was doing ok and now I'm starting to slip...

Hey guys, hope this is a good place for me to get this mess off my chest and maybe get some advice.

I'm male, almost 27, so Ive unfortunately had this bad habit for awhile, and this is turning out to be a hard one to break. From growing up online, then during my military career (I bet a lot of vets struggle here, porn use is as common and acceptable as wearing socks for mil guys) all the way to just recently I've always generally accepted it as normal and fine to use porn and have done so accordingly. Earlier on I never had too many issues preforming with women however over the past couple years it's been slowly becoming a little more of a struggle to where I've looked into it and deduced that I'm probably suffering from PIED.

I haven't done anything about it till recently because of just my situation in life: lame excuse I know but it's easier said than done sometimes...past year especially Ive been not only solidly out of the dating game (not having sex makes it hard to see porn as a problem) but working rough stressful jobs where it pretty much turned into wake up, work past exhaustion, followed by pretty much eat, jack off and go to bed. In hindsight I'm not particularly surprised that this lifestyle of being physically/mentally burned out combined with really letting PMO take hold as a daily occurrence has made things worse for me.

Anyway, found myself a couple months back free from job stresses and then met a girl so I figured it was time to get serious with quitting. For a whole month it seemed to be going great, I deleted all my stuff and abstained with maybe only 2 or 3 small relapses spread out during a month and a half or so since I had a good motivation to do so but I didn't expect the flatline to hit so hard. Became not only badly depressed but pretty much dead from the waist down which was a huge problem as you might imagine...although I was able to please her in other ways and she said she didn't care and would work thru it with me (to her credit she did, and was able to get me off a few times), our thing didn't last and she ghosted me after a couple months of seeing eachother pretty regularly.

Whether it was that or something else I don't know (if we're being honest it was not gonna be a lifelong thing so whatever) but I think it's safe to assume it's a contributing factor and honestly its a horrible feeling . I'd had some prior hookups several months back that were truthfully not quite what they should have been but have never had to deal with being outright impotent and it hurts real bad and has left me in not such a great place.

I had hoped and tried to make this into a personal wake-up call and double down on quitting, but the whole thing has left me steadily falling off the wagon over the past month. It started out as a relapse every week or so and for the past week and a half or so it's been about every other day and frankly as much as I now know how serious it actually is, it's started to become harder and harder to stick with it. So much for no-nut November I guess...


Anyway, if you're still reading after all that, I was hoping to get some advice and/or encouragement to do what I need to do. Even though loneliness is a factor here I think it's probably best that I stay solo and deal with it for awhile, maybe the remainder of the year since I think a rebound might hurt more than it would help given my problem.

What do you guys who've been successful do when you're trying to get back on the wagon after a bad slip?

thanks in advance

 

Hey thank you! I appreciate the support.

90 days is certainly my big goal right now but I'm starting small. A week, A month, etc. It feels a little more obtainable that way and a good streak is honestly good motivation to keep going.

Avoiding it has become kinda harder but now that I know I need to im gonna have to. The temptation to "just look" is strong and rarely ends well. I can't expect to get better if I'm still flooding my brain with the stuff, it's like an alcoholic hanging out in a bar...

Also I don't really know how it's gonna play out with the flatline thing. I seem to be snapping out of it currently, but I'm guessing its gonna come back in some way, so I'm trying to get serious again about lifting and running. I know it'll help and I know I need to be doing it anyway so I'm hoping that forcing it into habit now will pay off when the bad times come back around and it's harder to be motivated to do anything positive. Trying to just "wait it out" has not done me favors and has made things worse in that I've lost touch with people and gotten lazy. Gotta go out and do stuff to get out of that funk.

 

Thanks!

Agreed, Ive been bouncing back a lot just getting out of my shell a little bit. Seeing folks helps and even just a quick walk down the street in the afternoon seems to do a lot to bring up my mood.

Also agreed with staying single. The temptation is there, I'm attractive enough to do fine around here and have a free enough schedule to pursue it again, but it seems like an overwhelmingly bad idea while I'm still struggling. A tinder fling would probably not kill me yet honestly would not do me any favors...but my biggest fear is having the same soul-crushing problem with someone and scaring away a potentially great partner just because I wasn't ready to enter into that. Much as I miss having a warm bed, I have to remind myself that they aren't all magically going to get married to someone else over the next 3 months...

 

Thank you!

I am really hoping that I dont have to take it so far, but I will keep that in mind in case things get worse. Glad to hear you are doing better.