New to NoFap website

Welcome,

Being involved here on NoFap has been a key component in my recovery. After a 14 year addiction, I have now been free from porn and lust for just over a year. I would be happy to talk more with you about what has worked for me, and to share a little more about my journey. Feel free to message me privately or here and I can share more.

Most importantly, realize that porn is a lie. You deserve real love. You deserve a real life. You deserve to be your authentic self. You can release yourself from old addictive behaviors. They do not serve you at all. You know this.

I'm happy to help.

-C

 

Hi wildcats and 011214,

It's been a while since I last visited this forum, and my story is very similar to wildcats. A year has passed with almost no progress, except for more petty procrastination. It's a vicious circle I have been trying to escape for almost 7 years. I am so sick of it to be frank. I started with porn when I was around 20. Now I am 36 and feel I have done too much damage in order to get out of it. Watching porn makes me often feel like a vegetable; The dopamine rush feels great for 5 seconds, but what comes after is pure hell. Plus, I have real difficulty to focus and get anything done during the day. It doesnt let me think straight and what frustrates me the most is the fact how much time I waste on the internet. Besides, it makes it very hard to escape the computer when I need to run an online business at night. I dont think I am weak, but the temptation is huge! The longest I ever stayed away from porn and masturbation was about 7-8 days and that was 2 years ago.

I remember you 011214 and we emailed a couple of times back in May last year.
I hope you have been doing well Colin. It's good you are still here motivating others. Thanks a lot for making people like me aware that there is a way out.

I dont expect this forum is going to provide me with a magic bullet to help me clear my dark mind. My salvation will have to come from within myself, and it can only be me who leads the way to freedom. I guess this will be my last shot and I am honestly ready to die to make it happen. Sometimes I have suicidal thoughts and I believe thats certainly no good. Right now, I just dont have a positive outlook in life! My life really sucks and with porn my life has always been going downhill; been lying to my wife in all these years that I am doing "ok" and working on it (although all I am doing was hiding my dark side to be discovered). I have a pretty low self-esteem especially when it comes to meeting people. My pursue to become a great entrepreneur has also taken its toll (due to the enormous amount of time wasted and the lack of focus and clarity). Because of porn, I would also never want to have kids with my wife. And with my wife soon turning 40, there isnt much time left.

So, I am very positive that avoidance is a dead end. Thats what I have done the last 7 years and it doesnt work. All I have left is to integrate porn recovery into my life, plus my wife will need to know whats really going on. Its time to stop pretending and cure. My starting point will be yourbrainonporn.com and writing a journal everyday on life and things in general that are going to affect me. I also used to be with Candeo a year ago and have saved a ton of audio material and seminars. Plus I feel I will need outside help as well but I cant afford to go a psychologist. If anyone knows any online selfhelp groups that may run online hangouts or something like that, then that would be great.

I hope I will be able to write here more often now. Today was Day 1 - 11:32pm and you dont know how good it feels not to go to any of these stupid rubbish porn sites and fap all night.

Best regards,

NewLifeAhead

 

Please, be careful with those suicidal thoughts. I've been there. It's really hard, but you need to be committed to checking in with someone if you start going there. I don't remember where you were at with support people when we last spoke, but if you don't already have a trusted friend that you can sit down with once a week, find one. It's so important.

I strongly believe that even for those who are doing well, it is so important to have people, particularly men, that you meet with regularly to talk about life. Be vulnerable. Open up. Talk about what's going on. I know that this can be really hard, especially for those of us who have kept our secrets in the dark for so long. It goes against our nature to tell somebody that we are not doing well, and that we need help. Most porn addicts are otherwise pretty careful to come across as nice, sensitive men, who have their shit together. Find somebody with whom you can talk about all of your shit, without judgement. Find someone who is willing to be as vulnerable as you.

This is your life! You are a great man and you deserve to live as one. We have to face our challenges as gifts, as incredible opportunities for growth. Be the warrior. Be brave.

 

I feel with all of you guys, I started NoFap two months ago, I failed miserably and I only went for three days. At start, I thought I could do a week but I guess it took me two months to realize I needed to stop. I'm happy to say that for me it's been 5 successful days and I already am feeling the benefits already. The reason why I'm telling you all of this is because firstly it's okay to fail, if you dwell on failing as a sign of weakness, try to look at is as a sign to change for the best. I get that resisting PMO will probably one of the hardest things at first but trust me, for me it's been only five days and I've already felt some benefits. One tip I'm going to give you guys to help you throughout the process is repeating the reason why you chose to start NoFap. Regardless of the reason, if you can do it for a week or even for a couple of months, it means you can survive without it, so keep that mentality and hold on!

Regardless of the matter or the reason, if you want to do NoFap but can't stick to it, it's okay to fall back once a while, but always remember the reason behind it. Constantly remembering helps practice persistence and dedication to a better you. Hope I could help you guys with my input.

 

A few things that I've implemented since joining this site are:

1) Set my homepage to http://www.nofap.org/forum/forum.php
2) I'm keeping my door open at all times to make it hard to PMO. I live with my grandmother.
3) Bookmarked http://emergency.nofap.org - it works best if you don't keep hitting refresh but take what you need from it and move on.
4) I'm taking cold showers.
5) I did some research on http://www.yourbrainonporn.com and watched the Ted talks videos there.
6) I'm reading/posting as much as I can on this forum.
7) I'm keeping a daily journal and created a counter to track my progress.
8) I wear a rubber band on my wrist that I snap whenever I have a sexual thought or become aroused.
9) I flex all of my muscles rhythmically whenever I feel like I'm going to get an erection to direct blood flow away from it.
10) I've watched "Sacred Sexuality" videos on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/user/SacredS...sort=da&view=0

For brand new members I recommend doing these three things:

1. Create a journal and post in it everyday, especially when you get urges. Just writing down that I have an urge helps to alleviate it.

2. Set a goal and create a PMO counter to track your progress. Copy and paste it in to your signature. (You can edit your signature in your account settings.)

3. Read and respond to other peoples journals. This will help to make you realize that you are not alone and give you hope and ideas on how to further develop in your recovery.

If you do these three things you'll be off to a great start.

Best of luck.

- vM

 

Chicks dig nofap- Did you find it easier to quit smoking while starting nofap? Which one was easier to quit, smoking or PMO?

 

This is Day One for me. I just watched the TedTalk and decided this is excatly what my life needed. The reason i couldnt get things done or even have a steady thought from begging to end.
It got to a point where i would be saving hundreds of photos and never see them again. It was when i deleted 6 gigs of porn ide only seen once that i saw my addiction.
I've been on my own for a year, but using porn since i was 13, Im 23 now and ready to grow the fuck up, and find love.

 

How does watching porn for 20 minutes, masturbating (but not cumming) not require a reset? The lack of an orgasm is irrelevant. What you did was reinforce the fact that sex is something involving pixels and your hand, not another person. You would also have had dopamine sloshing around everywhere in your brain, overloading your clapped out reward circuit. As for jelqing - you cannot be serious. You have got to change your whole mind set wildcats.

 

Agreed IGY, this "edging" is giving guys a grey area in which to say it's ok as long as there's no P or O. Your mind is powerful and are probably still rehashing old porn memories to get you stimulated, so it's best to abstain completely to give your brain a chance to rewire.

Wildcatz you can do it.

I've been addicted to P for easily 10 years now, definitely almost everyday for the last 5 years. Sex in my previous long-term relationship was mild compared to P so I had trouble with DE or none at all. I began faking. I had 3 short-term relationships since then in the last 2 years and sex has never had the same excitement of release it had when I was younger, I'm 32 now and feel that I've just had an awakening.

I've started seeing a new girl for a week now and have not PMO'd since, it's incredibly difficult but I distract myself with exercise, thinking of my gf or play a game and hopefully I will regain more sensation to O eventually. This online forum stuff is all new to me, hopefully just to get advice.

These TED talks really helped rationalise what I've been doing all these years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wSF82AwSDiU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRJ_QfP2mhU

 

Don't bargain with your conscience for momentary pleasures..! bcoz... The pleasure will be gone and its your conscience who you are left with.

 

FYI: http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/what-if-i-use-porn-without-orgasm