45 Life Changing Days

As of today I am 45 days clean from pmo, and to say it's changed my life is an understatement. Check out my journal for the full story on how my addiction started, but to summarize it, I started when I was around 17, I am 29 now and from 2008-2013 I was deeply addicted to it and let it affect my life in ways I never realized until I've educated myself from this site and yourbrainonporn.com. Now everything made sense to me, why I never had a relationship (or real dates for that matter), a fulfilling job, or motivation to finish school and move out of my parents house.

I started this journey in July of last year, but had many bumps for the first 4 months. I could never get past 3-5 days before the urge came calling. But every time I relapsed I wrote it down in my planner and started a new streak, determined to beat this addiction once and for all. I started off strong at the beginning of the new year, but after about a week, had a family member pass away and thus it was easy to fall back to it with the emotional state I was in. After the relapse I went 2 days clean and then the day that changed everything happened.

The last day I gave into porn, it happened late at night, as I was playing a video game. I had the urge to visit my favorite picture site (something I did every day for like 8 years), and spent around an hour just looking at pictures, no mo, just viewing it. After the session was over I had a killer headache and went to bed. The headache didn't go away for about 3 days, and with the headache came back all my anxiety issues, which were starting to go away slowly. It was at that moment where the light bulb finally came on and I realized this has to come to an end. I've never felt the negative affects of viewing porn like I did after that night. I attribute that to finally getting close to having long streaks so I was feeling better and the foggy brain was starting to go away.

I am happy to say since that night my life has changed dramatically. I've come to realize that porn is toxic and serves no purpose in my life anymore, and that the excuses I made for watching it were all in my head. I began watching it because I thought, well since I don't have a girlfriend I'll just do the next closest thing. Well as you all know pmo is no replacement for the real thing.

All my life I have struggled with the opposite sex, always feeling like I have to impress them with the hope that I will eventually get a girl friend. Because of my deep anxiety issues linked to pmo, it became nearly impossible to even get the courage to ask them out and every time I failed I would beat myself up over it. Now that I haven't pmo'd in a month and a half, that cloud that has been hanging over me all these years is finally starting to lift and I can tell you, the benefits are real. I no longer have anxiety in approaching random girls. The amount of girls I have talked to in the last month is more than I have in the last 10 years, this is no joke. There is no longer any pressure for me to ask them out, I just go up and spark up conversation. If it leads to something more, awesome, if not, who cares, there's millions more out there waiting for me to approach them. The shame of looking at porn is no longer a part of my life, and I love that the most out of everything (okay the attention with girls is the best part)!

Seriously guys, cutting out pmo is life altering. It has opened my eyes in ways I couldn't even imagine. I no longer find myself making excuses for failures in my life. I now finally have the passion and drive to go out and live a productive and healthy life.

I do want to say that this hasn't been an easy road, as at around days 20-40 I had ridiculously strong urges that were so bad I almost gave in. But I never did and I am proud of that fact. I posted a few times in the relapse report section before this streak and that too was motivation too keep staying strong, because every time I would post there it felt like I was a failure and that the addiction was winning. Same with resetting my counter.

I finally said no more, I am taking my life back and now it's time to start living the life I was meant to live, free from the grasps of pmo. I know it's cliche, but if I can do it anyone can. There would be days where 3/4 of the day involved pmo in some fashion. Most days involved me edging to pictures while eating breakfast, so from the beginning of the day till the end, porn was on my mind.

This isn't easy, but once it hits you why you need to quit and you start to look at the big picture, it becomes easier and you gain instant motivation to never return to the old you.

 

Thank you all for the support, that's why I love the community here, we all know the struggles of this and are here for each other.

@Chef Boy It's seriously crazy how real the benefits are, and honestly other than a craving from my sub-conscious here and there I have no desire to re-visit porn ever again, especially knowing the damage it has caused me. Stay strong, you know the benefits of quitting and I know you can get there sooner rather than later.

@HelpMeGod It is scary, because when addicted to something like this we have to be careful about triggers and letting 5 minutes of living in that moment take over all the hard work that we did. What's helped me stay strong though is knowing that a minor relapse here and there won't beat me down, I'll learn from it, dust myself up and start up again stronger than before. As long as we don't go back into the binging ways like before we can beat this.

@Richard Davids thanks man, it finally does feel like I am on the path to beating this. Good luck on your journey!

 

Hey guys thanks so much for all the positive posts, I appreciate it. This last week has been pretty rough for me as I began to slip up a few days ago but seeing new posts here help remind me to stay strong and to do this for more than just myself.

Yesterday I was going to ask a girl out, who I honestly felt like she was expecting me to do so, but I froze up and walked away from her without doing so. Afterwards I felt so shitty for not doing it, because like I said, it felt like she was waiting for me to do so. Part of the old me came back and let my anxiety take over. From what I've learned in these quick few months is girls really do like confident men and I need stay calm and get out of my head.

Stay strong brothers, know that life is better when we are clean and don't have the cloud of shame from pmo over us anymore!

 

@Stavrogin, I guarantee it does, but remember you have to put for the effort, there isn't a magical switch that turns on after going so many days without viewing porn or masturbating. What does happen though is a lot of the anxiety and brain fog starts to lift and you feel more comfortable approaching them. Some of my latest I didn't even think about it, I just went up and started talking to them like I've known them for years.

With practice we can accomplish anything, just never get discouraged, keep fighting and eventually, even if it takes a long time, you will come out on top. For YEARS I wouldn't put forth the effort, once I convinced myself in my head that I wasn't good enough or that I couldn't do it, I wouldn't even try, it was only when the girl showed interest that I would pursue it (which was a grand total of 5 girls in 10 years, one of which doesn't count because she was using me since I was a little Beta pussy).

I know first hand from these last few weeks that there is a light at the end of this deep dark tunnel that we have dug for ourselves and that you have to keep going towards it, no matter how hard it is, because life is so much better when we are clean and are no longer shackled by porn. Don't get too discouraged if you don't get their attention back right away either, some people don't know how to take compliments because everyone is so obsessed with their phones or themselves that they don't know how to respond to random compliments. But trust me, you'll feel so much better when you get the courage to do it, no matter what their response is.

 

You're absolutely right @Andyst343. Today was one such day. Started off shitty because of some stupid girl (read my journal for details, long story short she's a flake), got better because I talked to another, but then started to get worse because I failed to ask her out, again, when I planned on today.

In these last few days the actual thought of going back to pmo have entered my mind, not by choice, but because my emotional state has been fairly shitty (I thought I had a breakfast date set up saturday but she stood me up, but acts like it's not a big deal when it is to me). Yesterday was bad especially because I was alone at home for a period and in my past that would mean to hurry up and go pmo. For some reason my brain was telling me "no one's home, go do it", when I haven't had that thought in almost a year.

But you have to keep on trucking, tough past the shitty times because the good days outweigh the bad days by far and nothing is bad enough to resort back to subjecting yourself to pmo to make yourself "feel better".

 

@Schnah, it's hard, especially at first. When it happens I try to let the thought pass and if it doesn't I remind myself that I can't give in to it. In the mornings it is the hardest, I don't know why, maybe because I'm still waking up and can't process my thoughts better, or because that's when I'm the horniest (it sure feels like it). There have been times I have caught myself starting to m to the thoughts of girls in my classes. This was mostly from days 30-40ish. I attribute part of it due to my history of fantasizing, because I would do it a ton in my past to girls I would work with (even my managers at the time, lmao).

Now instead of having pathetic little thoughts about those girls I talk to them. This helps take away the objectifying and makes them human. I haven't experimented with doing push-ups when the urges hit, like many recommend, but I can definitely see that working. The big thing for me though is reminding myself that that was the old me and I have to leave that in the past, that looking at p or just moing to thoughts is no long a part of my life.

Edit:
I just wanted to also say, thank you guys for all of the likes, 17 so far. This really hits home with me that this addiction is widespread and that we are all here for each other. I'm happy to help out anyone here, even if it's just through them reading my posts of what I've experienced. It's really helped me stay accountable to you guys too, relapsing feels more than just about myself now, I would hate to let the community down.

LETS GO, WE GOT THIS!