The Beginning of a Journey

Greetings fellow fapstronauts,

This might be a long post, but I feel that it's necessary for me to get this off my chest and hold myself accountable.

I'm going to start off with a small introduction. My name is Abhiroop Verma. I'm from India and I'm currently in my sophomore year in college in the USA.

I came across NoFap around two and a half months ago while I was back in India for my summer vacation. Before that I would binge on porn pretty much everyday. Usually, people utilize their summer vacations to discover new hobbies or be productive. For me it was quite the opposite. I would head out anywhere, be it grocery shopping with my mom, or a get together with friends, and I would constantly be thinking about the next porn scene I was gonna rub one off to when I would get back home. During freshman year of college, when people would go out and have fun on weekends, I would reject my friends invitations to come along and hang out with them, and I would just sit in my room and watch porn. Eventually, my friends stopped asking me altogether, which made me feel miserable. Watching too much porn lead to laziness and no productivity whatsoever. I would almost always submit my assignments after the deadlines, and studying for exams mostly comprised of last minute cramming. Another bad habit which I developed along the way was binge eating junk food. This affected me so badly that I gained 51 pounds during freshman year. According to my BMI, I had become obese. When I first arrived in the USA, I was lean and looked good. That changed drastically. All of these things negatively affected my confidence massively.

When I went back to India, the first goal on my mind was to start losing weight, which I did. But I still watched porn, and even after all I had been through during freshman year, I still couldn't see how badly porn was affecting me. When I would meet with my cousins, they would make fun of my weight, and this resulted in me having angry outbursts at them, because I had become really insecure. This continued until the middle of August, when one day after my mom and I had a long, thoughtful discussion about my future in the USA, I opened my laptop and started watching again (not masturbating, just watching). My mom walked into the room, and I quickly changed the tab I had opened. My mom looked at me, and I could tell that she knew what I was up to. I was hit with a tidal wave of guilt. I couldn't believe what I was doing. I started thinking to myself, "Am I actually that messed up, that I completely disregarded whatever advice my mom gave me, and got back to watching porn? Is this way the kind of impression I would want my mom to have of me?" It was at that moment I knew, something had to be done.

I immediately googled the benefits of quitting porn, and saw many articles highlighting benefits such as increased confidence, more productivity and so on. Everything started making sense now. I finally realized that all my problems I had in the past, be it the average grades, massive weight gain, little to no contact with girls, awkwardness around girls and in social situations in general, were all because of one single thing.

Porn.

It was at that moment that I decided to start abstaining from PMO and see what would happen. I was able to hold off for a week, but I gave into my urges again. Over the past two months, my longest streak has been two weeks during which I've had a slight hint of the benefits which I've read about. I was able to look people in the eye, and make some small talk. The most noticeable benefit would be the increased energy levels. I would go to the gym and smash my workouts (I've lost 33 pounds in the last 4 months, so that's one thing I definitely have going for me).

As I type this, I am starting fresh after a recent relapse. Today is officially day 1 of my goal to abstain until the New Year. I'm glad to have discovered this community, and really happy to see how others have changed their lives for the better, and that serves as added motivation for me to continue on with this achieve my goals.

I wish you all the very best in life.

~Abhiroop Verma

P.S I know this post is long, but I would love to hear people's opinions on this, and maybe provide some tips and pointers to prevent relapsing over and over again. Thanks so much.