truckin'. Cheers -
I post here a lot. I find that reading posts and replying help me stay PMO free. Its a tool I use, like porn blockers. I don't know if I have given you my standard sermon, but if not you can click on my name, find other posts, and get to the ones where I talk about three things that are necessary to win this fight: education, tools, and understanding and embracing withdrawals. The stress you talk about is probably withdrawal. I'm not saying all of it, we all deal with actual stress in our lives, but when withdrawing its 10 times harder, and the easiest way to kill it is to PMO. Our brains are soaked with dopamine. Our brains love that drug, best drug in the world, and part of our problem is, we produce it in response to porn. When you experience withdrawals, it is actually a good sign because that means your brain is struggling with having less dopamine than it really needs. Once you get back to normal levels, on the other side of withdrawals, you will feel much better. But you have to go through the withdrawals; you can't get clean without going through that. Sorry. Also, a lot of guys don't understand what porn is. Porn is not just seeing it on a screen, but seeing it, looking at it, imagining it, remembering it, fantasizing, PMOing, and MOing while thinking of it, imagining it, or remembering it, and for some, porn substitutes. Chat rooms are a porn substitute, so you used porn last night whether you conceive it as such or not. Also, xavier, one common problem a lot of guys have here is how excessive porn use alters their sexual tastes. Once you are educated you will learn that novel or shocking or new sexual imagery is often resorted to when the brain becomes desensitized to whatever we started out on. I remember expressly the 8 second post of two eighties porn starts that was my first PMO experience. Just two people, straight sex. In the end I needed porn that was almost abusive to get the rush. I was never into abusive sex, but, from a porn perspective, what I needed at the height of my addiction was 10 times more hard core than what I sought for and worked in the beginning. I have a theory that live internet interactions, such as chat rooms, are actually more addicting than videos because they are constantly new and novel. Movies stay the same, we can search for different ones, but ones that work for us never change. But chat rooms never stay the same, new people, new conversations. If you have not already done it, install some porn blockers and block the sites you visit. Won't stop you from going if you are determined, but it will slow you down, and for me that gives me a moment to remind myself I have quit porn. Don't let sexual thoughts linger during the day; develop the habit of shutting them off when they pop up, because they will always pop up. Get educated. Study the problem, study the addiction, study your brain on porn. yourbrainonporn.com http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_RIm9ZMN1I Best of luck to you. I know you can do it, but sometimes, especially in the beginning, we stumble around until we figure out how.
Fellow Fapstronaut, Always remember this- "It's a journey, not a sprint". William has it so right. What he said makes plenty of sense. Porn comes in different shapes and sizes. I have taken his advice and began to educate myself. I guess it's like this- We, unless you are an mechanic, truly don't know how a car operates under the hood. You educate yourself when something goes wrong. Why not educate yourself before something goes wrong. That's why we do preventative maintenance on cars, oil change and such. Why not with our brain? Learn how your brain works with porn and what triggers the feelings to PMO. STAY STRONG, WannaRiseAbove
As somebody who's just relapsed as well - after 13 days - I can understand exactly where xavier is coming from. This thing has the habit of blindsiding you if you're not watching out for it. I can only agree about the chat rooms (and webcams as well if you want to include them too) and, speaking as somebody who used to spend plenty of time doing both, I can tell you that they are easily as damaging as P use. Best avoided - that goes for any IM services like Yahoo Messenger as well.
Thanks guys! I'm going to try and avoid a lot of sexually explicit material in the media. I'm going to set up porn blocks on my iPhone (anyone post a link on how to do that?!) and start looking at where and when I'm getting the urge. I'm gonna try my best to stay positive.
Sorry to hear about your relapse and sorry to hear that you're so unhappy with your job. What do you do?
Hi Mato, I work as a designer. I only do a few days a week. I don't like the people I work with, they pretend to be my friends but I know they really aren't. My boss is an unbelievably rude person too. They offered me full time years ago and I turned it down, I just don't need the added stress. I'm hoping to quit next month but I need a new job to move on. I'm so unhappy in my job. I worry that some day I'll walk in and somebody will say something and I'll flip out. I think I'm using PMO to deal with fear and anxiety!
Hi, this is something I can really empathise with and is such a massive source of stress to people (and therefore a trigger etc) I hope something turns up for you mate? Things are so unbelievably precarious for me at the moment I've kind of just totally surrendered myself to what happens, que cera cera so to speak! I'm a bugger for recommending books but have you ever tried 'how to find work you love' by Lawrence boldt? Might give you a boost?
Thanks jiltedjohn I'll check that out. I'm going to make small steps to get things done for leaving my job. I hope I can find something more healthy and interesting!
I hope so too mate. Work is such a massive source of frustration and boredom for so many people and those Lawrence Boldt books do a fabulous job of helping people redefine their 'relationship ' with what is a significant area to most of us and if we don't feel happy /fulfilled affects all other areas of our lives. All the best
