Why do really advanced guys see a slip as devastating?

What’s the longest you have been free? You think after 500+ a PMO is harmless? I was free from MO for 1.7 year. Due to intense stress I MO (without P or lustful imagination) once just to release the stress I was under and couldn’t recover ever since. Been 6-7 years fighting to be free from MO (on and off). Currently on day 19.

Don’t underestimate the power of one PMO.

 

In that case it depends on what your goal / objective is. If for religious reason then it can be dangerous in that it can become a habit and cycle again.

I don’t have any sexual dysfunction and don’t see any harm in MO. But I’m aware of it’s addictive nature and also for religious reason it’s best to avoid it completely. You do have a point but always remember that things start out small and slowly build up into addiction.

 

I hope you're right skaterdrew. I've been masturbating to porn for over 30 years. Started with soft porn on cable stations after 10 pm, then VHS tapes of porn, then porn mags, and when it became available, porn on the internet. I've been doing this for over 30 years and I'm permanently rejecting porn. Having said that, I'm also a prostate cancer survivor with permanent ED from the surgery. I'm not going no PMO for ED; I'm doing it to have a healthy sex life with my SO. I don't know if after I've done this for many months or a year, how devastating a slip would be. I do know that I'm done with porn so that should make a slip less likely. I've taken steps to make sure porn is blocked from my life. After I have done this for months or a year, I am hoping not to slip back into my addiction by fapping without porn or having sex with my partner. For the sake of clarity, I'm 59 and my partner is 60 and menopausal. She has totally lost her libido. I am in an unusual predicament. I'm abstaining from masturbation and my partner and I won't be having sex for an indeterminate amount of time. Still, I'm done with porn. It's not very realistic and it causes men to treat women like objects. Plus, there's a lot of human trafficking involved in porn, I don't want to encourage that kind of environment.

 

I haven't had a streak longer than a year, but since januray or february of 2018 my streaks become longer, for instance of 1 or 2 months, my longest was of more than 110 days, my last one was of 46 days. And I don't know why, maybe because I see PMO as all my effort was put in the trash (as you say, one 5 min session is not compared to all the time healing, but it feels like that). I feel empty, sad and worthless, after doing it. Maybe it is because the way i see pmo, I feel it as the worst thing but that is antimasturbation (I didn't know that word until I read this), I am learning to forgive myself.

 

The addiction and PIED are two completely different animals and issues.

Some may "cure" their PIED - but if they truly feel they are addicted to porn, it's a lifetime effort, not something you can complete.

My porn addiction was a true compulsion (I never had PIED), it hurt myself and my wife and my was an unhealthy emotional coping technique. For me, removing porn from my life will hopefully be forever. A slipup is a relpase, something to learn from and move on, but this isn't something where in 2021 I just get to say "I made it a year, done". The process is not about enjoying sex more, it's about finding emotional connections, understanding myself, understanding my emotions so I can express them, learning better coping techniques and in the end, living a better life. For me it's quitting porn forever, and masturbation is a relapse for now until I'm able to talk it over with my therapist and wife and come up with a health reintroduction. Since I'm married I've never quit O - but only with my wife of course.

I guess it's the difference between someone who sees quitting porn as a quick ED fix or someone that sees porn as a symptom of a much larger and deeper problem. And if they relapse it's not the 5 minutes of porn that hurts them, it's the knowledge that they need to continue working and maybe got complacent and 100% don't want to fall back to where they were.

if you're more the first kind of person (get rid of ED, go back to porn) that's fine. But no need to look down upon those who are having a larger journey.

 

Think of it this way.

If an alcoholic has a beer, do you think they just shrug and go "oh well" or do you think they wake up the next day taking a serious look back on the choices they made and how they got to where their sobriety was broken?

The loss is not the sobriety, few addicts are perfectly sober forever, and anyone who takes it seriously (groups, therapy, more than just a website) will tell you the acting out itself isn't the biggest problem, it was the (probably) slow and gradual downward slide that lead there.

People who have been at this for years (I've spoken to people who have worked on sexual addiction issues for years) would say that acting out once means they may have been losing focus and concentration and becoming less mindful and aware for weeks, which is the real problem.

 

To be real, my first reaction is: "why judge those with long streaks. Is it jealousy, envy, contempt, or what? Do you feel inferior or threatened by those who have abstained longer than you? Why so critical, why the comparison? "

But then I realize my initial thoughts are dismissive and judgemental too. @skaterdrew you have value and perspective whether you're on day 1 or day 900. I appreciate your posts.

Like what has been said before, after long streaks our perspective and goals change. You can't just cure an addiction by abstaining alone. It becomes a lifestyle change. Most with long streaks are not doing it just to fix PIED, they want it ridden from thier lives FOREVER. Focusing on your junk and whether it gets up or not as your end goal is shallow and superficial. To focus solely on PIED is to focus on sex still, and there is no real brain change. Don't believe me, focus on sex daily and see how long your streak lasts.

We live in DENIAL, we kid ourselves and give importance to certain elements to keep the addiction alive. I read this same denial bleeding through in your comments. Rationalizing as one slip won't hurt you, "what damage does it really cause?" "PMOing for 5 minutes after 500+ days ...what damage do they think .. has actually caused them?"

This all sounds like justification for not actually quitting. No PMO is exactly that, NO, NONE, ZERO, ZILCH, ZIP, NADA. It is not mostly not, seldomly, once in awhile, occasionally or infrequently.

Here is why it's so devastating, we betray ourselves. It has little to do with doing a sex deed we've done thousands of times in our lives. It's about breaking a streak that we have only accomplished maybe once or twice in our entire life! As we become 100% honest with ourselves and quit trying to cheat, manipulate, or justify outcomes we begin to trust ourselves fully. Lying to ourselves, breaking resolve, owning our weakness is all painfully devestating.

We've all seen those on this forum who take reboots seriously and those who pretend. Being cured of PA is a lifestyle shift, not simply a box or number to check off. Relapses after long streaks suck!

Best of luck on your journey, I'm excited to read your perspective at day 365.

 

A couple of thoughts. Going off porn is not necessarily just about hopefully alleviating PIED or other symptoms. It is about getting free of the entire negativity of addiction. The lost time, the impact on relationships, the avoidance of other stuff in your life, including the depression, anxiety or boredom you may be using porn to try to escape from.

A single relapse after a long abstinence may not plunge you back into bad effects, such as PIED. I’m not knowledgeable in that. My experience has been, though, that it can very likely quickly lead to repeated use and return you to your former state of fully addictive behavior, or worse. I think that is what generally happens to alcoholics or drug addicts, although again I am no expert.

Another serious aspect is psychological. You can tell yourself “What the heck, it was one little slip,” but for me I would definitely feel, after making a commitment to myself to stay sober for good this time, a sense of failure. Another route is to suppress such feelings and simply revert to the state of thinking “What the heck, I’m not really going to get away from this, and it’s so much fun, and what’s the big deal anyway, etc., etc., etc.”

Recovery is the tough choice. After making a real commitment and following up with a lot of effort, including actually feeling you have sacrificed something that was a source of great pleasure to you, it’s a pretty big letdown to have a reversal.