Story & reboot blog: Trying to quit for over 7 years...

Hi all, I'm a 37 year old guy and I have been watching porn since I was about 14/15 years old. Back on those days (2001/2002) we didn't have Tube sites so I downloaded small sample video's and later downloaded porn via Peer 2 Peer software like Kazaa and such. Eventually my porn use grew with the availability on the Internet and when I was 19 I met my first girlfriend in 2005. She was my first girlfriend and I was still a virgin back then. First time sex was terrible: I was not getting aroused at all and having sex felt boring. Of course inexperience and fear of failure was part of it but looking back at it, I think my porn use back then already desensitized me for having normal sex instead of watching it via a screen. Luckily I did manage to 'get used' to having sex and eventually I enjoyed it a lot and had almost no issues having real sex.

The relationship ended in 2008 after three years and my porn (ab)use was growing already quite a bit. Living together with a few friends from college we had a personal "Porn share server" where we collectively stored and shared and talked about the great porn movies we all liked to watch. I did however noticed more and more that I was more lethargic and bored /groggy than that I could ever remember before.

Not really knowing what it was I just continued my life. I have above average discipline so I kept going to the gym, eating healthy, went to college classes although I did not feel like it. Initially I thought it was due to the break up blues but looking back porn must have played a significant role there. I think I hardly ever skipped a day watching porn since around 2006/2007 and if I did I usually caught up by watching 2-3 times the next day. When I graduated in 2009 and moved to a place by myself I still continued this habit and I can remember Sundays doing nothing else but watching porn 4-6 times throughout the day and only eat / watch tv and play games in between...talking about overstimulating my dopamine systems!! I remember those days just feeling totally blank / bored.

In the meantime women I met during those years (2008-2015) I was having even more difficulties getting aroused and getting / keeping hard. I remember dating this very very attractive lady in 2011: beautiful eyes, hair and a body to die for. But when we went to bed the first 3-4 times I had a lot of difficulties getting and keeping hard. Only way I eventually was able to have sex with her and enjoy it was when we did it unsafe because the risk was a turn on but very stupid of course.

All the relationships I had after my first relationship never lasted long; usually 6 months to a bit more than a year. I think not solely due to my porn problems but I do believe that other things in my life (impulsiveness, low energy, easier agitated, bad sleep) was influenced by my porn addiction and therefore also indirectly negatively influenced my relationships.

Around 2013/2014 I started searching online about if porn could be harmful and if so how because I noticed I was feeling more and more exhausted and guilty / disgusted after a session. Usually I read a few webpages and then just dismissed it and continued with my porn watching filled life: By then I think I was watching somewhere around 10/12 hours of porn per week. Then at the end of 2015 I saw the Ted Talk of the late Gary Wilson (Rest in piece my friend) and something clicked. I found YourBrainOnPorn and watched all the video's there, read blogs and was shocked and I immediately stopped porn watching and was telling everyone that was willing to listen about it. I tried hard mode but failed usually after just a few days. Eventually I managed to have periods of months I did not watch porn and I think my longest streak had been for about 5-6 months last year.

I noticed all the benefits everyone was telling about: sleeping better, feeling more energetic, enjoying smaller things and was more motivated in doing harder things: studying, working, working out, etc. and most of all sex felt great! so much better I can even say that I had the best sex with my girlfriend at that time who was attractive but not even close to the one I met in 2011 but had difficulties having sex with.

Unfortunately I kept on relapsing and the weirdest thing now happens ever since I started trying to quit porn in 2015: I feel really REALLY bad the 2-3 days after I relapsed: I feel this this really deep / nagging headache inside my brain (eye height and around the depth of my temple), feel sluggish / lethargic, sleep bad (wake up multiple times, and really early without being able to sleep again, waking up with headaches) and feel super demotivated: even going for a walk feels like an immense task. I just want to lie down on the couch and just stare around the room and now taking painkillers to deal with the headaches. It takes about a week to kind of recover and usually after 2 weeks I start feeling normal again.

I know porn was affecting me at that time, but now I guess I am so much more sensitized for it due to longer times of not watching that my brain gets a huuge spike of dopamine. Because if I now even open a website with porn or scroll through a site with prostitutes and imagine meeting one I feel my heart racing, my head spinning and I start feeling feverish / cold and start shaking a little. The bodily response and the pains in the aftermath are so strong. Does anyone recognize this? Or is my body/brain just hypersensitive to this addiction? I think I am like an alcoholic who has to quit for life and cannot drink even one beer anymore.

To close it off I also know that many addictions exists because people experienced trauma's or deal with other issues (depression, loneliness, etc.). I know I have the most difficulties not to relapse when a date is discontinued or I just suddenly realize I am alone and feel sad about not finding "the one". On the bright side, ever since 2015 I realized that not only porn but also gaming, phones, social media, TV, Netflix, surfing the Internet is also a (fairly) high dopamine driven activity. I wasn't gaming much anymore in 2015 but since I gradually moved away from all those things. I now meditate, dance, read books, take long walks in nature and sometimes just sit on the couch and just be with my thoughts or write them down which gives me a lot of peace of mind and rest.

Anyway, I can go on about how much my life has improved now. The fact is, 2022 has been a bad year for me with a lot of relapses and my best streak was probably only 2-3 months this year. The last two streaks only lasted a couple of weeks. So I am hoping that by keeping a blog here and telling you all about my progress I have an extra mean to keep me motivated in hard times. So I have been able to go hard mode no PMO for 9 days and about 1/2 year with no porn whatsoever. So my goals are: Hard mode for the rest of 2022 and no more porn at all in whole 2023 and hopefully forever!

I relapsed last Monday & Thursday and I haven't O'ed since. I do have all the (very) bad symptoms I wrote above so I feel really really shit / demotivated now. Writing my story did help me clear my mind. I hope it's a bit enjoyable to read....

Hardmode day 2 and counting. Just 8 more to go to break my previous hard mode record

 

Day 3
Mood: 6/10 & Energy: 5/10

I had a good night sleep last night and headache went down with 80%. Still feel a bit sad, lethargic, sluggish and find it difficult to motivate myself doing anything else than just lying down on the couch or sitting in a chair staring outside. I'll be seeing family today which is fun / good so I got something to distract myself and force myself to actually do something instead of just literally hanging around in the house.

Also noticed that I have a harder time reading books. When I was a few months in of no PMO (but did MO) I was able to read a 400 page book in one week and not even read every day. Now I read 3-4 pages and I need to put it down and just stare around the room to gather energy / motivation to continue reading.

 

Day 4
Mood: 5/10 & Energy: 4/10

I slept quite OK for about 7 hours (a bit on the short side for me, but doable).
I woke up reasonably refreshed but the nagging / lingering headache still remains. Yesterday evening I still had difficulties to read a book or motivate me to go for a walk or anything productive. Eventually I ended up sitting on the couch and stare out the window or closing my eyes and just let my thoughts run / meditate. This does feel very good and seems to help. But I also feel the road to recovery is going to be very long...Somehow this time my recovery is giving me one of the roughest starts I've ever had and I feel quite bad / low energy. But this forum and the stories of others help a LOT!

 

From now on I only post my daily progress here: https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?t...er-level-ranks-are-back-get-yours-now.219714/

 

Yeah I had it bad but was not really suffering from the symptoms / after affect of PMO because my brain was sort of desensitized and used to the daily beating it was enduring. Now, because I've relapsed only once every so many weeks / months and binge it for a number of hours when I do (where before I would seek / watch, MO within 30 min to an hour). So the symptoms / after affect are triple or maybe even quadruple of what it was when I PMO regularly back in the days.

I did notice that when I did no P (but did MO whenever I wanted) for 5-6 months I was becoming more and more human and urges were dropping quite fast. But I think that as soon as you start seeking / peeking or think it's OK to click on a bikini / underwear link you already activate those same pathways you're trying to get rid of. I don't believe you go back to square 1 in all cases. But it is very hard to quantify since we're talking about something as plastic and complex as the brain and our behavior. To give an example: if you've done no PMO for 6 months, click on a (semi) nude pic on social media, immediately click it away after 2 seconds and hold on to the no PMO. You did relapse technically but the severity of that impact and the loss of progress will be a lot different (less severe) than someone who relapses and binges on P for 5 hours straight.

 

Haha, yeah I remember those days. And when you're done you had dozens of sample video's downloaded to your desktop that you had to remove... ahh the bad old days!

Exactly!!! As soon as my brain is totally crashed after some PMO sessions my sleep is shallow, not refreshing and is being interrupted several times. And also waking up (very) early. Strange thing is, I am now still experiencing that although it's been almost a week of no PMO. Even had zero sexual thoughts or anything. So weird.

Yes yes exactly that... it's indeed not a real headache but just a nagging lingering pain that disables you mentally.

And thank you for you reply! It is so nice to hear you also experience the exact same things!!