Six years since I started my reboot, a path to freedom

Hi friends:
On May 12, 2015, I discovered that I was addicted to PMO and began my journey of rehabilitation from this horrible addiction.
A week later I discovered NoFap and this was my first post:

" I have been fapping since 12 years old, way before Internet was created. I started fapping looking Playboy and Playgirl magazines, later going to xxx movie theaters.
Years later VHS made porn a bit easier, although you still needed to go to porn shops to buy it.
Internet made everything much easier, and without noticing Inbecame addicted to porn.
I am married for 26 years and have two sons (24 and 20), they know nothing, but slowly I lost interest in having sex with my wife and we have started being more and more apart.
when I have sex with her I pretend I am horny, but I am fantasizing about porn instead of thinking that I am with her.
I started being careless. I paid a subscription to a porn site with my credit card two weeks ago and one of my sons realized. He thought it was a credit card fraud ( or at least he pretended)
Some times I am in my office, there is people in other offices next to me and I cannot avoid jacking off watching porn. Sooner or later I can be discovered doing this, and I am the boss, so it will be very embarrassing and can jeopardize my job.
Lately I am even fapping in my bed with my wife sleeping next to me.
I never thought this was an addiction until one week ago when I found a TED talks show in YouTube from Glasgow, with a guy talking about porn addiction. I did a test I found online to see how big was my addiction and I got the maximum score.
This is when I read about NoFap, and I saw videos of some guys telling their story.
I deleted all the porn movies I had in my notebook ( I have been saving those for years) and will throw all the porn DVD's ( which I do not watch lately anyway).
I am scared. I have been watching porn for the last 38 years, and I know it will not be easy.
I am tempted all the time, amused to fap twice or three times a day, it was so much part of my daily routine that I need to change my habits now dramatically.
I used to wish my wife to go out with friends so I could be alone and fap.
Some times I got back to my house during the day ( my office is right around the corner) just to watch porn and fap.
Any tips for the first few days?
I am scared"

Six years have passed. I am a different person than when I started this path. Many things happened to me, my relationship with my wife did not fully recover (although we are still together), I told my children my story, etc.
A few months later we created ta forum in Spanish with @galaxim, which is the pride of NoFap and the longest thread on the site, something that we would never have imagined at that time.

8 months after starting my reboot, the fog lifted in my brain and I remembered that I had been sexually abused when I was 10 years old in the school bathroom by older boys. I understood that this had been the beginning of my addiction, my brain tried to forget what happened by hiding it in a world of erotic fantasies.

Many things happened to me: I was clean over three years and a few days, without PMO or MO. Then I relapsed a few times, but I always decided to get up, not fall into the victim role, and follow my path of maintaining myself as a dignified and honorable person, avoiding falling into a sea of PMO, male escorts and one-night stands as I had. done hundreds of times in my previous life as an addict.

i do not come to NoFap so often lately, after visiting it every day for 4 years. I decided I need to start putting some distance with my past, but it is always refreshing to come back once in a while, see some old friends, read some posts and remind myself of the life I once had as a miserable addicted guy to PMO.
My life is not perfect, but it is much better than it was 6 years ago. It is hard some days, easier others, but it is worth it friends.
Let the fight continue
Fercho

 

@Mr Anderson , I used to watch P 3-5 times per day, I also hooked up with hundred of guys , having sex in sordid places like two hours motels (very dangerous places also). Besides, I paid almost 100 escorts to have sex with them, wasting a lot of money with them and in paid P sites.
My self esteem was super low, I felt like shit, a man with no honor nor status.
This was "behind closed doors". On the surface I was a super succesful professional and pretended to have a perfect family.
It was all lies.
My fetishes were usually sweaty muscular guys, being dominated and humiliated by them (I realized this came form this three guys dominating and humiliating me in that school).
Yes, urges start being less strong after a while, and the Mezmerizing fantasies and sex dreams start disappearing.
I cannot believe the amount of time I spent watching that shit. I see them now as something so irreal and ridiculous.
But I will not lie: I still have some urges, sometimes my mind tries to day dream about some guy i like on the street.
I force myself to center in the reality, instead of building in my mind an irreal story. I use meditation, Tai Chi, going to the gym, all this to release all the pent up stress that I feel inside my body
Hope this helps
Fercho

 

@MeTP , actualmente I was kidding myself when I was convinced that PMO was helpful to distress myself and get problems out of my mind
It was the opposite because I got more depressed and got into a vicious circle of more fap and more escorts
Yes, meditation, Tai Chi, going to the gym to do 60’ bicycle, hitting a punching ball during 3 minutes while shouting, walking after dinner, doing some biceps exercise with an extension cords. All these are great tricks to distress when I feel too stressed and urges start to pop up in my mind

 

@I am ready
It is a big step if you can understand what is triggering your urges, because this will allow you to be awake and kill those urges as soon as they appear.

I recommend you to create your own "Emergency Toolbox" with readings that can be handy to read when you start feeling urges to screw up.
I can share this post with you with my own Emergency Toolbox, it helped me a lot during the first few months, i had them in my cell and read them every time I started falling down:

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?t...out-of-the-autopilot-when-i-get-urges.264231/
I wrote some tips in this post that perhaps will help you too:

http://NoFap.com/forum/index.php?threads/tips-that-helped-me-to-start-my-reboot.46617/#post-330318
You can watch some interesting videos which are also very helpful in this post:
http://nofap.com/forum/index.php?th...t-help-me-a-lot-during-my-reboot.39774/page-2



Tips that helped me to start my reboot
Hi, welcome to NoFap. If you are reading in this forum probably you are starting your rebooting. Four months ago...


I also suggest you to read "Breaking the Cycle" by George Collins, it is a must-read if you are serious about getting rid of this addiction.
To get more focus and feel happier with life I recommend you to start doing meditation.. I have been using an App called Headspace for the last two months which is great if you have never meditated before. The first 10 sessions are free if you want to give a try. I used to feel a bit depressed or feeling without energy to start new projects in my life, and meditation has helped me a lot with this.

Last but not least, I would strongly recommend you to take new e-course that Mark Queppet launched in his new website, called: " REFORGED MAN: Quit porn and Master Yourself-Be a Man you Admire", it is the updated version of the e-course he used to have in NoFap Academy. It is not cheap ($200) but it is totally worth it because he gives great toold to fight PMO.You can find it here:
https://courses.universalman.com/courses/reforged-man
You can also join his website called Patreon, where he posts great stuff for free every week, and also you can join the pay area to be part of his weekly video calls where you can chat with them in real life, get coaching and listen to other guys's stories and problems too. You can find it here:
https://www.patreon.com/home
You can also use this Excel table to track your reboot. If you did not watch P or MO'd you leave it in 0 and it will show gree, if you did it you fill in in the column (PMO or MO) with the amount of times, if it was 1 it will show in yellow, 2 or more in red. In the left column you can add how strong the urges were each day.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/uvwg7ot0h69dcyu/Counter template.xlsx?dl=0




Counter template.xlsx
Shared with Dropbox





Counter template.xlsx
Shared with Dropbox


I hope that all this helps you to fight this shitty addiction.
Let's keep on fighting

Fercho

 

@Rexbrent , I do not know if I had brain changes, but for sure I was always feeling sad and with the sensation that a hand was always pressing my chest
All this has disappeared, I can feel happy for being alive and grateful with my life, I honor my status as a whole person and I am not wasting my time any more worshipping the body of athletic guys and dreaming on becoming like them

 

I consider myself a rehabilitated former P addict. I don’t believe that we will be 100% reboot or recovered, as many people like to say. For instance, six years after I started my reboot, I am in at three dates business trip this week and still I do not connect to the Internet in the hotel, and I try to spend as little time as possible in the room alone. Can you do understand that you need to change some of your behaviors forever, it’s not just temporary.
How long did I realize that my behavior pattern or my brain was changing? Probably after six months I realize I started having much more distance and I was not that fixed with PMO. After the first year you start putting distance between you and the cravings, he’s like they started to be less present? Month after month they are less and less important in your life
This is inside that you need to cite one day at a time, never take anything for granted. I hope this house and he doesn’t song to demoralizing

 

My pleasure @Ramski89