Easing myself into my Reboot... A question for the pros

I'm not a pro yet, but I am enrolled in the NoFap Academy, which is run by experts, and they're pretty clear about it, right in the very first part of the course. Success pretty much depends on a full reboot. They do make some allowances for people who are in a relationship, but they say that "Wife Mode" is actually harder and will take longer to recover than "Hard Mode". This isn't to say that you might not experience some improvements with your PIED here and there, but they're probably not going to be lasting. More importantly, the problem you're going to have (and I know because I've been there too, so many times I can't even tell you how many) is that it's very easy to slip from just M'ing with fantasy, to sneaking a peek at a photo, to watching a video, to getting fully back into P, and then your PIED will return.

My story: 15 years an addict, getting into more and more extreme stuff. I could barely ever O with a partner. Sometimes I could manage it by M'ing with them, but that was about it. Tried to give up, I dunno, 100 times. I kept failing, and I kept feeling pathetic, because I couldn't beat it, even though it was clearly ruining my life. It is literally the reason my ex-fiance left me.

I got into another relationship and, after about a year, I finally accepted that it was getting in the way of me having a good sex life. So I gave up PMO, but I kept having sex with my new fiance, and literally 9 days after giving it up, I suddenly had an orgasm with her. And it felt INCREDIBLE. I can't tell you how amazing it was. And they kept coming and coming (pun very much intended).

60-something days after giving up PMO I realised that even though my sex life had spectacularly improved, I was still basically an addict, and that unless I took stronger action I was always going to be an addict, I was going to relapse at some point. I don't want to throw away all the hard work I've put in. So now I'm doing hard mode. And it's hard (pun, again, intended). But I'm 100% sure it's going to be worth it.

 

Welcome Ballz to the forum. That is the first step to your healing and I commend you for taking action!

That being said, you have a interesting post here. First off, I am going to be critical. I am sorry if that offends you, if you are easily offended, it's best you don't read my reply, however I feel that it will be highly beneficial of you to do so.

I think the first reason you can't get passed 3 days is because you don't actually want to. By you joking "pathetic, I know lol" it tells me that I don't think your taking this that seriously, it seems like one of those it'd be cool if... but am I really wanting to put in the hard work? That being said, I don't think you just all together quit and say screw this, I am going to be pathetic. Those who do something over and over and expect a different result are "crazy," those who expect change without advocating and doing something about it are ignorant, and those who cut themselves down will stay down.

You decided that it was to hard to even go 30 days with out PMO, so then the PIED must not be that bad, because you don't really want it. That being said, PIED can be caused by numerous reasons, for you the ED might be caused by your big intake of porn, it could be a dietary imbalance, it could be that your mind is conditioned to being turned on by your hand, that your mind is now not interested in women (causing the PIED) as a result of so much M in your life. It is really hard to say exactly what the cause is. However, I also want to note that you are severely continuing to harm your brain by saying you can only M before bed. Bed then will become a time when you are not going to sleep, but rather when you look forward to your daily M. There is a good reason why many people give that advice when you are rebooting to stay out of your bed unless its time to sleep. I in the passed only M'd really when I went to the shower. Strangely enough, after a while I classically conditioned my mind that that was boner time. Every time I got in the shower, it was time to fap.

After I began my journey to quit, the shower was an area of severe struggle for me. I would sometimes avoid showers for 3-4 days in the beginning, for fear of the temptation, or I would make sure my shower was really short. Do you see where I am going with this? What about the connection to your bed? It is the same exact concept.

That being said, I have learned this from experience as I went 80+ days on my first reboot attempt with NoFap, and for reasons I have explained in other posts I left NoFap, and eventually it lead up to a relapse. Now that I am attempting round #2 of NoFap hard mode, these first few days have been 10x more agonizing than they were the first round. The more times you write off that it is okay to relapse, that you can't do it, that it is hard, the more difficult it will be. The more you are affirming in your mind that you cannot do it.

So in answer to your question, in the 5 months that I have been here at NoFap, I have yet to see anyone who tries to do what you are doing and succeed. All they are doing is rationalizing defeat and accepting it. I see a bunch of people try cold turkey and fail too, don't get me wrong, but I don't see anyone who is boasting of their great success stories who didn't do hard mode, I have been wrong from time to time though.

If you work on your attitude and how you approach it, you can overcome this fairly easy. Or you can choose to accept the prior, which is what you said already, you decided you can't do it.