Hi everyone, Today marks the 90th day of no porn and masturbation reboot! I am so excited and thankful! I am 31 years old and my addiction to both has been something I have been dealing with for about 18 or so years. (Its been so long I cant remember when I started exactly). During my reboot I did engage in normal sexual activity with my wife which I understand is not the case for everyone, so just wanted to be upfront about that as it helped abate some of my horniness. Although this is the case I still want to share some things that helped me in going this long. 1. Asking for help and support helped a lot. I was really afraid to talk to my wife about my problem.(Although she had some idea she didn't really know the extent of my problem) Once I did get the balls to talk to her about it she was is really supportive, non judgmental, and I am very thankful for that. I also have a brother who struggles as well and we were able to commiserate about our struggle. If you think you are alone, chances are the other men in your life struggle with the same thing and being vulnerable and asking for support really helped me. Furthermore, I am VERY thankful for the NoFap community and the NoFap Emergency button as it was a big support. 2. This time I actually admitted to myself that I have an addiction to porn and masturbation. For years I had just convinced myself that I could stop anytime I wanted. Every time that I did try I failed followed by despair, shame, then acceptance with my addiction. Because of the "I'm not addicted" mentality I fell into the trap every addict has. I would fall prey to the "Only just satisfy yourself once you deserve it because you now have it under control." By admitting I had a problem I got a lot more motivation to actually kick this habit. 3. I am not horny all the time anymore! (This one came as quite a surprise.) Part of the reason I struggled so much is that I just convinced myself that I was a horny bastard and that if I didn't masturbate I would be constantly dealing with temptation 24/7 for the rest of my life so I might as well not try because of life's constant stresses. I convinced myself that I would fail as I didn't have the grit to resist temptation 24/7. The reality is that after about a month and a half of the reboot, the horniness abated substantially. 90 days in, I have found that the horniness usually only comes on at mostly appropriate times.(e.g. When I am going to have actual sex with my wife.) I cant speak to your struggle, however, I can say that for me this was a HUGE relief! (I still get horny randomly though and It not all cupcakes and unicorns) 4. Its a great idea to avoid temptation and admit to myself that temptation is a real thing! As a result at the beginning of this reboot, I took some time to analyze what were the situations where the temptation was the strongest. For me the most common times were: Taking a shit, taking a shower, and when I was taking a nap alone in my room. The second thing I did was take real actionable steps to avoid creating these situations of temptation for myself. One action I took was putting an alarm in my phone at 8:30 every day to put my phone in my room and leave it there. (This was a pain in the ass at first) In fact I found that it was best to not bring my phone to the bathroom or have it near me when I napped (although it was annoying I am glad I did this). 5. Its an addiction so I realize that this my journey is definitely not over and I plan on continuing to be vigilant and avoid temptation if I am tired, stressed out etc. Last thing I want to say is that, I realize that life is still messy and difficult and don't think that this has solved all my problems. That being said, it is 100% worth rebooting as my life is definitely less shitty and I have a lot less pointless shame to deal with. If you are not convinced that the reboot will change your life, I would just say to you that it may not solve all your problems but it certainly makes a marked improvement on the quality of your life and is IMO worth the work. Thanks for reading if you got this far! Good Luck everyone!
Congratulations on reaching the 90 days. It sounds like you put in some real effort and made real changes to get there. Thanks for the long write up. I like your tips and will try to take some of those steps myself. Leaving the phone out of bedroom and bathroom is an immediate good step.
Congrats on the 90 days mate, thanks for all the tips. I can definitely relate to a few of them. 30 days to go for me and I'll be in the same club
I'm the same age and moving toward the same goal. The challenge can really bear down on you sometimes but its usually brief. It's like, overcoming instances rather than a continuous torture. Good work mate!
Glad that you have reached 90 days and leading a satisfactory life. I have reached 28 days today, I started feeling the exact same way which you felt, I am getting less horny now to all those fake things out there and instead i feel my mind is more attentive now
