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Introduction
Today marks the end of my first month PMO free, it was a hell of a ride, surely, it wasn't easy, but I have always envisioned myself writing these lines and the day has finally came, and in this post, I will describe everything, who am I, my approach, the challenges I faced during this month, knowledged I gained, people who influenced me, the benefits, ups and downs, what did work out, what didn't, what next, the science behind it, all these and more, I will make sure to write everything here to both document my journey as well as to help you guys in your journey.
30 days ago, I wrote a thread here and called it "A promise of a success story", the thread was transfered to 20-24yo threads category as the minimum requirement is 30 days, I respected the decision and kept on journaling every day on that thread, and made it a promise to myself to write here one day, and here I am 30 days later, writing these lines, Alhamdulilah.
Here is the old thread for those of you who would like to read it and/or read my journals, I wrote there everyday for a month, so please, suit yourself : https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/a-promise-of-a-sucess-story.366582/
Who Am I ?
I am a man, almost 24 yo, a muslim, I study and work abroad for almost 3 years now, I been addicted since February 2017, 4 months only after my very first wet dream in my entire life, I was in high school back in the day where me and the boys of my classroom used to talk or even watch together P materials for fun, these funny moments turned into 8 years of severe addiction, many times almost caught by my familly doing the bad deed, with several consequences mentally, physically, emotionally and socially as well, with an average of one PMO session every single day, I tried many times to quit this habit but I've always failed, I have attempts of from 3 days till 114 days, where all my attempts never saw the light of the 28th day except one time back in my own country where I had an AP, who was my classmate and had the same experience and could break free so was helping me.
PMO for me was really hard to break, actually, the toughest thing I've ever faced, I have always told myself that if I can break free from this habit, a lot of aspects of my life will improve signifantly, and after each PMO session, I kept telling myself, I will never give up, God will always see me trying, today I failed, but one day I will make it, and even if I don't i would prefer to die trying rather than accept the fact that I am an addict, especially in a society that considers PMO more like a bad habit than addiction, so I couldn't really ask for help despite the strong need.
How did my addiction look like ?
I was really addicted to the point that one PMO session everyday wasn't enough for me, I was really addicted that I was sexualizing not just girls, but men, even if I am not gay, animals even objects, literally everything, I watched every fetish P material, every type of videos, text, sounds, for hours, watching sex between a man and a woman was no longer a satisfaction for me, I craved for the weiredest things, I craved for violence during sex... I won't talk more even though the list is very long. I used to do some research or watch podcasts about PMO, I knew that my case was severe and one of the strongest in the world, but couldn't do nothing about it, whenever I try to break free, I face a huge amount of withdrawal symptoms, so I give up and go back but this time stronger than ever and this happend for 8 years, so you can imagine how difficult it was for me.
Also, my relationships were terrible, I was always getting angry at the slightest things, I used to make mom cry and never care about her, I broke down with the person who cared the most about me and didn't feel a thing, I hurted her so much, I lost many friends because of my behaviours and never cared, slowely, I started eating junk food getting addicted to it, I started oversleeping, having no energy, I gained 14kg of fats in less than 4 months, I spent hour on social media, my terrible days was like 10 hours of sleep, scroll on different social media for hours, from Instagram, to Facebook, to Snapchat, to Tiktok, back and fourth, have a late junk breakfast, continue scrolling, have a late junk lunch, have PMO session for 2/3 hours, have a junk meal, scroll on social media, have a junk dinner and then have my second PMO session which took around 2/3 hours and sometimes more, I used to have such days often weekly.
Before being an addict, I was good at everything, sports, studying, memorising Quran and more, but slowely after the addiction, I lost all the motivation, like I wanna study, I wanna succeed but I just have no motivation at all, not even a bit.
What made this time "the one" ?
A month ago, and as I was doing some research as usual, I typed "NoFap" on the web and clicked on the first link, which was this forum, I read several stories, success stories, and some sad ones, something hit me back then, when reading success stories, I felt like, I am not alone, there are a lot of people out there living the same hell, and since they made it, why can't I ??? I read sad stories of older men having a lifelong addiction and was so afraid to be like these, I kept on reading for an entire day, and remembered my parents, my ex, my career, my diet, if I do nothing about it I will end up living my worse nightmares for my entire life, so I decided to have my last PMO session, I wanted to do it consciously for the last time, so I eventually had my last PMO session and started planning for this journey.
How it started and what were the rules I followed ?
My last PMO session was on Friday evening, on saturday morning, I woke up and wrote my first thread and here are the addiction consequences that I used to have that day:
1. Cannot focus on a task for more than 5mins
2. Overweight
3. Addicted to Social media, short videos and Tinder (Soft Porn)
4. Always distracted
5. No motivation
6. No motivation to wake up even after 10 hours of sleeping
7. Addicted to Movies and Series
8. Addicted to Junk food, processed food and artificial sweets
9. Skipping gym
10. Procasinating
11. Away from religion
12. Poor grade at Uni
13. Poor Work results
14. Not lasting for more than 30 secondes
I surely during the journey knew that I had more than these, so I was having a huge amount of hatred towards myself for this, I knew that it's gonna be hard but I had no choice, it couldn't be worse, because I was in the worst condition I could ever be, but as they say "If your why is powerful, your how will become easy", and that is true because back in the days where I was relapsing, the problem wasn't always my strategy but rather my will, I have always failed when facing early withdrawal symptoms.
The foundation of the journey
Now, that I have a strong "why", I had to work on my "how" and here I am going to explain the name of the thread, so I decided to follow the fastest yet the hardest road, I imagined healing as moving from point A to point B, where there was 2 ways to go, an easy road but a very long one, or a shortcut but I have to walk through a deadly desert with no water, and I chose the deadly one, how so ? I decided to put the following rules:
1. No PMO: which is oubvious
2. No social media: I went cold turkey on these, all or nothing
3. No movies, no series: same here, I allowed myself to watch some movies during the weekend but only 20mins a session, when having lunch or dinner, and I always have to check the parents guide, if the movie has a single nudity or a sexual scene, I won't watch it
4. Work out every day
5. Cold shower every day
6. Cut the fake friends and unecessary relationships, focus on quality rather then quantity and fix the current ones
7. No music
8. No alcohol, neither smoking or any drugs: I don't do any of these, thanks to Islam, but if you do them, it's better to stop as well
9. Junk food limitation to one cheat meal a week
10. Waking up before sunrise
11. Pray on time
12. Memorise the quran daily
13. Read the quran daily
14. Read Surat Al Mulk daily before sleeping
15. Read 10 pages of a book every day
16. Learn a new language
17. Implement a daily routine, morning routine, evening routine.
18. Study everyday
19. Journal everyday
20. Not think about sex or porn
21. Cut any relationship with every girl I know even for friendship: this doesn't mean that you can be rude with girls, it only means that you don't talk, stare, message any girl, wether it's friendship or dating.
These were my "20 laws" that I needed to follow, I knew it's gonna be hard, almost impossible, many would argue that this can be overwhelming and I will end up giving up, and that's true, theoretically speaking, I can face burn out since day one. However, I had no time to waste, I tried all kind of strategies, I tried to stop P and continue masturbating for a period of time until it goes away, I tried to reduce the times I watch P materials gradually, but I always failed, so I knew that I needed to go cold turkey, but I need a strong "why", since the motivation will fade away within the first few days, and if I don't rely on discipline, I will fail once again.
First week
The first week was literally hell, it was the toughest week in my entire life, I experienced many break downs, many withdrawal symptoms, several extreme and lengthy urges, depression, mood swings, physical pain, but I knew that success will never come if I don't go through this first, I was mentally prepared for such difficulty, I was batteling each day, waking up every day before sunset, working out intensely every day, trying to focus at work and at university, have cold showers, eat healthy, avoid staring at girls, it was a hard week, until the fifth day where I heared the alarm but simply couldn't move a muscle, couldn't even stand up (as it was across the room) to turn it off, it wasn't giving up, but I was at my limit physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and socially, (you can read more on my daily journals to get a deeper idea of what I batteled every day), but I was patient, I knew that results will never come from my first week, but tiny habits will add up until success, and thank god I kept going and never gave up, during that day, I prefered to rest rather than giving up, and when I woke up, I had a clear way of thinking.
As my motivation faded away after 3 days only, so, I had to anticipate, so, I came up with a strategy (it may exist already but I learned it on my own), the strategy was simple yet so difficult to implement, the strategy goes like: everything is a decision, my goal is to maximize my correct decision and minimize wrong ones. This looks easy, but imagine it as the moment you wanna relapse, you are the one responsible for that decision, nobody is forcing you to do it, it's you and your thoughts/urges, and you are always the one taking the final decision wether to relapse or not your urges, you just decide to give up, and imagine this in every aspect of your life not just PMO.
Therefore, my question was: how can I achieve such level of correctness in taking decision in the shortest period of time, a few days before having intense withdrawal symptoms, I knew that to do so, I have to develop something called "discipline", as motivation will only get you started but discipline keeps you going, so, what is the difference between motivation and discipline ? and how is a person like me with this severity going to be disciplined ?
Well, motivation is an emotion, discipline is not, emotions are temporarry, and are subject to change, you can't expect yourself to be happy all the time, or sad, or angry, and so is motivation, sometimes you are and sometimes you aren't, so, you only do the thing when you feel like so, but discipline is doing the thing even if you don't feel like it, so how can I not relapse at all even if I want it so badly ?
To do that, I developed another strategy (again, it may exist already but I learned it on my own), and the strategy goes like: treat discipline like a muscle, muscles need to be worked out daily to grow, and so is discipline, so, having to wake up early even if you don't want to, or having cold showers even if you don't want to, and all the good yet hard habits can contribute in a few days if done intensely before having intense urges, at that time, I also did a lot of research, and here are the main characters that helped my along the way, (to keep the thread short, I will share the names and links and you can look for them on your own):
1. Prophet Muhammed
2. Omar Ibn Al Khattab
3. Miyamoto Musashi
4. David Goggings
5. Andrew Huberman
6. Chris Williamson
7. Ghost mode
8. Dopamine detox
9. Digital detox
10. https://www.youtube.com/@DrJinSung
11. https://www.youtube.com/@ForPurposeDrivenMen
12. https://www.youtube.com/@YusufTruth
13. https://www.youtube.com/@goharsguide
14. https://www.youtube.com/@othmanalkamees
15. https://www.youtube.com/@ImanGadzhi
Some of them are islamic figures and some aren't, so if you are reading this and aren't a muslim you can choose what's best for you, some of them are doctors and explain terms like porn addiction, discipline, dopamine detox in a scientific way.
Second week
A week went by and I started noticing a slight overall improvement, my withdrawal symptoms decreased, and I started to get used to my new routine (workout every day, junk food limitation, cold shower everyday, waking up every day, not fantasizing, not staring at girls at the gym...), "It doesnt become easy, you become stronger, but you have to do it everyday, and that's the hard part", during this week I kept learning, staying busy, developing new habits, staying far away from triggers, I failed in some like being consistent at waking up early because it's been at least 2 years since I oversleep due to depression and vitamin D deficiency, and limiting junk food, however, my biggest goal was to escape PMO and have these habits along the way, but I have time for them, so failing at some isn't a big of a deal as long as I am maintaining my streak.
Third week
During the third week, I had both a good side and a bad one, the good side is that, I went from escaping PMO and survival mode to a completly different level. After 2 weeks of discipline and learning, my goal went from quitting PMO to unlocking my full potential, reaching my best version of myself, I setted my career, relationships, physic, health... goals, I started fascinating of how far can I go, will I achieve everything I want, what if I have the strongest physic in my city, what if I am the healthiest guy, what if I am the best scientist in the world, what if I can win the noble prize one day (I am a scientist researcher student ), what if I become the best husband, father, son, brother, friend... I became so obssessed with all these and I knew that the only way to know is the keep working, keep fixing myself, keep building better habits, because these tiny habits will add up to build you up, brick by brick, I enjoyed the process more than ever.
The bad side is that for 3 times, during that week, my flatmate brought her gf and have sex at 4 am, the moaning sound were so loud that I woke up and started edging, I couldn't go back to sleep, the first time, they caught me off guard, I wasn't expecting that to happen, I was at the point of giving up tbh, so I stood up, I prayed to God and broke because I really didn't wanna give up but it was so tough, me and my flatemate live wall to wall, her room is next to mine so it was really loud, as if someone forced me to watch porn, for the second time, I could go back to sleep after an hour or so, but after that, I decided to, if it happens again, I will have to force myself to go back to sleep, I can't edge, which is what happend, so when the third time came, I woke up, I was disgusted and went right back to sleep.
Fourth week
During the fourth week, nothing bad happend, I kept on working hard with these tiny habits, I had my first wet dream, it was really strange for my to not have any wet dream for more than 24 days, so I did some research about it and found out that when your body is on its limits physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, so your brain redirect your energy to these tasks and it's normal to not have any wet dreams, I even remmemberd a lot of dreams where I was about to have a wet dream but I was so aware that even when sleep, my subconscious didn't allow me to have sex or to PMO xD.
Overall Conclusion
After such a sever 8 years of addiction, I can't believe that I made it to my first month, the difference between this time and the time where I reached 114 days, is that it was a soft journey, but this one is my first hardmode ghost mode journey, after a month, I noticed the following:
1. My energy leveled up, I am not lazy anymore, not procastinate on anything, I feel energized during the day.
2. I can focus on work/study for hours, no break.
3. I don't feel sluggish anymore, and feel a clean skin, I noticed people looking at me, I don't know if it's a good way.
4. I have better relationships with my family and friends, my parents and friends always enjoy talking to me.
5. I am not mad or have any mood swings as I used to.
6. I memorized Surat Al baqara entirely, for those non muslim, I memorized 49 pages by heart from the islamic holly book.
7. I read books every day, I read "I missed a prayer" and currently still reading "Atomic Habits" by James Clear.
8. I read Surat Al Mulk before sleeping every night
9. I worked out 29 days and had 29 cold showers, I skipped one time because I was extremly exhausted that I spent all the day in my bed
10. I am learning a new language on Duolingo for the past 17 days now
11. I wrote a scientific article (I started writing in before starting this journey) and I will publish it this month on IEEE Access.
12. I limited my junk food to one cheat day a week and dropped 6kg of fats in one month, and gained muscles.
13. I limited watching series and movies, I don't watch football anymore.
14. I don't scroll anymore, I don't have social media at all, just Whatsapp and Messenger.
15. I am praying on time.
16. I am not distracted at all.
17. I respect women and I don't see them as sex subjects anymore.
18. I gained more confidence, even when talking to strangers (doctors, stores administratives...)
This morning, I woke up and found a message from a girl I used to know, and I knew that there is no way that I have a future with her, so I blocked her right away, no second thoughts.
These and among others, are the benefits that I experienced, not just PMO free but thanks to all the habits I implemented, there is a still a room for improvement of course, but I really can't believe that all these happend in a month looking at my case, it was almost impossible, I felt like I rose from death, and it's true, "the longer your streak gets, the stronger you get", now, I hate porn more than ever, but I don't hate myself anymore, I love myself too much that I wanna I wanna build myself up, and that got me thinking of the verse in the quran : "Except those who repent and believe (in Islamic Monotheism), and do righteous deeds, for those, Allah will change their sins into good deeds, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful". This verse, never made sense to me before, how can God changes the wrong deeds of someone to Good ones, I mean, I know God is merciful, but he could remove the sins only, why does he have to, or how can he change these deeds, until the hatred to myself became love, only then I understood it. It's really fascinating how can God send such messages in such forms. My goals now are to get to the 60th, 90th, 120th day and so on, I hate PMO now more than ever, and will never look back to it, I will resist every urge and withdrawal symptoms, I will continue building myself, not just for me, but for my future wife, she deserves a loyal husband, for my future kids, the deservce a strong dad, for my parents, the deserve a kind son, for my brothers, they deserve a trustworthy brother, for my friends, they deserve an addiction free friend, for God, he deserves, an honest righteous worshiper, for myself, I deserve to see the best version of myself.
At the end, I wanna say, that I am grateful for this journey, for every tear, for every sweat, for every urge, for every prayer, for every mistake, for every verse of the quran, this kind of journeys is the one that test our true mettle, the one that shapes our habits, change our identities, as I said during my first week and now I am living in "The boy who entered this 90 days journey, will never be like the man who walks out of it", it's been just a month so far and I am feeling this growth, I feel like a different person, so I am just wondering, how am I gonna be in 60 days from now, in a year, in 5 ? Only Time will reveal this mystery.
This is a beacon of hope for everyone in this journey, I was probably worse than you, if I made it to one month, you can as well, just keep going.
That's it from my side guys, I will be writing my daily journals in this thread from now on, see you tomorrow.
Alhamdulilah
Today marks the end of my first month PMO free, it was a hell of a ride, surely, it wasn't easy, but I have always envisioned myself writing these lines and the day has finally came, and in this post, I will describe everything, who am I, my approach, the challenges I faced during this month, knowledged I gained, people who influenced me, the benefits, ups and downs, what did work out, what didn't, what next, the science behind it, all these and more, I will make sure to write everything here to both document my journey as well as to help you guys in your journey.
30 days ago, I wrote a thread here and called it "A promise of a success story", the thread was transfered to 20-24yo threads category as the minimum requirement is 30 days, I respected the decision and kept on journaling every day on that thread, and made it a promise to myself to write here one day, and here I am 30 days later, writing these lines, Alhamdulilah.
Here is the old thread for those of you who would like to read it and/or read my journals, I wrote there everyday for a month, so please, suit yourself : https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/a-promise-of-a-sucess-story.366582/
Who Am I ?
I am a man, almost 24 yo, a muslim, I study and work abroad for almost 3 years now, I been addicted since February 2017, 4 months only after my very first wet dream in my entire life, I was in high school back in the day where me and the boys of my classroom used to talk or even watch together P materials for fun, these funny moments turned into 8 years of severe addiction, many times almost caught by my familly doing the bad deed, with several consequences mentally, physically, emotionally and socially as well, with an average of one PMO session every single day, I tried many times to quit this habit but I've always failed, I have attempts of from 3 days till 114 days, where all my attempts never saw the light of the 28th day except one time back in my own country where I had an AP, who was my classmate and had the same experience and could break free so was helping me.
PMO for me was really hard to break, actually, the toughest thing I've ever faced, I have always told myself that if I can break free from this habit, a lot of aspects of my life will improve signifantly, and after each PMO session, I kept telling myself, I will never give up, God will always see me trying, today I failed, but one day I will make it, and even if I don't i would prefer to die trying rather than accept the fact that I am an addict, especially in a society that considers PMO more like a bad habit than addiction, so I couldn't really ask for help despite the strong need.
How did my addiction look like ?
I was really addicted to the point that one PMO session everyday wasn't enough for me, I was really addicted that I was sexualizing not just girls, but men, even if I am not gay, animals even objects, literally everything, I watched every fetish P material, every type of videos, text, sounds, for hours, watching sex between a man and a woman was no longer a satisfaction for me, I craved for the weiredest things, I craved for violence during sex... I won't talk more even though the list is very long. I used to do some research or watch podcasts about PMO, I knew that my case was severe and one of the strongest in the world, but couldn't do nothing about it, whenever I try to break free, I face a huge amount of withdrawal symptoms, so I give up and go back but this time stronger than ever and this happend for 8 years, so you can imagine how difficult it was for me.
Also, my relationships were terrible, I was always getting angry at the slightest things, I used to make mom cry and never care about her, I broke down with the person who cared the most about me and didn't feel a thing, I hurted her so much, I lost many friends because of my behaviours and never cared, slowely, I started eating junk food getting addicted to it, I started oversleeping, having no energy, I gained 14kg of fats in less than 4 months, I spent hour on social media, my terrible days was like 10 hours of sleep, scroll on different social media for hours, from Instagram, to Facebook, to Snapchat, to Tiktok, back and fourth, have a late junk breakfast, continue scrolling, have a late junk lunch, have PMO session for 2/3 hours, have a junk meal, scroll on social media, have a junk dinner and then have my second PMO session which took around 2/3 hours and sometimes more, I used to have such days often weekly.
Before being an addict, I was good at everything, sports, studying, memorising Quran and more, but slowely after the addiction, I lost all the motivation, like I wanna study, I wanna succeed but I just have no motivation at all, not even a bit.
What made this time "the one" ?
A month ago, and as I was doing some research as usual, I typed "NoFap" on the web and clicked on the first link, which was this forum, I read several stories, success stories, and some sad ones, something hit me back then, when reading success stories, I felt like, I am not alone, there are a lot of people out there living the same hell, and since they made it, why can't I ??? I read sad stories of older men having a lifelong addiction and was so afraid to be like these, I kept on reading for an entire day, and remembered my parents, my ex, my career, my diet, if I do nothing about it I will end up living my worse nightmares for my entire life, so I decided to have my last PMO session, I wanted to do it consciously for the last time, so I eventually had my last PMO session and started planning for this journey.
How it started and what were the rules I followed ?
My last PMO session was on Friday evening, on saturday morning, I woke up and wrote my first thread and here are the addiction consequences that I used to have that day:
1. Cannot focus on a task for more than 5mins
2. Overweight
3. Addicted to Social media, short videos and Tinder (Soft Porn)
4. Always distracted
5. No motivation
6. No motivation to wake up even after 10 hours of sleeping
7. Addicted to Movies and Series
8. Addicted to Junk food, processed food and artificial sweets
9. Skipping gym
10. Procasinating
11. Away from religion
12. Poor grade at Uni
13. Poor Work results
14. Not lasting for more than 30 secondes
I surely during the journey knew that I had more than these, so I was having a huge amount of hatred towards myself for this, I knew that it's gonna be hard but I had no choice, it couldn't be worse, because I was in the worst condition I could ever be, but as they say "If your why is powerful, your how will become easy", and that is true because back in the days where I was relapsing, the problem wasn't always my strategy but rather my will, I have always failed when facing early withdrawal symptoms.
The foundation of the journey
Now, that I have a strong "why", I had to work on my "how" and here I am going to explain the name of the thread, so I decided to follow the fastest yet the hardest road, I imagined healing as moving from point A to point B, where there was 2 ways to go, an easy road but a very long one, or a shortcut but I have to walk through a deadly desert with no water, and I chose the deadly one, how so ? I decided to put the following rules:
1. No PMO: which is oubvious
2. No social media: I went cold turkey on these, all or nothing
3. No movies, no series: same here, I allowed myself to watch some movies during the weekend but only 20mins a session, when having lunch or dinner, and I always have to check the parents guide, if the movie has a single nudity or a sexual scene, I won't watch it
4. Work out every day
5. Cold shower every day
6. Cut the fake friends and unecessary relationships, focus on quality rather then quantity and fix the current ones
7. No music
8. No alcohol, neither smoking or any drugs: I don't do any of these, thanks to Islam, but if you do them, it's better to stop as well
9. Junk food limitation to one cheat meal a week
10. Waking up before sunrise
11. Pray on time
12. Memorise the quran daily
13. Read the quran daily
14. Read Surat Al Mulk daily before sleeping
15. Read 10 pages of a book every day
16. Learn a new language
17. Implement a daily routine, morning routine, evening routine.
18. Study everyday
19. Journal everyday
20. Not think about sex or porn
21. Cut any relationship with every girl I know even for friendship: this doesn't mean that you can be rude with girls, it only means that you don't talk, stare, message any girl, wether it's friendship or dating.
These were my "20 laws" that I needed to follow, I knew it's gonna be hard, almost impossible, many would argue that this can be overwhelming and I will end up giving up, and that's true, theoretically speaking, I can face burn out since day one. However, I had no time to waste, I tried all kind of strategies, I tried to stop P and continue masturbating for a period of time until it goes away, I tried to reduce the times I watch P materials gradually, but I always failed, so I knew that I needed to go cold turkey, but I need a strong "why", since the motivation will fade away within the first few days, and if I don't rely on discipline, I will fail once again.
First week
The first week was literally hell, it was the toughest week in my entire life, I experienced many break downs, many withdrawal symptoms, several extreme and lengthy urges, depression, mood swings, physical pain, but I knew that success will never come if I don't go through this first, I was mentally prepared for such difficulty, I was batteling each day, waking up every day before sunset, working out intensely every day, trying to focus at work and at university, have cold showers, eat healthy, avoid staring at girls, it was a hard week, until the fifth day where I heared the alarm but simply couldn't move a muscle, couldn't even stand up (as it was across the room) to turn it off, it wasn't giving up, but I was at my limit physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually and socially, (you can read more on my daily journals to get a deeper idea of what I batteled every day), but I was patient, I knew that results will never come from my first week, but tiny habits will add up until success, and thank god I kept going and never gave up, during that day, I prefered to rest rather than giving up, and when I woke up, I had a clear way of thinking.
As my motivation faded away after 3 days only, so, I had to anticipate, so, I came up with a strategy (it may exist already but I learned it on my own), the strategy was simple yet so difficult to implement, the strategy goes like: everything is a decision, my goal is to maximize my correct decision and minimize wrong ones. This looks easy, but imagine it as the moment you wanna relapse, you are the one responsible for that decision, nobody is forcing you to do it, it's you and your thoughts/urges, and you are always the one taking the final decision wether to relapse or not your urges, you just decide to give up, and imagine this in every aspect of your life not just PMO.
Therefore, my question was: how can I achieve such level of correctness in taking decision in the shortest period of time, a few days before having intense withdrawal symptoms, I knew that to do so, I have to develop something called "discipline", as motivation will only get you started but discipline keeps you going, so, what is the difference between motivation and discipline ? and how is a person like me with this severity going to be disciplined ?
Well, motivation is an emotion, discipline is not, emotions are temporarry, and are subject to change, you can't expect yourself to be happy all the time, or sad, or angry, and so is motivation, sometimes you are and sometimes you aren't, so, you only do the thing when you feel like so, but discipline is doing the thing even if you don't feel like it, so how can I not relapse at all even if I want it so badly ?
To do that, I developed another strategy (again, it may exist already but I learned it on my own), and the strategy goes like: treat discipline like a muscle, muscles need to be worked out daily to grow, and so is discipline, so, having to wake up early even if you don't want to, or having cold showers even if you don't want to, and all the good yet hard habits can contribute in a few days if done intensely before having intense urges, at that time, I also did a lot of research, and here are the main characters that helped my along the way, (to keep the thread short, I will share the names and links and you can look for them on your own):
1. Prophet Muhammed
2. Omar Ibn Al Khattab
3. Miyamoto Musashi
4. David Goggings
5. Andrew Huberman
6. Chris Williamson
7. Ghost mode
8. Dopamine detox
9. Digital detox
10. https://www.youtube.com/@DrJinSung
11. https://www.youtube.com/@ForPurposeDrivenMen
12. https://www.youtube.com/@YusufTruth
13. https://www.youtube.com/@goharsguide
14. https://www.youtube.com/@othmanalkamees
15. https://www.youtube.com/@ImanGadzhi
Some of them are islamic figures and some aren't, so if you are reading this and aren't a muslim you can choose what's best for you, some of them are doctors and explain terms like porn addiction, discipline, dopamine detox in a scientific way.
Second week
A week went by and I started noticing a slight overall improvement, my withdrawal symptoms decreased, and I started to get used to my new routine (workout every day, junk food limitation, cold shower everyday, waking up every day, not fantasizing, not staring at girls at the gym...), "It doesnt become easy, you become stronger, but you have to do it everyday, and that's the hard part", during this week I kept learning, staying busy, developing new habits, staying far away from triggers, I failed in some like being consistent at waking up early because it's been at least 2 years since I oversleep due to depression and vitamin D deficiency, and limiting junk food, however, my biggest goal was to escape PMO and have these habits along the way, but I have time for them, so failing at some isn't a big of a deal as long as I am maintaining my streak.
Third week
During the third week, I had both a good side and a bad one, the good side is that, I went from escaping PMO and survival mode to a completly different level. After 2 weeks of discipline and learning, my goal went from quitting PMO to unlocking my full potential, reaching my best version of myself, I setted my career, relationships, physic, health... goals, I started fascinating of how far can I go, will I achieve everything I want, what if I have the strongest physic in my city, what if I am the healthiest guy, what if I am the best scientist in the world, what if I can win the noble prize one day (I am a scientist researcher student ), what if I become the best husband, father, son, brother, friend... I became so obssessed with all these and I knew that the only way to know is the keep working, keep fixing myself, keep building better habits, because these tiny habits will add up to build you up, brick by brick, I enjoyed the process more than ever.
The bad side is that for 3 times, during that week, my flatmate brought her gf and have sex at 4 am, the moaning sound were so loud that I woke up and started edging, I couldn't go back to sleep, the first time, they caught me off guard, I wasn't expecting that to happen, I was at the point of giving up tbh, so I stood up, I prayed to God and broke because I really didn't wanna give up but it was so tough, me and my flatemate live wall to wall, her room is next to mine so it was really loud, as if someone forced me to watch porn, for the second time, I could go back to sleep after an hour or so, but after that, I decided to, if it happens again, I will have to force myself to go back to sleep, I can't edge, which is what happend, so when the third time came, I woke up, I was disgusted and went right back to sleep.
Fourth week
During the fourth week, nothing bad happend, I kept on working hard with these tiny habits, I had my first wet dream, it was really strange for my to not have any wet dream for more than 24 days, so I did some research about it and found out that when your body is on its limits physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, socially, so your brain redirect your energy to these tasks and it's normal to not have any wet dreams, I even remmemberd a lot of dreams where I was about to have a wet dream but I was so aware that even when sleep, my subconscious didn't allow me to have sex or to PMO xD.
Overall Conclusion
After such a sever 8 years of addiction, I can't believe that I made it to my first month, the difference between this time and the time where I reached 114 days, is that it was a soft journey, but this one is my first hardmode ghost mode journey, after a month, I noticed the following:
1. My energy leveled up, I am not lazy anymore, not procastinate on anything, I feel energized during the day.
2. I can focus on work/study for hours, no break.
3. I don't feel sluggish anymore, and feel a clean skin, I noticed people looking at me, I don't know if it's a good way.
4. I have better relationships with my family and friends, my parents and friends always enjoy talking to me.
5. I am not mad or have any mood swings as I used to.
6. I memorized Surat Al baqara entirely, for those non muslim, I memorized 49 pages by heart from the islamic holly book.
7. I read books every day, I read "I missed a prayer" and currently still reading "Atomic Habits" by James Clear.
8. I read Surat Al Mulk before sleeping every night
9. I worked out 29 days and had 29 cold showers, I skipped one time because I was extremly exhausted that I spent all the day in my bed
10. I am learning a new language on Duolingo for the past 17 days now
11. I wrote a scientific article (I started writing in before starting this journey) and I will publish it this month on IEEE Access.
12. I limited my junk food to one cheat day a week and dropped 6kg of fats in one month, and gained muscles.
13. I limited watching series and movies, I don't watch football anymore.
14. I don't scroll anymore, I don't have social media at all, just Whatsapp and Messenger.
15. I am praying on time.
16. I am not distracted at all.
17. I respect women and I don't see them as sex subjects anymore.
18. I gained more confidence, even when talking to strangers (doctors, stores administratives...)
This morning, I woke up and found a message from a girl I used to know, and I knew that there is no way that I have a future with her, so I blocked her right away, no second thoughts.
These and among others, are the benefits that I experienced, not just PMO free but thanks to all the habits I implemented, there is a still a room for improvement of course, but I really can't believe that all these happend in a month looking at my case, it was almost impossible, I felt like I rose from death, and it's true, "the longer your streak gets, the stronger you get", now, I hate porn more than ever, but I don't hate myself anymore, I love myself too much that I wanna I wanna build myself up, and that got me thinking of the verse in the quran : "Except those who repent and believe (in Islamic Monotheism), and do righteous deeds, for those, Allah will change their sins into good deeds, and Allah is Oft-Forgiving, Most Merciful". This verse, never made sense to me before, how can God changes the wrong deeds of someone to Good ones, I mean, I know God is merciful, but he could remove the sins only, why does he have to, or how can he change these deeds, until the hatred to myself became love, only then I understood it. It's really fascinating how can God send such messages in such forms. My goals now are to get to the 60th, 90th, 120th day and so on, I hate PMO now more than ever, and will never look back to it, I will resist every urge and withdrawal symptoms, I will continue building myself, not just for me, but for my future wife, she deserves a loyal husband, for my future kids, the deservce a strong dad, for my parents, the deserve a kind son, for my brothers, they deserve a trustworthy brother, for my friends, they deserve an addiction free friend, for God, he deserves, an honest righteous worshiper, for myself, I deserve to see the best version of myself.
At the end, I wanna say, that I am grateful for this journey, for every tear, for every sweat, for every urge, for every prayer, for every mistake, for every verse of the quran, this kind of journeys is the one that test our true mettle, the one that shapes our habits, change our identities, as I said during my first week and now I am living in "The boy who entered this 90 days journey, will never be like the man who walks out of it", it's been just a month so far and I am feeling this growth, I feel like a different person, so I am just wondering, how am I gonna be in 60 days from now, in a year, in 5 ? Only Time will reveal this mystery.
This is a beacon of hope for everyone in this journey, I was probably worse than you, if I made it to one month, you can as well, just keep going.
That's it from my side guys, I will be writing my daily journals in this thread from now on, see you tomorrow.
Alhamdulilah
