Have any of you successfully recovered?

:'(

I feel you man. I really feel you. Same thing with me, it just seems impossible.

 

I’m not finished with my recovery process. Far from it. Only about 10 months into this. But I’ve made such huge gains. People quit heroin. Meth. Fuck, alcoholics find a way, and that shit is every where in society and culture.

We can do this. Keep the faith. Keep trying. Imagine yourself as already recovered and then when you are faced with a decision anywhere in life say to yourself, “A sexually healthy person would do this. I am a sexually healthy person. Therefore I will do this too.”

Change how you identify. Change your system. Change your behaviors.

Stay strong. Good luck!

 

General advice to train up to:

• Recognize all triggers
• Pull away from triggers instantly
• Avoid what triggers you
• Don't be distressed by wet dreams
• Realize lust attacks become more rare and shorter lived
• Refuse to give up even if you fail again and again

Personal advice:
Find a church with good community throughout the week, read the Bible and pray every day. Grow in healthy friendships and keep your schedule mostly full so you don't have time to sit around and lust. Pray simply to gain the desire to recover, whenever you want to relapse. Hopefully if you haven't already, then you'll eventually come to saving faith and have renewed motivation. That is, you'll recognize obedience to the one who saved you is 100% worth it, regardless of anything you could ever miss out on on earth.

 

I'm 100+ days in and still feel very much tied to porn. I still go through phases of thinking about it and even contemplating going back to it, the main difference now though is that the step between thinking about it and actually doing it feels a lot bigger, before it wasn't much of a step at all. I'm not a good example though, most people who quit move on from PMO and onto something else, whereas all I've really done is move it to the side. Avoiding triggers(no matter how small you think they might be) is the most important in building up a good streak in my experience, long daily walks may also be helping.

 

I haven’t PMO’d voluntarily in close to 3 years. You have to treat your recovery like a second job. It means being vigilante consistently but I think those that struggle just don’t have a strong enough ‘why’.

if I asked you why you are quitting PMO could you reel off your reasons at the blink of an eye? Unfortunately it is not enough to say you want to quit ‘to be better’ or to say ‘I have had enough’. Dig deep and ask yourself why after 3 years you are still addicted to this thing. I mean really be honest and ask yourself. In the moment when you give in to PMO, what exactly are you feeling? Are you bored? Lonely? Stressed? All three? What are you trying to escape from? Get to know yourself and understand why you keep going back to this addiction.

You have to hit a point where enough is enough. There isn’t a chance in hell that I would PMO again. PMO no longer has a place in my life, it has served its purpose. I know that in the very fabric of my being. That feeling of anxiety, the headaches, the lack of confidence, the fatigue. It is enough for me never to go back.

It might be that you’re not truly ready to give up PMO just yet and that’s ok. Maybe start by cutting down first rather than going cold turkey. Start with two to three sessions a week and gradually cut down. Do what works best for you and what will see you through.

The bottom line is that quitting PMO is a full time job that takes dedication. If after 3 years you are struggling to hold a streak, something needs to change. Look at your lifestyle and pick out the potential holes that could be causing you to fail. The biggest game changer for me was my diet. In short any form of sugar made me disgustingly horny. This was so bad that I had to cut sugar down during my streak. As soon as I made that change things became ALOT easier.

Wishing you nothing but the best on your journey!

 

From reading your previous posts though, aren't you dealing with severe/long-term ED? I don't understand how ED and disgustingly horny go together, is that not an oxymoron? I'm not at all trying to question your journey, just trying to understand it better. I agree that having a strong enough "why" is imperative.

 

No honestly questioning is good - happy to answer.

I am dealing with long-term PIED. While most of my recovery has been spent sitting in flatline and feeling numb, there are moments where I come out of the flatline and my libido returns a lot stronger than it once was. For those of us on a longer reboot, it becomes a game of 'peaks and troughs'. Your libido disappears during flatline, and then returns when you leave the flatline until it gradually levels itself out. Also a bad diet (junk food, sugar, alcohol) increased my libido.

I think what people forget to mention (myself included) is that recovery really isn't linear.

Hope this makes sense.

 

When you exit these flatlines though and your libido returns, are we talking 100% here? Or just higher than flatline levels?

The only reason I ask is that on my previous longest streak I was also adamant that I was done with PMO and that I'd never go back ... but then my libido returned at puberty-type levels and I folded like a pathetic pack of cards. It's just a whole other ball game when you have constant throbbing erections and you're being bombarded with sexual thoughts all day. I'm genuinely fearful of when my libido returns again because despite my "why" being of utmost importance to me, I still don't know if I'm really going to be able to stay strong enough to keep saying no.

Anyway, thanks for the reply.

 

This phrase made me laugh lol

To be honest you're actually right. I'm not sure I can even say that when my libido returns its at 100% - after years of not having libdio what does 100% actually fell like? However one thing I will say is that when my libido does return it certainly feels like 100%. There have been many evenings where I have been climbing the walls, fighting urges that have crept out of nowhere. For me urges hit so bad that I had to start drinking a protein shake that contains large amounts of soy. Not ideal but soy seems to dampen my libido massively. If anything this is just a temporary fix, and like many others I need to find a way to manage my libido correctly.

I think its safe to say that in normal circumstances most, if not all of us would simply find a partner to have sex with to curb our libido. That is the 'right' way to go about things, but unfortunately many of us are not really in a position to do that YET. So until that period comes, we just have to soldier on and manage the libido as best as we can. The good thing to know is that our libido still exists and hasn't left us.

 

I've been eating products that contain soy lately but I've never knew they were good to mess up libido.
Remind me in 2016 when I succumbed to the strongest urge after 70ish days. By then I was eating healthy foods, good fats and carbs. So
I'm gonna keep eating Soy products because I don't wanna repeat that 2016 scenario.
I must say that year was my best nofap year. And I haven't felt amazing since then.

 

When a normal guy is feeling really horny his next thought is to find a girl/girlfriend, or as a last resort have a quick wank. With me however it's more like must. not. masturbate. must. not. watch. porn - which obviously isn't a healthy or sustainable way to live. I don't have the option of just MO because a) it's very unlikely to stop there and b) it's far too damaging to my health. I don't think MO in moderation is that unhealthy, for most people, but it is for me and I guess some of us here.

I feel conflicted when it comes to libido. When I have it I overall feel more alive and contrary to what a female poster on here told me, more like a man. Having a dead penis and no physical reaction to the sight or thought of beautiful women feels like being in a child-like state. On the other hand though it just feels almost impossible to tame and is very likely to lead me straight back to porn hell. I wish libido was something you could just turn on and off to suit the situation. With me though it's either there constantly and aggressively or right now, not at all(flatline). I still get urges to watch porn or whatever but that's not the same thing.

I wonder how the success rate of quitting this addiction compares with others, I get the feeling it's not great.

 

I think deep down, we all know the correct way around managing a 'heavy' libido. It is to either a) find a partner or b) wait for a wet dream. By finding a partner I mean meeting somebody that is willing to handle intimacy with no sex. Most of the successful long term rebooters take this approach. They either find a partner and tell them the truth of their situation. Or they are already married and have a partner that understands their situation.

I do think that having such a high libdio after stepping out of the flatline makes sense. Your body hasn't experienced an orgasm in so long, so if anything I would be worried if our libidos were not as high as they are.

 

That's weird,, cuz I'm over a year in now with no partner and still don't "hope for a wet dream." When those happen every couple of weeks or so, I just clean myself up, go back to sleep, and don't think much about it. Admittedly, I haven't had serious urges for months and months, but also don't feel emotionally flatlined.