My return

There is not a "point of no return."

It is never too late to better yourself.

This is a process of failing and returning, over and over again.

That cycle may happen until you've learned enough to no longer fail.

I say this simply to give you a more realistic and hopeful perspective.

The tracker problem is known, and it frustrates many of us.

You'll find a thread in the forum "NoFap Feedback."

It's entitled "My PMO Tracker Disappeared."

You can see what is going on with the counters there.

You may get some ideas about putting the counter into perspective also.

I would recommend that until we get better a better counter program, you create your own way of tracking progress.

I have an Excel spreadsheet for that. This is something with which you can be creative.

 

They say that you should overcome an addiction for yourself, first and foremost.

That is right.

However, I would also say that doing this for another person and your relationship is also a good reason.

The significance of your girlfriend in your life could give you much added motivation.

It is easy for us to do ourselves damage and to be disappointed in ourselves.

To deal with that, we can always escape deeper into PMO.

That is the crazy cycle we ride.

Letting down another person is much more painful, and we will be all the more motivated to change to not suffer that.

When you love someone, that person is most important in your life, and one would do anything for her.

This includes all of the sweet romantic things, and for you, one of the greatest things you can do now is overcome this addiction.

You already know that sneaking around at night to watch porn is addictive behavior.

Porn is not worth putting your relationship at risk or losing sleep.

Sleep deprivation is misery.

People in relationships should be entirely open about sharing all aspects of their lives, both good and bad.

That is intimacy.

I, however, don't think it is necessary that you confess your porn habit to your girlfriend.

That may only cause unnecessary confusion.

She probably does suspect that you look at porn because so many, perhaps most, young guys do that.

I've heard young women say they assume their boyfriends do.

Leave it at that.

This PMO addiction need never become an issue if you work to move beyond it as soon as possible.

Then, it will be something in your past, and it will not be relevant for your future.

Complete your 90 days, make porn a non-issue, and forget about all this.

 

Sex dreams haven't given me a compulsion to wake up and boot up for porn.

Yesterday morning shortly before my alarm was to go off, I did have a sex dream about fooling around with a Playboy playmate.

Then, "Bang!" I had an intense wet dream.

I was half-awake, and I felt it.

Wet dreams don't happen much at my age of 44.

(I am at the age where my sexual peak is decades behind me.)

(This is depressing because I never used my sexual energies for anything other than PMO.)

(Those years cannot be reclaimed for anything better, if that were even possible for a younger me.)

(I, however, am glad to be getting older. As I age more, the sexual desires that drive me into PMO will soon dry up completely.)

(That will be the greatest relief.)

(This is a young man's game, and men in their 40's and 50's who are trying to prolong their sexual activity look absolutely ridiculous.)

(I have the right to say that because I am in that category.)

(Still, I have a PMO problem, and I am here not only for myself, but especially for the younger men who struggle more.)

I digress. . . . . . Back to the topic of sleep and wet dreams . . . .

Many guys on these forums have anxieties about wet dreams, but I take them as blessings.

The body is naturally taking care of itself. It does what it needs, and doesn't demand any manual servicing.

Today, after that nocturnal discharge yesterday, I feel no urges, and my body should be at some ease for a few days.

The problem, however, is that so much of porn addiction is psychological; it's in the brain, not in the balls.

At least, a wet dream does give physical relief.

Sleep generally calms my urges. After a good night's sleep, my urges are gone with the new day. I take sleep as a cure.

There have been nights when I could not fall asleep because I was fantasizing about sex and porn and liking it too much to even want to sleep.

I had a few nights like that last year around Christmas time.

One of them may have been Christmas night, and my obsessions compelled me to get up to rediscover one of my old favorites.

(The connection was that she had done a shoot in a Santa suit.)

(You will see mention of my favorite porn star in some of my posts.)

(That one in particular has been an obsession over the past year.)

With these exceptions, urges for PMO do not regularly disturb my sleep.

Often, however, at times during the day, the urges have become so strong and overwhelming that I can't think of anything else.

I can't work or do anything normal and productive.

Going off to look at porn and masturbate to get it "out of your system" does appear as a reasonable solution at those times.

Then, after you've done it, you won't be thinking about PMO so much, and can get back on track with other things.

That may be even with how disgusted you will feel about yourself.

This seems to be what you are doing at night to get to sleep, and I've done it many times like this during the day.

Those urges can be maddening, and I'm not sure what to do about them, apart from indulging with consequences.

A common piece of advice given in NoFap is to keep busy.

That may not help you because you can't keep busy when you are in bed trying to sleep.

Keeping busy doesn't always help me either.

Sometimes, activity just seems to aggravate the urges.

I am on Day 11 after I broke a 33 day streak with a relapse for my "favorite" mentioned above.

That happened after I did part of my evening workout.

All through the workout, even while I was running, the urges were getting stronger, and my intentions were moving closer to a PMO fall.

The more active I was, the stronger the urges became.

I was, after all, focusing on my body with exercise.

Being completely passive may be the solution when strong urges rise up.

Just sit and do nothing.

Don't think that you must be doing something.

Then, one would not feel as if he must get PMO out of the way, so that he can move onto something else.

There is nothing else one should be doing. There is nothing to do next.

This is difficult for me because I feel like I always must be productive, especially if it is exercising or doing something to improve myself.

Perhaps, I must realize that my only purpose at the time is to sit and face down the urges.

I will accept that I am horny, sit with the urges, and focus all of my attention on doing nothing--nothing about the urges and everything else.

That may be a strategy for you in the middle of the night when the sex dreams wake you up.

Being entirely passive in bed would be fairly easy. There's not much to do in the middle of the night. So, just lie there.

While I sit in my chair with the urges and do nothing, you can't lie with the urges and not think that you must be sleeping.

You will have no need to orgasm to get back to sleep because you will have abandoned your plan to sleep.

If we are to overcome this addiction, doing so must be our #1 priority over everything else.

That is what makes all of this so damn difficult.

 

(Commenting on the original post)

I don't know how old you are but I'm 27. I first discovered internet P when I was 10. I can't tell you exactly when I started PMO but it was in my preteens sometime. So 17 years later pretty much a daily thing, sometimes 3-4 in a day. Be staying at a buddy's house? Hey I gotta go hit the John I'll be back. So I'm pretty sure I fit the bill for addict.

I am currently on day 9 and that's coming to an end. I have PIED, I'd say DE considering I haven't Oed with a girl in a long time.

What I'm saying is it's never to late as stated before. You can change this you just have to have the will and want t change. I'd say what really made me want to change was the girl I love (before I explained what is happening with me) thought it was her, that she isn't sexy or pretty. Then when we got in a fight she threw it in my face and said "if you loved me you would of been able to, you can go sleep with wh**** but not the one you love?"

I've had girls say things like that before like "what are you gat?" Which is whatever but it really hurt when she thought it was hurt fault or I didn't love her because I couldn't rise to the occasion.

Find something you that you want and you have to work for it. Life isn't handed to you otherwise it wouldn't be worth it. I work hard for my great job, cars, boats ect. I could just be lazy and say it's to hard and go flip burgers. Which speaking of that are you the kind of guy who says "I'm content working at *insert fast food*" or do you want to have the ethic to prove you can work hard and get what you want?