47 Days and counting

Hey everyone

just wanted to share a bit of my story as this forum and especially other success stories have helped me a lot during the struggle.

About me:
27, male, student. So pretty average overall. I am quite a social guy, but struggle with loneliness and bad sleeping habits since about 1 and a half years. Stayed up whole nights smoking and drinking by myself. But always kept it to myself as I was ashamed and knew that this is not a normal habit.
I am suffering from PIED since about 2 years but never knew what it was about till I found this community and started informing myself.

Anyway, I got into NoFap at the beginning of this year, started and failed the 90 day hardmode challenge a couple of times. Never made it over 30 days, till now. Most of my fails were connected to bad hangovers, when my mood was just bad and I wanted some relief of that. One of the things I picked up over my past tries. The worst days are when I am hungover.
Most of the time I made it to around 2 weeks and relapsed for a couple of days. But I had and still have the goal to reach 90 days before this year is over. So I started on the 26.9 and I have been clean since then.

What really helped me on my way to 47 days:

Physical activity: sports, just plain walking or even hiking. Just getting out of my room and doing something. Moving about and not just sitting on your butt all day. I spent (and maybe still am) a lot of time in front of my computer. Nowadays I dont even touch my computer for a day or two, and even then i only check my mails. The games I played for days non stop, just dont seem so attractive nowadays.

new hobbies/activities: I spent hours in front of my computer looking for the right porn. And I had to fill that hole with something else. So i started to draw or actively looking for other activities: like watching a movie with friends, just having a cup of coffee, reading the newspaper. You could say I see my friends more frequently than I did before, as I just have more time on my hands.

Meditation/Diary: I did both of these things before, but just occasionally. Nowadays I spend about 30 minutes every evening before going to bed to write diary and do some meditation. It sorts out my thoughts and helps with my struggle to sleep.

There are no abrupt changes in my behaviour or my looks. But I am keeping my shoulders up, and dont look like a slouch all the time. Just feeling better in my own body. Keeping eye contact is a thing I only realized a couple of days ago. I have a more optimistic view on my life, but it is still pretty pessimistic for others. Doesnt matter too much though, as long as I am happy with it.

My mainpoint is that even though I failed a lot over the last couple of months, I never lost the urge to make it to 90 days. I always tried to learn from my mistakes (easier said than done) and now I have the feeling that I am finally on the right track.

A big thank you to everyone who is part of this community and I hope this helps some of you (even one is enough)

Have a nice day and stay true!

Peace!