35 and older accountability, Group 2

Congratulations!

 

Things are going well here, feeling deeper connection to my partner, learning how to be in my heart with her.
In kissing and holding her I am learning how to see her invisible soul instead of her body and recognize her divinity.
I am noticing how much better our sexual life and relationship because when i am aware of her soul.
Also learning to let sex come and go whenever not attached to it, and when it comes to embracing it.
Keeping the word of god during prayer and listening attitude and prayer helps during the day as well as during sexual reunions.

 

Checking in here.

Things could be better but I believe I can get through this if I can stay consistent. I've had a few binges with P subs and MO. I feel like I relapsed but I didn't look at P. Although in someways the P subs I've seen may be as bad or worse than P for me.

The MO with it isn't good. And I can tell the MO has affected me in a bad way. I'm feeling more depressed now and anxious. This is also mostly because of outside stresses but I believe the MO has affected my normal dopamine sources (it overloaded me with dopamine) and I believe the affect is now the opposite. It's some anxiety and depression and negative feelings.

I need to get through this. I've felt mostly very good all year (or at least no negative feelings like this) and I had no MO or O until June 1st. I do believe there is a connection. I don't believe that MO or O should cause this much negative feelings, although I think I over did it. And as I said there are outside factors affecting me also.

Strangely, it seems May was my best month all year. It was also my most eventful month. I know the things that lead me down a path to MO on June 1st. Some of them were unavoidable, but I hope to learn from it all and I hope I can continue with good progress from here.

I've been looking at this all in terms of dopamine for a while now. It seems most of this year I had a steady mostly healthy dopamine profile from a healthy routine. It did get altered starting in May and it has still remain altered. I'm trying to get back to my normal routine but some things have changed.

I'll continue to work on this and work through the changes. Thanks for reading and I encourage you to never give up in the recovery from this addiction. I'm very glad to have this group to write about it. It helps.

 

I have read the rules and would like to join this group

Background:
Just moved to a new country and feeling intense loneliness and isolation. I was addicted to porn for 20 years. Now, I'm forced to alter my lifestyle to deal with the loneliness.

Two days ago I:
- deleted Chrome browser, which I used for porn
- deleted all downloaded porn and videos
- deleted my video downloader software
- deleted all my offensive bookmarks
- deleted my Youtube account with its offensive playlists
- deleted the Instagram account where I was following skanks
- unfollowed any Facebook users that were simply attractive women that I don't personally

Currently on Day 2.

 

So happy for you. Thank you for sharing your hope. I also want to say thank you for staying in this group. In SAA and NoFap, it’s common for people who have success to leave, but when they leave, there is no one with success left to help them on the way and show us insane folks what sanity looks like.

 

Been in that place and I understand it. I used to be an everyday, 4+ hours a day. Now many times it’s once a week or less. I’m not where I want to be, but progress in here has meant so much progress in my life.

 

I’m proud of you. Keep being relentless on cutting out the major risks from your life.

 

These are great first steps!

 

Thank you for the kind words. I never dreamed in my life I would be addicted to anything. I was involved in PMO for over 25 years. I'm so thankful to be free from it. I am so thankful for this group and site. I plan to be a lifetime member.

 

Posted this earlier in another forum. Can anyone answer? Basically: what is psub? Thanks.

 

You are correct in your post.

 

Great. That’s what I thought. Thanks. This term is helpful. I was letting instagram lead me from video to video and realized, wait, this is what some of the users at nofap were talking about. It’s not porn but why am I still looking. And I know from before that this would lead to p and/or m in the past. It helped to have a name for it.

 

You are totally correct. I look at them as a gateway drug. I’ve seen many long streaks ruined that began by viewing psubs.

 

Checking in. Every time a sexual impulse arises I’m working on focusing on a high ideal instead of acting out, fantasizing etc. How much the mind wants to indulge!

 

Happy Sunday. I felt the need to check in. I didn’t realize the difficulty of making this commitment in the summer months. It must be every hour or more that something comes up where I have to catch myself and make an effort to relax and let go. It’s only Day 4 and the battle, to put off M especially, is a real struggle. As i write this, I’m realizing that I’m going to need to turn to prayer as well as efforts to redirect my attention to more productive things. I’m also finding that just being on my phone or spending too much screen time isn’t helpful. I hope you’re all faring well in your own personal battles.

 

Just keep planning your day to put you in good situations as much as possible.

 

One. Week. Today. No P or M.

I’m feeling much more capable of letting urges go, and I’m much more aware of what is a trigger. I do feel somewhat stronger and more confident, if only because I feel like I’m back in the driver seat. I’m thankful to the group for the help during my first week.

 

You are doing great. Keep it up!

 

I am going to reset my day counter after I make this post. I viewed content today that is just not acceptable and has crossed the line. I was once 15 months clean and stumbled upon P by accident. I allowed what I saw to stay on my mind for days. I went back to view and ended up in full relapse for years until I came to this site. With the help and grace of God, I am not going to allow that to happen this time. I am going to reset, start back over with all the tools I have accumulated on these 257 days, and move forward a stronger and wiser man.

My failure was definitively psub content. I was like the recovered alcoholic who thought he would go back to the liquor store just to browse the isles. From here on out, any intentional psub(or worse) viewing will be a reset. I have my eyes on 500+ days. When I get there I want it to be honest.

Today was just enough!
What more is there to see?
What good can come out of returning to what has been the plague of my life?

I seek your prayers and counsel and I move forward in the right direction. I will post later tonight in my personal journal with my plan for complete freedom if anyone would like to view it.

 

In my experience I have gone a year in the past without viewing content, yet I still started indulging again. This tells me that at an unconscious level whatever it is that drove me back is still lurking. I need to dive deeper!