Dont make the same mistakes I have made!

Well I'm man enough to admit it, the people on here who said that my apathy about relapsing would lead to me regressing were right, thats exactly what has happened. In the past 2-3 weeks since I relapsed on day 43, I've relapsed many, many times, to the same kind of porn I thought I had shaken off. A week ago I said I was going to stop frequenting the site as often in an attempt to stop thinking about PMO as much, and to be fair it did work to an extent, just not well enough to stop me relapsing. Now, I think I need to list what I've realised this past month, it might be helpful to anyone reading this and I'm putting it down for the sake of posterity.

First of all, relapses dont occur because of some intangible craving or addictive desire, they happen because I CHOOSE to act upon them. Every time I've tried to blame something else for it, I've been wrong, its ALWAYS been me choosing to subject myself to to the negative effects of PMO for whatever reason. I think in my case, that I chose to relapse due to apathy about my situation, apathy that stems from low self-esteem, that is ironically made worse long term by PMO. This may be the same for others, or it might be a completely different situation, but the point is you need to find out.

Secondly, and I think a lot of people need to hear this, the sexuality debate that rages pretty much non-stop is a scapegoat for actually addressing the underlying issues that leads to compulsive PMO. As someone who regularly PMO'd to various porn genres that didn't reflect my prior sexuality, I worried about whether it meant I was bi (I always knew I was never straight up gay), and it led to lots of instances of me going back to those porn genres under the rationale of "well if this is the real me then whats the harm?". If you're doing this, or you think you're on that path, STOP RIGHT NOW. Whether you're straight, gay, bisexual, or whateverthefuckelsesexual, its COMPLETELY irrelevant to why you're here, to give up PMO. By worrying about sexuality and porn genres you are giving power to the addiction by letting it occupy space in your mind and giving it credibility by second guessing yourself.

Thirdly, dont think that going an arbitrary length of time will magically "cure" you of your problems. I did that, thinking that as I approached day 90 I would suddenly wake up a changed man and when I got to day 80 and it didn't happen I relapsed and spent the last few months in a downward spiral I haven't yet fully recovered from. If you reach a month and dont notice changes, KEEP GOING. If you reach 2 months and still dont, KEEP GOING. If you reach the fabled 90 days and still dont, STILL KEEP GOING. Stop treating NoFap like a timed willpower experiment, and start treating it like its the rest of your life. If you want to succeed long term, thats the only mindset to have.

Finally, and I think this is the most important point, you need to find a concrete reason to undertake this journey, if you dont then you wont succeed, at least not long term. You need something tangible to keep you moving when apathy strikes and you genuinely do want to PMO, something to strive for to make you a better person. Find this reason, and dont ever forget it or let it go.

Well there you have it, I hope this advice will be helpful to someone on here, its helpful knowledge to me at least. As for me, I'm back to day one, and in many ways back to square one. Despite all this I'm down, but not out. The struggle continues!

 

I do hope that this thread doesnt get lost and that a fair few people who need it get to see it, I know that if I read something like this back on day 80 I wouldn't have relapsed, or at the very least I would have at a later time. I think we as a group have a tendency to over analyse the wrong things and ignore the obvious, I just hope that I can follow my own advice and stick to the path.