Hi, I just failed again. First time, I had a relapse after 4 days. This time, I failed after 13 days, an improvement for sure. I don't know if it's called a reset or a relapse - did PMO for 2 hours (only O once though, but still). Regardless, I failed and counter is back at 0. One thing that is important to know though, for people, when they either relapse or reset - it's a chance to get to the bottom of WHY you have an addiction in the first place. Remember guys, abstaining PMO will do wonders for you - but it likely won't solve the underlying issue. During resets and relapses, you have a chance of finding out what triggers your urges and what drives your addiction. So sure, this was a huge fail for my part - but it was also a small win. Gotta stay positive!
Hi, It's good that you're being so honest with yourself and not letting your brain try to trick you into thinking you didn't relapse or reset. It is very important to figure out what triggers you so that you can avoid those temptations as much as possible. I'm on day six myself and feel that urges come and go but for me so far they've only lasted around 1-3 minutes and I know that if I can hold out for that long and do something I'm good to go. I had a scare earlier today and came right back onto the forums it could have and probably would have led to a relapse/reset but luckily I stopped myself from going down a bad road. Keep up the good work, 13 days is awesome!
Dude don't even worry about the whole counter thing, its more trouble than it's worth. If you're on a low numbered day after just being on a decent one you'll get demoralized and PMO again because you'll have the mentality of "Oh well, im only on day 3, its not that big of a deal". Just look at things as progress and learning experiences, thats all. Keep track if u want but don't go back to 0 after a fuck up. Focus on learning from mistakes and not making them again. You can read this response I gave someone earlier about the same thing if u want https://www.nofap.com/forum/index.p...ner-considered-a-relapse.178754/#post-1535885
Thanks guys. I do want to reset the counter though so that I can track how many days I've been "completely" PMO free. I have however noted in my calendar when I started this journey so that I can track how long ago I started, when my "square 0" was so to speak. Funnily enough, I was completely drained of energy last night as well as today. Dopamine kicks are the worst (afterwards)! Tracking my triggers, my progress and learning from all this is my end goal, apart from quitting porn obviously. Next time I'm hoping I will be able to better thwart the urges, having learned what I learned from this reset. It feels good to have this forum where we can expose ourselves, let ourselves be vulnerable, in order for us to learn from others. It's nice to be able to write about it. It's like it's therapeutic. Thanks again for your strengthening words. I'm gonna do this!! This time, 13 days will be beaten by even more!
I never really thought about the counter in that way until you mentioned it and you're right. I've been in streaks a longtime ago where when I felt like I messed up I reset and that led to a worse relapse than anything. Especially because it fed into some of the aspects of porn I enjoyed. Wise words my friend thank you very much!
That's the right response and attitude you have. Although I stumbled a little yesterday I'm almost seven days PMO free and I've struggled to do 2-3 before I rejoined NoFap. I'll try not to focus too much on the counter as well, the main thing is learning from each other and our mistakes. After all we have to learn to crawl before we can walk. If you need or want to talk just PM me.
Same here man. I went 77 days then relapsed with the "Back to day 1" mentality and ended up going the next 2 months having frequent relapses. Its a dangerous mentality to have and doesn't add a damn thing to your life.
That was the story of my old account and part of the reason I left Nofap I made it to 21 and 43 days as my highest but they never felt completely "clean" couldn't do it on my own after several attempts and getting sucked back into old habits I created this account. I'm working on not being focused on the days too much as it is a downfall of mine but I'm so goal orientated it's hard. The victories like I had last night mean so much more than the days when I think about it.
If you're goal oriented maybe use a calender app and put a check mark for each day you get through and a Gold medal emoji for every week you make it through. That's what I've been doing and seeing those checks and medals is a good reminder of how far ive come. (Been clean through all of May and June and only screwed up 3 times in April)
That's actually a really good idea. Might set up a little reward system as well. That's really great that you're doing so well. If I can ask what was the screw ups in April?
The 1st one was on the 6th. I was watching a Lets play series of some stupid game called "House party" where you're just at a House party and hitting on chicks and its just a whole lot of funny shit. I didn't know the game actually had sex in it so in the episode that came out day had it. It was Heavily censored but just still led to me looking up shit and relapsing. The other 2 I don't really remember much of, they happend on the 23rd and 30th. The 23rd was probably just strong urges and not being able to fight them. The 30th was that stupid ass lie you tell yourself "Relapse now and start fresh next month" as if that makes any fucking sense. But after the relapse I made it a mission to make that lie into the truth and actually use May as a new start. Plus I had a medical problem which basically made it so there was no chance of a relapse. Then once I went to the doctor he prescribed me something which ended up destroying my mind and making my anxiety the worst its ever been so once again I didn't even have a chance to relapse because my mind was nothing but horror. After all that I was about 20 days in and just kept going. So those ended up being blessings in disguise.
Thank you for sharing that. I can really relate to that lie of relapse now and start fresh. After my stumble yesterday I had that lie pop into my head then and today but I've held firm and said no as long as I don't do it again I can keep going. If I reset because of this I'll take a bigger step backwards if that makes any sense at all.
Thank you guys for all of your amazing replies. Everything written here is a reflection of everything good with this community! Much love to you all The length which our brain goes to "justify" these things is incredible. In my case, I just got into a spiral of thoughts where I just got hornier and hornier (is hornier a word?). In the end, I figured that if I'm gonna jerk off to some images, I might as well go all in and watch porn also, it's "still gonna count as a reset so why not". Dangerous thought patterns right there. Next time, I'll try to stop it before my thoughts even get to that point. I've been doing mindfulness meditation every night before sleep for a week now, I'm hoping it will help me somehow on my mission with NoFap. Also doing cold showers, which I don't think really contributes to being less horny, but I think it has a huge amount of other values to it such as better immune system, becoming braver in life, making it easier for you to force yourself to do "uncomfortable things" as well as start the day off with a huge dose of adrenaline - I have actually felt less stressed out by doing this (or is the meditation or NoFap? Or a combination?). These three are an amazing combination of self improvement practices that I recommend to everyone here. NoFap in combination with cold showers and meditation = holy trinity of self awareness! Oh and I'm also going to bed at 10 PM and waking up at 6 (I try to get up at 5 but damn, I always just snooze to 6). This is a big difference from before when I could easily sleep to 8 on weekdays and 11-12 on weekends. I feel like I get soo much benefits from this and more importantly, TIME! I start the day by (after a cold shower) eating breakfast and having morning coffee (something I never did before) on the balcony in the sun, filling up on vitamin D and fresh air. Not to mention the time savings from not fapping. I don't even know why I'm fapping .. the benefits of not fapping are just so many..! lol
Yeah Ive had that dumb shit happen before, "Well if you're gonna do it anyway might as well binge on porn for hours and then have a nice clean reset" just the stupidest logic ever. Its like an alcoholic who had a bit of wine and was like "Well, might as well get piss ass drunk at this point". Seriously? How does that even slightly make sense?
