35 and Older Accountability Group

Checking in. Awesome morning mountain biking with my son. Be well everyone!

 

Hello all,

Not sure what's wrong but I am unable to see my counter, Just shows like a broken {IMG}

Same for everyone or just me?

Cheers

 

Same for me as well. I checked the forum and there is a thread regarding it being a known issue so I'm sure at some point it will get resolved. I'm in no rush for it since I hate the counters lol

Checking in and working on day 3.

 

Apparently its a DDOS attack. I was able to get them working for me by opening https://tracker.nofap.com/ in a browser and passing the "Im not a robot" test

 

Update! Resetting my counter!
Although I had relapsed recently, the patterns were changed as long as previously I was falling to binge cycles for several days before starting a new streak.
* By the way, today I saw a nofap related YouTube video where the case of binging to P is considered as the worst-case scenario of addiction. It seems like I had it...

 

Evenin' all. Missed a couple of weeks doing you know what. Back here to fight.

 

Thanks dudes appreciate it!

 

Checking in. I've really been struggling with depression this week because of work and family issues. My brain always defaults to p and m when I'm sad, but of course that only makes things worse.

I'm rearranging my schedule and strengthening p blocking to start taking sobriety seriously.

One day at a time.

 

check in, personally i like having the counter up, shows me where i am.

 

Those kinds of triggers have been tough for me. I don't fall for most any more which is an improvement but its taking me a while to unwind the lies I tell myself.

It's been interesting now that I never fap to some issues they just full on went away. And the others are much easier to deal with.

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Anyway streak is new and fragile but I like my mindset. Work has been horribly stressful but I'm not seeing that as a reason to PM. Thats huge for me.

 

I got through the weekend successfully. It helped that I went away to a cottage, but the constant nagging of the urges and the long ride back got me really triggered. What I needed to do was stay away from the computer when I got home, as if I were recovering from a relapse and avoiding the chaser effect. But when my wife went to sleep, I had the excuse that I wanted to finish watching a movie and I eventually gave in.
Today would have been 7 days. Instead I relapsed yesterday. Since I didn't delete all my catfishing paths or lock up my computer and phone with the blocker I was back into it again today. I was up till 1 am last night, I could have stayed up until 1:30 to close everything off but I chose not to. As soon as I decided to stay up a little longer it was over.
As much as the behaviours themselves are compulsive, so is going back to them the following day when I know it will have negative consequences. Even in a relapse or reset, there is still progress that can be made - how bad will I let that relapse get? Maybe it's progress that I haven't gone back a third day or more.
I wish I could get a week here or two weeks there, for me its been a few days here and there. I hope that six days is a sign of progress, that there has been some release in the mental pathways or strengthening of resisting pathways.
I've turned the blocker back on and probably going to pay for it when the trial is over, because I think it works for me (I know that it works for me because there was some reluctance when I turned it on now). In three minutes I'm offline, shower and in bed.
The chaser effect will be in full force tomorrow, and I'm going to have to stay away from the screens for the day, even with the blocker on. There's lots that I need to do tomorrow, and a lot of time that could get wasted if I get online.

 

Checking in. Some urges/fantasies recently but was able to fight them off. Cardio has been very beneficial, as well as staying mentally active and socially engaged. Keep on keeping on, everyone.

 

The posts I am reading here about trying to shrug off and break out of the PMO cycle are extremely familiar to me. I've been in that cycle myself for almost half my life. And for the past year I never got past a week or two.

The only reason I have made it past 2 weeks this time is my wife caught me, and was really, really hurt by it. It has shaken our relationship to the core and it will take her a long time to trust me again, if ever. I don't know if we will ever have sex again, and I don't know if our marriage is going to survive. We are together for now for the sake of our 3 kids. I'm just waiting and hoping.

That kind of thing is a great motivator to get you started on nofap. So it has been relatively easy to get to 27 days now. I just wish I could have found the resolve in myself before all of this happened.

 

Checking in. Here and sober by the grace of God. One thing God has helped me with is reaching out for further accountability by having someone see my browser history. I selected both a person from church and one of my brothers. Neither of which will let me off the hook if anything shows up. I feel this approach is helpful for a two reasons.

1. Sin tries to remain a secret and cannot coexist with transparency. Darkness is the absence of light so to dispell the darkness one needs to shine a spotlight on yourself and your behaviors.
2. It reminds me of the ever real reality that God is always present. He never turns away from us, we turn from Him. He is our Divine Accountability person who wants us to tackle our disordered inclinations with His help. Yes we are sinners but it's important to keep in mind that God made man and man made sin. God loves what he made always and we will stop making sin once we turn to Him and love ourselves for His sake.

I pray for the grace to never forget this because the world and all of its temptations are all too eager to distract me from it.

 

Have you read the smoking book? I'm trying it just because it's different than other stuff I've looked at and after 20+ years of not quiting I obviously need a new approach.


It's short and I'm only 1/3 if the way through I must have some inner resistance to it. I'm going to try to read a few pages a day this week.

If you havent done it yet I'd recommend it. The price is right so not much to lose lose lol.

 

So sorry to hear this brother. I've been there, and it cost me my marriage. My heart is with you and her and I hope you seek counseling together to work through this. I want to give you some hard truth though: even though this motivation got you to 27 days, it will not sustain you without doing a lot of hard work on your recovery plan and your inner self. Your motivation to stay away from PMO right now is externally derived, so even the pain of your wife's loss of trust will, over time, fade, and you'll start finding rationals again to re-enter the cycle. I know I did. You need to find the internal motivation, the power that comes from staying clean for yourself, regardless of your relationship status. If your wife left you tomorrow, kicked you to a cheap hotel, would you stay clean another 27 days? Be honest.

What you need to do now is use this time where the pain is strong enough to keep you away from PMO to completely retrain your habits and thoughts. Sign up for Universal Man's sexual self mastery course, get a therapist if you don't have one, read everything you can on porn addiction, and invest heavily in a new hobby that has a low barrier of success to participate in. Find some men IRL that you can trust enough to share your struggles with and get some accountability. Dig deep into yourself and discover what PMO is helping you avoid, and learn how to face those things without this crutch. It's a hard road my friend, but my sincere hope is that you can walk it before it's too late. Do what I couldn't do. The pain of slowly regaining your wife's trust is far, far less painful than losing her completely. Trust me.

 

Powerful words. Reading the conversation between the two of you, I feel like that could easily be a message from my future self to me. Let's hope it does not get to that point. I agree that the external motivators only last so long. They can be a powerful tool to jump start things, but indeed ultimately I do believe it must come from within.

 

Thanks for the support. Lots of good advice there, I wish I could pin this post.

This isn't the first time my wife and I have been through this cycle. I can identify completely with the motivation being externally derived, and how it fades over time. Been there, done that. I have a counsellor myself, although we haven't had a session in several months.

The thing I really want change this time is have my wife do counselling with me, but she's against it for her own personal reasons. So I am looking for new things to try by myself. This accountability group is one of those things. And I will try some of your other suggestions too.