Why a high streak doesn't mean your a successful "Fapstronaut"

I can tell you that from my experience with addictions, life changes SUBSTANTIALLY after the REAL amount of time needed for your brain to heal (not 90 days). I have another addiction under my control right now Hard drugs/alcohol. I’m currently two years and almost two months in sobriety. Why I’m relating this to PMO, well they both cause a surge of those “feel good” chemicals that lead to that vicious cycle of euphoria/ and mostly depression. You don’t have a “clear mind frame” with these addictions present in your being it’s just not possible. Having a substantial amount of recovery time is necessary for that and picking up good habits can somewhat speed the recovery.Life does get better once you control these addictions. People just need more recovery (time) than others. Success is subjective just like opinions. I agree with you starting new ‘good’ habits. As for people with 500+ days who relapse well, there is this saying in NA(narcotics anonymous) and AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) that I apply to this addiction, it’s “once an addict always an addict.” Now, if you don’t understand that, that’s ok. It’s not meant to “bring you down” it’s to empower you to have control ALWAYS. From my experience addictions don’t care how old, young, rich, poor, ugly, good looking, etc., you are, they are ruthless. I somewhat agree that days don’t matter but I also know that having been taught with ways to deal with these addictions are half the battle. Keeping count of the days is a motivational factor. If doing what you do works for you then by all means more power to you my friend!

 

I don't agree with you on this point. No, we don't get any superpowers or anything that's right, BUT we will heal and this is in my opinion the most important point in the beginning. By quitting pornography your brain will get back to normal and this will change A LOT after being addicted for a long time. It's a whole new reality.

Of course, and I agree with you on this point of your post, this will not change your life magically. But it will bring a lot of subtle changes in your life that lead automatically somewhere, you'll get into situations you haven't found yourself in before, because of the wall that the addiction put in front of you. But of course we need to take action then, and this is something we got to learn.

 

All very subjective, partly because one has to determine what a "succesfull" fapstronaut is. If you take the number of days in your streak as the only criteria, then, obviously, yes, the higher the number the more succesfull you are. I believe a lot of the frustration here on the Forums comes from people who mistake the causes and effects of NoFap. Generally speaking, if you were a loser with a porn problem, after doing NoFap you'll still be a loser. Just with one less problem.

Many people combine the idea of success with a long streak because they believe that if you have the necessary willpower to maintain a 90/300/1000 day long streak it automatically means you can use the same willpower to achieve all the other things that are missing in your life (starting a business, finding a girlfriend, having sex, etc.)

I would not go as far as saying that a high streak has no correlation with a person's level of success, it's just that it's very limited.

 

The point of abstaining from pmo is so that you can create room for better and more productive things in your life.

If you abstain from pmo and only focus on doing that by sitting in an empty room, then of course nothing is going to change.

 

A high streak and abstaining from pmo becomes a natural side effect because you end up caring about more important things.

 

Hi there,
I agree with u for the most part.

Just like what vibemaker and Clean Plate said,
Long streak is not important, the person u have become to get there is what actually counts.

Our brain is not like a computer harddrive where u can delete all the bad porn visuals completely. However, in our brain, with time these porn images keeps fading away, long streak helps us in getting there faster

Let say u tasted chocolate today...u will never forget the taste of it till u die, even if u stop having it for the rest of your life from now. Surely, the taste of chocolate in your mind could have faded away significantly let's say 20 years from now, but it never completely forgotten, isn't it.

Similarly, addiction to Pmo is always be there. However, the intensity of the addiction will keep fading away with time. In a few years of nofap the addiction would have faded to such an extent that is feels irrelevant and easy to manage. It might take even more than 500 days to get there, however I am very confident we will get there and it doesn't matter how long it takes to get there.

So long streaks are some what important.

 

Since quitting PMO, I’m already devoting my time to doing stuff I never did before, like exercising, writing articles on my blog, playing video games, cooking, baking etc. My life is completely different to what it was a month ago. I can’t say that not doing PMO doesn’t help you