Hi everyone, I could tell quite a lot about the road that led me to this forum. But I'll keep it short, no worries. I am a young man, 22, and struggling with porn and masturbation (for more than 8 years). It has become an addiction. I have a therapist, but results are lacking. I suspect it is because I feel so unsupported. My buddy pretty much lets me down. That's why I came here, to find support in my struggles and fight for chastity and freedom. I'm not a big hero when it comes to abstinence. The best I have achieved so far are seven days and in the last month only some periods of 2, 3 or 4 days, which is not much at all. And yet, so much is at stake. My life, my future wife (yet to find) and future marriage. It's pretty sad how, even with these goals, I can't encourage myself enough. Together with you, starting today, I want to make a new start, a new beginning. I want to achieve something I have never achieved before, a new great streak of 2 weeks. If you guys have any advice, feel free to share, I need it. My prayers go out to all of you! Warm greetings to my fellow warriors, Montfort
Hi, Did you start PMO when you were 14? I was 22 when I started but I suppose many gets in this trap sooner or later. Sorry to hear that your meetings with your therapist isn't giving the results you expected. But remember that you are still young and have all the possibilities in the world to change the things you are struggling with. Do you want to quit porn and masturbation completely or just porn? I don't actually think masturbation is something wrong or unhealthy as long as you not doing it too regularly or it takes over too much of your life. Porn on the other hand should be your main target to get rid of because that shit brings the worst out of people. I have been free from porn for over half a year now and it was completely worth it: - Decreasing of sexual thoughts. - No objectifying of women. - Not feeling any guilt or disgusted by myself (even while mastrubating). - More energy and concentration. - Feeling healthier overall. Once you have achieved your freedom from porn you never want to get back. I watched that shit for 5 years and I wish I didn't had because I'm feeling better than ever. Masturbation on the other hand is a problem on it's own but it does not effect me as much as porn did.
Thank you for your reply. Yes, I started watching porn for the first time at a pretty young age. And I started masturbating due to influences of classmates. I actually want to be free from both, since I think they do not help me to achieve anything. Quite the contrary actually. But it's so difficult. Today, I relapsed (I'll post about it tomorow) and that hit hard, it works demotivating and makes me doubt a lot about myself, bringing me into a downwards thinking spiral. But I know I need to try again and again. Your post has given me a bit more motivation to keep going. Thanks! I truly admire you for your amazing streak! I hope to achieve the same very soon.
It was very difficult for me as well to quit porn and it's even harder for me with the masturbation. I don't think I want to quit masturbation completely but I want to decrease it. Masturbation has some benefits and I don't see it as something negative, my goal is probably to do it once a week instead of 2-4 times a week. But for me to achieve that goal I need to force myself to quit completely until I can rebuild it with my own rules this time. Don't take your relapses to hard brother, relapses will happen and it's just part of being human. We aren't machines that can be reprogrammed if problems accure. See instead everytime you mange something as progress, a small progress is better than nothing. Don't take this NoFap as a life or death situation, if relapses happen it's no harm done. You won't damage your brain or your body while doing it. Always stay as positive as possible and don't let your mistakes make you miserable. Learn from your mistakes instead and try to be as strong and kind to yourself as possible, this is a fight between you and yourself, and nothing good never comes from being to hard on yourself.
You give good advice, thanks! Would be wise indeed to be less harsh to myself, that might even help me in this process. I wish you good luck gaining total control over masturbation. I know you can do it! Together we fight for the victory!
Hey! Welcome to the forum mate and glad to see that you are beginning to take steps to combat this addiction! My biggest advice for you would to be keep yourself busy. Join community clubs. Do volunteering. Hang out with friends. The busier you are, the less time you have for PMO.
That's the spirit! Don't mention it, even though I appreciate that my advices are supportive, but that's why we are here right? To help and support each other to keep fighting with our addictions and problems. I also appreciate your "good luck" with my goal, I wish you the best of luck as well.
Thanks! I am indeed rather on my own, it is difficult and often uncomfortable to seek out other people, but I will do my best. Next week, for example, I am going to a youth gathering not so far from where I live. And the week after that I have something planned as well.
Outside of abstaining from porn, what do you want to achieve? Keeping yourself busy and involved in a community is a great goal to have and it did lead to my longest streak of 24 days but from my experience, both the best version of myself and the version that gave in the least times over the longest periods was the time I set out to achieve big goals in say running and I could look at myself wanting to watch porn and say "I've achieved this much already, I'm not taking a step back to watch porn." Two main pieces of advice I'd give would be to challenge yourself and to try to achieve something you truly want to achieve that is fairly challenging...or perhaps it isn't super challenging but you know you'd be proud if you do it.
