Along with PMOing(feel like I'm using this abbreviation incorrectly?) since I was probably 13/14(I'm now 19) I've had a drug habit for over 4 years, which I managed to significantly reduce just over a year ago from going from hard drugs to "soft" drugs(I only smoke dope now which is legal for me, not that it makes it any better). To do this I had to cut out basically all of my friends as they began to reject me because I'm "boring" or apparently judgmental but I'm sure the former is due to their insecurities/paranoia, so ontop of struggling with this addiction I'm now lonley which makes me use drugs much more often(more often to me isn't daily, it's several times a day), even though it's just smoking a joint and not snorting lines or popping pills any more. I tend to escape this loneliness using my computer to play games or endlessly watch TV. I know this isn't a drugs support forum so onto the question, I've managed to abstain from drugs, my computer and PMO for 10 days as I've been out of the country but just getting back has re-kindled my urges from a small flame to a raging furnace and I don't think I can do this all at once, but I recognise that using any one of them will bring back the urges for the rest, and I simply cannot go on doing any without having a massive urge to do the others, as porn and escaping with video games makes me feel worthless so I use drugs, and using drugs takes away inhibitions so I'll have no problem retreating back to the other two. So my only option, in my mind, is to stop all three while I'm 10 days ahead, but is this an achievable goal for someone with quite an obvious addictive/impulsive personality? Or should I work on the worst one and try to beat the rest once that subsides, but knowing how hard it is to resist taking hard drugs everyday, I just can't see the light at the end of this tunnel. Sorry if this is in the wrong forum or even the wrong website but the people here seem really wise and clued up on resisting something as potent as your baser urges that I thought I'd ask in a less PMO centred forum.
If I'm honest just writing this out made me feel a bit better, maybe starting a journal is a good idea? Even if no one reads it.
Answers take a bit to come, just be patient. Thanks for the compliments on NoFap, I am only 30 days PMO free and I am already considered a 'guru' here I had a very similar question when I started, even with same title. "Biting more than I can chew". Now, your problem is pretty hard, and is not only PMO-related. For the drugs problem, we can't help. You need to seek real assistance because quitting drugs is much, much harder than any addiction, even alcohol. Clearly more vicious and dangerous than PMO, but you kind of overlook it because it's legal in your country. In my country we go to the jail for carrying pot. But sure you can make a reboot log here and start NoFap. It can only do good. But it's like killing a small tentacle of the monster you are fighting.
I wanted to respond to this because I think I can offer some advice. I'm a former addict. Not just lines or pills either, but full a full blown IV opiate habit (yes, injecting, it went that far). I was addicted for years, and just under 2 years ago I managed to get completely clean from everything and have been ever since. I still have drinks at the weekend sometimes, because I never had any of those kinds of issues with alcohol consumption, and I also occasionally consume coffee/other caffeinated drinks. Other than that I no longer take anything else. I even quit smoking cigarettes which are a habit I had for around 6.5 years. First of all I want to congratulate you on significantly reducing the harm. For all intents and purposes, cannabis is one of the safer substances out there. Physically it's a lot safer than even something like alcohol. So you've at least saved yourself a lot of harm. However, like all things - something that is relatively mild in moderation, is a bigger problem when used in excess. While I don't think much harm is going to come to anyone from sharing a joint with friends once in a while if it's legal and just a once in a while thing - daily use has a whole heap of negatives. While physically it might not take the same toll on your body that say a daily alcohol or amphetamine or cocaine habit might, it will cause a lot of other things: - Interrupted sleep. Ever noticed how you barely remember any dreams when you smoke daily? That's because weed interferes with REM sleep, so if you're smoking every day you're not getting as restful sleep as you should be. - Decreased motivation - weed makes you immensely comfortable doing absolutely nothing, and so it can be easy to just spend all day sitting around, watching funny movies, eating, and not being productive at all. Most importantly though, you said it yourself in your post. You're using it as an escape because you're lonely. The minute you use ANYTHING as an escape from reality, it is a problem. It doesn't matter how dangerous or safe a particular thing is, once you start using it for escapism, it will affect your life negatively. Even something like for example video games can become a huge problem if used purely to run away from and avoid dealing with your problems. It's my suggestion for you to stop completely, at least until you have other problems resolved. If 2-3 years down the line you decide you can have a joint or beer once a month or whatever, then fair enough - but right now you have other priorities, and your main one should be on getting clean from everything. I'm going to give you one little piece of advice that makes ALL the difference when it comes to beating addiction: Notice your wording/phrasing there. "how hard it is to resist taking hard drugs everyday". This is the fallacy. The mistake that every addict makes. They try to quit addiction by "trying not to" do whatever it was they were addicted to. This is completely futile because in life the things you resist persist. It's like trying not to think of a pink elephant, trying to do that just causes you to think of a pink elephant. Trying not to use drugs is precisely what leads to people relapsing and using drugs. So what DO we do? Well, we used the pink elephant analogy, and I'm going to expand on it. Try not to think at all. What happens? You start thinking. Yet, people have mastered the art of shutting off thought and quietening the mind. Another example: Try to fall asleep right now. What happens? You can't.. instead you fall asleep when you're not trying, when you let go. So going back to that not thinking example. How do people do it? They do it through meditation. What do people do during meditation? They focus on their breathing. Instead of focusing on not thinking, they simply focus on something else. This succeeds in creating a quiet mind, and stopping thinking. It has to be done indirectly. The same principle applies to urges and compulsion like the desire for drugs. You cannot try not to do drugs. Ultimately it is an urge that is more powerful than your ability to quell the urge, so while on your strong days it may be easy, the second you hit a moment of weakness, you'll be all up in that bag of powder again. Instead you have to focus on something else just like with meditation. Find something that you love, that really motivates you. A big goal. Something you really want to do, to achieve. Something that you love and want more than you want drugs. Something greater, something that excludes them from your life. For me it was self-improvement. Daily meditation, working out, healthy diet, good sleep etc. I wanted to improve myself more than I wanted to take drugs. I knew also that if I did take drugs, it would interfere with my self-improvement goals, and I'd be working towards them for nothing. That alone was a strong enough motivator that I completely lost all desire for drugs. Yes, that's right, the urges pretty much disappeared. The couple of times they re-surfaced, they were no threat either because the urge for me to improve myself was stronger than the urge for drugs, and so I simply moved on without listening to those urges. Find something positive that motivates you more than the urge to take drugs. --- Next up, no you aren't biting off more than you can chew. In fact, it is good to do all of this at once, because addictions fuel each other. While for example weed is certainly a milder drug, as you said yourself, it does lower your inhibitions, and while stoned etc your normal decision not to engage in PMO, or to take some other drug, or to play video games for 10 hours etc.. might be impaired, and you might make a decision you wouldn't make sober. The same goes for everything. When you're indulging in PMO, that dopamine rush you get, is similar to the dopamine rush caused by stimulants. Just like stimulants compel you to engage in more and more risky and compulsive behaviour, PMO does the same. While not engaging in PMO you might find it easy to ignore your other urges, but then after an hour or two of watching porn you might find yourself giving in and for example indulging in drugs etc. All of these things encourage each other. Cut them all off at once, and refuse to give them a place in your life. --- Finally, a word of positive encouragement: My life just under 2 years after getting clean, is better than it even was before drugs. Beating addiction is a real challenge, but it strengthens you immensely as a person. Whether it's a PMO addiction, a caffeine addiction, a morphine addiction, a video game addiction.. beating any addiction takes some real effort, and allows you to achieve some level of mastery over yourself. It develops willpower. This carries over into the rest of your life. Now I'm constantly motivated to improve myself, to become a better person. I'm no longer the lazy unmotivated person I was before my addictions etc. I started a business doing what I love. Started working out and improving my body. Started meditating daily etc. Think of your addictions not as something to feel ashamed of, but as a training ground. Like a seed thrust into the darkness of the soil, for whatever reason you needed that darkness to grow. Now you're done with it, so sprout, grow, and become the person you were meant to be. Good luck!
I tried seeking professional help before but my head wasn't in it and it didn't work out too well, I actually dropped everything and left the country for 2 months and lived with some missionaries to force myself to become clean, best thing I ever did. I know I can resist the urge for hard drugs even the few occasions when I've been around them I can walk away, it's just hard when it had been a habit for so long. I do overlook weed but even though it's legal I need it to stop. Thank you so much, honestly that really was amazing, I deleted all my porn last night and I've even got weed that I never even smoked. What makes it hard is having no one to really be accountable to, I've never really had any good, deep friendships due to getting into drugs so young, all my friendships from school were just shallow and were only based on drugs, they don't understand how I feel just now, my parents I can talk to them but obviously I don't want to tell them a lot, I don't want them to think of me like this and the shame of making a commitment to them to stop and then breaking it would probably throw me headfirst back into drugs. I'm going to get rid of my weed and work hard on finding that goal, hopefully I can handle the urge not to maturbate as I've never had urges as strong as this due to them being dampened throughout my teen years. Thanks again guys.
In my own case the emotional issues that cause me to seek 'comfort' through various means, from soft drugs to sex to laziness to over eating and or eating badly to spacing in front of netflix to not exercising to not doing a whole bunch of other things that are good for me.... all these things are related... they are in fact the same fu&ing thing... The thing in me that wants the comfort is really not a bad thing... it is the same thing that wants to rest go to sleep eat drink in a healthy way when I am tired or have done some intense physical activity... it's just that there is no such thing really for 'lack of social connection' so I misuse the regular comfort impulse and misapply it... it doesn't work and I become addicted... but feed that beast and it will continue to want to be fed... so I do best when I fight on broad front, do the diet, take the cold showers, do the exercise routine, deconstruct the sexual thoughts etc. etc. .... but the second best thing I have learned is to not take a slip-up as a failure and not to have slipping up in one area lead to binging and collapse in all other area's... so ok there are days i mess up with exercise and I have slipped on my diet... in the past this would have led to binging and letting go everywhere... instead I hold the line... stay focused on getting everything back to where I want it... and it seems to be working much better for me but. Some things are more linked than others. If I start binge eating fapping is inevitable so I literally treat the desire to stuff a cheesecake in my face the same as leering at some hot chick or slipping into sex fantasy mode... the other thing I closely monitor is my resistance to and discomfort with a cold shower. It is a very clear sign as to how 'at risk' I am to doing something stupid.
