Christmas Commitment

The obsession to look at porn and masturbate was maddening over my empty days around Christmas 2015. On Christmas Day of last year, I committed myself to stopping masturbation and looked forward to 2016 as a year without it. Masturbation has plagued my life since I was about fourteen years old, and now, I am forty-four. For over thirty years, I have been masturbating and have never, when I’ve wanted to stop this, found a way. It seems hopeless now that thirty years of my life have been blown. Seeing that there are many teenagers and young men on these forums working to better their lives by overcoming this addiction is excellent, and although I myself have failed, I still offer my strongest encouragement that they don’t arrive at my age with decades of regret behind them. Not even the extreme guilt from my ultra-strict religion could make me stop masturbating during my sexually charged teen years, and after I got over that, I just masturbated with impunity. The miserable feeling of depletion, however, has nonetheless always been the consequence of regular masturbation. Rarely did I have the courage to buy a pornographic magazine and face a cashier with my purchase. The internet and my first computer in the year 2000 made those inhibitions irrelevant with anonymous, easy-access porn. My problem has, consequently, become so many times worse. Hours of many days have been wasted. Never have I been able to justify porn and masturbation as somehow “good” or even neutral. I’ve just tried to live with the problem. The weekly and often daily cycle of building sexual urges, pulling up internet porn, indulging in masturbation, and feeling miserable afterwards has, however, become exhausting.

Marc Summers’ eBook 98 Ways to Stop Masturbating was a solution I found in an internet search on Christmas Day 2015, and this was a Christmas present I purchased, downloaded and gave to myself. (This is an excellent book, and I highly recommend it, albeit with reservations which have nothing to do with the product itself.) Repeatedly, however, I failed over the course of this year. The longest I’ve been able to go without masturbating was thirty days, and my masturbation record for 2016 shows binges, often going on over days, between my long and short times of abstinence. Last weekend was my most recent binge. I was lying on my mattress trying to sleep that Friday night. Fantasies about pictures of my favorite porn star kept me awake. (Strangely, that model holds my attention more than any of the thousands of others ever could, and I repeatedly search only for her pics. The fact that I am relatively “exclusive” in my porn viewing, however, does not make it “moral” in any way. My justifications never are valid.) Soon that night I was up, and my internet connection gave me fast access to some new sources of those pics and with predictable results and consequences. The next day, Saturday, was much the same, but with less resistance in the early evening.

This year, with all I had hoped for it, now seems wasted, and stopping masturbation seems impossible. At this point, I at least have eight days without PMO, but if I had held to my Christmas commitment, I would now have about two hundred and eighty. It is possible for me to live the rest of my life without porn and masturbation, but I have not fully committed myself to this. I have failed thus far this year because I have not fully dedicated myself to working the programs available to me and to receiving the support of NoFap. My justifications, excuses and general weakness have always ruled the day. Porn has always been there as an easy and quick escape from stress, loneliness, and despair. Living without the intense experiences of pornography and knowing that I must never have those again makes the days grind by slowly, but I also remember the low feelings that go on for days after a porn binge. The costs of that are far greater than the illusory benefits of whatever my addicted brain may say I’m missing. The true benefits of what I am feeling even now on day eight and the “superpowers” which I believe will indeed develop in time are to what I am committing myself. This isn’t about stopping something that is morally bad so as not to be condemned; it is about becoming a better and greater person. I am inspired by the many men on NoFap who report hundreds of days of success. The year for which I hoped is not over. There are 90 days left in the year 2016. This is precisely the amount of time estimated for a full reset. Living one-day-at-a-time with a full commitment to not masturbating each day is the only way to succeed. My user name is “DayOne44”; I am 44 years old, and every day must be Day One with a renewed commitment to NoFap. When I have gone these next 90 days without masturbating, I will have completed what I planned for 2016, and this will have been the year. My ultimate hope is to live the next thirty years, unlike the past thirty, with decency and dignity.

It is for these reasons that I am here.

 

Thank you @D . J .

Your comment is very encouraging.

Writing on this site is a good outlet for me, and I enjoy it.

Today, I am just "okay."

I do have reason to be hopeful about the future.

This afternoon, however, I was given reason for worry at work.

That is probably nothing--just a "tempest in a teapot," if anything at all.

This potential problem did make me think that there are bigger issues in my life than PMO.

Such thinking, I know, is dangerous, and it could be used to make excuses for giving up on NoFap.

I am not doing that, and I'll need to work doubly hard to keep everything going in the right directions.

Just finished my big Monday night laundry, and I'm feeling tired now.

It's getting to be time for bed.

Good Night.

 

It is Christmas Day 2020.

That's what's on the calendar, and while I know this is some kind of special day, it is quite ordinary for me.

At most, the fact they are calling today "Christmas" is just reason to not do my usual weekday work and to have a more leisurely day.

I will admit that yesterday evening, so-called "Christmas Eve," I was feeling sentimental and depressed.

No, I do not feel sorry for myself because I have not received a Christmas card.

There was just something in the air, perhaps only because of the music I was hearing on public radio.

Apart from all that, I have problems and worries which are far too great for me to think much more about a holiday.


The word "Christmas" today made me remember the first post I made on NoFap over four years ago.

That word is in the title.

Today, revisiting that and reactivating it at the front of the forums seemed relevant.

I read it again and vaguely remembered that Christmas of 2015, and everything I said about my "Christmas Commitment" is just as true today.

My struggle these past years has been one with much backsliding and the same defeating rationalizations and justifications I admitted four years ago.

Yet, again, I must commit myself.

PMO, as we know well, is depleting.

And, as I said, I am suffering problems, discomforts, insecurities, uncertainties, and fears greater than much else.

I am here because I know that I need the NoFap program to maximize my vitality and well-being so that I can get through this time and arrive at a much better place.

Maybe then, I will have a way and a reason to really celebrate Christmas.

 

@bama_lost

You sound a little pessimistic, discouraged, and doubtful in your post.

But, everything you have written is absolutely true.

You are confusing "commitment" with "success."

If you assume that committing to a goal means that you absolutely must succeed, then you would be discouraged.

Here on NoFap, we all want to stop PMO completely, and we are committed to that.

However, when you look at most guys' counters, the numbers are small, and many are set back to "0."

Yet, we are still committed, regardless of our failures.

Those who are not committed are those who either celebrate porn, or somehow rationalize PMO as being okay.

Over these past five years since my "Christmas Commitment," I have not been a shining success story.

Still, I have maintained my ideal of a life without PMO and repeatedly returned to NoFap.

The worst times in this struggle were those when I gave into my porn urges without even trying to resist.

This commitment will include many streaks and relapses, and as you'll see all through the forums, this does take "as many chances as we need."

That is why the whole idea of "relapses" is a problem here.

A "relapse" is seen as an exceptional event; success is assumed at the start of a NoFap commitment, and a "relapse" is taken as some terrible mistake.

Really, relapses are simply part of the process.

You should be skeptical of anyone who, in a great fit of enthusiasm, decides to instantaneously become perfect and stay that way.

Your style of not making grand gestures is good.

Grand gestures would only lead to disappointment in what should be a longer term process of struggle and learning.