Blackpilled

I believe it is possible to heal completely. I've read a few NoFap guides / articles in the Chinese NoFap community written by those who are clean for 5+ years. However, this only happens to a few people, mainly because NoFap requires a complete system. It is not about abstaining from PMO by willpower, but transforming your life and mentality as a whole. As long as there is a loophole in the system which is not fixed, there is a chance that one would relapse, no matter how long he has been on NoFap. Only the few people who spend years to learn from their own mistakes with patience and determination will finally break free.

For your information, here is an e-book written by one of those legends. The original version was written in Chinese, and the following link contains the translated version (English):
https://rebootremedy.github.io/index.html

I hope you will find it useful, and I wish you good luck with your journey!

 

Complete healing is possible. What you see is from a handful of reasons.

One, the successful don’t stick around. You won’t see many guys posting with ultra high badges because they don’t post any more, they don’t need NoFap. They recovered and now they are gone. Then there’s others that take a while to recover, and that’s who you see posting.

Two, simple Pareto Principle. Most people who try don’t succeed, no matter what they attempt. Sad state of affairs.

Three, quitting porn is more complicated than most people think. For some it’s not just porn, it’s about quitting an entire paradigm surrounding relationships and sex, and rebuilding with something else. That goes back into deep beliefs, basic psychological architecture. That doesn’t happen in 90 days. Unlearning things you subconsciously accumulated in adolescence, and reinforced by constant application for years, can also take years to undo. However, in my personal experience it’s worth every angst-ridden moment.

Four, and this is the hardest to say and hear; many know how poisonous porn is, but they are either unwilling to do what it takes to cut it out of their life, or they don’t know how. It’s no surprise either, there are so many competing opinions about how to get rid of P. It’s like a dieting forum up in here, some groups swearing you need to cut sugars, some claiming it’s carbs, some insisting you go full vegan or full carnivore and they all insist they have the only way and yet, and yet, are any of them really doing what they claim they are doing, and are any of them truly successful? You caught me at a bad time. Maybe if it was ten days ago and my counter was reading 181, I could have told you what you needed to do and my words would have had more weight.

You don’t have to ride the cycle. It’s a tough one, it is discouraging, but you can find a way through it. I know guys who are completely “cured,” and I myself am still here but I’m so much better than I used to be. I’m not depressed like I was, I’m more present, I’m more competent. I make better choices, and my relationship has improved. It took a lot of hard work to get here and it takes work to stay here, but it’s a better life than remaining addicted and chained to such a maladaptive coping mechanism.

 

Look man. You will recover to the extent that you put in the effort. You can't just be giving up and relapsing and expect to heal.

We all have to live in the world which is highly sexualized. But you can't be a victim to it. You have to decide to stay off of pmo, even when you see junk. You also have to avoid looking at junk.

Just because you see junk, it doesn't mean you have lost all control, and have to go into a binge. You may have to fight to stay clean. Keep that fight up and you will reach a point where it isn't so much pain and suffering to stay clean. You see some junk and just move along with your day, like you have amnesia. There is power and freedom at that point.

You aren't Pavlov's dog, who has to salivate at the cue, man. You have to use some self-control. It is suffering you have to endure, to want after something and use discipline.

 

Wise perspective!

You should partner up with this guy and call on him if you think you will relapse.

Or send me a message. He's done over a half year, I've done three full reboots since 2018: 97, 233 and 194 days each, plus a plethora of mini-streaks.

 

You are in denial.

You've been at this four years and been unable to stop, you are an addict. The nature of the content is pretty irrelevant. If it's arousing to you and you use it to masturbate then it is porn. I see loads of people around here deluding themselves into separating porn from porn-subs, it's all the same thing.

 

According to NoFap tradition, 90 days is supposed to “rewire” your brain so it is no longer dependent on PMO. However, this time period is arbitrary. Some supposedly require less. They lose track during the 90 days, even, and discover they have been living P free for a while now and everything is fine. How nice. Like finding a five dollar bill in a parking lot. Others have been more dependent on P for longer, and it takes more work to wriggle free.

I wouldn’t say I’ve gone back to my old ways. The frequency with which I use erotic content, external or imagined, to distract myself from real world difficulties, has decreased from near constantly to once in the last 190 days. My mental resilience, my internal fortitude, has increased, and I’m not talking about resistance to P, though that is a component. I mean my capacity to confront and resolve real world conflict, thus improving quality of life in every respect, has increased. PMO is a poor coping mechanism. A faulty crutch. By not clinging to it, I’ve been able to rehab and walk like a normal person.

That’s common and valid. There’s another Fapstronaut here who was/is shooting for 500 days, and stumbled on 400+. The important thing to focus on in the tragedy of reset is that it’s not all undone. A lot is, it’s not like we treat reset casually, but not all. You learn how to abstain, you learn about limits and vulnerabilities you learn about who you are and what needs to be done. In the interim, the time you spend clean is not wasted. For me personally, the first two weeks following a reset are usually very tough, the following two weeks are moderately tough, and the next four weeks I improve until I cap out around 60 days, and then I feel ordered and in control and not depressed. I don’t feel like the struggle is as pronounced. This last time, for the 181, it took a lot longer to recover that head space. I struggled past 90 days. However, I did get back to “maintenance mode” and after this last reset, I resumed it without missing a beat. I’d been slipping for a while, and a reset was enough of a wake-up call to get my priorities back into shape. This speaks to the imperfect nature of a day counter, a streak, as quantification of success or a marker for the ultimate goal, which for me is better mental health. A streak is by no means useless, but it is not, by itself, an accurate indicator of mental health.

I believe it is because I’ve seen it happen in others. However, even the partial healing I have experienced has been worth it. I know I’ve been writing these… I don’t know, they might seem like platitudes, shallow reassurances, but they aren’t shallow. You’re not alone. You’re not the first to observe these things, not the first to feel angry and bitter over it, and despair over it, and ask if the physical pain and the mental torture is worth putting yourself through. You’re not the first to look into your future as a long, dark, agonizing struggle to resist this gorgon, punctuated by failure and remorse. My journal is over 40 pages, mostly long posts and I am not what you’d call an optimist. I don’t mean to say “I know what you’re going through,” placing emphasis on the “I.” The place you’re in is dark, and real, and crowded. The way out is not easy.

But there is a way out.

 

From my experience, healing is totally possible

the real challenge is not at the first 3-10 days of being clean, it's actually when you are at 30 days of being clean, you feel amazing, you don't even understand how you were attracted to porn in the first place, so you start to be less careful

you don't exercise as much
you don't use blockers on your device as much

than you slip again, and fall: again.

 

Listen my friend. You are already doing a lot of things right. You came here, read posts, asked questions. Your thinking is good.

But here is the big secret. You can be permanently off of pmo. You can meet a gf, start a relationship and/or have a wife/family.

When the moment comes that you think about PMO, you have to realize that you just say "no" to that one instance.

Don't carry the weight of it all. It's just about making it through today. In AA they say "one day at a time".

I don't say that maxim because I needed something more relevant, so I say "focus on today". It brings me into the priorities, not just of today, but in the hour, what I need to work on.

And so we fight hard and suffer in the first thirty. It's terrible! We get emotional, cry, laugh for no reason, and I tend to get insightful, as people laugh at my pseudo-wisdom! We go insane! That's how it is.

But you get your sea legs on day 31, so you keep building it out. And you start to know that if you say no to the temptation, it's not a big deal.

Because if you say no to it, guess what? You don't die, you don't suffer.

You can feel good in the ambient joy of the reboot. Take a breath, take a walk, read a book, practice yoga, play an instrument, work on Russian or Japanese, cook a turkey burger.

Plenty of happiness in that stuff. Ample.

 

Thx for sharing link..