I ended 5 months of NoFap

Thank you for your honesty. Rules are too strict. There is no right or wrong we just choose not to pmo.

 

Good post

 

Yeah fapping after rebbot is completely fine. without the porn ofc !

 

I think you speak wisely...

Leaving behind the porn is what is most important...

If people want to nofap forever then great... Strength to them.

I'm not going to immediately fap after I reach 90 days, but I know I will again... Not with porn though...

 

Very wisely spoken, agreed.

Wise words from Stan as well. "Dad, you like to drink. So have a drink once in a while. Have two. If you devote your whole life to completely avoiding something you like, then that thing still controls your life and, 'n you've never learned any discipline at all." -Stan

I went through Alcoholics Anonymous before (hey, addiction is addiction), and I remember telling one of my co-workers that I couldn't have a beer with them. I said

"I don't drink anymore..."

"Why not?"

"Well, because I used to drink way too much... So now I just don't drink at all"

My coworker was puzzled, he gave me that "huh" look and then said

"Why don't you just not drink too much"

And I said "Well, no I can't do that you see I have addiction problems and I can't help myself. I will just end up drinking too much again"

He kind of shrugged and offhandedly said something very wise.

"Well, doing too much of anything is bad for you... Coffee, working, smoking, drinking... You just need to have balance."

I realized it made sense but I kept on not drinking. I am glad that I did abstain from drinking though...

Why? Cause it taught me how to abstain from drinking, something that I have to do all the time now that I am successfully over A.A. I drink every once in a while, but then I abstain from it and I wouldn't have been able to do that if I didn't know how to abstain from drinking for over a year. Now that I know how to not drink, I know how to drink on occasion.


This doesn't translate directly to NoFap, but it is similar. Its not so cut and dry, black and white as people make it. There are no hard, set rules here; just a community of people who can relate to one another. I hope people can get that one day.

Now I am still going forward with my Goal of 60 days, then 90. But ultimately I feel like the goal isn't an accumulation of numbers but its being a responsible person sexually, being sexually healthy and having discipline in ones sexual inventory. Whatever is best for your own health and well being.

But watch out for rationalization! Discipline must be the counter weight to that.

Your mind can also be very, very sneaky... Part of this is also about taking control of it, no?

 

After 8 months I still don't trust that I could stop after one session of PMO, I really fear I would go back to my old habits of spending way too many hours with various forms of P and edging, leading back to DE and ED and pretty bad sex life.

For me this is about leaving one bad habit behind me and having a healthier sex life and better relationship with my wife.

Maybe at some point I will feel stronger but I'm not there yet.

 

@tomtom That's where I am. Of course, moral convictions are pretty deeply ingrained as well. I find it sad that no higher place was found by Anri, and there's very legitimate and applicable points in the OP, but I do think nofap isn't truly just about a reset. Yes, that's gobs better than living a life without taking control and at least rebooting! But, I like Alexander's (founder's) tagline: "PMO is completely in my past. At this stage, I no longer find it useful to count the days." If I messed around with P it would start a PMO addict fire, and start to consume and degrade my life, which I know for myself would lead to destruction if unchecked / uncorrected.

@Anri
To be constructive, there are some great points to acknowledge. One of them is about leaning too hard on nofap. Point taken. Same with what happens too often for my lifestyle with an AP. They lean on me too hard for it to be comfortable and it's suffocating. Or, I end up leaning on someone else too hard who is already too weak, or is too strong or proud and not empathetic. People let us down, and that's just part of life. We do try on the whole to build up, though. Maybe a problem for you from 90 to 150+ was not finding something truly fulfilling to fill the void of soul which is P/PMO/MO for others? For marrieds, devotion to wife can easily create an extremely fulfilling existence, and generally a healthy pattern of forgiveness and intimacy follows. There may not be set rules we can all agree to, but there is a constant: pornography is destructive. Blame it on addiction or the human condition. It's not easy to recognize what clear and unfogged means. It's great when you give it a try, and if you're being honest about everything, then that's priceless for yourself. All who even attempt reducing the rate of their addictive behaviors will benefit, and I think that's what OP is saying and even those of us setting sights on long-term nofap commitments would agree with that. You set your rules, you made your observations, and you're choosing to live by the dictates of your conscience - kudos. Hopefully you can count this new place you're in as a nofap success and on the whole it's been a good and uplifting experience. Hearing about some that made you feel a look of disdain is no doubt fair criticism. But, instead of speaking in general, why not cite specifics, and not here but when/where it occurred, so that those feelings can be resolved?

Totally anecdotal, but when divorced, I had used rationalizations similar to "don't let it control me" and "just to keep me on the level" and "it's better than fornication", but none of those things made me actually happy or joyful. That's me, and joy has come to me living a more pure life, (attempting it to be permanently), about family and people and reality. What's nice about a belief in God is that there are absolutes. I am utterly condemned for my sin, but a way has been provided to be forgiven, and that's my only reason for hope at all. And then, with that new life, I want to please God.

Also, anecdotal, of course. But, I can't exactly say that the addiction is haunting me forever. Yes, I have identified a black mark on my soul which is addiction. Yes, I've identified a sexual need within myself that requires a constructive outlet planned or it finds a destructive outlet. But, I've also found that bright spot where I know I'm better off completely freed from MO. And, I don't like the way even P subs start consuming my time, or become a crutch, and don't want my wife to feel betrayed by such a thing. I believe our whole lives are for us as a test, so it's not like I'm expecting it to suddenly be challenge-free or devoid of any temptations at all. For me, my wife would way rather me have a crutch of nofap forums than P subs! May I suggest that instead of interpreting comments as disdain or distasteful or disrespectful, for the quite a few that never make it to 150+ days, it's just hard for them to just accept someone saying what sounds like they're abandoning ship? What many desperately want is just to make it to 7 days, which most have not done before, and hopefully 30 days to really make it a full experiment. I think the lack of permanent-sounding language in the terms reboot and reset and so forth shouldn't make anyone think there is a lot of judgmentalism going on about what someone is choosing to do. In your case, why even bring it up? Why not just keep committing to 30-day reboots after a planned relapse?

Of course, I'm married, so maybe it sounds easier for me to say. And, being Christian, my belief is it doesn't make God happy to engage in immorality. Or, it's easy for someone to look at me and minimize my problems in life since I've become a fapstronaut out in space with a lot of distance and healing since a PMO incident. But: if someone judges me for that perspective, when I am clearly admitting to being addicted and no better than anyone else here, then who's being exclusive, then? Just saying what works for me. I believe those that dally with relapsing will eventually find their way into a better life on a more permanent nofap course. Hopefully that doesn't come at the realization of being in a downward spiral, but from a recollection of positive experience from that non-fap reboot 90+ state. I'd like to think from what I've seen of nofap (forums and reddit), people are less judgemental than feared. Maybe not take it to heart so much if other people relay their perspectives? Certainly, every time I see someone cop to relapsing, lots of people are encouraging about jumping back on the program and trying again.