Counters: The Perpetuation of Fapping

I completely got rid of mine. All it did was keep track of the time between relapses, which was pretty much daily. It also gave me a lot of pressure, since the end goal was always so far away.

 

Me too. I think it should be an optional thing, maybe useful for short term goals but ultimately we are all trying to kick this thing for good, so the counter seems arbitrary. I have the date in the back of my head, but I prefer counting with marbles and watching the pile grow without comparing it with some big goal I have. melancholyweightlifter is an example of someone who has been successful without a counter.

 

I agree, but don't let that be an excuse to be lazy and not accountable...

Share a spreadsheet to keep yourself accountable.

Feel free to copy mine which I also copied.

 

in my opinion the counter is the most important thing in this challenge.

it is a starting point, it is an anchor, it shows me progress, it is my brother-in-arms in this fight.

for sure the ultimate goal is:
reaching a point where you stop counting days because you are cured - because you stopped pmo definitely.

 

I find the counter a great help. But I can see how once you achieve the goal, you might be tempted to relapse. Knowing that, I'm planning to extend my goal the day I reach 90 so I keep focusing on moving forward. And I agree, if you're thinking of the goal as "the # of days until I can fap again" you're going about it all wrong, in my opinion.

But whatever works. Different things work for different people. I completely support anything that helps anyone get better.

 

Hmm yes the counter and the k9 filter, the 2 biggest tools. They help you think about what you're doing and put a barrier there, but I'm not sure if they're the real answer for me going forward.

 

"Hmm yes the counter and the k9 filter" in my experience I ended up routing around k9. which made me realize that its all about self control, not filters. I'm 9 days in myself but I plan on never relapsing, the counter is just a way to see when i hit 30, then it will get easier everyday. After all, I never relapsed smoking ciggerettes. Sometimes I think about mastubating but I force it from my mind and everyday it gets easier.

 

how long did you use them for? I dont want all that stuff just a click away, and sometimes things just appear accidentally like on google image search. I hate all of this, i cant even use youtube because its triggering. Sometimes i think i'd be better off not having a computer at all and just going to the library. but i'm a student so need it.

 

I understand the pro-counter points, but my point was that it can be detrimental. It's arbitrary, but in interest of setting a short-term goal it can be beneficial. Someone suggested doing away with it when they are cured, and I have a problem with that notion: If we are addicts, that means that there is no cure. We are doomed to fail at any given moment, so we must treat every day like it's the first. I don't think that we can be cured, but we can learn to live without porn, and we can treat the symptoms. Here's the thing, I will always be tempted by it.

 

I'm relatively new to the site, but I have to say I like the counter. It helps me make short goals that I can manage. And over the long haul, it's nice to see the days add up. While I sympathize with those who see it as a way to measure their failures, I see it as a way to measure the amount of time between each PMO. It's healthy to keep a 3 month calendar of how long we can go PMO free for. Over that amount of time, it is easy to plot our growth. We might not get all 90 days in a row, but that's okay. The point is growth and moving in a positive direction for our lives.

Keep on, fellow fapstronauts!

 

every single day without pmo is a victory. the counter provides that.

right for us there is no absolutely "cure".

i think after 700 or more "clean" days - we can speak about a successful reboot.

i was smoking weed - i was addicted. i stopped many years ago. now i would never smoke weed again. i dont want it - it is over. maybe this can happen with porn.

 

All I can say is you have to learn to be around triggers.

 

Different things work for different people. A counter worked for me, but it took some time before I got a good streak going. Spreadsheets can be an alternative to (or used with) counters.

 

I see your point, however let me just throw this out there for the sake of argument:

Each time I fuck up (and as you can see from my signature, there are numerous things I'm struggling to deal with right now) I come on here and reset my counter and I feel terrible about doing it. I know that the counter is something that goes with the problem, rather than being the problem itself, or the solution to the problem. However, that being said, I still feel responsible/ accountable every time I come on here and reset the counter again and think to myself "dammit, resetting AGAIN".

It's like people who keep food diaries. It won't make you thin, and it won't directly counteract any underlying issues for why you're fat, however just the knowledge of thinking "every time I eat something, I'm going to have to write it down in my book" can act as a deterrent.

I think the guy who talked about the spreadsheet has got a pretty good idea. If you don't want a counter but you do want some sort of record that you're accountable for.

 

I like the counter because I can specify what exactly I'm fighting and have some level of self-accountability for it. If I just say I want to stop PMO, it's easy for me to keep browsing arousing non-P. I can make excuses, I can justify it. So I've made a counter that is customized to the specific behavior I want to be through with.

I also like the tick marks better than the goals (as you can tell by only one of my counters having a goal). Like to see lots and lots of space between those red ticks (which I guess is a spreadsheet mentality without the sheet)