Recovery is more than just "staying clean"

This one may go on a bit long, and I apologise in advance for that, but I feel as though this needs to be said.

For those who are thinking tl;dr, there is a summary at the bottom of the post.

Firstly, let me just say that if your counter is at 200+ days, and relationships, health and career are all going as well as you could possibly desire, you can skip this thread and click through to the next one. The rest of you, read on...

Secondly, I want to give some acknowledgements:

This thread on another forum is what first got me thinking this way. It's a long but excellent read, and I heartily recommend checking out out (I've read it several times myself):
http://www.yourbrainrebalanced.com/index.php?topic=15558.0

This video about the cause of addiction. It possible (even likely in many cases) that porn addiction is the symptom, rather than the cause of your issues.


This is not intended to give you 'permission' to suddenly go and binge on porn for three days straight, but to give you some other things to think about in your recovery process.

Some of you probably won't agree with me on this, but that's OK. It's just food for thought.

Let's get started.

For a long time, we've held the idea of "doing a reboot" as something we all should aim for. Many of us think that all we need to do is abstain from PMO for a certain number of days, and everything will be alright.

Take a look at the "Success Stories" thread. Many of us reach a certain number of days clean, before relapsing and having to start again (or in many cases, being unable to start again). Some of us complete a 90 day reboot, only to find things were more or less the same as they were before we started.

Why is this?

It's because too many of us are not addressing the real issue. We judge our success by the numbers on our counter (I'm not even keeping track of mine anymore), or by things like morning woods, spontaneous erections and so on. Some of us actually believe that ED is some kind of indicator as to how much we've improved our lives. We don't even realise that curing ED is pointless if you're not actually meeting any women (more on that later).

After trying to do it the other way (and failing many times), here is what I now believe we need to do:

1. Stop abstaining and start living!

Here's a newsflash: Life is not a 90 day reboot. Life is not waiting for you to complete your 90 day reboot. Furthermore, simply abstaining from PMO for 90 days is not going to fix your life.

Alright, so let's talk about Superpowers. Why do some rebooters seem to gain Superpowers, while others do not? I think it's because those who get them have replaced porn with other things. Women can only start finding you more attractive once you're actually away from the computer and talking to them. You can only improve your bench press by being in the gym. You can only get a better job by updating your resume and applying/interviewing for the job (and you may need to take some time to update your skills).

Look, staying away from porn and masturbation will free up a certain amount of time and energy, we all know this. The trick is to then use it in other ways to improve your life. Even if it means just spending 30 minutes tidying your apartment.

Instead of journalling about "urges" or "morning woods" or "a girl was checking me out (maybe)", we should be journalling about what we're actually doing to improve our lives. Did you exercise today? Did you mediate, or read, or whatever it is you're doing to improve your life. As someone else once said, if you're thinking about staying away from porn, your thinking about porn!

Adding things to your life to replace porn will make your gains sustainable.

One of the things I'm now trying to do, is to socialise with friends at least once a week. Usually it will happen on the weekend, but other times I might get the chance though the week. This is all about giving me things to do that get me off the computer and replace porn in my life. I recommend this to everyone.

I'm not saying you'll never relapse again. But that in itself may be an overblown concern. Honestly, is a relapse really a big deal?

If you've cut your number of monthly orgasms from 40-50 down to 4-5, and you're spending more time socialising, making friends, exercising and keeping on top of household chores, you're already successful. If you can maintain that success, you're already ahead of all the guys who abstain for a while, but fall back into a porn binge because they didn't add anything else to their lives.

2. It's time to change our views on women and sex

What do you see when you watch porn? You see a woman who never says 'no' to anything, who looks amazing and will love everything the man does to her. You have a scene that ends as soon as the man reaches orgasm. You also have the option of dismissing her and finding someone else to fulfil your fantasies if she isn't doing it for you that day.

Real life isn't like that.

In the real world, when Tom meets Jane (hypothetical people), if he likes her, he asks her out. If she likes him she might say yes. She might not. Tom might have to ask out several women before he finds one who likes him. Tom and Jane might have sex on the first date, they might not.

The sex might be amazing, or it might be just ordinary. Sometimes Tom will be a God in the sack, other times he might finish too soon, or he might struggle to "perform" because of tiredness or a million other reasons. Sometimes Jane will look amazing, other times less so. Sometimes she won't even be in the mood. Tom and Jane might have certain kinks in common that you saw in porn, but other things will disgust one or both of them.

This is reality. This is life.

If Tom and Jane have a good relationship, those little fumbles won't matter so much. They'll laugh about it together, and satisfy each other in other ways.

We have been sold a lie by porn, and by extension, the PUA industry.

There is no magic pill that will turn you into a "chick magnet", there is nothing you can do that every woman you meet will find attractive. The interaction will not end as soon as you reach orgasm.

By the way, I don't think there's anything wrong with pursuing casual sex, but it requires a lot of work, and you may experience a lot of rejection.

Again, too many of us go about this the wrong way.

We read PUA forums, we watch seduction videos on youtube, we talk about various theories about why women are attracted to certain guy and not others.

This stuff is all completely worthless unless you go out and meet women. A good rule of thumb here is that for every hour of theory you read, you should spend two hours putting it into practice. That means talking to women, getting rejected, learning about them, and about yourself.

That "jerk" who seems to get all the women is successful because he was out there perfecting his game while you were on your computer talking to other men about PUA strategies, dick hardness, porn urges or whatever else. He's out there getting the rejections, and learning all the time. So when he meets a woman he likes this weekend, he'll be ready. How ready will you be if you haven't talked to anyone for 90 days?

Another thing that's a problem is the idea that a woman's value is determined only by how she looks and whether you'll have sex with her.

In reality, there's nothing wrong with having women as friends. I have female friends all over the world, some of whom have introduced me to other women. Sometimes I've taken them out to dinner or lunch, sometimes they've taken me out. Sometimes we've gone on hiking or camping adventures together. In fact, some of the best times I've ever had with women have been with women I've never had sex with.

3. Get clear on what you want.

This applies to both your reboot and your general life. Remember, life is not just "staying clean for the next 90 days". That won't solve any of your problems.

There are too many threads on nofap that have a variation of "Did I just relapse" in the title.

Seriously? You actually don't know whether what you just did constitutes a relapse?

You need to think about what it is you're trying to achieve here. Are you trying to stay clear of porn? Are you going to masturbate? Can you sustain whatever you're trying to do for the rest of your life? If you're not sure what constitutes a relapse and what doesn't, I suggest taking some time to think about that and write it down before you start a reboot.

More importantly, what do you want for the other 98% of your life? Maybe you should be writing this down too. Put it up somewhere you can see it. Be specific. What do you want to achieve, and when do you want to achieve it. Post it somewhere you'll see it every day, and take action. You may not reach it at the specific time you mentioned, but it's better to shoot for the moon and end up in the stars, than to shoot for the mud and make it.

After all, if you were away from the computer working on your life goal, you wouldn't have been looking at something questionable and asking us whether or not you just relapsed.

Instead of trying to refrain from your old porn habit, create a new habit of taking action toward your life goals.

Did you know that the idea of doing something for 90 days did not originate on nofap?

Self Improvement gurus have been talking about it for decades. The idea is that a new habit you're trying to create will take 90 days to become ingrained in your psyche in such a way that you won't even have to think about doing it anymore - it just gets done. The trick here is to be creating a new habit. Too many of us are simply trying to cut out the old habit, which is not the same thing. You need to replace porn with something else.

So to summarise (the tl;dr version):

1. The idea of just doing a 90 day reboot is basically useless. Life does not wait 90 days for you to reboot, nor will you be "cured" by that time. Focus on changing your life instead.

2. It's time to change your ideas about women and sex. Women are a lot more than just sex object, and sex is not a divine right. It's a privilege that you have to earn by developing yourself and learning about women.

3. Be clear on what you're trying to achieve. This applies to both your life and your nofap journey. No more threads about "Did I just relapse?". If you have to ask, you probably did, because you should have been away from the computer doing something constructive with your time.

 

I know I've had trouble putting together long streaks, but to be honest, a lot of what I've learned has been learned precisely because I wasn't able to do that. They say that we learn a lot more from our failures than from our successes, and that's true.

In 2013 I was in really bad shape. I had good physical fitness, but little else going for me. I had just lost a job I'd had for 10 years, and had to take a pay cut in a new role. My addictions were a lot more than just PMO. I've written about those problems elsewhere, so I won't go into too many specifics here. It was costing me time *and* money. There were repeated 'failures' since when I've tried to give it all up, but here's the thing that I've now become aware of. The whole time I was failing, I was still making progress.

Here are some of the examples of the progress I've made:

• I haven't used an escort since July of this year -- a streak of four months (I was once using them every couple of weeks).
• I've called a phone sex line once in six months (I was previously using them every week at one stage)
• I almost never PMO between Monday and Friday anymore. I used to PMO every day, now the only times I relapse are on weekends.
• I now have new friends and am actually taking the initiative to organise social gatherings. I organised a hike on the spur of the moment a little while back. It was short notice, but 13 people showed up and many of them told me they had a great time.
• I am performing better at work, the number of stupid mistakes I made through not concentrating has diminished greatly.
• I have more money in the bank. I'm about to take my fourth pleasure trip overseas in just over 12 months. I could never have done that before, not even when I was earning more money than I am now.

So I don't have big numbers on my counter, but I've made progress because I did these little things. My life has improved immeasurably since 2013. I recently interviewed for a new job and was very close to getting it. I also did a personal best time on a route that I cycle regularly.

The thing is, we need to attack the root cause of the addiction to PMO, and often it's more complicated than "Just say no". If you can get the rest of your life handled, the situation with your addictions will almost certainly improve.