Happy New Year my friend! May you have a health and positive 2019. Hope all is well with you. I miss seeing you online and trust that you are happy and healthy!
Looking back, I think there was a physical addiction, which seems to go away after a time of abstaining from pmo. The more challenging problem is the psychological addiction, where pmo is used to medicate oneself so as to avoid dealing with painful feelings.
For myself, I think those painful feelings related mostly to loneliness, including heightened fear and insecurity when alone. Being in a committed relationship and living together seems to have largely solved the loneliness problem. It also helps with accountability: practically, even if I wanted to pmo, it would be more challenging to find a time and place to do it.
None of this is to say that I couldn’t relapse and get right back into the addiction if circumstances were back to what they were. It seems that if I can stay away from those circumstances, the temptation is minimal if existent at all. How are things going on your end?
Hey! Just touching base. We've not connected for awhile and I just wanted to see how things are going. Do you have a journal that you are currently writing in. Please let me know what is up!!!
Thank you. It’s possible if you can replace pmo with something more deeply satisfying. In my case, it was a) finding superior ways to relax after a stressful day and b) learning to confront the fears and insecurities that pmo was helping me avoid.
In the post linked below, @Jim2015 mentioned that you'd used the words "freedom and vigilance". He did not link to the post, so I couldn't like it there, but I was taken by HIS impression of your use of the words. Well said.
Yes. I’ve had repeated experiences of feeling free from pmo after some time and then relapsing because I stopped being vigilant. Continued freedom seems to depend on remembering that we’re never free from the possibility of relapsing.
"Continued freedom seems to depend on remembering that we’re never free from the possibility of relapsing." Well, THAT's next door to perfect, isn't it?