1 year PMO free

I'm 34 years old and have voluntarily wasted an incredible amount of time to PMO/edjing. Was extremely depressed and had bad anxiety/social anxiety problems.

Before I knew about porn/dopamine addiction 2 1/2 years ago I started trying to quit on my own with the idea to break up with my current girlfriend(porn) to get a real one. Couldn't stop MOing (about 2 a week which was a huge cutback) at the time but had a strong resolve to drop porn. Long story short after about 6 months no P I got with a girl I was crazy about. We were friends with benefits and slept together about once a week for 6 months before I slowly went back to porn and things started to fall apart. Was PMOing for about 3-4 months and feeling horrific again before remembering why I wanted to quit and finally finding yourbrainonporn/nofap. I am PMO free 1 year this Monday.

Still have some bad days but have seen a lot of positive changes:

Started smoking at 18, 2to3packs a day, have been quit for a little over a year

I'm 5'9 went from 200lb to 165lb with regular excersise

Have been meditating almost everyday for about 2 years

Eat better

Drink less

Graduated from local community college year long HVAC program and have been working in the field for 7 months

Generally feel better and have a much easier time interacting with people


Didn't consider ever dropping M for good when I started this journey 2 1/2 years ago but at this point that's my mindset. Urges are easy to deal with now but I know for certain my brain can relearn PMO much faster than it can unlearned it.

Mostly have lurked here but I appreciate all the advice, insights and success stories as they have helped me a ton. Still have plenty I need to improve on but thatd be a different thread. Good luck everyone, once you decide to quit it is just a matter of time.

 

Thanks, I appreciate the comments

 

Seems like by meditation and rebooting both being intentional practices on the opposite side of the spectrum from instant gratification. They go hand in hand in strengthening impulse control. I started on headspace, then on insight timer, now use mostly headspace

 

Thanks, if I can quit anyone can, urges become much easier to deal with after a while

 

I'm single and have no friends with benefits right now if that's what you're asking.

I started M probably about 12 but wasn't a real problem for me until years later when I got a computer in my room with high speed internet. When I discovered web cam sites it was over for me. Edged for hours with multiple Os everyday for many years.

 

The main problem before that binge was that I still had a huge monkey on my back that I only just suspected was there. I eventually got that feeling back but I was relapsing and struggling to quit for 2-3 months after finding ybop/nofap. The turning point for me was finding a giant thread by a poster named William/Will I Am(called Gentlemen now we begin), which convinced me to go hardmode and made me realize that actively fantasizing always eventually led to me relapsing.

Thanks man, I appreciate it. Meditation and prayer seem like pretty similar activities. They're both formal practices where we set aside a certain amount of time to focus our minds just the object of focus is different. In the kind of meditation I do the focus is on the breath with the importance being the attention and the main goal of formal practice is for it to bleed into everyday life.

Meditation is metal exercise that helps train the mind to be less reactive. Books by John Kabbot Zinn and Mindfulness for beginners were helpful to me