M 27, new life

Dear reader,

I started my personal new lifestyle recently, to support myself and hopefully be an inspiration for others I decided to join this community so I am gonna share a little bit of my story here.

I started with porn and masturbation a long time ago, my first experiences with porn were during my puberty, while discovering my own body, which might have had an impact on the way I perceived sexuality and my own body. I feel now starting a self-discovery path and I am very excited about it. Of course, part of this excitement can be perceived as fear, I don't know what is coming after, where is it gonna take me, I am just 100 per cent sure and determined to leave behind sex addiction behaviour and compulsive porn consumption, it was destroying me. My energy levels after more than 10 years of compulsivity were very low, and my stimulation threshold was higher and higher was consuming my time in huge amounts and my relationships have been affected by them all this time. It's time to stop, rethink and change my habits, right now, on my fourth day, I am feeling 100 per cent confident I won't come back to this ever again in my life, it's gonna be now and it's gonna be for good.

I am picturing it as the most difficult thing I will ever do, but I will do it. My main strategy is gonna be for the next months a combination of physical and metal work. On the one hand, exercise and keep me occupied and active as much as possible, seeing all the opportunities I have besides sexual desires, hobbies, friends, knowledge, awareness, and body development, things that sadly I was letting aside due to my addiction. On the other hand, I want to try to find a therapist to supervise and guide me, be open to good friends and read self-development texts and exercises that inspire me to reflect on myself deeply, hopefully tracking and understanding better the issues which brought me to this situation. I will also lay on a tripod that made very much sense while researching a bit, basically, - identifying triggers, -finding strategies to overcome them -knowing why I want to do this and having it always present. At the moment I am doing this tripod exercise out of my mind, I know which situations lead me to masturbation and I am avoiding them at all costs, and I know why I want to do it; but my plan is to write them down, but I am not hurry about it, I know the time will come where I need those exercises more than now, where the initial confidence boost is still present.

At the moment I want to be relaxed, its gonna be a long path, I want to have this community as a support but I don't want to dive into it compulsively, I want to have time and energy to face the issues I was covering through sex and masturbation, there is for me my own real work.

I would also like to focus on the beginning on the science behind it, understand what is gonna happen in my mind and body and how I can help them to regain the lost balance of dopamine and other indicators affected by porn and compulsive masturbation.

I will be very happy to receive your insights and recommendations with this, as well as books that helped you understand better, especially in a scientific way, the changes that come with this new lifestyle, as well as how to make the best use of this community in your own experience.

Any help for me at the moment is very welcome, I will also try to engage with others here and encourage each other to do the things that only we as individuals can do and that our lives need.

Thank you very much in advance to everyone and the community, lets's make it happen.