The Lord of the Rings Challenge

Thanks for the video, very useful, especially comment on the need for 18-24 months to properly re-wire. Really need to review this again at the end of every month.

 

Thank you for your honesty man. It is very helpful to read that these very human struggles are shared with others.

 

97 days. Everyday grateful for this streak, I feel free and at peace.

 

Awesome! Reminds me, I should do more whm as well. With a little practice this becomes a very practical way to boost oneself in many ways. Especially during the cold season. You push yourself and train your will but it doesn't stresses you out but gives release from stress, better health, more energy, better in handling all weather conditions and probably more testosterone. And of course it's the best acute "medication" to any urges known to mankind
I love it!

Sounds good!

Yeah, it's always the circumstance and rarely the substances itself. And social pressure is the worst. Here are some ideas. I hope it's useful to you!

• it's not necessarily a bad thing to be a "yes"-sayer. We might be very agreeable persons (yes, me too) but with many friends that know they can rely on us. So instead of trying to convert to a "nay-sayer" all of a sudden I would suggest to change the worst of it first: which are the worst choices we have made when we said yes to someone? In what circumstances or to which people have we said yes when we actually should have said NO with exclamation mark?
  
• find an identity that suits you. Regarding alcohol, sugar and so on that makes it much easier to decide for your own in the group. Also we have to find out: do we really want to stand out and eat very healthy while the others do fast-food? Or do we want to avoid certain group activities alltogether? Or maybe you want to change your circle of friends a little bit?
  
• Make compromises, don't just think of your own but think of the others too (that can help in many ways) and don't be too hard with yourself.
  
• But if you have a clear goal and you know exactly WHY you're doing it and you want it no matter what, than all power to you!

After writing this I see how complicated it actually is: do you want to stay abstinent but risk to have a boring party and no new friends or do you you risk your health and have a great time? - there are always these kind of trade-offs. And many things are just not in our control and often we find the right answer only in retrospective. So what I said about the yes-and-no-choices turn out to be a good guideline here as well: start not doing the things that you know are bad for you which give you nearly nothing in return. And start doing the things that you know would be good and beneficial. So simple

 

Today I had to deal with this chaser: it's a video that stuck to me after my last relapse, because it was too long to download. I've seen only the beginning where you see only the female "actress" in lingerie, which I ... kind of fancy. I won't give any details because that could trigger you or me and because they don't really matter. What matters is that after deleting all the videos that I used during my session, this one video "remained". It took me some time to get rid of the idea that I would watch this video too in what would be the second relapse in a short time. But chasers do chase. So it hit me again today when I was practically in the same situation as the other day when I started to act out.

I'll tell you what happened:
First I had this strange idea of the kind that actually could work out but usually don't because I'm a pathetic addict who can't handle these mind games, because sooner or later he uses it as an opportunity to fap.
The idea was that I don't try to fight of the idea that this woman "looks so gorgeous" and these lingerie scenes would be something like the holy grail of softcore porn. Rather I wanted to stick to this idea but kind of sacrifice her, I mean NOT WATCH her. Like reducing all the crazy porn urges to this one single point, namely this lingerie scene and keep it in my head like an idol. Maybe desexualize it? I see, there's a true element to it that makes sense but then again this idea is really weird and messed up.
Anyways, the funny thing is the consequence: I decided to look at her and so you see: everything that I thought before was meaningless, even IF that idea was good I just used it to act spontanously without any logic (well to the logic of my addiction).

Sorry to be that lengthy! But here it comes: I went to the porn site, straight to the mentioned video, I looked at her in lingerie, checked her out and it was like ... neutral. I saw her features and how it was presented in the light, with drops of water and the being moved smoothly. I wasn't completely detached from it, I think I was a little aroused. But I wasn't interested. My mission seemed to be: look at her, look at what you made such a deal of and then go. Usually such a mission would be deemed to fail.
But not this time! I completed this mission and then I went! I found out that there was no big mystery, no dazzling beauty, no nothing. Just porn with a lot of light and make-up and an actress that has a lot of curves and a cute face. "Fappable"? Totally. Not to mention that the lingerie scene is followed up by various hardcore sex scenes (all with that one "actress").

Did I look at porn? Yes. Did I watch it and didn't click it away immediately. Yes, but it was between one and three minutes. I saw no sex, only parts of the lingerie scene. I checked her out and that was obvious a mistake. But I found that there was nothing to it. I didn't escalate. I just closed it, deleted the history and went back to my life!!! No urge left! No need to get off or to look at porn!!! A total WIN !!!!!!!!!!!!

Instead of urges, funny ideas or things that chase me I only felt relief. I was so glad that I could muster the strength to say no.
I must admit, the big relapse after a long streak had already happen and I had came more than once. Of course I wasn't so needy and horny anymore. It wasn't at its peak. But after one relapse the next one is usually lurking behind the corner. It was the second day after the relapse. My old me would have messed up here so magnificent! It's so clear to me that, all things considered, this is an improvement, a step forward.

Even if this event technically may not look that great, psychologically it was. Yesterday I already decided that there wouldn't be a second round. As I wrote here, I understood that it was only a fail in a row of clean days and I was determined to continue like before with many more clean days to come. So when I went on a porn site today and watched that video for about 3 minutes it was clearly a blunder. Such a thing is always a no go by the way.
But since it turned out so well, it has not weakened me, but - and I'm absolutely sure about this - it fortified my will to recover.
For a simple reason actually: during a clean streak everything is fine, but you never know what may happen. A single picture, a word or a thought can get you in trouble. And what then? Only when we experience something like that what happened to me today can we see what we are made of and where our weaknesses lie.

This is certainly not a encouragement to do "testings". Of course it's stupid to test ourselves! When we do it, it's usually because urges or inner conflicts make us do. But with or without testings that may or may not make us fall, we will learn a lot in a Journey that is never a straight line. The only question is, can we apply what we (should have) learned?

 

There may be another reason for a lot of mistakes that we make when we actually want to stay away from porn and recover properly: being too caught up in the whole porn / nofap / addiction idea. It's correct that we are addicted when we show a certain pattern. And that usually doesn't changes over-night. But we have to let go. If we want to leave this place one day and not only to repeat the same thing somewhere else, but as free men and women, we have to let go.
I don't mean that we would have to delete everything that we have experienced: years of porn use - delete. Living with porn addiction - delete. Years of Nofap community and becoming an expert of some sorts - delete. Struggeling to become clean - delete. Remaining addiction patterns - delete.
That's ridiculous. Firstly it's not even possible. And secondly we would loose our past, our roots.
But we want change, right? The younger we are the more we expect to change. But sometimes the old guys are dedicated to change more than ever ...

One fundamental principle in buddhism is the idea that everything that helps you on your way, every lesson, every principle, every doctrine, even buddhism itself is but a tool. Like a boat that you need to cross the river. But when you reach the other end of the river, you don't need the boat anymore. Instead of carrying it with you, you simply leave it in the river ...
I think, this fundamental principle of buddhism is often neglected because - between buddhists - the experience of reaching the other side is so rare.
But this applies not only to enlightment, I believe. In our lives we often have to cross a river and are able to reach the other side. Only it's important to not carrying the damn boats all the time with you. Rather it would be good to always keep a certain flexibility, mentally and also regarding our ideas, beliefs and mindsets. The contrary of such flexibility is addiction, I guess.

 

Ghosting
I decided to ghost my ex, her behaviour towards me it's just so bad she doesn't deserve a decent break up. It took some time to accept it because I'm a nice guy but is the best choice.

A beautiful blonde more beautiful than my ex just text me to see me, also not so crazy, With more education and a job. It feels good and a great way to forget my ex. Let's see how it goes, I think she's busy but still texted me to see me.

I got on tinder several matches I'll see that tomorrow. In general good day studying and my mind seems to be over my ex. I blocked her from all social media. There's no way she can contact me. First time I block someone.

 

Day 1/almost Day 2

I f***ed up this weekend. Drank too much, stayed up too late, and woke up with cravings. Basically, I failed to take the Week 1 stuff seriously. Feels bad, and so I didn't come post about it till now.

It's my responsibility. I know I'm capable of doing better. I'm happy for another chance.

 

477 days

 

Day 267

 

Day 5 done!

went to my first Brazilian jiu-jitsu practice yesterday. It was awesome, friendly and kind people, nice workout.

I can’t seem to get rid of thoughts about sex outside of marriage. Ofc part of me enjoys thinking about it, but I know that if I would do any of those things in real life, then I would be misserable. So I need to leave these thoughts.

 

44 days
This time I'll make it to the 90
@icebreaker accounability bot very insightful thoughts!

 

6 - 0, or even 61 by the time I actually press reply (it's the 3rd time I leave the text one without pushing it. The process of waking up early still isn't perfect but I'm grinding at it. It's still better than waking up 15 minutes before heading into work, yet my sgo to sleep hour is still not 11:15 at the dot as planified. Most of it is due to the food I'm eating since I'm skipping almost if not daily into junk food. About to do a cold shower, so wish me luck, for today it's going to be -1celsius (meaning 1 degree under the freezing point) wich is something I haven't felt in a year.
I feel a certain sexual tension with someone at the gym so I will try and talk to her to remove it, on the next occasion.

 

Day 4

Extremely busy day at work. Had to do someone else's job today, plus mine. This happens a lot lately. I have a feeling next week will look that way too. It's fine though... I don't mind working hard, it cultivates discipline. Also still working out daily, eating more, waking up at a decent time and going to bed at a decent time too. I'm glad to be able to maintain that when I'm working.

 

Day 15 - Hobbit, The Shire

 

Day 1.

 

Hi All, would some of you be so kind as to share your trigger for plans? Just a list of 2-3 things you do when triggered to avoid slipping back into the pit?

 

Day 260 no PMO. Had a tough day at work yesterday. Had to let someone go and I’ll probably be stressed out for the next few weeks.

 

Yeah I relapsed and for the first time in the last 50 days I watched porn. I felt so devastated and then something unexpected happened a siren came and notice came to me demanding 29000 rupees since I watched porn. I googled and came to know such scams are present . You do think this is just a scam right.

OMG, is this really happening, has anybody experienced something similar.

I have to quit this addiction at any cost, or it will cost me my life.

 

493 days high king
562 days semen retention