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✊5 Years Without PMO - Here's What Worked For Me!✊

Discussion in 'Success Stories' started by JJackson, Feb 20, 2023.

  1. JJackson

    JJackson Fapstronaut

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    I've been clean for 5 years and I wanted to come back to try and help people because my life is so much better since getting clean! This post is just gonna be me compiling stuff that worked for me. I'll update it over time as I remember more and have time. Hopefully something in here is beneficial to you! Feel free to ask me anything if you need help! Best wishes to everyone! Stay strong! ✊





    Stopped Counting Streaks
    The replies linked below go into why I think counting days is just a hindrance. I posted them in 2018 and for me, that was the last change I needed to make to get clean. I got a lot of positive feedback for it so I assume people today might benefit too. They're especially relevant for people asking "does this count as a relapse?" over tiny mistakes. Everything after the links is new stuff I'm adding 5 years later and is more in the realm of withdrawals & stuff that'll help with urges.




    https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/seven-days-now-what.183685/#post-1566190
    ^
    (Just wanted to add this for people that feel counting has some sort of positive impact for you: Maybe consider counting the total number of days clean instead of streaks or do both. Gives a more accurate picture than "back to day 1" since one relapse doesn't magically restore those neural pathways)



    https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.p...ner-considered-a-relapse.178754/#post-1535885



    https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/can-someone-help-me.189661/#post-1623222



    https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.p...rt-to-reach-long-streaks.189587/#post-1622848








    Porn Wasn't The Main/Only Issue
    First I want to bring attention to the fact that many of you are probably dealing with other issues that are actually at the root of your addiction. Your addiction is likely just a means to cope. A symptom of a bigger problem that you don't realize you have. There's a ton of stuff that I thought was just withdrawal from porn but were actually other issues. I'd recommend looking into the work of Dr Gabor Mate. He has plenty of talks on YouTube & great books about addiction (edit: the video linked at the bottom of the post is a good place to start). I didn't find him til after getting clean but I know you'll definitely benefit from his work! I did this part completely backwards. I beat the addiction first & then delt with the underlying causes. Please avoid my mistake lol. In general, regardless of Dr Mate's work resonating with you or not, look beyond pmo as the cause of your struggles with depression, anxiety, lack of energy etc. Pmo is likely just part of a bigger picture. Especially if you've been clean for a while but still struggling. All the problems I thought were "P.A.W.S" were just rooted in other issues or things lacking in my life. But since the addiction kept the pain from those issues numbed, getting clean meant facing them and the timing made it feel like it has to be pmo withdrawals.

    *Some* Of The Non Pmo Factors I took Care of Which Helped Me
    (helped with urges too)
    • Meditation: "Healthy Minds program" is a great app built by Prof Richard Davidson and his team. As a result of who they are, the app dives into a lot of neuroscience so it's more than just a mediation app plus its free. Highly recommended.
    • Exercise: 40 min of aerobics per day + strength training a few times a week is what I do but obviously do whatever fits your life
    • Trauma: Found out I have C-PTSD which was the root problem and started healing that (Multiple book recommendations below, the 1st one "C-Ptsd Surviving to Thriving" is useful to everyone though. Highly recommended)
    • Nutrition: Check nutritionfacts.org or the book "How Not To Die" for the science. Nutrition plays a much bigger role in cognition than most people realize and has had a huge impact on my life especially energy levels and mood.
    • Wim Hof Method: Look up his YouTube channel for details and gudies. I find the breathing exercises extremely beneficial in general life let alone with fighting addiction. The cold shower aspect of his method is also useful if you can handle it. But the breathing on it's own is very powerful. *Edit* A super useful tool I had for dealing with urges was dunking my hands in a bucket of ice water. Same effect as a cold shower but more convenient.
    • Good Sleep: This one is cliche but surprisingly huge if you're able to apply it. Consistent sleep does a lot for your brain. Try to sleep at consistent times, avoid caffeine and blue light late in the day and get 8 hours if possible. Look up the work of Dr Matthew Walker for more info.
    • TRE aka Trauma Releasing Exercises: The work of Dr. David Berceli. Even if you feel trauma doesn't apply to you it can still be useful, especially with that "need to get it out of my system" feeling.
    • Social media reduction: Shits literally designed to get you addicted to it which destroys your prefrontal cortex which in turn makes dealing with pmo harder. Heavily reduce or drop social media and be very mindful to not be using it as mental junk food if you do use it.
    • (Edit for those asking, no I don't have any substance addictions, I've never even had alcohol so I can't comment on that. Sorry)
    Really just anything that promotes good brain health and/or things that build neural networks (so even stuff like reading books) will strengthen your mind aka prevent or reduce withdrawal symptoms. These other issues for me went hand in hand with overcoming porn addiction because I struggled horribly to make any of those changes while deeply addicted. Once I got a few months clean it made those other things easy which snowballed into a bunch more good! Doing things to strengthen & improve my brain snowballing into more things that do the same. That's what deleted withdrawal symptoms from my life.
    ^
    In general consider that other things might be causing or contributing to the withdrawal symptoms you're having. It's almost never just the addiction alone. I had overcome the addiction but felt like I was constantly suffering withdrawals but it was actually those other things for the most part. Pmo was "protecting me" from all the deeper stuff which is why the withdrawals were so brutal. Pmo served as a floodgate. So stopping meant the floodgates were open. That then gets combined with the actual withdrawals.
    ^
    Withdrawals are very real but they don't last a year. And even when you're early in recovery aka the times when withdrawals hit the hardest, handling these other things will make things way easier. So don't fall into the trap many fall into of thinking "my brain just can't live without pmo" because you feel awful. Something else is likely at play either partially or fully. Either other problems like depression, ptsd etc or things lacking in your life like exercise, mediation, diet especially with how the microbiome effects your brain. Search deeper to find whatever it is in your case and be patient with yourself in that process.



    Books/People/Resources That Helped Me (updating over time)
    • Pete Walker's Book "C-PTSD Surviving to Thriving" (even if you don't think you have ptsd this book will definitely help. Just download a pdf for free if you cant afford it lol. I did that at 1st then bought a copy later)
    • Gabor Mate as mentioned earlier. Plenty of books and talks about addiction
    • Martin Seligman's book "Learned optimism". Goes into a lot of important psychology that's relevant to addicts especially if you've been struggling for a long time
    • Dr Greger/Nutritionfacts.org also mentioned earlier. Never could have imagined how much of an impact nutrition would have.
    • Healthy minds program app. Completely free with no ads and the way it dives into the science of psychology in an easy to understand manner is huge.
    • Peter Levine who has many talks on YouTube and great books to read if the topic of trauma applies to you. His book "Waking the tiger" is a good place to start.
    • Bessel Van Der Kolk who also has many talks and books if trauma applies to you. Most notably his book "The body keeps the score"
    • Jack Kornfield's excellent YouTube channel and his book
     
    Last edited: Sep 22, 2023
    JS44471, Sr.Poltas, im_done and 78 others like this.
  2. cramok

    cramok Fapstronaut

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    Hi! Glad to hear from someone who have made it to the other side. When you say you are clean - do you mean from porn use or from PMO altogether? How long did it take you to rewire your brain to function normal again and did you do hard-mode?
     
  3. That is very nice from you, and your help is very much appreciated! :) and well done! 5 years is awesome :)
     
  4. JJackson

    JJackson Fapstronaut

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    Hard mode, no pmo.

    In terms of brain rewiring it depends on the topic. In terms of rewiring to no longer crave or need it, only a few months. To get to the point where I could look at "triggering" things & not have anything in my brain react, closer to a year but it's progressive. Not having sexual dreams was also within 6 months or so.

    The big one for me that blew me away was how I see girls. Even though I was never a scumbag, never mistreated or even dated a girl at the time, I noticed a huge change in how I see them. I never realized how deeply porn changes the way you see girls. I barely had any female friends and now I have tons, I Love them dearly and they're some of my closest friends. I can't quite put into words what changed aside from not seeing them with any sexual lenses. There's something more that can't really be described. It's like there's just some sort of invisible force that keeps you from being able to fully see them for who they are and connect with them genuinely. Its like no matter how much you respect and treat them right theres just some part of you deep inside that sees them as an object. A part that would Love to do shit to them if it could. It's not like you have a voice saying that or anything but it's just somewhere in your subconscious and so that goes away. It's genuinely like a blind person seeing for the 1st time type of stuff. I feel like as a porn addict its hard to imagine having females in your life who you truly have no sexual desire for, that "if i could i would" energy, but I truly dont have that now. None of them are the type to sleep around but if they were & they offered I would honestly have no problem saying no. And that was noticeable within 6 months but got stronger over time I'd say being fully healed a little over a year clean maybe close to year and a half.
     
  5. JJackson

    JJackson Fapstronaut

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    Just to add though, you asked about returning to normal function. I'd been addicted since I was 12 and prior to that had abusive parents which led to me having c-ptsd and everything that comes with it. So there wasn't really a normal to return to. Additionally I realized that the addiction was actually just a symptom of that larger issue. The book "C-ptsd surviving to thriving" directly called me out and I cried. I'm what the book refers to as a flight/freeze hybrid and there's a section that was describing flight types which was describing me perfectly and the final detail was porn addiction. Blew me away. So I had to get on that healing journey as well.

    Most people on here definitely have some underlying issue that's causing the addiction and I'd recommend looking into that. Deal with the root issue 1st or along side the addiction. The work of Dr Gabor Mate is very helpful. He's a leading expert on addiction, tons of talks from him on YouTube and a bunch of great books. I'd encourage everyone start there just to figure out if there's something deeper going on.

    Anyway wish you the best in recovery! You'll definitely get there! Stay strong! ✊
     

  6. I was attacked badly this morning, not sure exactly why I ca get threw a full day but right before bed. Sometimes I want to sleep right away. Other worse getting threw a day is no problem.. I remember being clean for about a year.

    Everything was coming together and it seemed like life was a Journey. Music was amazing to me to anything sounded good. I pray and hope to feel this again soon. Especially my passion and drive to get things done.
     
    JJackson likes this.
  7. JJackson

    JJackson Fapstronaut

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    You'll definitely get there! You simply don't lose all your progress from a relapse, especially if you held on as long as you did. You're closer to getting it all back than you think!
     
    Last edited: Mar 3, 2023
  8. freedom9222

    freedom9222 Fapstronaut

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    Wow you're godsent! I had a good streak hardmode last year of 4 months but I fell hard...now I 30 year old, and i have started developing disease like prostate inflammation and acid reflux which has made me more susceptible to wet dream. I am currently on 15th day of my hard mode and has a wet dream early morning. It was a very clear porn scene, is it a relapse or what...in the last hard mode streak i did have a nocturnal emission but it was dreamless and that too on day 80...I am feeling that this is a setback.
     
    flyswat and JJackson like this.
  9. JJackson

    JJackson Fapstronaut

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    I go into detail about what you're asking about in the post linked at the top so feel free to read that.

    But no, do not count that as a relapse at all. You can't give yourself hell for things YOU didn't do. Your brain does bs while you sleep. That's just what it does. Just keep going and I'd recommend stop counting days. You say you're on day 15 but that's not true. You've done 4 months and all these other streaks. Your brain is scientifically NOT the same as it was when you were really on day 15. I go into more detail in that post so I'll stop but yeah, please don't be tricked by an arbitrary number. You're doing much better than you think.

    Stay strong! ✊
     
    Last edited: Mar 22, 2023
    SuperiorMan95 and liveFreeOrDie like this.
  10. freedom9222

    freedom9222 Fapstronaut

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    Thanks a lot!
    I have now read all your posts above including the links and it's a very sane advice. My best streak was when in shear hopelessness i stopped counting the days and suddenly I was 2 months in...

    Is your age correct in your profile (42) that means you started in 30's like me...how did u deal with relationship/wife. Or you were single and abstained from any sexual relation in hardmode. I think it's easier to do full hardmode, but then we are in the age bracket where we are expected to have a partner and family.
     
    JJackson likes this.
  11. Tommy Brock

    Tommy Brock Fapstronaut

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    Hey thanks for your compilation. I just wonder really is there actually any healthy way of using social media sites or are they all just parasitical in nature and to be avoided like the plague?
     
    JJackson likes this.
  12. JJackson

    JJackson Fapstronaut

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    I just don't use it mindlessly on auto pilot or as much as I did. It's a more conscious choice to do it and it's not a reflex to be checking all the time. I basically just check in one time a day and I'm not scrolling randomly. Checking used to be a reflex for dopamine. Now its a tool to keep up with thing and people that are important to me. So I had to unfollow the less important stuff. Basically just using it more mindfully. But for some it might be better to cut it off so you kinda have to see what works fot you but basically be conscious of how you're using it in any given moment and ask yourself if it's adding anything to you life. You'll probably find that a lot of it is just scrolling out of boredom (aka brain looking for dopamine). I definitely became aware of what an instinct it was for me to just reach for it all the time.
     
    Anonymous86 likes this.
  13. Tommy Brock

    Tommy Brock Fapstronaut

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    I just find that a lot of social media is annoying anyway, even my friends and others I have linked up with on Facebook, even their everyday stuff is completely boring, ground hog day stuff. Then there are those who post to boost how interesting their lives are and the interesting things they do. No, I can't be convinced, social media sites are a curse.
     
    JJackson likes this.
  14. Tryingto

    Tryingto Fapstronaut

    This is such a generous and helpful post. Everything seems so clearly articulated and organized that I can easily get a sense of this possibly vs that possibility, this resource vs that resource without feeling at all overwhelmed or confused.

    I do hope you keep posting.

    With gratitude,
     
    nonanino, flyswat and JJackson like this.
  15. JJackson

    JJackson Fapstronaut

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    Thank you! I really hope you benefit from it in some way!

    Stay strong! ✊
     
  16. Qcubbers

    Qcubbers Fapstronaut

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    I'm excited to check out Walker's book! Ton of 5 star reviews on Amazon. Thank you for sharing this and congrats on 5 years! That is truly inspiring.
     
    Giorgio Aduemani and JJackson like this.
  17. TicLun

    TicLun Fapstronaut

    Hey man, I took your advice to heart and had the most clean week of nofap I ever had, however today something weird happened...

    So the entire night I had this wild dream about punisher (tv show - its great) but then, in the morning when I was not even half awake, I was at that point when you fall asleep, I got a wet dream. I am not gonna go into details about that dream but I felt like I ejaculated but there was nothing, sheets, my pants, everything was clean. I don't remember somehow teasing/edging myself with hands or other methods. I was so confused I even looked up one nude image to see if I can get even hard (it takes me few minutes after orgasm to get hard again) and I was instantly.

    I know this sounds crazy but I would love to hear your opinion, I dont feel like I relapsed and wet dreams happened to me in the past but it's the first time they happened like this without ejsculation and after this beautiful, clean week I don't want to feel like it went down the drain because of stupid half asleep dream.

    Ps: Im still looking through dr gabor mate's work and Im trying to figure out what is my real trauma that led me to being addicted to this.
     
    JJackson likes this.
  18. JJackson

    JJackson Fapstronaut

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    Congrats on your progress! Happy to hear you found something helpful from this!

    As for your situation no, I absolutely wouldn't count it as a relapse. I went through a similar thing years ago too when I still believed in counting days & I fell into that stupid trap of thinking "im back to day 1, lost all my progress" etc which then spiraled me into worse things. Meanwhile nothing was even lost in the 1st place. I go into that type of stuff in posts linked up top. The 1st one is pretty relevant for your situation if you want to read it.

    You're doing great so don't let this little non issue steal your momentum! Keep going! Stay strong! ✊
     
    TicLun likes this.
  19. JJackson

    JJackson Fapstronaut

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    Thank you! I hope the book has a huge impact on you!

    Best wishes! ✊
     
    bernardo77 and Qcubbers like this.
  20. yngmoney

    yngmoney Fapstronaut

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    Hey, so based off what you said with your own experience it almost sounds as though you’ve had a decreased libido from nofap? Would you say that is the case?

    I personally would not want to lose my sexual attraction to women, I am hoping a reboot will cure any pied but also keep my libido high.
     
    skylar_legit likes this.

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