A little help + decision made

Firstly, welcome to NoFap! You are amongst friends who are here to encourage you.

Secondly, based on what you've said, a level of addiction is present.


Here is a growing collection of startup strategies compiled from myself and I've added some from others on NoFap. Keep these in mind. This is by no means a be-all-end-all list of suggestions but it is a list for you to use and add to for yourself and modify to meet your needs.

1. Delete all of the P that you have from your computer and smartphone including the browser history and cookies. This will not stop you but will slow you down.
2. Identify your triggers. What are the things that you happening in your world to cause you to turn to PMO for escape and comfort! This is the most crucial step in the process.
3. Once your triggers are identified, determine healthy ways of dealing with those triggers such as exercise, running, leaving the stressful situation and going outside for air.
4. Follow this link to find out what NoFap is about. Within this link is a link to a glossary of terms commonly used on NoFap. This will help you communicate knowledgeably and more effectively. https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.php?threads/newbies-list-of-rebooting-resources.50878/
5. Go to http://yourbrainonporn.com/ to learn more about the effect PMO has on you. Do this also to educate yourself on the damage you are doing to yourself.
6. Guard your eyes. Be careful of what you allow yourself to see. No, you cannot live with your eyes closed but you can determine how long you look at something. If you know it may cause you to fall, flee from it! Run in the other direction, sometimes that need to be literal.
7. Stop placing yourself in situations where the situation has leverage over you. That means stop placing yourself where you know you may get weak and either give in at the moment or later on.
8. When you see yourself beginning to be in a bad situation (ex. alone with a computer and horny), say what you feel or know you are about to do or likely to do so you can hear yourself say it. (Ex. "I'm alone in a room [with a computer] and I'm feeling lonely [or whatever the emotion is] and horny and I want to [watch watch porn and] masturbate but if I do that, I will have lost the progress I've made". By hearing you say what you are about to do, you may realize the price you pay is not worth what you will receive in return.
9. Masturbation... do not keep your hands to yourself. Unless you are bathing, changing your underwear or actually using the bathroom, your hands should be nowhere near your penis. YOU ARE BANNED FROM TOUCHING YOUR PENIS FOR RECREATION!!! IT IS NOT A TOY!!!
10. Your bed is limited to only the time you are sleeping. No laying in bed other than that. As soon you awake, you should get out of bed. Can't sleep, if awake for more than a few minutes, get out of bed until you are sleepy enough to go to sleep.
11. Keep doors open unless necessary. You need to be isolated as little as possible. You're less likely to M when people can see you.
12. Keep curtains and blinds open as much as possible. Similar reason as above and also allows light inside. Many time M'ing is more likely in dark places.
13. At night, keep lights on as often as possible. Similar to above, lights on may lessen your desire to fap.
14. If you are a naked sleeper or a boxer sleeper, consider sleeping in a in jockstrap, cup or briefs or compression shorts, something more constrictive so that you are less likely to feel movement while falling asleep or when awaking. They may provide a better barrier to prevent those that subconsciously reach for their penis at night or in the morning. They may also be a visual barrier for those that have morning erections too irresistible to not touch.
15. If you have a faith, lean into it. Allow it to strengthen you in times of weakness. Many of us have gained strength in our weakest moments due to our faith.
    
16. Begin a journal so that others can encourage you and connect with you.
17. Become active in this community. The more active you are, the less time you will spend focused on you. The less time focused solely on you, the faster time goes. There is an old saying, "a watched pot of water doesn't boil any faster", which means for this example, focusing solely on yourself and your issues won't make them go away sooner. It's OK to track progress but when spending more time doing other things that were once important to you and encouraging others, you will notice the time of your sobriety will go so much faster than if you didn't.
18. Consider joining a group. Allow those with your same interests you give you additional strength. Consider asking for an accountability partner. We in the forum will help you but some may become stronger with one or a few to keep them accountable.
19. Remember that whatever you feed will grow and whatever you starve will eventually die! Each time you PMO you feed the addiction, each time you resist, you starve the addiction.

This a journey. Unless you began your addiction yesterday, don't expect to have complete victory by tomorrow. It takes time. We are here for you for as long as it takes.
Your triggers will be those things that occur and you find yourself wanting to turn to PMO for escape and comfort. There are visual triggers that may be avoided but the emotional triggers are much more difficult to avoid. Here are some common emotional triggers:

• Laziness
• Fear
• Hunger
• Anger/ aggravation / frustration
• Lonliness
• Tiredness
• Depression
• Inebriation
• Depression
• General stress
• Need for control/ feeling out of control or loss of control
• Boredom
• Helplessness

 

Welcome! My advice is to start slowly and gently. No one climbs Mt Everest as their first climbing experience. Six months ago, I could not have gone for more than 2-3 days without feeling I was going crazy. Today, I had only one very deliberate and quick reset in 74 days (I got scared, lol, that things no longer worked, lol, and had to check!). But my history over these months has been about a gradual change. And yep, your mind does adjust btw. Be positive, be determined, get to know yourself even more truly...
i wish you all the very best in your great quest ahead!

 

Yeah, hard mode is "hard" - but it seems to work. I know I have definitely changed. Halfway through Day 41, and feeling alive, confident, and in control. This would have been Day 75, except 40 days ago, I got scared that I had lost my ability to O, and deliberately reset to check, lol. I didnt even enjoy it much (honest!).
The app is in the android Play Store. I cant see it in App Store on my ipad tho, which is a pity because it is excellent.
To get the Counter (it seems to be playing up tho), click my Counter below. This should take you directly to the set-up for your own. You will need a google-account and it will ask you for your gmail address (nothing sinister). Follow the instructions, and it will end up giving you a URL to paste into your NF Signature. Sounds complex, but it isnt really. Call out if you get stuck!
Cheers.

 

Hi @LogicalThomas , welcome to NoFap
It is a big step if you can understand what is triggering your urges, because this will allow you to be awake and kill those urges as soon as they appear.

I recommend you to create your own "Emergency Toolbox" with readings that can be handy to read when you start feeling urges to screw up.
I can share this post with you with my own Emergency Toolbox, it helped me a lot during the first few months, i had them in my cell and read them every time I started falling down:

https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.p...y-first-320-days-of-reboot.62938/#post-473978

I wrote some tips in this post that perhaps will help you too:

http://NoFap.com/forum/index.php?threads/tips-that-helped-me-to-start-my-reboot.46617/#post-330318
You can watch some interesting videos which are also very helpful in this post:
http://nofap.com/forum/index.php?th...t-help-me-a-lot-during-my-reboot.39774/page-2

I also suggest you to read "Breaking the Cycle" by George Collins, it is a must-read if you are serious about getting rid of this addiction.

Last but not least, I would strongly recommend you to take the NoFap Academy course if you can afford it. The course is great but the best value are the weekly video calls with @alexander (the creator of NoFap and NoFap Academy) and Mark Queppet, where you can chat with them in real life and listen to other guys's stories and problems too.

I hope that all this helps you to fight this shitty addiction.
Let's keep on fighting

Fercho
PS: BTW, I am bisexual too, it gets a bit more complicated the reboot in our case because our sexual orientation some times is the reason why we have hidden behind PMO ( plus, gay porn is VERY addictive ). I've met several famous gay porn stars , which I hired as escorts, and they told me terrible things about this industry, how they are abused and almost treated as slaves