For those that relapsed for years but finally succeeded.

One morning, having gone to sleep at 3am I was just dead tired and felt like sh*t for wasting my life on PMO. I guess you could say I hit the bottom... I had tried many times before, that time I decided to study what others had done to quit PMO instead of just trying it completely on my own.

it's been three months now and things are looking better but I'm not cured yet.

 

12 step sex addiction group is what has finally worked for me.

 

This site. I stopped feeling sorry for myself and became aggressive. I declared total war on my sexuality. Failure is simply not an option.

 

tomtom; __S.K.; MelancholyWeightlifter; galaxim - you guys are legends!

 

I've been addicted to MO/PMO for 10 years, relapsing day after day, unable to hold myself longer than 5 days without relapsing.

Nowadays I'm 6 months free of PMO, and almost 100 days free of MO, but I don't consider myself "cured". Quoting William (http://www.nofap.org/forum/showthre...-tools-and-learn-to-love-withdrawals/page25):
I now know I will never be "cured". I now know that for the rest of my life I will have days, have moments, when I wish a dopamine high could take all my problems away. It never will. I am human, like everyone here.

Hitting rock bottom for me was to start thinking about escort sites. "OK, I see where this's all going". So I decided it was time to quit, once and for all. Actually, I already knew about Gary Wilson's talk and about the NoFap community at reddit, but I didn't pay much attention at that point. "Yeah, yeah, I know, I have to do something about this... eventually...".

Then I did a Google search and I found out solideo's blog (http://nofapsolideo.wordpress.com/), which lead me here. I was recently graduated from College at the time, so I said to myself "this is a new beginning. I need all my time for this new period that I'm starting" and as I was forced to make several changes about my time schedule, I though that I could leave MO/PMO aswell. "If I don't leave it now, I'll never leave it". I didn't choose a particularly good period of my life to do the switch, but a rather stressful and difficult one.

If I had to name only three things that you need, I'd say:

1. Determination: the inner conviction to NEVER do it again (MO/PMO). If you still leave that door open, you'll always relapse. You can relapse even when you're determined, but it's not the same, as you know this is not a game, where you can be in and out whenever you want to. This is serious. This is for your life.

2. Information: to make a concrete plan, to learn about your harmful habits and to replace them for new ones. To read about your brain and body chemistry.

3. Patience: after the initial rush around the second week, the "I did it!" week, a long period of nothingness is going to appear. You have to renounce to the porn/masturbation rush forever. That's the price that you have to pay. There's no replacement for that.

 

Thanks, chase-- In order to answer your question, I'll explain what "urge" means to me.

When I say I'm addicted to porn/masturbation, for me, I mean I'm addicted to them in much the same way an alcohol or drug addict is addicted to his or her substance. I mean I deal with an obsession (which means I can't stop thinking about PMO no matter how much I try) and a compulsion (which means I can't stop acting out with PMO, no matter how much I try to stop).

The things which people like galaxim have used so successfully did not work for me for some reason. Information did not work for me, for instance. I was more distracted with how good porn felt than I was able to feel concerned about what it was doing to my brain, body, and life. I simply could not seem to summon the willpower to overcome my obsession and compulsion. I could masturbate three or four times a day and then try very hard to stop, but after a few days, life was a living hell without it. Resistance only made eventually falling back into it feel sexier.

I had to treat my problem exactly the way a drug addict would, and that involved counseling and a 12 step program.

So, to answer your question, I no longer have an obsession and compulsion towards PMO. My mind is not obsessed with it, and my body does not crave it. I go to my 12 step meetings and keep up all the healthy new habits and it stays away. Occasionally I feel an urge but I have people to call and meetings to go to and tools I can use, and often within a few minutes, the urge can be deflated. It's a miracle and life keeps getting better.

 

I am on Day 87. Only 3 more to go!

I wouldn't say that I've been relapsing for years, but I will say that I've been completely addicted for years. Relapsing implies that I was actively trying to stop, whereas in reality, I was just going through life an addict, wasting gobs and gobs of potentially productive time on the most useless time suck there is, pmo.

Like TomTom, my moment of truth came when I hit bottom. After binging, I took a bath and just sat there soaking thinking to myself, this isn't normal... normal people don't act like this. In conjunction, I felt like I there were so many things I wanted to accomplish and that wasting my time on PMO would in no way move me any closer to my goals or ambitions.

Think about it, PMO doesn't actually do you any good. It's not like after a session of PMO you're $5 richer... nor have you have you learned anything that will help you in any way, shape, or form.

I think I've made it to day 87 by supplanting PMO with other productive goals. It hasn't been, just make it to 90 days without PMO, it's been make it to 90 days while trying to get a new job (succeeded), get good grades (succeeded), be a good spouse (succeeded), eat healthy (working on it)...

S.K. has it right. For some of us, the urges never go away. At day 87, I'm still fearful that I won't make it the next three days, especially since I will have plenty of triggers and factors going against me right up until day 90. But now I'm starting to remember how I fought my urges in the past. Posting and spending a little time on the forum.

I haven't really been present on nofap for about 2 weeks. I suppose that means I haven't been having many urges. And here I am now, posting as a means of fighting off urges. Trying to talk some sense into myself and stay on track.

So to answer your question: The biggest reason I made an earnest attempt to stop was just hitting rock bottom.

The biggest reason I've been successful for 87 days is focusing on a secondary goal and utilizing the forum to help rationalize with myself why it's so important for me to get PMO out of my life.

Good luck!