Unleash the lion within you

Hey guys,
This community has been a big help for me during the past few months so now I would like to give back some of it.

I am a 22 year old male and have been PMOing since the age of 12. Luckily for me I never went into any extremes of porn, already what I was watching deep down disgusted me. Last spring, toward April, with religious aspirations, I decided to stop.
I went through a period which I like to call of trial and error, in which you want to stop, but you keep on relapsing every 2/3 days. I once made it to one week though and that was one big accomplishment for me. However, during this period I experienced the so very much dreaded flatline: very irritable and extremely anxious. And with anxiety I mean intrusive thoughts, really persistent ones, which little did I know, were fed by the anxiety itself. In my case, I had never experienced such a thing before so I had a strong suspicion that it was linked with me trying to stop, not to mention the guilt that came with it. Only by reading the books "Overcome unwanted intruisive thoughts", "Your Brain on Porn" and "Porn addiction", did I notice a link between the things and finally came to the acceptance that what I was experiencing was a normal withdrawal phase. I also felt really lonely, like really lonely. I generally am a guy who really appreciates being alone, but now I was in such a desperate need to get in contact with people.

Long story short: I reached day 95 yesterday and today I had a relapse. I must admit that I am glad I did though, because this taught me that you must never let your guard down. Do I consider it a synonym of failure? Well, certainly I really would have liked to avoid that, but I know that by reaching the milestone of 90 days, my recovery is not lost (if I do not binge). My advice is to come see setbacks as part of the recovery: if you strive to make big steps and then relapse, see that as a simple setback and as a way to move forward. Yes, that relapse might put you back to a few weeks, but if you are determined, you will know that your goal simply became a little farther to reach. Guilt helps no one, therefore avoid it. Other tools that helped me were the video of Fittuber regarding NoFap (check it out) and Stronger self (completely on NoFap, by all means check it out).


You are probably wondering about the benefits experienced so far and here they are:

1) Definitely the biggest is attraction for women. I do not know how to describe it but when you are on P, you have very little attraction for women. I remember on day 14, I had a small glimpse of what was to come. I was at the train station and saw a young girl and I just couldn't believe my eyes: she was gorgeous. Not sexually intended, I mean I actually noticed her as a whole. I was speechless. I started to contemplate how her hair fell to the side of her face, how her cheeks gently bent upward when she smiled. The same happened on the train that day and would continue to happen from day 35 onward. But most importantly, I had a strong desire to go and approach these women. I finally felt like a man, with a strong desire to contemplate and actually show affection for women, and this is healthy because this is the way it should be. I was fed up with being attached to pixels on a screen, I wanted real life.

2) Discipline. Yes, you read that correctly. I had a strong desire to be disciplined. I do not get my dopamine from fapping anymore (except today, but not generally), so I must get it elsewhere. I mark my daily tasks on a sheet of paper and I adopt the mindset of a lion, ready to attack my problems and my duties. Besides this, I write down my long term goal on a sheet of paper and read it every morning to remind myself what I want to accomplish. And when I do, just like the 90 day mark, I feel great.

3) Greater energy. I remember my parents telling me that I could not cycle 60km straight, that I would have never accomplished that as I was not trained for it. I can confirm that with all the energy I have been gaining I accomplished that goal and it is the first of many. My next one is to cycle for one month down to South Africa (I live in Europe): Yes, I want to accomplish this. When people tell me I cannot do it, I will do everything possible to achieve that.


My suggestion is this: if you would like to get a girlfriend and so far have not been able, do Nofap, you will feel and act like a real man, being able to look women in the eyes and asking them out. That is the way it should be.

If you are struggling to begin, like I did, keep this in mind: what the human mind can conceive, this it can do! Therefore, write down your goals, and each and every time you have an urge tell yourself: I have two options. Number one is to give in and see my goals being further and further away. Or number two I can surf the urge and see my goals getting closer.

As for my present state, for other people that relapse after day 90, my suggestion is this: I know people reset their counters completely but we all know that all progress is not lost in such a case. Take 2 weeks/one month away from your streak instead and take off from there. That is more realistic and secondly less discouraging, as it should be.

Keep the goal well in mind as a lion keeps an eye on its prey and I guarantee you, you will achieve big things in life

 

The thought of the two wolves help me. You have two wolves inside of you. The first one being happiness, laughter, joy, empathy. The second one is frustration, anxiety, irritability. Each and every time you feel like relapsing but you don’t, you are feeding the first wolf. As you feed it, that wolf will get stronger as the other weakens. By resisting just one urge, keep in mind that those urges will start to weaken and become less intense. This thought helped me a lot

 

Thanks bro I appreciate it. What I can say is that there is hope. There is a lot of potential inside of you, porn is your enemy. I spent years being mildly attracted to women but always fearful of making a move or looking at them straight into the eyes. As a consequence I always ended up being friend zoned. It wasn’t until day 14 on Nofap that my eyes were opened. You start to live again, search for social interaction in general (especially with women). I had a feeling of dominance when I was with women (healthy one of course). They did not intimidate me anymore. It was a complete game changer and with all that testosterone your dating life improves. I wish you the best my brother: keep pushing

 

The first question is a tough one. Recovery will motivate you to go out and meet new people or interact with older ones. My advice is to invite a friend (or limited number of friends) for a drink (if bars are open where you live). Also, I have many plans to travel with friends as soon as the situation stabilizes itself so that keeps me in contact with them. Meeting in person is a better option for me as meeting online might just remind you of how far you are from people. My biggest advice is to be creative and overall to not be passive and wait for the opportunity but to take the initiative in creating gatherings where possible.

In my case the thoughts were self-harm, harm toward other people and very disgusting sexual thoughts. If you are struggling with these my biggest advice is to just accept these and not to push them away. Trust me when I tell you that you are not your thoughts. Reoccurring intrusive thoughts are believed to be caused by changing brain chemistry and high anxiety levels which is what you are going through during a reboot. See it as a sign of recovery and weight will be lifted from your shoulders. Keep fighting bro, you will get there.