On how my routines become my friends

Hey everybody!

I'm new here, 30yo, male, from central Europe, on day 15 of my 28 day challenge.

Before I am going to talk about how routine and habit help me to get through this, I want to state something important.

I am not satisfied.

I am not satisfied with something external having power over me. Something which was made and meant to be pleasure and natural fun in the first place, but evolves to a serious threat for mental health due to various circumstances (high-speed and high-intensity exposure to primal triggers of biochemical mechanisms).
I strongly believe in the theses provided by Zimbardo et al. (great source of knowledge is yourbrainonporn.com) since the effects described fit perfectly on what I have been experiencing for many years. Also, I think my depression and various other issues in this area might be caused by PMO addiction.
I am not satisfied by living a life which is full of regret, anxiety and self doubt, mostly caused by this influence, or, the effects the fact of simply having it has on me.

Yes, it's easy to blame all your problems on one issue, and often it's naive to believe they'll disappear by removing this one issue from your life.

On the other hand,

it's easy to blame all you problems on one issue... so, why not start fighting them focused on this one focal point?

This brings me to the topic of my title.

By focusing on abstaining from this obviously sickening addiction of PMO, you cultivate a habit which has its basis in discipline and focus. The daily routines of work, exercise and focusing away from PMO support the natural urge of useful habit, launching rewarding mechanisms over time and creating the replacement drug which fuels further progress. (Most rehabs for drug addiction work by providing full-day-schedules and routine.)
Of course it is hard and of course there are relapses. You don't simply fuck with the big mama of addictions, which the most primal urge to mate/orgasm definately is. Brain doesn't give a fuck how it's done, since it's its most basic purpose and the reason of nature being existent. Of course it's hard to overcome the mess caused in this strong system. But on the other hand:

It's supposed to be hard.

Accomplishing those hard things means growing. Achieving. You get conter-addicted to the feeling conquering demons gives you. I get addicted to fight them by every routine and habit I can execute while not PMOing. I am enjoing the tense feeling and the suffer, because it's the feeling of resisting, at the very same time. By every day, every hour I feel my mind healing, although it's suffering. Sore muscles hurt while healing. Wounds hurt while healing.
At this very moment I just thought about what I usually did at night after writing on social media. I relaxed myself. I PMOed. Now I'm thinking: Not this time. Not anymore asshole. And instantly I get the reward. Liking it. Myself. Instead of hating myself. The deatbeat I used to feel like for not having the discipline and the guts to say NO.
The routines and habits are my friends, making me work, exercise, focus. Making me stronger and giving me the real reward of real life, in the shape of small but growing pieces of success, just how our biochemical systems are supposed to work, by the accompanying traits of habit and focus having direct effect on other possible issues in life.

It's a fight, ladies and gentlemen. I want it to be hard since I want to do the most harm to this bad influence by using it to evolve to the best I can become.

I'm looking forward to exchanging thoughts and stories in this growing community. This is important. This community is the proof of something being wrong out there in the way we influence our brains unconciously. It's a place of reason. Of resistance. Maybe even a milestone in research for mental health.

Pete

 

Thank you, Dogwood.

Yes I've came across his vid on yourbrainonporn.com. He is making a strong point in a very honest and charismatic way. He also provides great background information on the whole topic.
He is a hardcase, who has encountered some of the darkest depths of this addiction having issues in sexual scheming aka only percieving women as sex-objects. Although this is also part of normal puberty in certain ways and very hard to generalize as a direct symptom. Young guys are horny as fuck, usually. I, for instance, never had that big of a problem according to this scheming. I even encountered the opposite effect as I couldn't get aroused by "normal" real-life-women.