Restarting

I'm recommitting myself to stopping masturbation - because it leads to using porn for me, inevitably, and I hate that - today. I have realized that doing this without anyone knowing lets me fall off the wagon easily, and that posting here can help with that. So here we are: day one.

 

I don't know how to start a journal here but I need to. Is it cool to use a discussion thread for one? I'm on day 3, or in day 3. I was feeling very tempted an hour ago - saw many beautiful women while dropping a visitor off at the bus station. Was heading home to an empty house. And it had been a couple days.

I didn't, yet, and will continue my quit. I say yet because I trust myself not at all. I am alone in the house and lonely - that's a giant trigger. I am a little bored. I have smoked a little pot. I have betrayed my own intentions often in the past, almost always in this situation today. But last time my girl was away (10 days this time), I made it the week. I think I MOd on the first day and stopped in shame. Which is just what I've done this time. Used and felt ashamed. But I did it that time, and I think it can work this time. I feel ready: a lot of other things in my life need addressing, so being in charge of myself is important all around. Mindfulness etc.

So it's now, and I have succeeded up til now. I pledge my dedication to not failing this. I am certain that it is what I want. All other thinking about it is habit, and justification. There's a part of me feels like this is the end of sex, as my sex life is slow-paced in frequency. But I also know that if I gain this energy, the good feeling when you quit, which I have so far only experienced up to maybe 14 days - that energy, applied to my own real sex life, will power it and feel morally right.

[dives in]

 

So yesterday was difficult - I was alone for the whole day, bored and lonely. I wound up spanking the monkey, but I didn't use any porn, so I think I am still calling this success. Its the porn I hate - the only reason I don't want to wank (well, it does feel good to be in control) is that it always leads to porn. Don't know if this is a cop out - but its what's going on. Today I go back to work so it'll be much easier to abstain (more busy, less lonely).

 

Almost bedtime. Today was not difficult. Not sexually.

 

Feels good to see the 5 there. Still okay. Still in the same boat.

 

Thank you very much, richardlessman. i was just pondering faltering, and came here for some reencouragement. I'll stay the course - got to get to 14 to get through it right? Thanks a lot, man.

 

Alright. I fucked up. Today was all alone, too long, and a couple hours after my choosing right I turned to my goto porn source. I looked for quite a while, but didn't get hard or masturbate.

I have this mental pattern when I use porn: I sort of analyse it and argue with it as I look, finding ways to say that my proclivities are natural and normal. It's all justification, rationalization. At some point during this I find something I respond to and forget about thinking about it. Today I just did the thinking.

I'm not going to start my counter over. I've done well this week and I get really discouraged when I start over. It gets easy to falter all the time since it's only a day or two I'm "sacrificing". I'm trying to be smart about it this time. I'll keep this journal as a way to see my process/progress and patterns. I'm still feeling good about this week. Whatever the count really is.

 

My partner's home, as of a couple days ago. That's made it so much easier. Since she returned I haven't used any P and I haven't masturbated (that's 3 or 4 days). Feeling good.

 

Well, I haven't been here in a week or so, and things were going well - little temptation, really - it wasn't hard not to use porn. Yesterday I blew it. I was bored and lonely and wanted to masturbate, and wanted visual stimulation, so I tried using the net for titillating but not pornographic images. That went as it always does, with a dip into pornland and my first porngasm in 20 days. I know this isn't how the counter's supposed to work, but I'm not resetting it today - I'm just going to record this incident and keep going. If this becomes a full slip into that shitty pattern of use, I will reset. But this morning I felt tempted - for no good reason, I don't even really have time for a wank - that's the onset of the pattern. So I came here. I expected no messages, but there were some really kind encouragements, one from a guy closing in on a YEAR free of this albatross - that was really nice to read. I want to be that guy. So I will keep going.

On a sort of side note, I know what the pattern was: I was feeling (childishly) abandoned by my partner, as she was out late and had not called to check in. That's a bad scene for me (internally - I'm not an asshole overtly) which brings up all kinds of crap. I knew this as I was using - but the petulant child in me said "fuck it, I deserve this". The grown up me knows the truth: I deserve the opposite - to honour my sexuality and to respect women fully.

I sometimes wonder if I shouldn't go buy an old fashioned porn mag or two to keep for the times I need vis stim. These don't have the potential to be rabbit holes, maybe, as they're limited to their content. The internet is way more slippery. Thoughts?

 

It hasn't been too hard to refrain from falling into the spiral. I've had a couple of moments of temptation, but I've been resolute and it hasn't been a great strain. Feeling alright.

 

Keep at it recilius! I'm still in the struggle but doing better all the time. You can do it.