The Lord of the Rings Challenge

496 days high king
562 days semen retention

 

Thank you man ! Let’s not make drama and despair, yes I slipped but let’s stay on track, I didn’t lose too much I hope.

 

Thank you for your supporting message!
let’s get back to it, and let’s keep accountable.
All the best.

 

Day 0,

I still have much to learn on this journey, key among those is dealing with burnout. I knew that after a while I was going to have a challenge and when I was faced with a choice I chose wrong last night. I am being kind to myself and am going to push forward with my head on high.

Thank you Fellowship!

 

Relapse

 

It looks like I am on day 16. Today is going to be a struggle, as last night my wife told me it was okay to m or watch psubs as long as it did not get in the way of our sex life. A little voice in my mind is telling me it's okay to m and maybe even watch porn gifs now. Ugh.

I think I need some brisk exercise before I get into the shower. I often lapse in the shower.

 

Day 23 - Hobbit

I moved desks at work. I felt more comfortable being away from my coworker. Yesterday was very busy at work, I was in meetings where I had to take a lot of notes and then present them later the same day. Both meetings went fine, it was just a lot of intense focus for a 4 hour period. I had dinner with a friend that I haven’t seen in over a month, we spent 3 hours talking in the restaurant. I actually told him about this challenge, since he struggles with PMO also. He seemed interested but also confused about why the challenge is Lord of the Rings themed lol. I had to renew my library books, so I did that before I met with my friend and got some reading in. The day was stressful, but the evening brought a lot of peace.

Several people are suggesting I read “Meditations”. I’ll look into it. I’m always hesitant about jumping into new (to me) philosophy stuff. I have my own beliefs about the world, and I doubt I will believe everything in this book. But that doesn’t mean there might not be some helpful stuff in there for me.

Hope everyone is doing well. Stay strong, peace and love.

 

I did a drum exercise-- and then I lapsed-- but only with m, not psubs, p, or fantasy, so this is progress for sure. I actually don't feel too badly about it.

 

Day 2

 

Not so much urges but memories coming back. I picked up a report today which I have to read on the environment. The last time I read this report , I ended up fishing rather than dealing with the climate change anxiety and the boredom that it triggered. That was 3 weeks ago approx, and so the brain remembered the last time I read this report and that I got some dopamine then by fishing. So the pressure to fish again arose.

This isn't a sexual urge per se, because if I was to consider M or dating, then the pressure & desire ebbs away and I don't need it anymore. The pressure is to just take a PEEK! The pressure is to fantasise, search for it, and get a dopamine hit. It is a mental pressure, like a recurring pressure point in my head, that feels like a demon on my shoulder saying " this isn't PMO, this is normal, have a look, everyone does this, you are not a prude are you?, are you really going to live the rest of your life denying yourself?, it's natural, everyone is doing it, go on, take a peek, its just a peek...."...

The point here is that if I was in a situation right now where real sex was possible, I wouldn't feel like it, nor do I desire to M, but the pressure & desire to take a peek is there and it is very persistent.

There is a sneaky deeply ingrained belief that instant gratification is an inherent right, natural, and this feeds the addicted mind. But clearly looking at it nothing in nature is like that. Any natural rewards are earned through effort. All easy fixes have a catch, and the catch for us is infernal long term suffering due to the loss of our very essence. I can only regain this essence by a complete 90 day detox of all trigger material, followed by a further 12-15 months of rewiring.

Another deeply ingrained belief is that this is not possible, but we have seen countless examples of it on this forum, last of whom was @archie.hill.

So I've decided to post here instead, and that has helped hugely, so thank you friend for reading this post and sharing this journey with me.

Lets stay the course friends, stick to reality, because that is where it is at, embrace the fear of death, cast aside the crutch of fishing, climb out of the pit, walk into the Light, and rise to become the men we were born to be

 

I'm a great fan of the LOTR movies (Sorry bibliophiles, I will try to read the books when I get the time ) Seems like an interesting challenge. I'm up for the challenge. I have been free of PMO for 11 days now. This is my 12th day.

I have always thought of the ring in LOTR as my bad habits and how I need to be strong to destroy the metaphorical ring. My favourite character from the movie is Samwise Gamgee. I get goosebumps thinking of that character While I have seen a lot of people on internet say "Everyone needs a friend like Samwise", I feel that everyone should aspire to be someone's Samwise which would in turn turn them into a Samwise who would help others. Hope we all could be Samwise The Brave

Wishing you guys the best. Persevere. You will be surprised by how strong you actually are.

 

day 64! still going

 

She is not angry at me because of P. She is angry simply because I have been spending a lot of time on my work, routine and workouts and not a lot of time with her or caring for her. So I just need to accept her emotions and try to prioritize her - the love of my life - a little more.

But thank you for the advice, I know it’s a lot for most women to realize that her man is always looking at other women and are pleasuring themselves. This sounds disguisting to me as well.

 

So true, gives me chills to think that our minds are playing such elaborated tricks with us...

 

Day 1 - Relapsed

Yeah so this one is pretty bad. I found out that my VR headset has a built in browser... you can probably assume what happened after that. This is quite impactful to my entire journey because now it's basically as if I don't have any blockers anymore. Obviously, I wouldn't relapse using the VR when I know people are home because I don't have the balls to risk that thankfully, but I'm home alone pretty frequently since everyone else goes out to work whilst I work from home (Usually someone is home by 3pm so I could just make sure I'm home as little as possible until 3pm everyday but I'm not sure if that's realistic for me, especially right now with my SAD). I'm genuinely not sure how impactful this new blocker workaround will be and honestly it's quite scary because I would frequently use the tactic of "I have an urge to look at something but I know that I can't look at it anyways since I have blockers" which would typically help quite a bit but now I simply can't do that. I have to truly face my urges instead of turning them away at the door.

This urge was actually genuinely completely manageable. Infact, I didn't have any physical symptoms going on it was all a mental battle this time. But, like the previous few relapses, I've just not been trying at all, I'd ward off the urge for a little bit but then I'd just suddenly give up out of nowhere. Still not sure what's happening there. Even when I'm telling myself "Jack, you can take a shower, play games, listen to music. Anything but this!" but even whilst I'm saying all of this, my body is just complying with my addiction and then once I've typed in that url it's too late. I honestly don't know if this is because of my SAD or if I'm just being really fucking lazy or if the laziness and "not trying" is due to the SAD or idk, I seriously don't know and it's frustrating me that I don't know what to do about this, because I don't think it's something as simple as "try harder".

The only thing I can think of is that it's the SAD but I also don't want to just use that as an excuse for my relapses. Because I've been sleeping through my alarms, not meditating, not going out as much, not working out, not showering everyday, not eating as much, procrastinating my studying until the last minute, spending a lot more time than usual procrastinating on YouTube and I was procrastinating my work too and so I finished my work literally on the final day of the deadline which has never happened before in my entire time working for the people I currently work for.

Sorry I'm just rambling at this point, things are just not going well for me lately. Honestly I'm hoping it's the SAD if anything because then it'll hopefully just pass as the winter ends and then I can start to get back on track.

 

Who cares what your wife says? If you know it's bad for you don't do it.

I think I will edit this a bit just to say that I was once in that same spot with an ex GF. I felt a lot of guilt about looking at porn and masturbating in a relationship and so I made that my motivation to quit. She ended up telling me one day that she didn't care and I eventually relapsed.

It would have been best if I just stuck to my guns, because look at me here now! In my case I've gotten past the point of ever being able to function normally with porn though, so it has to go regardless of whether I'm single or with someone.

 

Day 5

Feeling good. Last night I deadlifted 310 lbs. for the first time ever, I am very pleased about it. I feel better in general, too. More focused, less anxious, feel like I'm starting to actually abide by a regular schedule.

Today I have meditated and gotten some writing done. This afternoon I've been a bit lazier. I'm going to try to buckle down for at least another hour and get something done, or closer to done.

Things are about to get hectic for the next month or so. The only constructive path for me is to face tasks head on, nor procrastinate, fantasize, or worry.

Let's keep at it.

 

I discovered white list in my blocker, so now I can use this forum again in my PC
7 days already! I'm feeling fine, just need to get back to my normal sleeping schedule. I've reduced working out and cold showers, and this has helped me. I realised that sometimes they would only get me more stressed, and the benefits were diminished in those cases, so it's better not to do them when I'm feeling exhausted by the end of the day. Of course, I didn't cut it off completely, I've only reduced the frequency. Also, reading has helped me a lot in relaxing.
Tomorrow I'll get to Uruk hai again. Still corrupt, but at least a bit stronger.

 

Day 0 again.

 

481 days