For all you veteran nofappers

How do u get such big streaks like 365 days + just asking for me thats extremley tough

 

I can't speak for a year streak but i have had multiple 100+ days and have been with the community for 4 years now seeing steady, if slow, progress. From about 3-6+ times a week- to once a week - to once a month or so- and then into all out abstinence.

Man I've gone through the full spectrum of sh** with this and here would be my main points I've got out of 4 years trying again & again & again & again...
- There's a reason this is a multibillion dollar a year industry & 98/100 guys will never ever break this negative habit or even try. Fact is, your not going to just put it down.. you must replace it. That will get you farther than anything else in my opinion. Replace with something constructive that makes you happy. Without that, forget about it..
- Focus on the +'s and not the streaks. So many guys roll through this community and think they're gonna somehow overcome a well formulated, highly addictive and destructive industry that has MILLIONS literally by the balls, in a month.. They put all their effort into a streak and then crush themselves when they inevitably fall short like 99% of us. Then they binge and never try NoFap again. I actually view streaks as more destructive than helpful in the beginning stages because were not focusing on all the days we didn't, only the 1 day we did. If we get down to the root causes I'd bet a large majority of us are using pmo to escape(obviously) & are also unnecessarily hard on ourselves in so many areas. Focus on the positive. Your here, you've already done what 90% of men can't/won't do. Now stay here, and count plus days instead of snapped streaks.
- Everytime you fail, there is a reason, it didn't just "happen". Something somewhere in your day causes you to get to a point where you've broken your resolution and willpower and give into porn for relief, no? K here's what I'm getting at, you gotta identify what it was so you can change it. All success I've read about and personally experienced has come from the ability to do this so the next time it can be seen before you get lost in fantasy land and then relapse..
For me it was alcohol. Every time i drank heavily, within 2 or 3 days i would have a serious lack of willpower and then a crisis on my hands.

Replace the habit
Focus on the positives/BE KIND TO YOURSELF
Identify your triggers/reasons you give in

Porn, I've found, is just the symptoms usually masking deeper things. You've got to be really really honest and loving to yourself if you want large streaks. and keep getting up, always keep getting back up... I've logged dozens and dozens of temporary defeats. But i have yet to fail because i never stopped.

 

Dude... that was profound as hell.

"We're not focusing on all the days we didn't, only the 1 day we did."

You could turn that into advice:

"Always focus on the days you didn't, not the 1 day you did."

-NamaClature14 @NamaClature14

 

You're absolutely right! I swear to you i was the exact same way and it took me a long time to realize that me being overly critical, even though i was improving, was causing me to fall down deeper into that hole than i needed to.
Not saying slack off, we need to be extremely strict and vigilant to overcome this habit but when we do fall down, being equally as kind to ourselves saves us from the deadly binge. Better to stumble for a day than lie there for a week wallowing ya know?

 

Perhaps.. but maybe not. Here's why. Not only can i confirm it for my immediate life(although i only know a tiny tiny fraction of the population) many studies internationally find they can't find a single male who doesn't view porn, or at least enough for a study. Now we get down to more of a definition of addiction at this point.
"Addiction is the repeated involvement with a substance or activity, despite the substantial harm it now causes, because that involvement was (and may continue to be) pleasurable and/or valuable"
Substantial is the key word
What is substantial to one is insignificant to another. So I'm not here to get into a semantics battle with you. By your own admission you said somewhere you were looking at porn daily almost 5 years straight. Thats not substantial to some, my case is seriously mild compared to that. Yet here i am. Why? Because i found i couldn't quit, it was compulsive and it was destructive. And so there fore it was an attachment, an addiction. Addictions are things we don't need to survive, yet we habitually and compulsively do. Even if they/we don't immediately recognize the disharmony it creates in our lifes. See i don't view porn as something that is healthy even in small amounts.
The difference i would like to point out with this and say... food. Or sleep. Is that those are necessities for human survival.
And no porn is not comparable to actual real sex. There are numerous benefits to a healthy sex life that you do not get by jerking to a screen.
So am i assuming? Perhaps. Perhaps not. I'd wager 90 out of 100 random men you poll in any given city have an inability to stop viewing porn. Whether they would view it that way or not. They wouldn't be able to put it down for even 3 months of their lives and would crave it. So you tell me, isn't that addiction? Being well adjusted to an extremely sick society is no measure of health. The problem is... we've all been convinced that a little poison is ok. As long as it's not creating big waves. So majority of people don't even recognize an addiction as an addiction anymore.

 

Superb post. Many thanks!

 

It took five years for me to take it seriously. Back in 2012 the post acute withdrawal syndrome link wasn’t pronounced as it is today so I kept fapping away with all these weird symptoms. Since this current run I finally accepted I can never ever go back to porn if I want to get somewhere in life otherwise I’m stuck in withdrawal.

Oh and also one day at a time, don’t worry about having a streak. The amount of mental energy I put into having a streak in 2012 done me no favours, it was a joke really.

Best of luck.

 

For me I basically decided that viewing porn on purpose is literally as damaging as giving myself some awful terrible horrible virus for 2 years, cause that's how long recovery can take, so i avoid it literally like the plague now. As for MO it's the same thing atm

 

Ok.
Again, it's in the interpretation of "problem". I'd actually say its the other way around. For most it is problem they just don't know it or aren't willing to acknowledge it.

 

Thank you man.

 

i am yet to get to a streak of 1month+, but i feel very inspired by Nofap. I think, in order to have no pmo, nofap as a lifestyle, the perspective on the subject is so important. Before, I used to see it as pleasurable, valuable, relaxing etc. Now I (try to) see it as something bad, confusing, harmful, addictive, illusion pleasure, self destructive.
I believe when I really understand that pmo has nothing to offer of real value, it gets easier.