My Story : Always Improving (100+ days).

Hello to everyone reading this. I know what people seek when coming to read in this section, because I’ve done it many times myself. You want both an inspiring story and practical, useful experience and advice. I will try to provide both. It may be a very long post, so I hope it won’t miss its point by being too long.



I. The past


a. Boys and P, a sad, common, global problem

I mention boys. I know there are women on this forum and I know that a lot of women are currently addicted to P in its many forms, but still, in this world, P is litteraly targetting little boys.

So, as many young boys, and I know for a fact, as the vast majority of boys my age in the Western world, I discovered P when I was around 12 years old. At first the access to P was difficult for me, as i didn’t have a personnal device to access it with no restraint. Still, I would find occasions. Then, growing up, with my own computer (at age 16-17 ?), my own phone, etc, the access to P would slowly become unrestrained. So sometimes, if I had no plans for the day with family or friends, I could, and I would occasionaly, watch P nearly all day. This is very sad because as a child, I was a reader. At age 10, I could spend the whole day reading, from the early morning to nightime, only interrupted with meals and family activities. As a teenager, I wouldn’t read anymore. Everything looked dull and boring compared to P. At age 16-17, I could spend days 50 % on video games and 50 % on P ; sometimes more 75 % on P and 25 % on video games.

It feels like P stole years of my life. Imagine the things I could have done, explored, read. The mind of a child and of a teenager is incredibly efficient and precious.

I remember I noticed myself already at this time the escalation in content consumed. I don’t want to mention very specific things and be triggering for some readers, but you all get the general idea. A child wants to projects himself in the action, and has a lot of empathy. Unreal… at first these would be unwatchable for the child I was. A few years later, I wouldn’t care and I was excited by very hard actions, and bored by what would excite me as a child. Basic escalation process, no need to go over this in detail, but I went very far in this.


b. Unnoticed progress due to specific conditions of life

Here my journey may become more original. From 18 to 21, I lived in internship at the place I was studying to, sleeping in a room with other boys. I would not be able to watch P 5 days out of 7, nor would I masturbate, but sometimes in the weekend I had access to both. I think this way of life made my addiction to P de-escalate a little. I can notice it now, thinking about it, but I was not really aware of it at the time.

The thing is, in parallel, I started to have a « girlfriend ». During this time in internship, I would usually see her only on some weekends ; and after this time, I would see her more often. I say a « girlfriend » because I was not really emotionaly engaged in this relationship, and I would mainly use her to f*ck. This was mutual, even if she was more emotionnaly engaged than me. I have had a few girlfriends in my teenage years, and I loved them, but I didn’t really love this one, I knew it, and I only took advantage of her interest in me and her s*xual disponibily. This lasted a few years. I had unrestrained access to some s*x action ; because I didn’t love her, I also didn’t have much mental barriers, and I would really profit a lot of this relationship. From my P use, I just wanted a lot of specific things that you would not want to do or get from someone you love and respect.

I ended this relationship because I knew very well that I didn’t love her and that this lifestyle was wrong.


c. P’s powerful comeback as a substitute

Ending this relationship was the right thing to do, but it also created a lot of frustration. To cope with the new absence of s*x, I went back to P. my P usage at this time could go very high, on free days I could watch several hours, like before.

Still, if I ended the toxic relationship, it was to aim for something good. I seriously wanted to escape both P and sexual lust in general. I also wanted to find love and create a real relationship. I had real goals and my spirituality was also developping, but I lacked the genuine strengh to put the ideals into application. Finally, slow developpments in my life, events concerning people I knew, and the fact that I found love again, gave me the real motivation.



II. Fighting the good fight


a. When my way of fighting P was not efficient, or even counter-productive...

Yes, at first I thought I was fighting my addiction, but actually I was just finding excuses to go on. You may recognize yourself in this kind of train of thoughts :

* « One last video ! The last one of my entire life ! »
→ this never works. Every time I watched a P video convincing myself that I was allowed to enjoy a last one before stopping… Every time it failed and there would be another last one, and another…


* the short collection : « What if I download a few videos and ONLY M to these when I really need to ? »
→ the « short » collection was never closed. I would select 10, or 12 videos, and think « this is all I’ll ever need » but then I would always want more and more, or get very frustrated about the limitation. I swear, there is a time where the « short collection » escalated and eventually my hard disk was full.


* The proper use : « P usage in restraint settings and with moderation can be good… can it ? »
→ No. P is MEANT to make you crave for it. There is no good in it and if you convince yourself otherwise, it’s because you are addicted.


b. Fight for real, and don’t consume content that would invite you to « moderation »

You are here to fight your lust. Do never watch content about « scientific evidences that M is healthy », « scientific evidences against NoFap » or any of these sh*t.

You got to trust what you are doing. You can find evidences for NoFap, you could also find evidences against it. Eventually, this is a leap of faith. Read success stories, not attacks against NoFap. Never fall into the moderation or criticism trap that would actually make you come back to P. Capitalism wants you to be addicted. The modern world tells you that unrestrained s*x is good for you, that you deserve it, that you can do wathever you want, and that you should not be ashamed ! DO NOT LISTEN ! They all want you to be mediocre. But if you want to be more than average, if you want to be special, if you want to unlock your true potential, you have to be driven, not full of doubt and critics. Trust the process.


c. « Don’t focus on what you are fighting against, focus on what you are fighting for ! » - Really ?

Sometimes I would tell this to myself, and I remember I even wrote it in my journal. Is it easier to consider that you are not fighting against something, but for something else ? I’m not sure. Currently I consider both. I am fighting against P, and I am fighting to developp awareness, strengh of the mind and strong will, physical power and intellectual power. Yes, fighting P is a mean to an end, but I think that if I only considered the second part, it would be tempting to think again about the « proper use of P that would not contradict my plans ». It would be like going for a run and smoking a cigarette in the same day, or exercising and eating junk food. Maybe the gain is bigger than the loss, but you are still working AGAINST your true potential.

For some time, telling myself « don’t think about what you are fighting against, think about what you are fighting for » was actually making me easily tempted and potentialy indulgent towards P and M, so I would not recommand it.



III. Victory ?


a. My timeline

I have an account on NoFap since October 2020, but I was reading a lot of content about it before this date, I would say months before.

In 2020 and 2021, I reached good streaks in terms of numbers, but not in terms of quality. I would occasionaly go over a month, but with reccurent peeking, and this always led to reset. Also the presence of regular peeking really questions the meaning of the streak and its efficiency.

Right now this is my longest streak, and the most clean. There was only a very quick peeking between day 80 and day 90 (less than 10 minutes and no actual video, « just » wandering on a P site), and I hated myself a lot for it. Since then, no peeking, and if I do so I would reset the counter. Right now it feels like my mind is clean ; and from the last peeking, I know the impression it prints on a clean mind.

It is only since the time I can say my mind is clean, that I can really objectively see the effects P would have on it. I feel strong, focused, in a way that I would not have imagined before. And I know P would make me numb. I know what is good and what is wrong, and I know P would make me question it.

I can still experience urges, but they are not taking control of my mind. When it happens, I know what is going on and I act accordingly to prevent it.

I can have my eye caught by a good looking person, but it doesn’t make any s*xual escalation come into my mind. An aesthetic interest can stay chaste, pure, compared to when P had conditionned me to immediately desire to consume one’s body.

I don’t want to go back to P and M and I don’t want to away from this website right now, because I know this state i’m in can still be fragile.

Right now I’m 25. I wish I had started this process earlier in my life but I can’t change the past.


b. Journaling, how and why

Journaling helped me to identify patterns, weaknesses, and the setting of my failure. It helps to be more aware of these patterns. It also forced me to face a blanck page daily and do a real assessment of my day.

What I do since September 2021 is that I do this daily assessment on a notebook of mine in the evening, and usually the day after, I post it here.

Journaling is useful even on your own and privately, but a journal on NoFap gives you accountabily. During this streak, I am absolutely sure that my journal here helped me to not relapse because I didn’t want to post about it and reset the counter, and be a source of disapointment for those who read my journal.

Journaling helps to identify patterns of failure but also factors of success. I noticed how some routines helped me to be efficient for all the day to come. No screen for the first hour of the morning and the last hour of the evening is a basic thing I would recommend to everyone. I also meditate in the morning and read every night before sleep.

I noticed how much my evening assessments were becoming important to me. I don’t want to disapoint others, but I also don’t want to disapoint myself. Right now, every day I plan my day with clear objectives, and every evening I evaluate myself about these, and it helps me to walk with consistency towards real long-term goals.

I know by heart my main goals on long term and on short term, for the day, and I recite them during the day. I also know by heart the guideline i created for myself on how to act when I have an urge for P or M.


c. Eyes on the goal, and my gains so far

I know for a fact, because I had proof of it, that I am capable of more thorough reasoning and intelligence than I was a few years ago. I can focus for a long time, while I was absolutely unable to do so back then. I am more aware of myself and I have more empathy for others. I have a lot more confidence, but less pride.

My plan right now is to go deeper in the process and make sure I don’t ever go back to P and M. Currently (day 109) P is not tempting ; but it may come back, so I keep my guard up. M is still tempting but I am convinced about the benefits of abstaining from it.

I want to get the strongest mind I can, in term of intellectual competence and in term of awareness, self-control and self-determination. The journey never ends.



Feel free to ask questions and I’ll answer to the best of my capacity !

 

Thanks a lot, yours words always mean a lot to me.

Yes, let's keep climbing the Mount.

 

It's an interesting question. I can answer with no hesitation because I often considered this and from my experience, adding little secondary goals along the way was useful.

Some weeks I would challenge myself to take only cold showers; some other week, I would have a very strict goal to restrict the time spent on screens; some other weeks, it could be an objective of a certain amount of pushups per day... This was a good distraction and actually not only a distraction: these "sidequests" are helpful for the "main quest". If I may developp the RPG metaphor, I consider you would basically farm and get XP or more seriously, you challenge yourself, get confidence, and seriously strengthen your willpower.

We just don't want to be the player who only does the sidequests and forgets the main story-line !