Success stories of people who quit porn although they did do M?

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I'm wondering, are there success stories of people who quit watching any porn but did relapse let's say once or twice a week in terms of masturbation (without P. of course) initially?
I'm wondering how common is this. Bc I did commit to leaving P. which I did about 16 days ago. But since I'm not allowed to exercise for some time now, I couldn't transmute the energy and did fall to the temptation of M. And I don't have a lot of cravings now, partly bc I took a lot of steps to improve my life in these weeks that I left p. and am now more busy and can't be anything other than my best version.
Please share your story if you have a similiar story or any links to simiiar stories.
 
The first time I tried to quit porn I tried to keep masturbating. It failed because I had use porn to keep up the masturbation habits I had grown to expect.

Rebooting and giving up both for a time was necessary to disconnect masturbation from porn. After my first reboot I did go back to masturbation without porn but I eventually ended up going back to porn because I was trying to masturbate regularly and figured a little peek would be okay.

I just finished my second reboot and realized that part of not looking at porn means that sometimes I am not going to be horny enough to masturbate.
 
My story is similar. I am porn free for 67 (last one on 10 Jan 2023) days but only masturbation free for 3 (last one on 15 Jan 2023) days.

One of the main causes was the fact I discovered reliable source of porn (age 13) 2 year after I discovered masturbation (age 11). By 13, I had started ejaculating and you know it causes prolactin hormone levels to rise in your blood and make you feel shit. So by the time I reached 13, I started abstaining from masturbation and because porn too causes me to masturbate, I decided to abstain from porn. So in this way when my porn addiction was baby, it didn't got much chance to grow.

Later shame of masturbation and dopamine-detox further forced me to remove internet access and delete all porn to make sure I don't masturbate again. So again porn addiction remained baby.

Soon my mobile on which I watched 99% of porn stopped working and because of that I had to switch to laptop. Now I am not used to watching porn on laptop so I got lesser urges during my screen time.

As my faith in GOD has grown more, I see porn as a very wrong thing. I have made my mind to never watch porn again. So in this way, I am killing my porn addiction.
 
SV47 said:
My story is similar. I am porn free for 67 (last one on 10 Jan 2023) days but only masturbation free for 3 (last one on 15 Jan 2023) days.

One of the main causes was the fact I discovered reliable source of porn (age 13) 2 year after I discovered masturbation (age 11). By 13, I had started ejaculating and you know it causes prolactin hormone levels to rise in your blood and make you feel shit. So by the time I reached 13, I started abstaining from masturbation and because porn too causes me to masturbate, I decided to abstain from porn. So in this way when my porn addiction was baby, it didn't got much chance to grow.

Later shame of masturbation and dopamine-detox further forced me to remove internet access and delete all porn to make sure I don't masturbate again. So again porn addiction remained baby.

Soon my mobile on which I watched 99% of porn stopped working and because of that I had to switch to laptop. Now I am not used to watching porn on laptop so I got lesser urges during my screen time.

As my faith in GOD has grown more, I see porn as a very wrong thing. I have made my mind to never watch porn again. So in this way, I am killing my porn addiction.
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Congratulations on your 2 months streak. I too noticed my spirituality increasing automatically when I leave p. Especially I remember that when I passed 2 months as well years back.
Definitely makes sense with you getting less urges to consume when you bought and installed a different computer/device setup as that increases friction. Also heard about increasing friction when leaving bad habits by the author of atomic habits.
 
StevenR said:
The first time I tried to quit porn I tried to keep masturbating. It failed because I had use porn to keep up the masturbation habits I had grown to expect.

Rebooting and giving up both for a time was necessary to disconnect masturbation from porn. After my first reboot I did go back to masturbation without porn but I eventually ended up going back to porn because I was trying to masturbate regularly and figured a little peek would be okay.

I just finished my second reboot and realized that part of not looking at porn means that sometimes I am not going to be horny enough to masturbate.
Click to expand...

I see. Thanks for sharing. It definitely makes sense to reboot first, let's say 90 days, and forget about M. meanwhile. What I meant however is to give your best to leave all i.e. both p and m but to basically continue the streak even after failing with M without having consumed any p.
 
maybethereisfutureforme said:
I see. Thanks for sharing. It definitely makes sense to reboot first, let's say 90 days, and forget about M. meanwhile. What I meant however is to give your best to leave all i.e. both p and m but to basically continue the streak even after failing with M without having consumed any p.
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For me the challenge was that during those first days, probably the first two weeks, there was not GOING to be any M without P.
The first time I M'ed after my first streak was lame. I was taking a shower at night and just decided to try it. It did feel good but then it was over and most importantly I LOST INTEREST! That's really the keystone of my recovery from porn, being able to actually be done and move on to other things. For some reason, porn ignites a fire inside me that M doesn't extinguish.
 
StevenR said:
For me the challenge was that during those first days, probably the first two weeks, there was not GOING to be any M without P.
The first time I M'ed after my first streak was lame. I was taking a shower at night and just decided to try it. It did feel good but then it was over and most importantly I LOST INTEREST! That's really the keystone of my recovery from porn, being able to actually be done and move on to other things. For some reason, porn ignites a fire inside me that M doesn't extinguish.
Click to expand...

I see what you mean.
It definitely creates a fire and you feel a pulling force. Till you are burned out physically, that is.
 
maybethereisfutureforme said:
I'm wondering, are there success stories of people who quit watching any porn but did relapse let's say once or twice a week in terms of masturbation (without P. of course) initially?
I'm wondering how common is this. Bc I did commit to leaving P. which I did about 16 days ago. But since I'm not allowed to exercise for some time now, I couldn't transmute the energy and did fall to the temptation of M. And I don't have a lot of cravings now, partly bc I took a lot of steps to improve my life in these weeks that I left p. and am now more busy and can't be anything other than my best version.
Please share your story if you have a similiar story or any links to simiiar stories.
Click to expand...
 
I have quit porn for for about 2 and half months but have masturbated . Definetly commited to being free of porn,have mix feelings about masturbation and where I want to go with it ! Good luck on journey
 
Been clean 5 years and I got rid of both. Some people might want to keep it in thier lives but at the very least both should be kept out for a few months since your neural pathways for p and m are basically one. Years ago I tried to just keep p out but I realized I was lying to myself by doing so since m still was giving me the high and pain numbing I was using p for. But after giving your brain some time to rewire it might be fine for some. I personally keep it out though.
 
Peacelooker said:
I have quit porn for for about 2 and half months but have masturbated . Definetly commited to being free of porn,have mix feelings about masturbation and where I want to go with it ! Good luck on journey
Click to expand...

Congratulations on having come this far in your no P. journey. That's almost 90 days. Amazing.
That gives me hope.
All the best to you.
 
JJackson said:
Been clean 5 years and I got rid of both. Some people might want to keep it in thier lives but at the very least both should be kept out for a few months since your neural pathways for p and m are basically one. Years ago I tried to just keep p out but I realized I was lying to myself by doing so since m still was giving me the high and pain numbing I was using p for. But after giving your brain some time to rewire it might be fine for some. I personally keep it out though.
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Clean for 5 years, that's really amazing. I wish I get to that stage.
Is there one thing that helped you tremendously and you would encourage us to consider? Or did you write a post somewhere with tips? Would love to hear more about your journey.
All the best.
 
maybethereisfutureforme said:
I'm wondering, are there success stories of people who quit watching any porn but did relapse let's say once or twice a week in terms of masturbation (without P. of course) initially?
I'm wondering how common is this. Bc I did commit to leaving P. which I did about 16 days ago. But since I'm not allowed to exercise for some time now, I couldn't transmute the energy and did fall to the temptation of M. And I don't have a lot of cravings now, partly bc I took a lot of steps to improve my life in these weeks that I left p. and am now more busy and can't be anything other than my best version.
Please share your story if you have a similiar story or any links to simiiar stories.
Click to expand...
There are no such stories. Each one leads to the other eventually.
 
If going 'X' days is a success story than I generally don't look at porn and have gone up to a year between relapses / slips but it always comes back if you masturbate.

It's too easy to fall back into it if you masturbate. I've yet to do a month without masturbation.

That said... It's an excellent place to start. I wanted to quit porn before I wanted to quit masturbation and I think my job is a bit easier for it.
 
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WriteMeow said:
If going 'X' days is a success story than I generally don't look at porn and have gone up to a year between relapses / slips but it always comes back if you masturbate.

It's too easy to fall back into it if you masturbate. I've yet to do a month without masturbation.

That said... It's an excellent place to start. I wanted to quit porn before I wanted to quit masturbation and I think my job is a bit easier for it.
Click to expand...

I see what you mean. That's still very good, leaving P., that is.
Maybe finding a strategy to fall asleep quicker would help in your case, by working out in the evening for example, if M. is something that you resort to when you can't fall sleep. Just my thoughts as a reminder, you know this I'm sure.

For me, I went 6 months without watching porn at one point and that, or let's put it this way, the changes in my habits (and identity) that I implemented, were enough for me to leave M. aswell. But obviously I don't 'know' how I did that back then. I've thought about it a lot. I think I had a believe/purpose that I could change my life for the better and also a sort of role model I looked up to.
Sadly the role model that I looked up to changed for the worse. I kind of saw my future, when I saw him. So, I guess the fear of uncertainty of the future was diminished by having a role model like that. Not a too big of an age difference like me and my father. But more just below 10 years apart. I see that had a positive impact on me.
And also the purpose factor. I am not allowed to exercise for some time now and exercise always made life easier and more fulfilling. I know, now I need to dig deep down and find a purpose that can be stronger and bigger.
And also select good role models I can think about in difficult moments.
 
I haven't M'ed to P since May of last year, but I've certainly M'ed allot. My main goal was to quit P, and I wasn't having success with that until I stopped beating myself up about M, but didn't let myself relapse to P. I'm not sure that's the best way to do things, TBH, and I'm not where I want to be, but there's no denying in my life that I've made huge improvements by quitting only P.

Everyone's different though. For me, I guess my brain wasn't so fried on P to the point that I needed it to M, so M became a way to short circuit the downward spiral. I don't know if I'd describe myself as a "success story" yet, because I still want to M less than I do, but I'm actually a little terrified of stopping at this point. The longer I go without M, the stronger urges become to go back to P. I don't ever want to go back.

Even with M, I definitely feel like I've made allot of progress, though. I don't think I'm there, but I am proud of how far I've come. Focusing on P and worrying less about M made a difference for me.

More directly, I would recommend tracking P and M separately. That way even if you slip up, you still have allot of positive progress to look back on. You don't have to change your goal, but it might help you get less discouraged if you slip.
 
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