Falling down a slippery slope

Internet filters like K9 are useful, but they are not infallible. Think of yourself as a tradesperson, and the filters are your tools. They are good tools, but unless the guy using the tools is on his game, they won't be enough on their own. It's good that you didn't dive into a full-scale relapse, but there are some major warnings to heed too. Why did you feel the need to look at "trigger" material? What might you do differently next time to avoid looking at it.

Hey, I'm not perfect, I've made the same mistake myself too many times. That's how I know you've entered a danger zone. What I think you'll need to do is come up with something else you can do to take the edge of the urges next time you feel this way. It could be something as simple as doing push-ups, or visiting this site, or phoning a friend. It needs to be something you'll actually be able to do in the moment to control yourself. If you're going to beat this thing, you'll need to find some other way of getting by without your "fix". Good luck.

 

well, perhaps you should redefine your goals and set clearer conditions on when you reset. it is of course always up to you. this is also the reason why all these "is this a relapse" questions simply don't make any sense...

as an example, a good no porn goal could be formulated like this: i will reset whenever i intentionally search for porn or don't get away from a porn site when i happen to stumble on one by chance. the important thing here is to be honest with yourself. did you really just stumbled upon some porn? i don't have any internet filter installed and spend better part of the day online. i reddit a lot, browse randomly and click on links in comments on internet discussions. yet with one exception (a troll on nofap forum which just got reported immediately) i did not look at any porn in the past six months. did you really just randomly stumbled upon something or did you intentionally hung around places where you knew there is a good chance one of this links is gonna lead to something? if so, isn't that what makes you feel bad? i would not call it relapse, unless you repeat the behaviour knowing that it is what it is.

of course, sometimes you will have a bad feeling and you just can't help it. you can wake up remembering a dream where you relapsed and you remember that in that dream you made a conscious decision to do it. but that's why you set the rules... your mind plays tricks with you, you need to be able to use logic to fight back.