- Are you not going to allow yourself to masturbate? View porn? Orgasm whatsoever? Not allowing any outlet for sexual release is called "hard mode"
This is a tough one. The longest streak of no porn was when I allowed myself freedom to masturbate if I felt I needed it. Because I use porn and masturbation to run away from my problems, I feel this could result in excessive masturbation because, news flash, no life is free of problems. However, my previous streak did not feel cheap or un-earned because I yanked it a few times. I was actually elated when I hit 45 days. The reason I failed was indulging in porn. Due to harmful behavior that has resulted from massive urges to indulge, (usually costing a lot of money and doing damage in my relationships) I am allowing myself the freedom to masturbate should I need to "let out the steam" so to speak.
Having talked this out, I feel that allowing freedom to masturbate is a big part of my recovery but being aware that the goal is to live without sexual crutches. The way I see it, masturbating doesn't degrade my recovery, but it doesn't progress it either.
- How long do you want this challenge to last? By default it is one month, but 90 days is recommended for rebooting.
I've decided to continue my streak to 90 days which means the end of March, 2017.
Abstaining from pornography of any kind for 90 days. This includes browsing sites but also sexting with hotties via social media, audio porn, printed word porn, soft-core action (like in movies), and abstaining from random hookups with girls I meet online (just avoiding online dating apps in general for the time being). I'd also like to extend this to porn-based fantasizing (from my favorite videos or experiences) as there is significant evidence that this contributed to my failure in the past to abstain.
After reading a AskReddit thread titled "Alcoholics, what were the signs that told you that you had a drinking problem?" I realized that my addiction was not only more prevalent in my life than a majority of the replies in that thread, but that I had been engaging in it for as long if not longer than some folks that considered themselves "lifelong alcoholics." After pondering upon my vice for a few moments I realized that I've truly missed out. I've missed out finding genuine and like-minded individuals that will enrich my life and I've missed out on peace of mind for the past 17 years. So I'm doing this because I can no longer deny that it's robbing my life of joy and that it will never get better until I meet it head on with recovery.
Also, I wanna bang hotties and my dick doesn't work at all and that's super fucking embarrassing to experience once, let alone 9 different times. Fuck my life, ED is the worst goddamn thing I've ever experienced in my entire life.