Hi all, I'm struggling a bit today and was wondering how everyone deals with the urge when it strikes them. I desperately want to stop PMO, but however much I rally myself through the day, as soon as it hits, my mentality immediately switches to "I don't really want to quit anyway" and the battle is lost without a hint of a struggle. Does anyone have any tips with how to deal with this? I'm also curious as to what other's use as excuses, if anyone wishes to share?
Hi StewLow, You won't quit this habit until you actually want to. Then you will be able to summon up your personal strength and be able to say No!, I won't PMO right now. You may falter but eventually right now will become Today. And that's the best you can hope for. Because one day at a time is our only option. Until someone invents a time machine. At which time you could go back in time and prevent yourself from becoming addicted in the first place As for my techniques. My only tools are willpower, distraction, this great site, and unfortunately, cold showers. They suck but they work. Find ways to distract yourself from your urges. Come here, read threads, post comments, and journal. And if all else fails the dreaded cold shower Hope this helps, Stay strong and strive to achieve, Geyser
I had an experience like that when I attempted 7 days, long ago. The tactic I used to convince myself was to say "I'm not failing, I'm just cancelling the whole thing. It was a stupid idea." And then I would relapse and feel weak and stupid after finishing, and then reset my goal immediately. You've really got to be aware of this problem and have a plan to distract yourself for when it comes up. Geyser mentioned distraction, and I think that is a really useful tool. What I did that ended up working for me for those 7 days was to have what I called Explanation Entries in my ongoing Journal. If at any point during the week I convinced myself to give up, there was one rule: I had to read over the journal and write an entry explaining why I was giving up. If my decision to give up was so rational, it should be no problem to write an entry about it, right? By the time I finished reading the journal and writing an entry, I no longer believed the lie. The entry would turn into a normal entry, and my boner would falter and I would move on to something else. Having a hard rule like that prevented me from rationalizing my way into relapse. You could do this with any distraction. Maybe you could make a rule that if you ever feel like giving up, you have to go for a 30 minute walk in public before you pmo. You could also have a chart: put a calendar up in your room with your goal and a motivational message written on it, and it stays up no matter what; but if you ever decide to scrap the plan you have to write "relapse" for that day BEFORE you do. But personally I like the journal idea best (it worked for me once, after all). Remember that when you want to give up, that's the addiction talking. It's your real self versus your addiction. Leave clues for yourself to remind you of what you actually, really, want.
The advice given by both Robobeard and geyser are 100% truth another thing I had to do was to plan out my evenings so that I would be with other people and not tempted at home alone with myself. Reading other people's journal and starting your own journal helps immensely. And yes everyone on this site has the same thoughts that you do we are all in this together.
