The Lord of the Rings Challenge

A couple great documentaries have been posted here an the past few days. As a result I now have two cautions to post about from my own search of "Raised on Porn" (the first posted documentary) on YouTube.

1) When scrolling down the search results I come across a playlist labeled "Raised on Porn". The thumbnail, in my mind, is definitely pornographic in nature. Aside from maybe four videos in the playlist which appear to be documentaries related to the harmful effects of porn, the thumbnails of the majority of the other videos appear to have a sort of sexual or erotic tone to them. I'll freely admit, my checking the playlist wasn't done with completely honourable intentions. Since the warning sirens were blaring in my head I never clicked any of the videos.

We all have to be careful as we never know when a temptation will pop up during our innocent travels. Posting about it here is probably the best thing I can do to keep anything from taking hold. In may ways, the unintentional exposure and keeping it a secret is what sends many of us down the porn hole as a child.

2) Here's an interview with a serial killer on the night before his execution. He both iterates he doesn't blame porn for what he did and mentions how it's an addiction there was an escalation from softcore to hardcore and eventually violent porn. From then on the escalation went from fantasy to reality. He killed people, I didn't. I do not feel the urge to kill people but I'm also not going to be naive and say it could never happen. Given the right circumstances I easily could have became or could become a serial killer. Perhaps it is the grace of God I never went there.

The biggest thing I'm taking from his words are he does not blame the pornography for his actions. For any of us, not blaming pornography should be a huge step in our recovery.

 

Checking in at noon. Blue balls and back pain are making the day really hard. I know that MOing would aliviate the pain, but I'm single minded about it: I won't do it.

 

21 pm - checkin' out
...this day was strange - fog in my head never seemed to be that strong before..
I did some meditation and cleaned up the whole apartment.
Im on my way to bed and evening routine now...
Tomorrow will be Day 2 and the first day where I'll startm with the new plan.
Have a good sleep evrybody!

 

Checking in, only have time to say thanks for the fellowship.

 

Checking in.

Not much to report, other than that at a little walk at 12, my mind was quite fogged up. I then heard a podcast about the circadian clock, and i am now going to go for litlle walk first thing in the morning, to wake it up. Check it out, Andrew Huberman was the podcast host.

 

Checking,

Had a good day today, I went to the beach with my wife in the morning.

Also I've started to prepare for the interviews for the possible new job.
So NoFAP can definitely help me with this, I also trying to do dopamine detox, so I'm on top of my game.

When I'm doing dopamine detox, I'm feeling much more smarter then when I watch useless youtube videos
or reading political news

 

Day 18 / 1000. Battles won against pmo: 67.

Not sure what I feel. Very moodswingy. Today I was attacked by huge depression and irritability. I have noticed that peak of first wave of withdrawals is around day 20 usually. So it could be that this is not the end. I have to stay ready.

The worst part of this hard mode thing for me is that my past is surfacing to me. I like when it's some good memory. But mostly it's painful stuff - things that I cannot change, people that I can't apologise to, people that hurt me, habits that I cannot inforce retroactively,... Sometimes I just wish I could wash everything away, but I can't. My past is what formed this me. So many lessons learned. It would be a shame to forget them. But I still would like to make a peace with my past. I don't know how.

Spoiler: Journey stuff

Stuff that should help to not pmo:
1. No internet for recreational purposes until 6 pm.
2. Waking up on the same time every day.

 

Day 179

A good day at work and packing down my flat, but my car broke down and I had to call out a mechanic. Thankfully all was resolved fairly promptly, but not cheaply!

Feeling in control of my urges; a video came up on YouTube with some women acting suggestively and I remembered the effect this used to have on me, but this time I felt nothing. Not an excuse to be reckless, but nice to know things have improved.

 

Day 4 - orc

 

Day 1 complete! I've left the Nazgul phase behind me, an important first step.

Lots of brain fog, headaches, exhaustion today. I can't say with certainty that they're related to my relapse but I'd be surprised if they're entirely unrelated. I also need to get on top of my eating habits again. The past couple weeks I've been consuming more sugary drinks and eating more desserts than I normally would. A general loss of willpower in all areas.

St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us!

 

Day 498 & 499

 

Day 20 complete

I am still dealing with looking at/checking out women problem. My goal for now is to stop doing that. But I don’t have a strategy yet. I am open for suggestions. Not looking at any digital arousing content is going well for 20 days.

 

Day 15 as a Hobbit complete! My journey has begun!
Yesterday was not the best day, but it was a good day... caught myself looking at and actively searching for pretty girls on Instagram! This always seems to happen when things start feeling good. I shall be careful.
I plan on having an even better day!
Cheers!

"Speak Life!" Today, I am victorious!

 

Checking in for day 31

Was peeking yesterday, I need to do better

 

I totally agree that you must be careful out there on YouTube. I once fell after watching a video about the negative impacts of porn and right after YouTube played me a video that I would say was porn. I turned off the feature that automatically plays the next video but not sure how that works when you click on a playlist.

 

Day 492 no PMO. Kida lost my cool yesterday as I was frustrated and feeling like my wife doesn’t support me or have my back. That’s probably mostly in my head but it felt real at the time. I’m hoping today will be better.

 

Binged yesterday back to day 0

 

Dawn of the 102nd day.

Thanks for reminding me of the Dopamine Detox. I just joined it last night.

You did well to get through the day. Onward to day 2!

When we fall we may feel like we are back at the bottom but we are not. Our counter may read "0" but our past successes have built a foundation to stand upon. The old "0" is buried below this solid ground. Onward to day 1!

 

Day 62

 

congratulations bro!