What I feel after 9 months clean

Yesterday I celebrated my 9th month PMO clean.

Big number, I could have had a baby during this period of time
May 12th. Is the day I will celebrate in 3 months my "new birthday", as the day that I was born again, after 35 years of porn addiction.
I've written in past post about my story and how I got to that day so desesperate and depressed, feeling I was in a dark tunnel with no light at the end. I put my self in the risk of losing my wife and my kids, and I could not stop doing something that was harming me, depressing me and destroying me.
9 months is enough time to put distance to who I was then, look at the " old Fercho" with other eyes, and understand how much I changed during these period.
I used to seek refuge in PMO from the daily stress, and from every situation of discomfort in my life. Every time I felt sad or suffocated by a problem, I used to seek the "charming feeling of paradise" that PMO provide us ( for 5 minutes , afterwards I felt even more dad and depressed).
This is the biggest change that I can see after 9 months.
These last few weeks I had a lot of trouble at work, projects being cancelled or going South. Besides, my wife has been some weeks very aggressive with me , as a result of the injuries I caused her by revealing my addiction).
In spite of this,I managed to stay clean. I will not say I did not had some urges, or I have not been tempted by looking to some hot guy in the street and started fantasizing. My fantasies have always been bisexual, and I trend to idolize other guys as heroes when I feel weak or when my self-esteem is low.
But now is different. My immediate reflex is to think: I am weak, this guy looks strong and confident, how great would be to build a fantasy inside my brain and fap thinking on having sex its him or even looking to some good porn, like in the good old days.
This lasts a few seconds. I have trained myself to be very aware and alert, to recognize when all this delusional thoughts start building inside my brain, and stop it immediately.
I' ve learned how to "shift the focus" of my attention to something else, like " changing to another channel".
I' ve learned that no delusional fantasy, not porn movie, nothing removes me from the daily stress and problems. It makes me forget for a couple of minutes, but nothing else. They are not easy or mental solutions for dally problems, and the more we try to hide them with PMO, the less ability we have left to work in our real problems and tr to solve them.
I would not lie: is not so easy. It takes time, and some of this behaviors are so automatically rooted in my brain that it takes some times several minutes to realize.
Last week I was during 15' minutes watching a stupid movie on TV, until I realized I was just watching it because the actor was very hot, and was playing the hero that can solve every problem.
I changed immediately to another channel, and the foggy brain was gone.
I can also think now about the nasty things I did during these years, like being with so many guys, hiring so many escorts, watching hours and hours of porn, fapping in bed with my wife sleeping next to me, or at the office with co workers in rooms next to me. So many stupid and risky things, so much money and time wasted. So many hours I could have spent with my kids and my wife, instead of enjoying my hand as my dearest lover.
Anyway, as some guys in this site told me, I need to look forward, never look back.
I want to tell you guys that this fight is worth it. We feel miserable, we feel depressed. Many days we think we cannot stand it anymore, we feel weak, we feel losers.
But do not give up. The reward is much greater than any pain or discomfort we are experiencing.
I feel alive as I have not felt for years. I used to feel a big press on my chest all the time. I used to get up in the middle of the night crying, sad, depressed.
The best way to get rid of the urges today is just to remember how shitty I used to feel. How much I have to lose if I got back just once to PMO. This 5' pleasure is not worth it.
I want to write my 10th post in a month. I do not want to right my " relapse post " never again.
Keep on fighting
Fercho

 

Thank you very much @YogiBlues
I wish you good luck in your reboot
Fercho

 

Thank hoy @ad_nex !
I am glad that my post was useful

 

Hi @programer
Thank you very much for your post. I feel your pain, and I can imagine how bad it feels.
Actually this is now my main goal: to avoid become complacent and believe that PMO is part of the past and that will never get back.
I discussed this with Mark and @alexander on the video call of NoFap Academy this last Wednesday. I know that some Fapstronauts relapsed after so many months and this scares the shit out of me.
How are you feeling after the relapse? Do you feel that you are in Base 1? Or you think that in spite of the hiccup you are a different guy than 10 months ago, and you managed to recover much faster and get back to track?
Thank you for your input
Fercho

 

Hi @jad848484
Exactly, discomfort and stress are the things that automatically trigger my urge to Fap or get back to escorts (porn is not something that I am craving any longer).
As soon as I have an argument with my wife, or some big problem at work, without even thinking I start having fantasies or desire to get back to this shit.
It is amazing how our brain wants to lead us to do things that harms us in a bad way.
Hopefully with time we will be able to heal and rewiring with some better patterns of behavour
Keep on fighting
Fercho

 

Hi @programer
I understand your feelings.
When we started reboot we thought that solving our PMO addiction would automatically solve every other problem that we had . Obviously this is not the case, PMO is our "response" to distress and not the "cause".
In my case, I started fapping fantasizing with guys when I was at elementary school and I was bullied and sexually abused by some class mates.
The only way I found to cope with this pain and stress was through fapping.
The rest of my life I've used fapping ( and later porn and escorts) as a way to cope with stress, pain and discomfort.
I changed this automatic response since I started rebooting, although the problems are there and my brain every other day still tries for a couple of minutes to trick me and try to lead me again to PMO.
We need to endure the pain and learn to face it in some other ways that are less destructive for our self-esteem, otherwise we are in this vicious circle: we feel depressed, we fap, and we feel more depressed later, so we fap, and on, and on.
The bright part is that succeeding in doing this makes me happy. Although the rest of the problems are out there, inside my chest I do not feel sad any longer.
Hope this make sense
Fercho

 

Hi @goodguy12
I told my wife in week 3 and it was key for my recovery. I could not have succeed without speaking out, it took out a lot of sadness and pain from inside.
Of course it had some collateral damage: my wife was very hurt during several months, although she supported she felt kind of betrayed.
But I explained her that this is an addiction, it was nothing I did on purpose, and I would have liked to understand earlier my problem to act on it.
I am not sure if we can do this without the support of our families, you will go through hard moments and you will probably change a lot, and they will be confused if they do not know what is happening inside you.
Keep on fighting
Fercho