Does everything add up? Or are you basically back to square one after a relapse?

Don't do any of these and get peace of mind.

 

It really depends on the stage of addiction you're in. People who are seriously addicted (years/decades) will be much more affected by relapses than people who decided to quit porn much earlier (months/year(s)).
The most important aspect here really is tolerance. The longer the porn habit has existed, the likelier it will be that the brain is dependent.
Necessity will mean an imbalance in neurochemistry, which in turn will decide how badly affected by relapse the addict will be, depending on the stage of addiction.
Needless to say time is relative here, frequency plays a huge role as well but in general the longer the habit has existed the worse off someone will be.

 

I absolutely think that whatever bit of effort you put to avoid PMO is worth it. That being said, even if you resist for 2 minutes, if you really fight it, I don't think that you go back to square one.

However, that is not to mean your brain has made a significant rewiring and such. These are changes that come with time, but the moment that you choose to fight and resist even for 10 seconds instead of just surrendering to porn, I think yes, you have made some progress even if it is a very little one.

I would not categorize masturbation in a scale, however. I think that masturbation is the most addictive part of it all, and it is almost as addictive to M to fantasy or thoughts than to do so with hardcore porn.

 

I for one would like to think that it adds up... that every victory no matter how small is win and with enough little victories the war can be won. I have to think that, because of the many relapses and streaks as I've had. The alternative is not something I can consider!

 

Look man it depends what you do with your experiences. My relapse experiences have proven to be very useful to me. I was curious how a relapse feels the first time I relapsed. And I realized: not great. Not even half as great as I hoped. Pretty generic.
Then other relapses were even worse PMO sessions than I had when I was on normal PMO routine for some reason.
So knowing that relapses suck emotionally and even sexually provided me with the necessary evidence to change my beliefs about porn. That's the name of the game by the way, focus on changing your beliefs about porn, that's all that matters. Not your streak, not your "emergency methods", none of that shait. You have to change what porn means to you to the core until you don't need to fight any urges any longer. That can happen within weeks man, it all depends on the psychological work you do on yourself.

But know this there's no such thing as quitting porn "automatically by waiting it out". That doesn't work. You have to actively change beliefs or you'll relapse for another 2 years.

 

I can understand that you're looking for boundaries on this forum which tell you what's good and what's not. However it would be better if you set those boundaries yourself because you know your situation better than anyone.

Personally I'm fine with masturbating to fantasy right now (for myself). Because it's much more effective to tackle one problem at a time. First thing I want to fix is my porn addiction, so I'm not gonna attempt to fix anything else.
My lust has over 14 years got used to lots of masturbation and orgasms, mainly through porn. So when I remove porn out of my life I need to "keep my lust happy" so to speak by at least offering it the alternative of masturbating to fantasy and having sex. If I were to remove everything at once (which isn't even clear whether that would be a good thing) in the name of a reboot or something like that, my lust would rebel and make me fail. It happened before.
I believe the reason why I'm having such an easy time quitting my addiction is because I'm negotiating with my lust and don't treat it like an animal that needs to be caged. I treat it like it's a version of me that has needs and rights and doesn't want to be screwed over. That way my lust is on my side and I can trust myself.
So to eventually get what I want, to be sexually healthy, I take things slow and that means masturbating to fantasy is still on the menu and will be until I'm off porn for at least another year.