50 Days: Mindset, Health and Quitting + My story (w/ 70 days update)

Hello folks. This is my first thread on the forum. I didn't think I would make it up to here.

I'm a 24 YO male. I PMOed for 12 years and been trying to quit since the beggining of 2013, when I realized PMO was getting out of hand. At that point of my life, I was home alone too much, with too little to do. On those 5 years trying I had LOTS of failures on my belt.

Up to last month, I never had a streak that was a 100% porn and/or masturbation free (important!!!). Basically I kept taking "peeks", scrolling social media till some pic popped up or just watched P with the poor excuse of 'trying to break the link between P and M' so I could keep doing M through life.

The problem is that I started M just a few months before P. That link is too strong in my mind, and everytime I tried to use that excuse I ended up on a streak of relapses.

So, what's changed?

I realized that taking peeks or watching videos looking for arousal is counterproductive. Just think about it: If you wanna NEVER listen to Drake again, why do you keep turning your radio on while in traffick? Sorry for the poor metaphore, hahaha.

I gave up to those excuses I mentioned earlier 2 times on my bday week (beggining of last month). After a few days, the thought on the back of my mind whispered 'you're alone and tired. Let's PMO'. I was about to, when I realized I had promised to myself that I would NOT watch any kind of porn or masturbate till the end of October (yes I know, everybody probably did that once at least). The difference now is that I got conscious on the decisive moment.

It was like a SNAP on my mind. How could I ever quit if I keep coming back to it? More importantly: WHY I crave it if it makes me feel bad and deprived? It was like being addicted to catching a strong flu and craving it when it went away and made me feel a thousand times better.

Health & Energy - Benefits:
In those last 50 days I worked out way more than I did before. Also, my sleep really fills my batteries now. I'm more engaged and active in house chores, also in helping my girlfriend. I got disciplined about waking up earlier than I used to because of my girlfriend work shift and also built a rock solid habit of studying music and guitar (my carreer since 17 YO).
I can now handle most stresses quite efortlessly and procrastinate WAAAY less.

MINDSET - Q&A

So you are probably asking yourself up to this point a few questions, so I will use these examples to talk about mindset.

"Do you still feel withdrawal pangs?"
I felt basically NONE. On the first 10 days or so I still craved it in some situations. The thing is that the brain is tricky and really smart. If you PMO when you're angry, lonely, desperate, frustrated, tired... Guess what? The brain starts to see those emotions and interpreting them as horniness on the fly. The more you do, the more effortless and automatic it becomes.

"Do you still crave it?"
Like I just said, sometimes our craves are simply emotions we can't cope with. If you take a step back and feel it, really digest it, it goes away. You can just wait and it will be gone. But I had P cravings on the first few days only. The thing here really is to see the bigger picture. Now is my turn to ask y'all:

- What you get from doing PMO? (list benefits on the replies if you want to)
- Is PMO really 'relaxing' you or is it depressing you?
- Do you really find it pleasurable? Try comparing it to a good night out with your buddies, a good lunch with your family, a motorcycle trip, learning a new song on guitar or playing that awesome new game you just bought for PC. Does it look golden now or just rotten?

Coming back to MINDSET. You can't half-quit. You can't peek. But that is great, you know why? Because the sooner you do it the sooner you'll be free.

You can't quit feeling like you're giving up something precious, because you aren't. To quit is simply to see how life can be much more enjoyable without having to rush through everything just to get home alone and PMO, to do the same thing on the day after.

My recent story:
My grandmother just died from cancer 17 days ago. I cancelled all my scheduled appointments, rushed to my hometown to go to the funeral and stayed close to my parents. On that point I was sober for 40 days.

A few days after I was still grieving my grandmother (and missing my girlfriend) but then something really wonderful happened: I realized that I had ZERO thoughts about porn. So, even with my grandmother being the most tight family member of mine to die (I lived side-by-side with her for 23yrs), it didn't strike the addictive self.

Guess why? Like I read somewhere, "you are ALREADY a non-PMOer in the moment you close your browser".

The only thing you need to do (if you're still PMO'ing) is consciously assess how you feel during and after the relapse. Like alcohol, it doesn't relieve anything and only make it worse.

If you are already on your streak, work on making it a 100% clean. REALLY 100% clean. You're already a NON-PMO'er: Remind yourself constantly how good it feels to be FREE. Rejoice it. If you take a peek, you're back to the nightmare. Believe me. Those 5 years of trying to quit taught me that in a cold and hard way.

Note: That doesn't mean you look away from the screen when a beaultiful girl appears on your favourite TV series, you just gotta separate that from PMO. We don't want PMO and know it doesn't benefit us, so we won't crave it after some days. We don't live in a desert island, so we'll probably see attractive girls till we die (and everywhere, also).

Guys and gals, I'm more than happy to assist you on ANY questions. Just post here and I'll get back to you ASAP.

Peace out and stick to the route.

Disclaimer: My english isn't perfect because I'm not american/english. Thanks for understanding.

 

Thanks. I'm really glad to hear that. Let me know if there's any way I can help you on this journey.

 

Well, for me it is being conscious. You can either stall and be completely still, think about your goals and what you want or you can keep yourself busy in the times you know the urges will come. If you get a taste of what life is without PMO, the urges will pass because your brain will see that PMO is just a complete illusion.

 

Then let me tell you that my creativity and dedicaton increased in MASSIVE amounts since I quit. It's golden, I write songs efortlessly and practice in the same way. Keep going, you can do it!

Keep going, do it 100% clean. No peeks. It will just get easier and easier!

Thank you so so much for your words brother. That's the secret, it's hard to get that "SNAP!" moment when you realize that you can't quit if you want to keep doing it.

Yeah, I'm staying away from the "reboot" forums because of that. The self-improvement and the sucess stories are the best ones by far.

Thank you all for your kind words. I hope I helped with this thread

 

Thanks a lot for your reply. There's nothing that time doesn't heal, and I just had another death in my family on friday. This month is getting harder and harder, but still no PMO thoughts so I can at least rejoice in that.

Peace!

 

That's really the spirit. If we can go through the hars times, the good times will be pretty easy (that doesn't mean we have to get sloppy too).

Yeah. When I transitioned from being a heavy pmoer to a casual one (somewhere in 2015 or 2016) I had pornographic dreams and flashes all the time. Really all the time, and it goes away eventually.

But the soon you can go 100% clean, the soon you'll be free!

Thanks for the words! The urges and 'withdrawal' symptoms are just consequences of our last session, they are nothing but that. Anyway, we are unable to quit if we desire to PMO, even on a subconscious level so that needs to be sorted out first.

 

70 Days Update:

As I already stated, after the SNAP! moment I mentioned, it ocurred to me that PMO does nothing for us. It only takes from us: time, energy, happiness, healthy sexuality. Yesterday my counter went to 70 days. It feels like a whole new life, but I am not gonna lie to you all: you will still get stressed, bored, sad or flatlined. Flatlines are common, so don't make a big deal out of that.

Quitting helps the way we handle stresses. I would've gone completely mad on these last 2 months if all my stress relieving systems were busy dealing with pmo guilt. I stressed out, but I definitely felt better and less reactive than I used to be.

My gf keeps telling me our intimacy is getting better (she knows about my PMO, we've been together for 18 months).

Overall nothing much changed from 50 days, but it does feel good to be free from it.

Peace out!