1. Welcome to NoFap! We have disabled new forum accounts from being registered for the time being. In the meantime, you can join our weekly accountability groups.
    Dismiss Notice

The Intro to Me & My Victory

Discussion in 'New to NoFap' started by EricTheJedi, Mar 4, 2017.

  1. EricTheJedi

    EricTheJedi New Fapstronaut

    4
    3
    3
    Hey guys,

    So, as my username suggests, my name is Eric. I have to be honest about something though. I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Jedi. I wanted to confess that and get it off of my chest. The truth is I'm a Star Trek fan.

    Anyways, I found you guys through someone's comment on a Facebook group called Order of Men, which is run by a guy named Ryan Michler. If you're not a member, I highly suggest you join the group. It's a group of 20,000 guys dedicated to becoming better and helping one another to become better.

    So, while I am not "addicted" to porn, I do have a propensity to take wrong turns online. Honestly, I don't like the word "addiction." My mindset is that calling it an addiction, sickness, disease, etc gives men an excuse to stay in their depraved mindsets. I've developed a lot of mental control, but I am not out of the . . . forest.

    Last year, I managed to only look at porn six times. And, so far, this year, I haven't looked at all. Well, that's not completely true. I started to look yesterday, but I talked myself out of it after about 15 minutes. I went on with my day, and everything was fine. I've also learned not to allow my yesterday to hold me back. The quarterback who gets sacked in the backfield has to get up, forget about the loss of yardage, and take command of the next play. That's how I look at life.

    As I said, I am not addicted to porn, and I am even able to maintain enough determination over it that if I do start to look at it, I am good at telling myself, "This devalues women. You're better than this," or something like that. And then stop.

    Though, as I said, I do sometimes have a tendency to take wrong turns online meaning to go to sites where there are pictures of attractive women wearing apparel that makes them appear very desirable (I am trying not to say anything that will trigger anyone). I am pretty good at not going to those places and even getting better at talking myself out of staying in those places, but I could do better.

    Going back to the whole "addiction" thing, if you tie an elephant to the ground using a rope and a post, that elephant will stay there (at least, that's what I've heard). The elephant has the power to break free, but it has convinced itself otherwise.

    Now call that post "addiction." I cannot stand the lie that "I am powerless," as some rehab groups say. I'm not a cusser, but that's a bunch of fucking bullshit. I have the power to make any choice I want. But like the elephant that's tied to the post, men often stay bound to their addiction because they convince themselves there's no way out.

    In fact, you know what, I'm declaring myself free right now. I'm yanking this post right out of the ground and running amuck around this circus.

    Now, I told you guys how I heard about you, but I didn't tell you why I decided to join. But first I should tell you I'm a Christian. I won't get preachy on this site, but I am also not afraid to talk about and defend my faith. So, you respect my beliefs, and I'll respect yours. In other words, please don't talk negatively about my beliefs or God in general. If you don't have the same beliefs, that's fine.

    Anyways, I go to a really awesome church. I've been going there for four years, and it's a great church that really takes steps to help broken people rebuild their lives. But there is one thing about the church I see as a weakness. I've gone to the church for four years and have told a few leaders in the church about my struggle. I've then asked if they would take the password to my Internet filter. But each time (4) I always get similar responses. "I'll pray for you, but that's really something you need to deal with on your own."

    On one hand, I understand where they are coming from. Someone in a porn recovery support group once told me that I would quit when I was ready to quit. So, I understand that there is no 100% full proof filter out there. Trust me. I know. I haven't found a filter out there I can't circumvent.

    Still, I've done better in the past when I've had that accountability. But I can't find anyone in my church who is willing to help me through this. Well, that's not true. But after getting four people who have said 'no,' I don't want to confide this to someone else only to get another, 'no.'

    I know I don't know anyone here, but I feel like I'm alone in this. It angers me that no one at my church, which seems to have no problem helping people overcome drug addictions, alcoholism, etc, simply tells me this is a problem I need to work through on my own. I'm just looking for a band of brothers to walk with through this, as I declare myself free from porn, or any online or offline pictures that devalue women.

    Oh yeah, one more thing. To anyone who might want to suggest I find a new church where they will help me walk through this, I thank you for your concern, but no. There is no such thing as the perfect church. The people in my church are more family to me than my own family. While I think their response towards me in this one area is wrong, they have helped me to grow as a person in so many other ways.


    So, that's my story. Thanks for reading.


    Eric
     
    D . J . and HopefulChristian like this.
  2. Hi Eric and Welcome to NoFap. It's great that you have such self-control -- others aren't so fortunate. Hopefully being here will prevent you from slipping into any type of p or p-sub dependency.
    I'm sorry about your church not being as supportive as you'd like. As in anything, rely on God and perhaps ask Him to open their hearts more to your particular problem. I'm a part of the Christian group. We motivate each other with encouragement and Scripture. You will also find Christian APs out in the forums.

    As far as mocking your beliefs, I honestly haven't experienced that. People may not take you seriously or ignore your attempts to "save" them (and they have every right), but I've always felt comfortable praising Jesus for the great savior He is, amen. One of the things I love about NoFap is that I've felt extremely safe to be open about my faith as much as I want. It's certainly a openness I don't have IRL.

    I wish you luck on your endeavors. God Bless.
     
  3. D . J .

    D . J . Fapstronaut

    Welcome to NoFap where you are amongst friends who are here to encourage you and not judge you.

    As others will tell you, i wii not judge you but I will question you and at times call you out on what you say and you confuse me with your contradictions.
    • You call yourself a Jedi but you are not one.
    • You aren't addicted but you haven't stopped watched porn completely.
    • You don't cuss but you did.
    • No one in your church will help you but you only asked four people.
    We won't judge you. We will help you but you need to help us by being honest with yourself. There is not shame in saying you have an addiction to pornography. We on NoFap are a dysfunctional family of men and women addicted to pornography, masturbation, camming, and a whole host of other issues.

    Let your guard down and let us help you with accountability and encouragement.

    God knew you needed help of your peers, those who could and would help you and our Lord and Master guided you here.

    Take a deep breathe and exhale. It's going to be fine. You are going to be fine.

    How long have you been dealing with porn? What age were you introduced to porn? Congratulations on the ability to reduce your porn usage to 6 times last year. When you relapsed to porn, how long were you on porn before you were able to remove it from your life each time? These types of answers will give us a better idea of how to help you.

    What are your current strategies for combating the enemy called PMO?
     
    jesusmysaviour likes this.
  4. EricTheJedi

    EricTheJedi New Fapstronaut

    4
    3
    3
    Hi,

    Thank you so much for the warm welcome. I will definitely check out the group. I look forward to the dialogue and growth.
     
    HopefulChristian likes this.
  5. EricTheJedi

    EricTheJedi New Fapstronaut

    4
    3
    3
     
  6. EricTheJedi

    EricTheJedi New Fapstronaut

    4
    3
    3
    Hi DJ.,


    Thank you for your questions. I appreciate that you want to help me, but to do so, I think it’s important for you to understand why I do not and will not identify myself as addicted to porn. This is a longer message, but I think you will find it beneficial to understanding me and where I am at in my journey to wholeness.

    So, a few months after I joined my church, I went to a small group event and met a young lady named Kelly, but I asked her to repeat her name. I thought I must have heard wrong, and she must have said Kenny or Kyle. She looked like a Kenny or a Kyle, not a Kelly. But she repeated her name. Kelly. We exchanged greetings, and the night went on.

    Over the months, Kelly, whom I soon discovered was transgender, and I became good friends. My church loved on her and did not judge her for her transgenderism, but I and my church lovingly stood on the position that her transgenderism was not God’s will for her. We told her she was created to be a mighty woman of God.

    One day, after Kelly made the decision to go through the necessary procedures to became a man, we were texting each other. She told me God made a mistake when He made her, and that she was meant to be born a boy. I explained to her that though she was born with everything about her being female her choice to identify as a male was an incorrect emotional response (ICR) to both her past and her current environment.

    I went on to explain to her that she did not know how to cope with hurts from her past or her current environment (outside of church), so she created an identity she felt would be more acceptable to the environment in which she had chosen to identify with. Kelly had grown up in foster care, so she spent most of her childhood feeling unloved, and her decision to live as a transgender was her way of seeking love. She didn’t know how else to find it other than to try to become that which she thought would be more acceptable and loved by those within her environment.

    For several months, Kelly, who by that time chose to identify as Jim, and I lost contact. She stopped coming to church and our text conversations ended. Then, one day, I saw her sitting on a couch outside of the sanctuary. I walked over to her, said it was good to see her, and I asked what was new. That’s when she told me i was right. She said her choice to live a transgender lifestyle was an unhealthy way of her responding to hurts from the past and trying to be accepted by those in her current non-church environment. She said she made the decision to live as the woman God created her to be.

    She said she wanted to start coming back to church, but she didn’t have a car to get there. She asked me if I could come and pick her up. Because our church has multiple campuses and I was then volunteering at two of them on Sundays, one during a morning service and the other at an evening service, I said I couldn’t bring her to church. But i told her I could give her a ride home.

    During the middle of the evening first evening service after which I would take her back to her house, I asked God what I could do to show her that she was a beautiful woman loved and cherished by me and God. I thought about stopping somewhere and buying her flowers, but then God told me to just open the door for her when we got out to my car.

    So, after service, we walked out to my car, I unlocked the passenger side door, and opened it for her. She thanked me and got in. Several months later, after I had opened for her many times, I was driving her home. She told me she wasn’t sure how to handle me opening the door for her the first time. She said she grew up around men who never did things like that for her. And then she told me that my simple act of opening the door for her had the most impact on her going through her healing process.

    So, here’s my question to you. Was my friend Kelly addicted to identifying herself as being a man, or was it an incorrect emotional response due to various factors from her childhood? If one day she chooses to wear jeans, a t-shirt, and even spits on the sidewalk is she then falling back into her addiction? I don’t know what current psychologists define as an addiction, and i really don’t care. Just as my friend Kelly chose to identify as the woman God created her to be and not as a man, I choose not to identify myself as addicted to porn.

    To say of oneself that one is addicted to something is to choose to accept that thing as part of one’s identity. i had oatmeal for breakfast this morning. I have oatmeal for breakfast quite often. Does that mean I am addicted to oatmeal? I had a banana with my breakfast this morning. I have a banana with my breakfast almost every morning. Does that mean I’m addicted to bananas. I brushed my teeth before I went to bed last night, and I will brush them before I go to church. Does that mean I’m addicted to brushing my teeth? Am I addicted to taking showers? Am I addicted to not running red lights? Am I addicted being a nice guy?

    So, here’s my point. Just because a person does something more than once does not mean they are addicted to it. I brush my teeth, take showers, eat a banana every day, and many other things because they have become habits. They are good habits that make me feel better about myself. The few times I do look at porn it is a bad habit that I sometimes fall into because of an incorrect emotional response. But, since I choose not to accept it as part of my identity, as my friend Kelly once did with her transgenderism, I am not addicted to porn.

    If you want to accept pornography as part of your identity, then you are welcome to do so, but one’s acceptance of an addiction to pornography or anything else is what allows that thing to become a part of a person’s persona. It is what gives it power over one’s life, and I will not give it power over my life.

    As far as your other points, honestly, they’re off-topic, so I am not going to respond.

    Now, onto your questions,

    How long I’ve been dealing with lust of the eyes started with looking at my sister’s Cosmos when I was about 14. I didn’t discover porn until I was 21. I’m 40, so I didn’t grow up with the Internet. Though, I have been making more concerted efforts to break this bad habit for about the last five years or so. That’s when I discovered one of my favorite porn stars had left the porn industry and became a strong Christian.

    Honestly, out of those six times that I looked at porn last year, i don’t recall how long I looked. I know it was at least a few hours each time. Each time I stopped after I climaxed from masturbation. I should tell you that one thing I have learned that has really helped me to monitor my choices to go to porn is that it’s really more about the emotional release I get from masturbating. I’ve learned that if something stresses me to the point that I need a release, I seek that release in masturbation. But I don’t need a picture of a naked woman. I can turn on a music video with women dancing miniskirts, masturbate, climax, and I’ll be fine. The benefit of that is that there is not nearly as much regret afterwards.

    As far as my current strategies to combat porn or any lust of the eyes, right now, it is simply to learn mastery of self by identifying outside factors that may trigger me. It is to choose to read a book instead of go online. It is to be able to identify my emotions and to know when I am able to maintain emotional mastery over my environment and when I need to choose to dwell in a new environment until I am able to change my emotional response.

    So, here is the truth. Right now, at this moment, I feel like going to places online I should not go to. I want to go to those places because I’m honestly a little frustrated. I can’t explain to you how much it offends me that you call my occasional bad habit something I am addicted to. I was the kid in elementary school and all of the way through high school who was bullied and relentlessly called names. Those names were repeated so much that even though I was not those things I chose to identify with them. I didn’t know better, and it took me many years after high school to break those identities. So, to me, even though you don’t meant it this way, I subconsciously consider you calling me addicted a type of bullying. You are trying to place a false identity on me, but I will not accept that as my identity. You may as well be on the playground pointing your finger at me and laughing, while calling me “Eric the Airhead.” Though, not a purposeful or negative type of bullying, still you are trying to place an identity on me that I choose not to accept.

    Then, 30 years ago, when I was in elementary school, I did not have the emotional fortitude to overcome the words of childhood bullies. I learned to respond in negative ways, which eventually turned into looking at porn and masturbating. My emotional default is to choose to create and control relationships that are nothing more than fantasies. That is how I dealt with childhood bullies because I did not know the correct way to respond to them emotionally. And now, because I do not always know how to relate to people, I relate to that which I understand and can relate to better than people. Computers. If the machines ever do rise up and enslave humanity, I plan on joining them and selling everyone out. I understand computational algorithms more than I understand social cues. I say this because look at porn or even videos with women in miniskirts is a way for me to create a fantasized relationship with that with which I am better able to relate than people.

    Even though, right now, my emotional default is to go where I shouldn’t go online, I won’t go to those places. I have learned enough self-mastery that I am able to identify my negative emotions, as well as those environmental factors that trigger those negative emotions. I have learned how to talk myself out of responding to my emotional default. I have learned to look forward and to consider the consequences. I feel guilty afterwards. Porn, or even anything near that, changes one’s brain chemistry. So, looking at it for too long gives me a headache that I must deal with for the rest of the day, and even most of the next day.

    I appreciate this site and your willingness to want to help me. This site wouldn’t be here, and you wouldn’t have responded, if I you didn’t. But please know I will at no point call myself addicted. I choose not to make that part of my identity, and I ask you not to try to place that identity on me. I admit I have a propensity to sometimes give into a had habit, which is an incorrect emotional response, but that is controllable. An addiction is much less controllable, and is almost not controllable, because a person often allows an addiction to become their identity. The only time a person who is addicted to something does not give into whatever they are addicted to is when they are not in an environment where there are emotional triggers that cause them to act upon their emotional default.

    Though, I have learned and am learning to take control over my emotions, and therefore I am able to make the conscious choice of how i will respond to my emotions. I am learning more and more everyday of how to master my emotions while being in environments that might trigger me. There are environments that are not right for me or anyone to go to, such as a strip club, so I do not go to those places. But there are other environments that are more neutral or that I may not have control over being in, but they may still cause emotional triggers. My ability to recognize my emotions, as well as to identify what may trigger my negative emotions, and then not to give in to my emotional defaults is what does not make this an addiction.

    Though, still, I sometimes have a propensity to give into my bad habits due to incorrect emotional responses that cause me to fall into my emotional default. But I am also learning mastery over myself by recognizing that while certain emotions may exist they will always pass. I no longer feel the emotions I did moments ago due to my frustration with your choice to use the word addiction, thus I have emotionally moved past wanting to go where I should not go online. The logical side of my brain has convinced the emotional side of my brain to not feel those negative emotions I did moments ago.

    It’s like that scene in the movie with the storm when the actors find shelter. I can’t of a specific movie, but I am sure there are several. But in every scene in any movie like that, it is the bravest one in the group who calms down the worrisome within the group by reminding them the storm will pass. I am learning more and more to use the logical side of my brain to recognize the panic (negative emotions) of the emotional side of my brain and to convince the emotional side of my brain that the negative emotional storms will pass. Allowing them to pass might mean not going to into an environment that might trigger panic or choosing to remind myself that this is an emotional storm that will pass. The point is that I am learning emotional control.

    As far as where I have learned these methods, while I have not completely learned mastery over self, I have learned that reading the Bible and books by people who have learned mastery over self is very helpful.

    Okay, another thing that might be helpful for you to know about me is I am a writer. Someone once commented that I tend to write very long emails. You now know that to be true. I told her I think in my writing. Some people think out loud. The more I write, the more and better I am able to process my thoughts. Writing helps me to understand myself better, and I now understand myself better than I did when I started this email. Writing and reading help me to learn mastery over self.



    Have a wonderful Sunday.


    Eric
     
  7. D . J .

    D . J . Fapstronaut

Share This Page