I am obsessed. Are we obsessed?

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Hello my name is OBY. I am a porn addict.
I remember the first time I tried "NoFap" I didn't even think I was addicted it was more towards trying to get rid of a bad habit while enjoying the "NoFap Benefits" people talked about.

My first time trying NoFap ever was 2.5 years ago. I was able to achieve one week. It was fun, it really was. I didn't think too much of it and whenever I was urged or wanted to fap it was all so simple. I said to myself: "Wait, aren't we on NoFap? yeah we're on NoFap so we can't fap today"
See? It was so chill and was so relaxing. I went for small goals like one week.

Fast Forward 2.5 years: All of a sudden I am binging (I didn't use to binge), I am thinking of any possible way to increase my streaks and break my record (16 days) there haven't been a single day in the last 8 months that I didn't think about NoFap. I grew obsessive towards stopping and it seems like the more I try to abstain the more difficult this becomes and the more addicted I all of a sudden feel.
I can't even get 1 day anymore my feelings are so conflicted that I hardly know if I want to commit or not because I am genuinely scared of committing. I am scared of saying this will be the last porn video I will ever watch.

Can anyone relate to this?
 
Yes. We have realized a problem with ourselves and it becomes an obsession to try and overcome it. The problem is something called "negative suggestion". We repeat to ourselves that we should not do something eg: "I must not masturbate" By doing this our mind is active with the imagery associated with masturbation which creates a strong drive to do exactly that. The word "not" isn't registered in the mind. Experiments have been done on this and it is a phenomenon of the mind. Personally, my longest streaks have been achieved when I simply stopped thinking about it altogether. We cannot overcome an addiction with a contradictory thought. One thought is trying to convince you to watch porn and another is telling you not to. This contradiction creates this struggle and we give in to it.
 
Sober is free said:
Yes. We have realized a problem with ourselves and it becomes an obsession to try and overcome it. The problem is something called "negative suggestion". We repeat to ourselves that we should not do something eg: "I must not masturbate" By doing this our mind is active with the imagery associated with masturbation which creates a strong drive to do exactly that. The word "not" isn't registered in the mind. Experiments have been done on this and it is a phenomenon of the mind. Personally, my longest streaks have been achieved when I simply stopped thinking about it altogether. We cannot overcome an addiction with a contradictory thought. One thought is trying to convince you to watch porn and another is telling you not to. This contradiction creates this struggle and we give in to it.
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What should we do then? I mean you can't tell me not to think on something it doesn't work this way as much as I want it to work this way.
Is it more meditation? Is it changing the lifestyle? Is it giving up on streaks and living with it?
 
As I said in another thread, I really think that the longer you take to quit this, the harder it gets.

I've been at this for about a year now, maybe a little more. Fairly early on I managed to go 20 days and then immediately followed that up with 60 something, since relapsing on that streak though I haven't made it past 15 and on average it's more like 5. I don't know why but my willpower seems to have completely evaporated despite my desire to quit still being the same, even the most minor of urges get the better of me sometimes. Like you said there's not a day that goes by where nofap isn't on my mind, actually there's barely even an hour where I don't think about it. I'm not thinking to myself "don't fap, don't fap" or anything, more just being aware of what I'm doing and what I need to do. I've probably placed way too much importance on this and as a result I'm putting a ton of pressure on myself and this results in me falling but I don't know how else I can possibly approach it.

The last time I relapsed it was absolutely rubbish, no pleasure whatsoever and I still feel the effects now but I just know that when the urge strikes again my brain will conveniently forget how crap it was and will do everything to convince me otherwise.
 
OhWhenThe said:
As I said in another thread, I really think that the longer you take to quit this, the harder it gets.

I've been at this for about a year now, maybe a little more. Fairly early on I managed to go 20 days and then immediately followed that up with 60 something, since relapsing on that streak though I haven't made it past 15 and on average it's more like 5. I don't know why but my willpower seems to have completely evaporated despite my desire to quit still being the same, even the most minor of urges get the better of me sometimes. Like you said there's not a day that goes by where nofap isn't on my mind, actually there's barely even an hour where I don't think about it. I'm not thinking to myself "don't fap, don't fap" or anything, more just being aware of what I'm doing and what I need to do. I've probably placed way too much importance on this and as a result I'm putting a ton of pressure on myself and this results in me falling but I don't know how else I can possibly approach it.

The last time I relapsed it was absolutely rubbish, no pleasure whatsoever and I still feel the effects now but I just know that when the urge strikes again my brain will conveniently forget how crap it was and will do everything to convince me otherwise.
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You explained it really good you nailed it.
I was thinking yeah. How about I try to "un-obsess" myself from no pmo by giving myself a break.
The past week or 2 I was already giving myself this break when I just failed everyday. But I think maybe I officially give myself a green light to pmo whenever urged; the only rule being not to bing and to do it as little as possible. You know what I mean? I will try to behave as if I don't know about nofap. I know for a fact that the anxiety of doing it or not will drop. I keep doing it for 7 days and then go for a small goal like 7 days nofap.

Just an experiment to see if I stop being as obsessive.
What are your thoughts?
 
OBY1999 said:
What should we do then? I mean you can't tell me not to think on something it doesn't work this way as much as I want it to work this way.
Is it more meditation? Is it changing the lifestyle? Is it giving up on streaks and living with it?
Click to expand...
To be honest, I haven't earned the right to answer this question. I was only pointing out a fact that is very easy to see. We want something but we also don't want it and it is this that creates confusion and conflict. I believe awareness is the most important aspect of recovery. It shines a light on the whole process, from the craving, to the action itself along with the thought process and body sensation that goes with it. I have found that through observation, it has become less compulsive. Observing without judging. If I do relapse, it is easier to let it go and so there is no guilt carried over because I have accepted the reality as it is and can move forward with more understanding. This is how I stopped thinking about NoFap. Instead of thinking about what I don't want to do, I placed my attention on the reality of craving itself. What it feels like in the body, how my thoughts react to the sensation and how my actions follow. It's a process of learning, a process of coming out of ignorance. We wouldn't pick up a hot coal if we knew it was hot.

Just observe :)
 
I am obsessed. But in all honestly I think it's quite difficult not to be obsessed about something when you know for a fact you're seriously addicted to it, when you know for a fact that the thing you're addicted to has been, and still is behind the sexual dysfunctions you have experienced for a long time.

In all honestly I don't think this forum makes me obsess less though, I would actually say it makes me obsess much more. When I read some of the stuff other guys post on here about what it takes to get over this addiction, about what it takes to get over PIED etc, and then I start to really think to myself maybe they're actually right, and then I start obsessing and worrying about it even more. Obsessing to the point it's on my mind nearly all the time, or at least every day.

Again these guys are just putting out their honest opinion about what they actually think it takes to get over this addiction and heal porn induced sexual dysfunctions like PIED.

I won't lie there has been times because of the stuff I have read on this forum and the level of obsession it has caused me, it has actually made me think about coming off this forum.

But the downside to that is even though I might obsess a bit less if I am not on this forum, I would likely be making my addiction and PIED worse, as I would likely end up engaging in PMO more, because it wouldn't be getting reinforced in to my brain on a daily basis how bad PMO is because I wouldn't be on this forum reading it.
 
OBY1999 said:
Hello my name is OBY. I am a porn addict.
I remember the first time I tried "NoFap" I didn't even think I was addicted it was more towards trying to get rid of a bad habit while enjoying the "NoFap Benefits" people talked about.

My first time trying NoFap ever was 2.5 years ago. I was able to achieve one week. It was fun, it really was. I didn't think too much of it and whenever I was urged or wanted to fap it was all so simple. I said to myself: "Wait, aren't we on NoFap? yeah we're on NoFap so we can't fap today"
See? It was so chill and was so relaxing. I went for small goals like one week.

Fast Forward 2.5 years: All of a sudden I am binging (I didn't use to binge), I am thinking of any possible way to increase my streaks and break my record (16 days) there haven't been a single day in the last 8 months that I didn't think about NoFap. I grew obsessive towards stopping and it seems like the more I try to abstain the more difficult this becomes and the more addicted I all of a sudden feel.
I can't even get 1 day anymore my feelings are so conflicted that I hardly know if I want to commit or not because I am genuinely scared of committing. I am scared of saying this will be the last porn video I will ever watch.

Can anyone relate to this?
Click to expand...
If you want to stop relapsing, you need to physically change your environment. Wherever you used to PMO carries the energy of that habit.

You need to create a new environment that supports healthy habits rather than reinforces PMO behavior. What happens is that everytime we PMO using our phone we subconsciously tell ourselves that this is a PMO Phone. So when we look at our phone our brain feels a small urge to relapse and engage in PMO behavior.

The same applies to a laptop. You change an Ordinary Laptop or School Laptop or Work Laptop into a PMO Laptop. Over time, everything in our environment becomes corrupted by PMO Addiction. Our bedrooms become a lair of perversion: PMO bed, PMO sheets, PMO chair, PMO desk, etc. etc.

I wrote a post about this and my best advice for quitting.
https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/my-1-tip-change-your-environment.288435/
 
OBY1999 said:
What should we do then? I mean you can't tell me not to think on something it doesn't work this way as much as I want it to work this way.
Is it more meditation? Is it changing the lifestyle? Is it giving up on streaks and living with it?
Click to expand...

I think you need to change up your lifestyle. You have a goal to quit P but it doesn't sound like you have made any attempts besides just not looking at P. You need more than this.

You can start exercising, or learning to cook or play an instrument. Maybe read a long book?

I think many of us on this forum have made the mistake of not replacing P with something else besides watching our daily counter and reading posts about quitting P on nofap. It's not enough and it still revolves around P in some ways.
 
soberhenry said:
I think you need to change up your lifestyle. You have a goal to quit P but it doesn't sound like you have made any attempts besides just not looking at P. You need more than this.

You can start exercising, or learning to cook or play an instrument. Maybe read a long book?

I think many of us on this forum have made the mistake of not replacing P with something else besides watching our daily counter and reading posts about quitting P on nofap. It's not enough and it still revolves around P in some ways.
Click to expand...

I took a 7 day break from NoFap. From the website from the accountability partner and behaved as if nofap did not exist (meaning I pmo'd here and there without guilt). It actually really helped me understand a lot of things.
The moment I realized porn is no longer in scarcity I stopped binging on it and its value dropped. I also got a job, finally in this one week experiment I was thinking about something other than no PMO and god damn it was relaxing; It lost its power basically.
Now me and my accountability partner are ready to take on a small challenge 7 day streak without too much stress.
 
Yeah, I know how you feel about the stress that exists when trying to not use P. This 20 day streak I have going actually started with me M'ing without P as soon as I was having any urges. I've tried quitting PMO in the past and what always seems to happen is that I become really horny after about a week. I then can't stop thinking about nofap and eventually I use P subs and then back to P. I don't really care about M as long as there's no P or P subs in my life.
 
OBY1999 said:
Hello my name is OBY. I am a porn addict.
I remember the first time I tried "NoFap" I didn't even think I was addicted it was more towards trying to get rid of a bad habit while enjoying the "NoFap Benefits" people talked about.

My first time trying NoFap ever was 2.5 years ago. I was able to achieve one week. It was fun, it really was. I didn't think too much of it and whenever I was urged or wanted to fap it was all so simple. I said to myself: "Wait, aren't we on NoFap? yeah we're on NoFap so we can't fap today"
See? It was so chill and was so relaxing. I went for small goals like one week.

Fast Forward 2.5 years: All of a sudden I am binging (I didn't use to binge), I am thinking of any possible way to increase my streaks and break my record (16 days) there haven't been a single day in the last 8 months that I didn't think about NoFap. I grew obsessive towards stopping and it seems like the more I try to abstain the more difficult this becomes and the more addicted I all of a sudden feel.
I can't even get 1 day anymore my feelings are so conflicted that I hardly know if I want to commit or not because I am genuinely scared of committing. I am scared of saying this will be the last porn video I will ever watch.

Can anyone relate to this?
Click to expand...
Yes, I can totally relate to what you're saying.
 
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