65 days progress report

I just wanted to make a post to help me battle my addiction by hopefully helping others. Today I have 65 days of sobriety hard mode. I just wanted to share a few things why I think I have finally beaten this addiction for good. Just a little history on myself. I’ve been an addict for decades well before Internet porn. I have tried many times to quit just using willpower and my longest streak was 120+ days. I tried sexaholics anonymous
and the 12 step program and also just shear willpower. None of it worked for me. So I’m going to list out some things that are helping me and I am as confident as ever that I have this beat finally. So here is a list of things that I am doing and to be honest I’ve had a few times where I got tempted but I was able to dismiss the thought immediately and not come even close to relapsing.
* The one thing that I did is admit I have a problem that I can’t manage and that I am an addict.
* The first thing I did is quit watching television shows and movies. I discovered that I can create porn out of the most harmless tv shows and movies. I still go on YouTube but I only go to my subscription page. I don’t surf around on it looking for anything. My subscriptions are very harmless. I still watch sports and some harmless reality shows on discovery and Nat Geo channels but that’s it.
* The second thing I did was start reading on these forums and seek out success stories only because I wanted to learn from people who have long-term success. They have been doing something right to have that long-term success and I learned a ton of stuff from them.
* One of the things that I learned is that this is a dopamine addiction and it’s above the waist not below it. I learned also that you need to embrace the withdrawal symptoms and ride them out for a few weeks. After a while they become less powerful.
* another thing I learned early on is you can’t fantasize at all. It’s just like doing PMO. Anytime a sexual thought enters your head you have to get rid of it immediately and not engage it. Zero tolerance for fantasizing thoughts is an absolute must. As soon as you let those thoughts take hold it’s really tough to get out of them. Believe it or not sexual fantasies trigger a dopamine release and eventually you will relapse and masturbate again. Sexual thoughts are very dangerous.
* another thing I did was start writing a journal every day writing down stuff that triggers me and different things I’ve heard to help me. Believe it or not this really helps because you could go back and review it later and it also makes you very aware of what your triggers are. For instance if I had a stressful day and a shitty job to do and I came home I would use PMO to take away the stress but in reality it added to it.
* another thing I did was learn from a person with success that you have to study these forums and articles about beating this addiction every day. I usually do it first thing in the morning and in the evening after work. By studying you are keeping your awareness level very high and by doing that you are constantly aware of when you are being triggered.
* like I said I’m doing this hard mode and to be honest I want to stay hard mode for the rest of my life. I know this isn’t for everybody but I’m not married and I have no use for it anymore in my life. I learned a lot about the physical damage of daily PMO and what it does to your body physically and how harmful it is. These people out there saying that masturbation is harmless are totally full of it because I can already notice some physical things with my body that are much improved.
* i’ve also developed an attitude of watching porn and masturbating is not an option anymore at all. It is totally off the table. You have to have the mindset saying I’m not quitting PMO I QUIT PMO meaning your totally done.
* I learned a technique that when you were in public and see a beautiful woman that triggers you. First if you see that person no big deal but turn away immediately then the next thing you have to do is don’t look twice. If you do that it’ll be out of your head really quick. If you see something that triggers you you must immediately turn away and not look at it for any period of time at all.
* i’ve also embraced my Catholic faith again and it really helps especially praying.
* sometimes I act out because I’m just bored because I live alone and have a lot of free time. You just have to embrace the boredom. It’s OK to be bored.

This is just a few things I’m doing that are really working well for me and to be honest this is the best I have ever done as far as beating temptation. Good luck to everyone and in the next post on this thread I will be telling some of the things I noticed that our improvements in my life as a result of quitting PMO.

 

Now I want to write some of the things that I notice as far as changes in myself. First off to some people that think you’re going to get super powers from quitting I hate to disappoint you but I notice nothing like that. I just notice some positive changes in my life and how I feel about myself.
* I noticed that I can deal with life better and I’m not anxious about things anymore. If I do get anxious it feels normal but I can also brush it off a lot quicker. If I get in a stressful situation especially at work it doesn’t overwhelm me anymore and I can handle it better.
* I also don’t take things personally anymore if somebody gets under my skin. It’s really easy to brush things off and not let them bother me as much anymore.
* i’m also more confident in myself and I no longer feel that shame feeling anymore when I’m talking to anybody.
* I am more active and not as lethargic as I used to be. I get things done and don’t procrastinate. I found that keeping busy keeps my mind off my addiction.
* mentally I am really feeling good about myself and especially my religious life. I’m very diligent about praying anymore and I feel I get more out of it because anytime I was using PMO I felt like I couldn’t get close to God which is probably true.
* I also noticed that I don’t have bad eating habits anymore and I eat really healthy and have lost some weight.

these are just a few of the benefits that I notice and I will come here every so often and tell about some of my successes and stuff that I am doing to beat this habit once and for all. Good luck and Godspeed to everyone on here. You can do this.

 

Yes very true but you also find that you will do something to take away the boredom. I’ve also started reading a lot more than I used to. My house is cleaner and projects I’ve been putting off are getting done. I’ve done this so many times that I’ve learned with my mistakes were in the past and why I relapsed and this time I am extremely confident in myself and I just have this feeling that I am done for good but I just can’t take it for granted. I know in my heart of hearts that I can’t masturbate or even tolerate looking at porn anymore. It’s just the attitude that I have taken on. This is a lifetime thing

 

LOL what’s a sex life? When I say hard mode I mean monk mode brother. I’m all in for celibacy. I’m long in the tooth and really have no need for sex in my life anymore. I am a bachelor and live alone and perfectly happy with it.

 

What is MW and NW? I don’t see these in the glossary of terms on this site.

 

I see, to answer your question yes both have returned

 

Two big words that are the foundation of my recovery. Discipline and awareness. Discipline means that I do my daily studying in this forum and other places and keep up on all of the tools that I am using to beat this addiction. Awareness is me being aware of what triggers me and doing what I need to do to stop it in its tracks.

 

One other thing that I am noticing is not with myself but with other people and how they look at me and treat me. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve shed the veil of shame but people are treating me with more respect and talking to me more. It’s a really nice change because I’ve gone through life feeling like I’m not getting treated right and it’s very nice to be able to converse with people for a change. One of the things I’m working on is how I treat people, my new thing is to be more kind to others and leave them with a pleasant experience after our encounter. This has taken a lot of stress out of my daily dealings with others. It’s been a very good change

 

Thanks brother, i’ve gotten so much help on these forums that I want to share what’s working for me with others and it helps me a lot to write this stuff here.

 

To be totally honest with everyone on my current journey with my mindset and the plan that I have outlined in previous posts I have really yet to have any close calls or any serious temptations overwhelm me yet. Yeah the first few weeks it was kind of tense and I was anxious a lot but still with the mindset that I have with zero tolerance it’s been fairly easy to fend off any close calls. My current mindset is I am done with PMO forever and I’ve actually brainwashed myself into rarely thinking about it like it doesn’t exist. This is where studying constantly, awareness and discipline have really come in to play. You just have to develop a whole new mindset for your life and know what your boundaries are. I’m not gloating or bragging I’m just telling you how I am doing this now. Another big part of my current journey is my relationship with God. I have totally renewed my Catholic faith and when I went into this I didn’t have that in mind it just came to be organically. I have prayed for years for God to help me get rid of this addiction and we expect our prayers to be answered the instant we pray them but maybe God wanted me to struggle with this and learn from it and now is my time. When I first started in the beginning of November it was kind of weird how it all went down. First off I wasn’t even thinking about my addiction, One day it just came to mind that it’s time to quit this for good. Then I started going to online/phone SA meetings and I talk to a guy after the meeting on the phone that I didn’t even know and he quickly found out that I was Catholic and he guided me to get back into my faith and back into practicing my faith, I only talk to him two or three times after that on the phone and he kind of disappeared on me but I am forever grateful to him for leading me back into my faith with God, it was the best thing somebody ever did for me. I will continue to write things that come to mind about my journey on this thread. Good luck brothers and sisters.

 

Another angle to look at when you are seeing the damages of being addicted to PMO is what daily and constant masturbation does to your body. There was a thread on here that I have that I’m sure a lot of you know about done by a Chinese guy named soaring eagle. He lists out all the damages that masturbation does to you physically and mentally. The physical damages are stuff you never even think about. He is very big on Chinese traditional medicine and they really have insight to what masturbation does physically to your body. Stuff you don’t even think about. He goes over how constant masturbation is connected to PIED, prostrate problems with constant urination. He points out many other physical problems with it as well. I will post a link to the thread at the bottom. It’s very interesting and it makes you realize the damage you’ve been doing to yourself not only mentally but physically. He even points out what it does to your appearance. It’s something else to think about. It really motivates me when I read the damage is done to your kidneys and other internal organs because of constant masturbation. Our society teaches that it’s OK to do masturbation every day and it’s normal. He made me realize that it’s not normal and very damaging especially to your kidneys. It’s one of the reasons I want to go total Monk mode and not even masturbate at all anymore. Just another thing to think about. The link is listed below. Just read through it it’s very long but boy does it have a lot of good material and I’ve used it quite a bit.

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/6-years-clean-rebooting-as-the-best-remedy.135983/

 

Just checking in. Everything is going great. Had a couple of times in the past day or so where old thoughts entered my head But my awareness level is so high right now that I was able to see what they were and rather than engage them I quickly dismiss them and they had no power over me. To me this is the biggest thing that I have incorporated into my reboot this time. It’s my awareness level and my dismissal of lustful thoughts and I’ve also stopped watching movies and TV shows that triggered me. I feel way more powerful this time and I am done with PMO forever. To accomplish all of this I’ll keep my awareness level high by coming here and other places online to study and learn and it helps keep my awareness high of what I should be watching for. Even if I don’t feel like doing it or feel lazy I keep at it every day. Good luck brothers.