Relapsed after 183 days, sad

Everything is ok. I congratulate you on 183 days. But its anyway not about counting days, but making days count. A porn free life is not something we achieve once and for all, rather its a daily choice and constant upkeep. Just like fitness. Even if you are fit, you still have to work out and keep a healthy diet. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance".

But you are rightly concerned about a relapse spiral! Just remember, ten steps ahead and one step back is not eleven steps back! Its a big mountain climp. You climbed hunderts of meters toward your goal and just rolled a few meters backwards. Get up again, nothing is lost.
If your doctor told you not to put weight on your broken foot, and you woke up and accidently put weight on your brooken foot, you will not say " now I messed up anyway, lets run a marathon". However, as addicts we sometimes miss the bigger picture and throw everything down. Just dont do that, and your fine.

Making mistakes is completely normal. Dont expect do stop immediatly for the rest of your life. Some people do that, most dont. Most will fail in this journey and because they will learn from their mistakes they will eventually succeed.

So ask yourself: How can you keep going without falling for the same mistake? You said you watched a youtube video. I personally also got triggered by youtube in the past. It contains soft core porn few clicks away. And in general it is mostly cheap entertainment that trains your brain for seeking novelity, like porn does. I have quit youtube completely. I miss some good youtubers, I miss some easy tutorials occasionally, but in general Im happy for quitting. Those are the uncomfortable decisions that will change your reboot. Dare to be more radical if necessary. Try it out for yourself. I recommend plucky to block it.

 

One thing I seriously dislike abut the NoFap sub-culture is the obsession with counting the days. I'm not opposed to people doing so per se, but I don't consider a single relapse to be the complete undoing of all that effort. That's like saying a person who is proficient in French (though not a native speaker) must go all the way back to absolute beginner lessons beacause of one grammatical error. We all make mistakes on our journeys, but the important thing is to learn from them.

 

That's such a good analogy
Thanks for sharing

 

Your last paragraph caught my eye, I also quit YT about 2 weeks ago. But I did put some channels that are useful on a whitelist on the coldturkey blocker. Quitting YT has been painful (on some level) but helpful. Unfortunately I still was able to watch a clip yesterday and relapsed. Not the fault of coldturkey really but anyways. I am disappointed that I am not using every free minute that I have now since quitting YT but at the same time, it's still a step forward and we should be proud for making that decision.

 

Why do we Fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up again.

 

Youtube creators are definitely aware at this point that sex-appeal sells in the algorithm. Even if it is a chaste topic they will often work in some sexual jokes or something.

 

Technically you haven't relapsed until you completely give up on your recovery plan. What you've done are called "slip ups."

Get back on track asap. Nothing is lost! 183 days is great. Don't beat yourself up double. 2 steps forward, 1 step back. Progress, not perfection.