Why Lite Mode

Below I explain a bit of why I'm doing a no porn, lite-mode reboot now instead of a standard one. I'm here only talking about myself, and if you disagree with what I write or it doesn't apply to you, then don't worry. This is not meant to be an argument or advice.

I had reboots of 120-days in 2018 and 135-days last year. During this time, my only orgasms were with my SO, and no more often than every 2 weeks. One of the things that really worried me in these successful reboots is how I became obsessed with sex after 50+ day range. I couldn't think about anything else. Part of my strategy was to avoid fantasizing, but to be quite honest, it would only ever delay fantasizing rather than get rid of it. Even having sex every two weeks, I still felt pre-occupied with a constant, nagging interest in sex.

Three ways of how this obsession (even during a successful reboot) made life difficult.

1. It disengaged me from ordinary interactions. We had a friend over when I was at 115 days, and although I don't really find her terribly attractive, I spent the whole night thinking about having sex with her. And this isn't good, because I wasn't really part of the conversation. Similar situations happened multiple times with different people. Frequently, afterwards, I would have even stronger urges for the next few days. I would seek out attractive people to look at.
2. It led me to make bad decisions. I pursued friendly coffee dates with a co-worker I was very attracted to, and I probably wouldn't have done so as often or with quite the same interest if I wasn't so horny. During the 2018 reboot, I got really into working out. Part of me thought that I could attract interest from other women, and maybe get into an affair or open-relationship. I even started over-dramatizing the little dissatisfactions that might have been offered to justify an open-relationship. At another time, I used my sex addiction as a way to get close with another family friend who I was attracted to. I sent her a detailed letter, and eagerly looked for her interest. Again, not sure what I was hoping for, but I don't think I would have done it if I hadn't been so horny. (Here is Joe Rogan describing a similar idea about NF. While I don't always like him and alot of stuff in this video is tasteless or oversimplified, I now think he's onto something true).
3. I couldn't focus or enjoy ordinary things. During a time when I was doing an activity that I would ordinarily enjoy, which digging through stacks of records for gems, I couldn't even focus. My attention was entirely upon women who were standing in the room around me, women whom I didn't know and couldn't even see that well. And as a result, I couldn't enjoy it at all.

Moreover, these negative aspects of rebooting were progressively getting worse as the days ticked by. Rather than managing my sexual impulses, rebooting was making them worse. I wasn't watching porn or masturbating, but it was almost as if I had this pressure building up inside of me. I could continue going on by sheer force of will, by exercising, breathing, and posting. But there was nothing comfortable or natural about it. Every day was a test in discipline.

I've opted for a No porn, lite-mode reboot this time. I think that a lot of people on NF look at lite-mode as a half-hearted attempt for weaklings who can't do standard-mode or hard-mode. Maybe they are correct. But I keep asking myself: what kind of change do I want? I don't want to watch porn, but I don't think that I want my life to be a constant test. I don't want to have to overcome multiple millions of years of instinctual pressure every day. I know that plenty of NF posters are challenging themselves as a form of personal accomplishment or a big lifestyle change. Make no mistake, I have a ton of respect for them. But how long can this test be sustained? It seems like everybody, with very, very rare exceptions, relapses eventually.

To succeed in a standard-mode reboot, I needed to get myself in a monk-like attitude, in which I try to control my body fully. But I'm not, and will never be, a monk. And the failures were so guilt-inducing and painful that I'd binge for months before trying again. The black-and-white, extreme thinking of "quit this forever" just can't work for me anymore. I'd prefer a realistic, moderate approach, one that is more understanding of human nature and has more humble ambitions.

 

Congrats on your success. I have so much admiration for people who put up long standard- and hard-mode reboots.

This sort of imagery highlights exactly why lite-mode is appealing to me. I don't want living every day to be a matter of being a valiant warrior or else relapsing. I can't maintain that struggle. There's already enough difficulty we all have to face as part of our normal lives. I know this fighting imagery is quite common on NoFap, but I guess I'm over it. I'm trying to find a way of quitting porn that doesn't force me into such an extreme black-and-white mentality. It might be motivating, but for me at least, it's definitely not the best way to begin a more psychologically healthy lifestyle.

(Tagging @keepitreal-88 on this post, because we had conversations this summer along these lines, and I think I kept pushing the extreme thinking.)

 

@kropo82 Thanks so much for your thoughtful, articulate post. Congrats on a multi-year streak. That's awesome. I agree with everything you said, especially about NF being experimental. I guess I'm trying an experiment. You may be right that this will eventually slide back into porn use, but we'll see how it goes.

I appreciate the thought behind the gin and tonic metaphor, which is that when you are accustomed to enjoying two things together, you won't be satisfied with one on its own. You are probably right. The other side, however, is that either one of the pair constitutes relapse. So, if I'm losing my streak, why not use porn too, since they go together so well? This is what creates the starve-and-binge cycle for me. I now think that breaking that association and separating masturbation and porn will be a healthier, more realistic goal than giving up both.

More than you wanted to know, but to re-accustom myself to masturbation the old fashioned way, I've implemented a few rules: (1) Limit to once a week, and never on consecutive days. (2) Never visualize porn or porn-stars. Only real people I've never seen naked. (3) Restrict the times and circumstances in which I can masturbate. The idea here is to set up new, less compulsive habits.

Thanks too for your link about eliminating fantasizing. I read through some of the discussion, but I share the suspicion of several of the posters that eliminating fantasizing isn't realistic for most people. I've tried many of these techniques (Some of them are in my 100 days success post), and to the extent that they work, it is through supreme effort of will. I'm not sure I want to expend that effort every day.