23 years on, 50 Days off

Been watching porn almost daily for 23 years. It started when I was 12 years old. It started on 56k dial up haha. You young ones don't know how easy you've got it! I remember sometimes I would have to wait half an hour or more for one picture to download! Fast forward to 23 years later and I had seen literally everything the internet had to offer porn wise - I would be surprised if there is something I haven't fapped to. I've known for years it was an issue, probably for 10 years or more. It's contributed to depression, 3 serious relationships breaking down, suicide attempts, alcohol and drug overuse, and much, much wasted potential.

I'm on day 52 no porn and day 25 NoFap and I feel f**king amazing. I've been working out just about every day and have been focusing on feeding my brain positive stimulus. I've been reading daily and gone on a bit of a digital detox. I'm doing a lot of self work but I have started to discover my creative energies again - wood carving, writing, drawing, music. I'm even able to talk to chicks. And I'm like some kind of chick magnet now - the other day I had these two chicks actually start to follow me and pretend to keep running into me in the supermarket (no bs).

For 23 years I've felt like I never even made it to the start of life. I felt like I was behind in the race, or not even on the track. Now, after 52 days, not only do I feel like I'm at the event, but I feel like I have a chance at making the things happen that I've always wanted to. I feel pretty confident that I'm going to be able to make it further, hopefully forever.

Honestly, I'm not sure I can say anything to help anyone else, or give them advice because every persons situation is unique and their lived experience is so different, but I can say this: JUST DO IT. Don't wait until you can't get it up with some smoking hot girl who's p**sy tastes like heaven. JUST DO IT. Stop it now! Do whatever healthy things you can to keep yourself busy - work out, read, walk, run, swim, socialise (sober?), video games but just stay tf away from it.

I can say this: know your triggers. For me it is things like athletics videos, bikini pics, yoga videos or those kinds of things. My triggers are also things that stress me out or make me feel emasculated. Social media is a dangerous tool because the algorithms in them are programmed to feed you more of the things you look at, so the second you look at one yoga video or athlete ass you're going to see hundreds of them pop up in your feed. Be careful what you use and how you use it, be mindful.

It also helped me to write out the things that I consider to be my core principles, or the core principles I'd like to embody and manifest better. I have about 15 of them. The list is a good reminder of who I am, who I want to be, and how I can get there.

For anyone out there struggling, I support you. I feel your pain. The number of times I have stayed up late at night cleaning up my mess, broke something, or myself in episodes of drunken solo debauchery - I feel your pain. You are worth it. You will overcome. Be kind to yourself. Never give up.