Over a month sobriety - My Interview

Hello Community,

So after many failed attempts to complete a 30 day reboot, I finally managed to do it and I have to be honest here, it would not have been possible without the help of my higher power (Allah or God the Almighty) and the blessings of the month of Ramadan, for those of the peeps who do not know about Ramadan it is one month of fasting in Islamic calendar where you abstain from food, drink and sex from dawn to dusk.


So I decided to write my 30 days reboot experience in an interview format that may elaborate further about my overall experience:


Question: How long since you have been in recovery from masturbation and lust?

Answer: I am addict to lust, and masturbation for more than two decades of my life and I started my recovery 2 years and 2 months ago.

Question: What is your longest stretch of sobriety?

Answer: My current stretch is the longest one so far which is 31 days now.

Question: Was it easy to stay away from PMO for 31 days?

Answer: Absolutely not, it was really difficult and as I said above if it wasn’t due to constant surrender to my higher power (God almighty) and the fasting month I wouldn’t have been able to pass more than 2 weeks at max.

Question: How were your feelings during this 30 days reboot was it the same all along or different?

Answer: It was different, the first 3 weeks were very hard, I felt like I am white knuckling, specially in day#18 and 19 things got extremely worst I felt as if my brain is boiling for dopamine, and it really pushed me to my limits my brain craved for that high, but because the penalty of acting out in the fasting month was too severe (60 days of consecutive fasting if I had acted out for one day) so due to this severe penalty I would have thought 10 times before even I considered to act out, so that is why acting out was simply not an option so I had to shift my focus from sexual fantasy to the spiritual aspects of the fasting month and as it is rightly said that “where the focus goes energy flows” when I switched my focus from sexual fantasy to something else, I noticed the cravings reduced after that and things calmed down.


Question: Are you feeling any physical or psychological improvement being sober for 31 days now?

Answer: I might not be able to articulate the physical differences like others do here in NoFap community, but definitely on emotional and psychological grounds I feel a lot of differences now, I started loving life again, that suffocating feeling is not there anymore, the hope for a good life is creeping in my mind, I have more mental energy to do things. I smile more and talk more with people. These are just some of the differences that I can see for myself.

Question: How would you feel if ‘god forbidden’ you relapsed at this stage?

Answer: Honesty, I would feel terrible, I would feel very frustrated, but I would not have any other options but to accept that relapses are part of this rough road of recovery and there is no option but to continue and learn from relapse.

Question: Considering all the hard work required to obtain sobriety do you think it worth for someone to fight for his or her freedom from sexually addictive behaviors?

Answer: Absolutely yes, the joy that comes after being sober is far greater then 5 minutes of pleasure that we get while watching felt and jerking off.

Question: Do you consider your 31 days as mere white knuckling known as dry drunk or do you think it was a true emotional and organic sobriety?

Answer: White knuckling and mere counting days never work for me, we need to be honest with ourselves and we need to acknowledge that addiction has physically changed the structure of our brains. This addiction has modified the pleasure pathways in our brains, and any action that leads to acting out is the easiest and less resistant way to fire up those pleasure pathways in our brain. That is why recovery cannot come with mere abstinence and being dry drunk, true recovery only happens when we surrender and accept that we are powerless and when we acknowledge the fact that we can’t control this and when we take reasonability of our actions and change our life style. The bottom line is to surrender and stop all destructive behaviors and find healthier alternatives.

Question: Talking about changing life style and finding healthier alternatives, what is that one pivotal change that played a rule and helped you stay sober for more than 30 days?

Answer: I have been sincerely trying to quit this inappropriate behavior since last 2 years, but throughout this time I have always been struggling with surrendering and expressing my vulnerability to God. So lately, after attending couple of SA meetings I realized how important is the concept of surrender. So I constantly try to surrender to God , because I know that I won’t be able stop it. Secondly, as I said in my previous answer when we want to eliminate destructive behaviors we need to replace them with good ones, therefore with the help of my recovery community and accountability buddies, I decided to come up with a solid self-care ritual plan for each day. Then I got a paper calendar and hanged it on my wall and started tracking my progress every day, that way I was able to measure and track how consistent I was in building newer and healthier habits.


Question: How does life look now compared to a month ago when you were actively acting out ?

Answer: Life looks much different, I have more hope for my future, I want to look forward to getting married and being in a true relationship, I feel more connected with God, I feel more energy to do things.

Question: So with all the progress you have made so far, how does this road to recovery look like for you in the future?

Answer: Despite the very little progress that I have made, I never allow myself to even think that I have figured this out, the moment I allow myself to believe that I won against my inner addict that is the moment I will loose the battle. This addiction is nothing to be figured out rather it is something that needs to be surrendered constantly. In fact in my daily prayers and meditations I constantly need to surrender to God almighty. That moment when I become complacent I will get pulled by inner addict and might loose control. So the road ahead looks very rough and challenging, it will require me to man-up and understand that life is difficult and train myself to live the life on its terms. I also need to take care of my physical, spiritual and emotional well being through my daily self-care rituals. So as you can see this recovery thing is a full time job, and it requires a lot of effort but I know that it very well worth the effort so I am willing to take on this challenge with the willing of God almighty.

Question: Is there any last comment or suggestion that you want to share with the NoFap community?

Answer: I would like to quote a line from the famous book “12 stupid things that mess up recovery” authored by Dr. Allen Berger and Dr. Berger says “Addiction is a medical disease with a spiritual cure” I know that NoFap is a secular community and some members over here might not be religious, but talking for myself I very truly agree with Dr. Berger’s statement. The only cure for addiction is the spiritual one. In fact the whole concept of 12 steps program revolves around how to strengthen the spiritual foundations of the addicts. We all know that this addiction is an intimacy disorder and to recover from it we need real connections. Connection with our true selves, connection with God and connection with our fellow human being.


I hope these questions and answers help motivate rest of the guys going through this recovery and please keep me in your prayers.