Do I need to fail? Goodbye 5 months

Anri, you're doing great and are an inspiration to people who are struggling with this addiction. You're proving that PMO is beatable.

Your plan to relapse sounds a lot like a rationalization, but enough people have touched on that subject, so I'll leave it alone. What I'm thinking is that you won't reach your goal of gaining a relapse experience by PMOing voluntarily just to see how it feels to fail. The whole point of a relapse is that we don't want it to happen and do our best to prevent it, but fail anyway. What you intend to do is not equal to this, because the "relapse" you're thinking about will be a result of your own decision made a situation when you are 100% capable of preventing it. You're thinking about creating an artificial situation that you then want to call a real relapse.

I would compare what you're trying to do with a great runner deciding that he wants to taste defeat in order to have a more "complete" experience of sports, and trying to achieve that by running slower than usual and letting his opponents win. Do you think in that situation he's experienced defeat? No, because the defining characteristic of defeat is failing to reach a goal despite doing everything to achieve it.

In short, by doing this controlled "relapse" you won't gain any real experience, you'll set back your recovery and you'll be running the risk of restarting your addiction. Don't do it.

 

The thing about a relapse is that it is involuntary. You can't force a relapse, you are actively seeking porn here. To say that you can offer advice when you didn't really suffer a relapse is not good. People who relapse are not in control....this is controlled. Basically by going back to porn you aren't offering anything to anyone!

 

Very well said and that what I tried to point to in my student analogy in my last reply.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b2OLoKUi34g

 

Hi Anri. I've been thinking about this, too. Whenever people ask me for advice, I can never tell them how to cope with relapsing because I never relapsed myself. I'm curious if I'd actually fall back into old habits just after PMOing once and I've been debating over this with myself for a while.

Limeaid does have a good point though, it's not really relapsing if you do it out of your own will. So I don't think it would make much sense. I'd still not know what it feels like to succumb to the urge and dive back in without thinking as it would be voluntarily and thought-through.

So if it's just for "research" reasons, I don't think it would work like that. It's entirely your call though. And if you do choose to go for it, I'd be curious about an update on the experience!

 

Anri seems to have raised an interesting theme here, which to me reads, "What happens now that I've reached a plateau, and the benefits have stopped coming?" Correct me if I'm wrong, Anri. But I'll go on, since I think it's an important theme for a lot of people trying to make progress.

I've often gotten to a place where I'd expected more dramatic improvements with erotic abstinence and have used my disappointment as a rationale to relapse. Huge mistake, of course. Between every 30 days I've been able to cobble together porn-free, there have been literally years of relapse and being mentally adrift.

As I've read, the addicted mind is a model of impatience. Often times addicts or recovering addicts, who have low functioning in the prefrontal cortex and hyper-stimulation in the limbic system, act impatient and create drama, arguments, intentional problems as a way of stimulating or giving a jump-start to the front part of their brain. Naturally, a plateau in progress is very dull to such a person - one feels almost like one is suffocating and disappearing - and their addled brain tends to reject it in favor of something that feels more substantial. The addled reasoning is that any type of stimulation is better than the oppressive void of a plateau.

George Leonard, in his book Mastery, seemed to recognize this common tendency toward agitation during quiet spells in all people, and he advised students of any endeavor not to resist but to love, embrace, welcome the plateau despite your initial tendency toward boredom and dissatisfaction, and before you know it, you'll see improvements again. Consider the slogan, "What you resist persists." On the other hand, love something, and time passes more quickly in its presence. I think that another forum user posted that it wasn't until much further in his hard 90 that the real super powers began to emerge. I'm really excited to read similar things from you, Anri.

The plateau is just another point in the journey to our manly awesomeness. I'm growing sure of it.

Anri, what I would love to see, if you haven't already done so, is a really thorough list of the benefits you've noticed as a result of your 5 months hard mode. If you have already done one, do you think you could do an even more elaborate one where you cite more specific examples of improvement and let yourself feel the tangible benefits vividly as you're writing? I am finding in my early stages that reading others' successes really gets me into a powerful mindset and makes this first week of my reboot so much easier. I am also aware of how important gratitude for even the slightest improvement goes toward procuring more improvement.

Thanks for sharing and raising this important point, fellow Fapstronaut!

 

Don't. I had a very similar reasoning Day 75 of my first run and I relapsed. I said to myself I did it easily the first time, I will have no trouble to get back straight asap. Well, three months later and I struggle to get past Day 3.. Fuck
Don't give up your success.. You lost the addiction. You're good. Leave this site, you don't need it anymore and it will only remind you it was a challenge in the first place.
Best of luck.

 

Once I get through the noFap challenge I have no interest in going back to PMO. I won't say "never" because I cannot foresee the future, but I really have no interest. It has pretty much ruined my life.

 

I'm not sure if I follow this last post of yours? I think you are you saying that you will not go back to PMO full time, but from what I gather from your first post, you do want to try PMO once more to taste defeat?

Using you quotes from your first post here's my opinion:
"Now I do not question my discipline in taking nofap on a lifetime, but I question if it can continue making me a better person." - You can continue making yourself better, we all can. Are you done improving your life? Try a different challenge besides not looking at porn. How about a feat of strength or endurance? Making money with investments? I could think of 1000 things to improve oneself without looking at porn.

"I believe, I must taste defeat to better my experience in this journey." For selfish reasons, maybe you should go for it and post your experience. My guess is that it may lead you into a relapse. This would be a lesson for all of us to stay true to our goals and not play with fire.

Good luck, keep us posted on what you decide. Either way, I wish the best for you.