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Improved quality of life+my approach to nofap after a year

Discussion in 'Rebooting - Porn Addiction Recovery' started by Swagnation, Aug 2, 2019.

  1. Swagnation

    Swagnation Fapstronaut

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    It still feels weird to say that what i have stated in the title of this post, but it is true. (The title read- 'P is not a problem in my life anymore', but i have changed it) I have a very weird, yet simple trick that has kept me from watching P recently, and it is inmediately distracting myself when i notice i think even a little bit of porn. How do i do that? I think of russian words. Yeah. Привет товариц. (I will get into this later, this post is a bit unorganized.) Because of nofap, my interests in things have dramatically increased, to a point where i sometimes almost can't comprehend how big my interest in things is. As you can guess maybe, i'm (very casual, but still) learning russian. A very foreign language for me, since i'm from the netherlands. Learning a foreign language! I never thought i would ever be interested in doing that, but now however i am. I have to admit that i'm not at a 30 day streak at the moment, but to the moderators who read this- please don't delete this post, because it's definitely a succes story. Since last week, it has officially been a whole year since i discovered nofap. And while i never have had a heroic streak like the 90 days we hear all about, my porn use has dramatically decreased over this last year. I used to watch porn everyday, some times twice a day, and there where some days where i even did it three times a day because why not. Now, on average over the last year, i watched porn like maybe 4-8 times a MONTH. And that, believe me, can give you all the changes in life you want. I really can't stress enough that you shouldn't feel bad about yourself if you never get your 'streak' to 30 or 90 days. I put quotation marks on the word streak because even though i thank my current wellbeing to the idea of nofap, i think the whole self-improvement thing gets out of hand sometimes. Let me explain. A year ago i was extremely depressed (not officialy diagnosed, but i felt sad almost all the time and i didn't really have a reason to live) and then one day, the youtube algorythm gods let a video about nofap descend upon my feed. I watched it and in the first minute i was already completely convinced- i heard for the first time how porn overproduces dopamine, which makes you not enjoy like everything else in live. I felt like i had finally found the cure to all my problems, so i wanted to practice nofap as best as possible. The problem with how i approached nofap however, was that i was too stressed about the dopamine stimulation of porn, with the desentisitation to other things as a result. This maybe doesn't sound like a bad thing, but it resulted in me feeling very bad about myself after a relapse, because i felt that i had f*cked up my life by increasing my depressed state of mind through over stimulating my dopamine receptors. I forgot one important thing: the fact that my lifestyle was constantly changing. One example of this is that i had deleted all social media (except youtube) because really every scroll-platform contained too much triggers for me. This act alone led me to being more productive, and undertaking more things. But after a relapse i would completely hate myself and forget how much i had actually progressed. My message to everyone still struggling with PMO is this: nofap is not ONLY about how much you relapse and how much dopamine you consume, it's also for a HUGE amount the act of overall changing the way you live. Of course its the best if you watch as less porn as possible, but i believe that it's equally as important to better and change your life. The kind of changes which have to be made in your life are subjective. For me, things like procrastination and laziness were very big problems which i had to change in order to have a better life. Most of the times, PMO-addiction comes with a package of problems like that, and i think that it is equally as important to change those problems as it is to quit porn. So don't beat yourself up after a relapse. I know from experience that that can be way harder done than said, but i really urge you to approach your post-relapse state like this: think in a rational way what change you can make in your life to prevent a relapse from ever happening again. It is through this post-relapse moments that i made changes in my life, for example deleting social media. And now back to the beginning of this post, where i talked about me thinking of russian words when i notice myself thinking about porn. This exercise derives from an insight i had after my last relapse: the insight that i really have to stop fantasizing about porn in order to ever truely overcome my P-addiction. I used to fantasize a lot, which led to extreme urges. And during the whole year that i practiced nofap, i never had the discipline to really quit fantasizing. But now i have decided to do that. And my personal method to stop fantasizing is to think about russian words, because learning russian is quite a challenge, and i have to focus really hard to think of russian words since my vocabulary is very small. I wanted to write more, but i'm getting too tired as it is 1 in the morning when i'm writing this. Last thing i want to say before i end this post: i'm not some perfect guy who has figured his life all out, i still have some things in my behavior and life which could be better in my opninion, but please, remember, you can fix your problems with the right changes in your life, even if you have a lot of relapses during the process. Have a great day and good luck to all
     
    Last edited: Aug 2, 2019
  2. Tonytone

    Tonytone Fapstronaut

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    Great post, man!! I can totally relate to the procrastination and laziness that PMO induces. It's terrible!! That's another reason that in addition to NoFap, I've also quit drinking and it has helped me immensely in every facet of my life. Stay strong, brothers and sisters!
     
    Swagnation likes this.
  3. silvermonk

    silvermonk Fapstronaut

    I´m happy for you, friend. But I guess the 30-days-rule has a point because as I read about your experience, I found this thought in my brain: "Oh, you see, you stupid moron, wouldn´t be nice to do it just from time to time? This guy basically says you can have both - healthy life and PMO." But I know that it´s a dangerous lie. At least for me. I´ve tried many times. And I come to see other successful people as I want to avoid this little trigger contained in every other guy's relaps - for me to do it again is not a possibility. That´s the only way I can carry on. With the vision of complete freedom from P in my mind.
     
    Indurian, Tonytone and Swagnation like this.
  4. NewWorld110

    NewWorld110 Fapstronaut

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    Great and honest post. This is not an all or nothing path. Sometimes I think what is the one or few things that make a real change and keep us away from p for a long time. It should be different for each one of us. It is worth to think about it.
    For me it is posting here and journalling everyday.
     
    silvermonk likes this.
  5. Swagnation

    Swagnation Fapstronaut

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    Nofap is indeed different for everybody. I don't know your situation and maybe you are more addicted than i was so maybe it really is an all-or-nothing situation for you. I just wanted to share my experiences and approach, and most importantly i wanted to show that there isn't one single absolute true way to do nofap, but that porn recovery is different for everybody.

    I want to add that i'm not trying to convince people to put less effort in nofap and just be okay with having lots of relapses for the rest of one's life. I still believe that its the best for everybody to quit PMO for good. What i was trying to say, is that the growth of your personal happiness doesn't neccesarily has to correspond with the progress of your streak. To say it in easier words: your life doesn't have to feel f*cked up after a relapse. You can have had a relapse, yet still feel better than you did like a week before because of progress in your life in other areas than nofap. This doesn't mean that you should be okay with relapsing a lot, like i said i still think that its the best thing to quit PMO for good. But i believe its better to not think too much about your streak being broken after a relapse, but make actual changes in order to prevent the relapse from ever happening again.
     
    Last edited: Aug 3, 2019
    silvermonk likes this.
  6. A Dutch person writing in English stating that you never thought you would learn a foreign language! You guys are great.
     
    Swagnation likes this.
  7. Swagnation

    Swagnation Fapstronaut

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    Haha, i meant a foreign language besides english. In the netherlands we are taught english at such an young age that we kinda grow up with it, so it doesn't feel like a foreign language to me
     
  8. I love it. Really.
     
  9. Swagnation

    Swagnation Fapstronaut

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    Love what exactly?
     
  10. Oh the language skills of places like the Netherlands.
     
  11. Swagnation

    Swagnation Fapstronaut

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    Oh okay. Yeah i feel very gratefull to live in the netherlands, its a really good place. (Not trying to say that other countries are shit, just my opinion)
     
    SirErnest likes this.

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