30 Days Hard Mode

The first time I saw someone doing a 30 day hard mode challenge like this, it was a punchline in a movie. Never thought I’d be trying this myself! Today is my 30th day.

I am writing this first review in a fairly logical and detailed/bulleted format with the hopes that others will benefit from learning about my experience. I’d apologize for the length of the post, but I feel this is the right time and right section for greater elaboration. After all, many people use these reports as motivation as well as for vicarious learning. I have done substantial forum reading and I will try to interlace my experiences with many of the most common areas where men struggle during the initial days of a reboot.

I will likely make another, very different style post later on after I have had more time to reflect and things are not so fresh on my mind. To begin…

Situation and Relevant Details

• 35 year old male.
• More than 20 years with daily PMO habit.
• Average of 7-10 weekly orgasms always using porn.
• Positive attitude toward porn and life in general.
• No depression and good, but brief past relationships with women.
• Assumed I had an addiction to porn.
• Single with good career, not seeking relationship.
• Stumbled across nofap in early September 2015 (or maybe August 2015).

Goals
After so many years of daily porn use, I want to gain some perspective and distance from pornography. I knew somewhat about what can happen with brain rewiring and I had a number of intellectual challenges that I was interested in pursuing. I figured without the distraction of porn and PMO/MO, I’d have more time on my hands to build several new habits. One of them turned out to be a healthy computer programming habit. I also wanted to challenge myself with something that I thought was totally absurd to begin with (I didn’t figure on going without MO entirely as a realistic or smart plan).

Discussion of results

• I learned very quickly that I do not have a porn addiction. I noticed very few porn cravings throughout the 30 days and can very much take it or leave it. To gain greater perspective and distance, I plan to leave it for the time being. Perhaps next year I may decide differently, but for now I don’t have a good use for it and I have come up with a more interesting plan on how to transition out of hard mode.
• My addiction to MO is/was very strong and is not easy to overcome. Much like using K9 for porn, my anti-depressant usage put a barrier between me and my prior MO habits via delayed ejaculation. In effect, I knew it would take much longer to achieve erection and orgasm so I used that little tidbit to discourage it from happening. I also wasn’t at much risk of getting hard by accident so that didn’t send my brain as many signals to fight off. I hear of many relapses where guys get hard combined with their sexual thoughts then one thing leads to another. This just didn’t happen in my case.
• Having a journal was very helpful and knowing I would need to report any lapses of judgment and somehow explain an intentional MO definitely served as an effective accountability metric. Highly recommended.
• I learned that I could take on life activities where I would not be able to MO for weeks at a time and am no longer shy about doing so. I am normally a very open person and introspect well. This added bonus will make it to where I wouldn’t need to seek privacy at night and could do a few more group activities that I might have declined when I was younger.
• The sexual energy that everyone speaks of is very real and I believe I mistook it for nervous energy without MO. Instead, this is the energy that many people are able to learn to channel into other life goals and activities. This channeling path of fighting addiction may very well be the difference between people who struggle with it for years and people who succeed more gracefully (assuming two people make it there, the one that can channel the energy should suffer less and have a better experience). Personally I can’t say that I have learned to channel the energy with intentionality yet. I mainly just keep to my notions of doing good to others and using the extra motivation I have to succeed with my existing goals. I have a tremendous amount of natural energy and I am not sure I ‘need’ to channel to the nth degree. I do have more to learn in this area and I see interesting and good opportunities here.
• 30 days is plenty of time to form a set of new and different life habits that stick with you over time. I actually think for me it can be done in more like three weeks. I am now interested in beginner level programming challenges and have started a binge-free eating habit that is working and improving my health.
• 30 days is nowhere near enough for the brain to forget porn. I know it so intimately that I can ‘fairly’ easily remember nearly all of it if I so choose. Will speak more on this in the future as I do plan to abstain from porn for a longer timeframe (likely at least 90 days, maybe more). That should give me more time to forget and it is very important that I don’t go back to it because spaced repetition would kick in and there wouldn’t even be a chance to forget even temporarily.
• I upped my dose of caffeine a bit during the first 30 days and it helped keep me focused on other things than sex. That is a double-edged sword for many men, but in my case I knew what the result would be before I did it so no risk.
• It was helpful that I wasn’t seeking any sort of relationship here as I know that logistically I would not have had any reason to commit to no MO activity. It would have been a month without P alone which might have been more lackluster.
• I toyed with K9 and it has actually helped me overcome some of my usual internet procrastination/relaxation time. The realization I had here is that with no MO and no PMO, there were very few distractions left in my life to keep me from pursuing my intellectual learning goals. So it was pretty easy to remove other internet distractions knowing that they were the last ones standing in my way.
• Sleep was more regular overall, probably due to no PMO style binging combined with anti-depressant use.
• I have a longer post on OCD and beating addiction in my journal that I won’t try and replicate here. Suffice it to say that I don’t have an addictive personality overall, but do tend to OCD on a topic for some time then will naturally back off. I also like tremendous variety in my life and I think that has helped me to have a different reaction to quitting porn than others.
• My interactions with women and with people definitely underwent a shift. I do believe I am getting along better with others and they have noticed as well. The fact that I am taking the anti-depressants means I don’t know exactly if and how much of this may be related to nofap. I do know that the anti-depressants played a very big role. Tough to evaluate this point objectively.
• This last point is a bit less tangible in some ways, but I am learning how to be more at home in day to day moments and to be less controlled by habits and emotion. When I see a cue hit that may start a habit, I can take pause and it is like I understand what is about to happen and have a moment or two of volition, a little timeout if you will.

Sexual changes during reboot

• Noticed testicular pain that was mild but unmistakable starting about a week or two in. It is more a dull ache and they are significantly tenderer. This is definitely not blue balls as most men would describe it.
• One wet dream in 30 days.
  • I did notice a very brief sense of disappointment when I realized I didn’t remember my dream but I still had a small refractory period to contend with. What a shame.
  • I ended up just sleeping off the refractory period without too much residual impact the next day (I do think it took the edge off a bit perhaps).

• Several instances of sex related dreams. Initial increase in looking at real life women sexually as my brain sought something to turn to without the normal PMO/MO.
• Pattern of reduced physical urges throughout (likely due to anti-depressant dosage increase, but also potentially due to having fewer sexual interaction situations and creating distance from porn).
• Strong mental libido the entire time without any feeling of flat line or loss of attraction toward women. I have naturally high libido that is very hard to kill.
• Frequent feeling of nervous sexual energy throughout hands and in three other places that are not terribly difficult guess.
• I didn’t edge at all during the month and never looked at any intentional porn substitutes or visited any porn sites at all. Movies and the occasional random image may have been my only exposure.
• Movies and other such triggers didn’t bother me. I’d watch out about watching movies in hard mode if you are trigger happy though. There were some dicey scenes even in normal Hollywood flicks that are typically very tame. The way you react to them might be surprisingly stronger than when you used to watch porn. Proceed with caution.
• Definitely some leakage but nothing embarrassing. I was already prepared on how to handle the possibility and nofap didn’t really change it too much.

Failures and Mistakes

• I am nowhere close to winning the battle against objectifying women. My eyes work every bit as well at the 30 day mark as they did on day one and possibly better.
• Weekends were really tough for me overall. It took substantial will power and I was really happy to see Monday come around. This is something that I should have prepared for better. Without my anti-depressant I am not sure how I would have made it through each weekend. The way I did it this time was by taking comfort in knowing that it was only one or two days a week and I could make it. That sort of approach is not terribly intelligent and deserves more thought and a better plan. It did give me an opportunity to lean into the discomfort though. Being able to do that physically really helped me when I noticed food binging tendencies. Overcoming that waltz to the fridge is very similar to overcoming that urge to MO.
• I did notice multiple instances where I would become somewhat and uncharacteristically infatuated with women that I interacted with during the reboot. I learned not to go by places like my apartment leasing office where I knew certain women would be. My mind would absolutely run amuck. This also happened frequently when exposed to the beautiful natural scenery where I would go running. One look, one good flirtatious line directed at me + my normal mentally creative sexual ideas and my mind would wander for hours. That is natural, but not really something I should have let happen ‘quite’ so often. You can often choose what your eyes see and my eyes knew exactly what they wanted. It definitely didn’t help that my psychiatrist is an amazingly gorgeous woman right about my age.
• Counters are a double-edged sword. Overall they have probably helped more than hurt, but there is a lot to be said for ‘NO MORE’. NO MORE simply doesn’t require any sort of counter because it is something you are never going to do again. Even as I write this I know that saying NO MORE has helped me tremendously with food binging. But deep down I know I am not over that and may do it again. Counters create anticipation. It is like once you make your goal, you can get a ‘reward’ and we all know how tempting it can be to choose the wrong reward and go down the bad path. Counters on no MO have made me impatient on many occasions and could have been a trigger. Hence the mixed feelings.
• Until I figured out how to control my binging tendency, I believe I gained a few pounds using food to distract from the need for MO.
• On that note, I initially decided to give up chips and that idea failed miserably. Rather than cycle that notion again, I came up with a new plan. I would buy better foods at the grocery store and not allow junk. That failed even worse than the first plan. Finally, third time is the charm, the no night binging idea appears to be working. I used my knowledge of the chaser effect to help solve the binging issue. Chaser effect is terrible with carbohydrates and I just haven’t let that demon loose yet.

Role of Anti-Depressants
This bears a much longer discussion than I am giving it here, but suffice to say that the anti-depressants (taken for anxiety) have helped tremendously with motivation in all areas of my life, including nofap. I noticed this effect before hard mode and it increased as my dosage increased. They also caused delayed ejaculation which I ended up using to my advantage during the reboot to discourage MO entirely.

Medical summary for the interested:

• Taking anti-depressants prescribed for an unrelated medical condition that left me with GAD and panic attacks (anxiety disorder(s) due to prior hospitalization).
  • Started anti-depressants in late June 2015.
  • Duloxetine (Cymbalta) at 90mg each day (early September 2015) progressing to 120mg each day by October 2015.
  • Anti-depressant had major impact on my entire life and influenced my whole experience positively with nofap.
  • Experienced delayed ejaculation due to anti-depressant usage. Never had PE, but this would have definitely helped if I did. Could cause ED in some men.

What do you do after reboot?
So I have had 30 days to think about this. I am not interested in long-term celibacy and am not currently seeking a relationship, but am very much interested in having an orgasm (can you blame me?).

I am a little lucky in that this week my urges have been pretty low so when the clock strikes 30 I am not going to fly off the handle. That is probably for the best (seriously, especially for those addicted to porn, don’t fly off handle just because you hit 90). Instead, I am going to aim for establishing health MO habits going forward without P. Going into details is entirely unnecessary and might trigger others. It is enough to say that I am creating sufficient interest with completely new things so that my mind will feel fully satisfied without needing to turn to porn or other visual stimulation initially. I have some fun challenges ahead of me. Separately, I am a part of the October challenge this month (not hard mode, but pretty close to it) and will not be hitting any p-subs, P, TV watching (movies allowed), unnecessary internet browsing, or food binging. So in short, I continue the challenge and the journaling but will reintroduce MO at some point. I made the challenge a bit tougher for myself because controlling binging is a very hard habit to break for me.

I’ll continue my passion for learning more about programming and for lifelong learning in general with renewed interest. I will likely make additional updates at day 60 and 90 as well depending on how my plans evolve. Thanks for reading and good luck with your reboots!

 

Thanks for the reply and I will definitely take a look at the video you linked. In my case, the anti-depressants are prescribed for an anxiety disorder that my doctors (at least three of them) believe has a direct and identifiable set of 'physical' causes (yes that is not common but absolutely possible). I am currently treating the underlying physical cause (this is actually measurable). Over the course of the next year or two, I am hopeful the cause will improve and my symptoms will also dissipate. I noticed a pattern where my anxiety disorder was escalating and getting out of control and it seemed that since it wasn't possible to quickly treat the underlying physical issues, that anti-depressants were/are the best solution. They come at a great cost, but I needed to get my life back so for me it is worth it at least now. One of the reasons I am venturing more into meditation/spiritual awareness is to help with this issue.

I do feel almost like I was cheating in that so many men here are young and/or must deal with constant boners which make lasting in hard mode much more difficult. When I was much younger, I think I made it nine days out of medical necessity (didn't have any other goals of lasting longer) and I recall it being absurdly difficult. From my journal the difficulties did slowly get better as I approached the 30 day mark and the first two weeks were probably the toughest by a long shot. Many men get a similar benefit when they hit a flat line. I do have a very strong libido and not all men must contend with that so perhaps the challenge balances out at the end of the day.

Edit: Taking notes on the video. Sapolsky is a good lecturer.

Learning the term psychomotor retardation has already helped me put a term to something that I never understood about people with depression (my father exhibits this symptom above all the other ones and I never could understand why he didn't want to do physical things).