Don't relapse guys. Please don't do it.

Right there with you. Vicious, self perpetuating spiral.

One step at a time, we both need to get enough sleep I'd wager.

Good luck to us both!

 

Well thank you for this insightful constructive post, sure is motivating and enlightening, hope you feel better and hey, why not get into lotus posture morning and night and meditate your way through the chaser effect? You may just pickup a meditation habit if you stick with it until your brain normalizes in a fortnight from the effects of the recent orgasm, http://www.reuniting.info/orgasms_hidden_cycle

 

Great words.

Yes, wish there was some way I could stop the urge too. It hurts so bad. I thought this was going to be easy, but giving up smoking was way easier than giving up this....but I and all of us will be ok in the end!

 

Getting back to normal life style after relapsing is very hard thing...I relapsed after 34 days streak and it took me a lot of effort and motivation to get back on track....am currently on my 22nd day...

 

I hope I don't relapses again. Do you know who is the most successful on this forum ?

 

stay strong

 

Anne is on a great steak, as is no brainier. I met my goal, but didn't really have a plan in place for afterwards. Now I'm experiencing pretty severe chaser effects, combined with extreme lethargy. Need to quit watching movies and get going again.

So this week is my last week of being idle, I'm going to get back into a good routine of discipline, maybe we can all commit to getting enough sleep and devoting a bit of time to meditation or prayer every day for at least the next month?

Anyhow, best of luck gents.

 

Sorry guys, but @Anne-Dauphine is in no "streak": she has just completely put porn behind her. If you want, you can take a look at a list of the "veterans" that I made in the past: http://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/selection-of-the-best-success-stories.23430/. Check William's link specially.

 

@ifthisislove: Travelling is a good way to adding a way days, but believe me as talk from experience, when you return the problem is still going to be there. You should expect that and write something about it NOW.
A letter to your future self, for example?

This is the letter that I wrote to myself:

Dear [your real name, but for clarity purposes, let's use "Galaxim"],

I'm the Galaxim from the day XX, the day when you last MO/PMO. Now, when you're reading this letter, mo seems like a good idea, right? Why don't you wait until tomorrow? What kind of man do you want to be?:
-always;
-never again.

Triggers
-I need to sleep.
-stress.
-loneliness, lack of woman.
-exhaustion.

Refutation for any of those triggers
MO doesn't solve any problems. On the contrary, it aggravates them.
Life goes on, with or without sex.
I'm going to feel much worse after the act.
When pictures/temptation/tiredness appear on my mind, I repeat outloud CUE (you can say "alert" or chose other word).
Don't stop forever, just until the next day.
0 tolerance = 100% happiness

Periods that I have to face: 3 days, 7 days, 2 months.

Why "never again"?
-I lose time.
-I lose freedom.
-I alter my perception of women.
-I become an accomplice of the prostitution industry.
-Because I become a COWARD.

I don't want to MO EVER AGAIN. "IT" wants to do it. Say no to the Beast (the idea of the "beast" is taken from http://www.rational.org/index.php?id=36)

Mistakes that lead to relapse
-stop taking cold showers when the situation becomes unbearable.
-"First Peek Mistake".
-Stop participating in NoFap.

Of course, you have to write a letter adresses to you, with the words that have meaning to you. For example, I write "COWARD" because that's something that really upsets me. You have to get angry with the idea of using again. You have to expect the pain, the suffering, and embrace it. There aren't any shortcuts if you're doing this right.

In conclusion, a trip is good, but write something NOW to prevent a relapse. Imagine the situation: how are you going to feel when you return? If, for example, the first thing that think you're going to do is turn on your device, you need to be prepared and turn it off in advance, with no excuses. "I just need to check my mails...". Identify each one of your triggers and write something to counter them. A last example: I saw that I relapsed when I felt really tired on certain days of the week. Then I asked myself "why am I feeling so tired those days?". And I discovered that some activities had to go. I'm not into music, but let's say that you go to piano classes and guitar classes. They're both good, of course. But if you feel that after both of them you feel completely exhausted and then you relapse, you have to drop one of the activities. Remember HALT (http://www.chinnstreetcounseling.com/zomerland/zomerland_11.shtml), hungry angry lonely tired.
We need to do both internal and external changes on our lives, constantly.

Galaxim.

 

One more: have your considered buying "The Porn Trap" http://amzn.to/1QS9l6g? Maybe you can read it on your way to Germany. If you can't buy it, send me a PM.

 

dont be so harsh to yourself for relapsing guys.

Most people here are PMO addicts because of lack of sex and social life.
Relapsing wont change that. PMO is the symptom not the root cause.

Nofap wont fix your life. Some people still dont get it.
Doesnt mean you should PMO like a maniac. Nofap will help you get out of these 4 Walls.

 

Totally right about AD, pardon my diminishment of her accomplishments, and thanks for the link!

 

You should try to hold on to NoFap as long as possible. But you can also learn something from relapse. I do count my relapse as counted days. I learned so much. I've been doing this for around 64 days total and I relapsed at least 5 times. However, I am getting stronger everyday. When you do relapse, tell yourself that it is ok and the upcoming goal will be easier to reach. I went from 3 days of relapse, to 7 days, to 13, then to 21, then to 26 days. This time I will try to get 35. then 60 then 90, then 120. It is HARD. but you can learn value lessons while you go through it. Things like, how to talk to women, taking risks in social situations and getting over that social fear, getting more energy. I would say relapsing is part of the process. Feeling guilt and shame after a relapse is normal and that's how you should feel. Because if you didn't feel guild and shame after you relapsed, then you're totally emotionless.lol but that's it, try to get as much NoFap days as possible but don't be too hard on yourselves. Oh, and if you are tempted to relapse...DO NOT WATCH PORN or fantasize. Just focus on the feeling, because that would be PMO if you did fantasize or watch porn. When you fantasize, you will do the same in social situations,when there's women around...you will look at them sexually...so try to avoid porn and fantasizing, even if you do relapse.

 

It's funny that you say that. I quit PMO cold turkey, without even thinking that much about it, and I swear to God before my eyes that I will never relapse, but it took me two years of intense and desperate trying to finally be able to quit smoking. I'm clean since April 19th. I can't even believe I used to smoke, and it's the same for PMO. It's so stupid. Addiction is stupid easy, and quitting is stupid straight-forward. It's just a matter of a second plus a second equals two seconds since I quit. It's just time. It's just waiting, and doing stuff while you wait so you don't get bored and focused on the thing. I wish you not good luck, but good strength, because you need it more!

 

Hi Ando!! I'd rather say that it's quite simple to understand, but incredible difficult to put into practice and sustain it through time. At the beginning you experience all the withdrawal symptoms, nervousness, emptiness, restlessness and all the other ...ness that you can think about. But then, after a long period, we (at least, I) tend to lose focus on WHY we were doing this in the first place.

I wanted to quote from the book "The Porn Trap" (http://amzn.to/1QS9l6g)

"The factors that influence the type of relationship we have with porn fall into two main categories.

There are inhibiting factors that discourage our involvement in porn. They cool off and diminish passion for porn.

Then there are accelerating factors that encourage use and pull us deeper into the porn trap. Accelerating factors heat up and expand our interest in it.

At any given time both accelerators and inhibitors are influencing us, pulling us toward and pushing us away from a porn relationship at the same time. The critical issue is identifying the factors that are strongest
in your own life and exert the most influence over you. When your inhibitors are strong and plentiful they can tip the scale so that you have the strength to move away from porn over time. When your accelerators
outweigh your inhibitors, on the other hand, you are more prone to stay involved with porn and get sucked in deeper".

As I see it, there's a limit for how much you can change when your external conditions are the same. That is, the most imporant part is the inner self, the conviction to not doing it EVER AGAIN, but I don't know how much can you resist we the same external circumstances stay as they were when you just began this journey. Using the vocabulary from the book, let's say that you were clean for one year and then entered into a personal relatioship with another person [inhibiting factor]: your chances of being away for good are increased. Now, let's say that you have stayed clean for a year, but then you lose your job and your wife: two accelerating factors. In theory, yes, one should be above all those things and NEVER do it again. In practice, though, I haven't quite manage to do it yet. For example, I was taking too many language classes, which caused burning out, which caused in the end to relapse again. My solution, besides the classical approach (the routine, the books, the showers...) was to cut down that stress factor, outside myself.

Galaxim