Just started today

Just started today. Hope I posted this in the right section, because I'm not familiar with this site. Just signed up at NoFap and I have to admit I find this scary. Noone knows about my adiction and even though people are anonymous here, this feels a little bit like breaking with the anonymity that feels so safe. For the first time I'm admitting somewhere I have a problem. Tried to quit watching porn before and I remember reading stories at nofap helped me with that, getting useful tips, knowing you're not the only one dealing with this. That was a few years ago.
Now the quarantine changed things. Working from home makes it very easy to access porn. The threshold is so low and I'm telling myself "this one time doesn't make a big difference". It always turns out to be much longer. The intended 20 minutes becomes hours. Besides all the wasted hours it causes physical pain, a low self esteem and discouragement, losing hope I can achieve all my goals in life. As a result it affects my work and my private life.

I have great admiration for everyone at this forum, supporting eachother and keeping up for so long. Being at day one I look up to everyone that's even above 5 days. I think the longest I ever managed to keep up is two weeks and that was a long time ago. My intention is not to abstain from porn forever, as I don't consider watching it unhealthy or unethical. My goal is to be independant of it, to be in control. But I realize before ever reaching that phase where I can honestly say I'm not addicted anymore I'll have to go through a period of total abstinence.

Now I'm still at a point where I'm not totally convinced I'll be able to achieve this. But I hope the faith and determination will grow. In the mean time I try to set small goals, like reaching 5 days. That already seems like an almost impossible thing to do (I say in embarassement). I actually started a diet today as well. Don't know if it's a smart move to do both at the same, but we'll see. I figure you also don't want to substitute one addiction with another addiction, and I definitely have to lose weight as well. Wonder if people have experience with doing both at the same time. By the way, the diet is nothing fancy, it's just eating less and writing down everything I eat, including the calories. Worked very well for me before.
Anyway, all the tips for how to get through the first few days are very welcome. I'm a newbie at this, so all advice is welcome. Especially how to cope with the cravings, with the moments where you suddenly don't feel that strong anymore and try to convince yourself one more time doesn't make a difference, because you can always start tomorrow. On how to gain confidence and how to stay motivated. Looking forward to you reactions.

Read the rest of my progress in the thread 'Daily update of Mitch X'

 

Thank you, -keepsmiling. It's good to get a reaction. I need the encouragement.