Here we go again

Hey folks,

been in the "nofap-game" for almost 4 years now and as discouraging as it might sound, even tho I kept searching and used all the strategies I could get my hands on, my longest streak has been for 72 days only.

What maybe sounds encouraging tho is that within these 4 years, I also managed to stay away from video game addiction for way longer periods of time, 5 months in a row has been my best, till corona came and brought a ton of excuses to get some entertainment.

I also managed to take only ice cold showers for 6 1/2 months in a row, where I've even taken multiple of those at some days (little sidenote, after that time, a warm shower does feel very weird and unrewarding, im not kidding ).

4 years of constant nofap experience does teach a lot, after that time, I must be an idiot to not realize that there are patterns that lead to relapses and how big of an issue the PMO cycle is.

I've experienced these happy moments where I felt like the biggest gorilla in the jungle cause random girls started looking at me and giving me smiles even tho I actually look like a chimp on drugs. These moments where you enter a room full of strangers and you dont give a damn, simply taking your space and chill with them.

And I, ofc, experienced these rather unhappy moments, where you start shivering cause the internet thought it would be funny to throw adds of dessous models at you and the adblock doing a horrible job, going literally nuts and crazy while the clothes getting wet from the swet, trying everything to escape from the urge for hours. The nights where you dream of searching for p-content which doesnt only sound crazy but also drives you crazy.
And ofc these awesome moments where you relapse after a 1month+ streak and right the moment where you feel the energy driving down, as if your "energy system" shuts down, you know, you lost so much and got just so very little in return, feeling like the biggest idiot and loser ever.

I tried the common "urge killers" that most are fimiliar with on the forum, taking ice cold showers, lifting weights, going outside etc. that all failed at certain points, and I also tried rather effective strategies like NLP (neuro-linguistic-programming), meditating the urge (it's when you have the urge but all you do is to focus on your body, whats happening and accepting the urge instead of pushing it away), coming up with strategies that keep me busy and many other things as well.
And I can tell, these rather effective strategies all work wonderfully, like pure magic...if you then actually do them properly in the right situations.

So if I think about it, other people went for 100+ days 1st try without all these strategies, I tried so many times, so many relapses, used so many strategies and 72 is the best I got...believing in ongoing change becomes a harder task than taking ice cold showers only for 7 months straight, I can tell.

Maybe I wont hit 90 days in my lifetime but I thought, at least I can share some advice from my 4 years of experience.

So yeah, here I am ^_^

cheers

 

you would be surprised how easy those very long streaks are and how difficult those short streaks are...I mean, they are short for a reason

 

Sometimes I am really curious if fixing PMO is the actual goal here instead of having full control of the own mind and the decisions we make and follow.
I mean, there is a reason why we fail over and over again.

 

Thanks for your reply

I dont care too much about the day counter, except the fact that I never passed that magical 90 days, even tho I know, I probably will need a way longer recovery in order to heal my monkey brain.

But I am also a big believer that what ever is measured, will be achieved.