After 421 days clean, this is the closest I've ever come to relapsing...

*Before I start, I do talk about relapsing here. I also talk about Intercourse... not in any detail AT ALL but it is mentioned so don't read if you think this could trigger*

Hey guys, AD_UK here. I'll just begin by assuming that none of you will have read any of my previous posts about my struggles with P and with ED. So, some back story. After many attempts to quit using P, I finally quit on October the 4th 2015. This coincided with me rekindling my relationship with an ex girlfriend and so this new relationship spurred me on to beat my addiction and also to cure my ED. I've struggled with ED since I was maybe 18 years old (I'm 25 now). It started out where I would just randomly lose my erection during intercourse to me not being able to 'get it up' 99% of the time whether I was engaging in intercourse or whether I was using P alone. People who have never suffered from this will never really know just how much it can affect a man. I told my girlfriend everything when we first started to see each other again and she's been great and is understanding as much as she can be. And whilst she insists that my ED doesn't bother her and that what we have is more than physical, I'm still 25 years old with a penis that doesn't work quite how it should and believe me it's very hard to deal with. And that's all because of P.

Around 6 months ago, everything started to randomly work again. Like a pipe or something had just unblocked and all of a sudden I couldn't keep it down. My sex life with my girlfriend was awesome and I just felt good about myself again. But for some reason, things have just gone back to how they used to be. I can still just about manage to get it up for intercourse but it's not 100%... And this is taking over my life.

I gave everything I had to abstaining from P and M and I reaped all of the rewards and 'superpowers' that you read about in all of the success stories on this forum but then one day everything just disappeared again and I've slowly become more anxious again and I've started to get stressed much easier and feel down some times. Now, I'm aware that a lot of this can be caused by 'performance anxiety' (look it up on google if you don't know what this is) and I'm also aware that maybe some of this could be down to a few poor diet choices I've made... But I'm siding mainly with the anxiety theory. Because honestly, it's all I can think about. Day and night. I wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is notice that I'm not aroused. Sometimes it feels like I want to be, but it just won't happen. Then I'm immediately stressed and I can feel some form of rage inside of me that lasts for at least 10-15 minutes and I just feel restless even though I usually get about 9 hours sleep per night.

It's gotten to the point now where my erectile health is bothering my that much that only a few days ago I M'd for the first time since I abstained all those 421 days ago. I didn't use any visual stimulation nor did I fantasise about anything... In fact the only reason I did it was because I just wanted to see if I would get hard... And I didn't.

But I'm not counting this as a relapse. For me, a relapse would me be loading up one of those awful sites and using visual stimulation. At the end of the day my main aim was to quit P and I did. So as far as I'm concerned, I'm still going. But I'm that far along now that I don't count the days. And so sometimes I forget how bad it used to be and how messed up I got myself and what my habit has done to my body and right now I'm genuinely thinking about relapsing for real. I've got that little voice in the back of my head that I'm sure a lot of you will hear which tells me 'just once will be ok' or 'just have a look... see what's going on in the world of P' but thankfully I've matured enough to ignore those voices and instead I decided to write this post. This post has saved my record because there is absolutely no way I can go back to that, it ruined my life and I know that by relapsing I'd only be making my life worse again... Even if only for the guilt of doing it and at the end of the day whether I like to admit it or not, I'm a rehabilitated addict. A recovered alcoholic should never touch another beer, and that's the way I view this addiction that I really did think I'd beaten.

This addiction really is evil and there re millions of other people out there suffering from it and they don't even realise. For anybody who is currently rebooting, please stick with it. It will save your life in ways you can not even realise it could. Do not ever rationalise a relapse... The feeling after a relapse just the worst. Filled with guilt and resent for yourself at having to start the days back from 0 again. It is in no way whatsoever worth is at all. I cannot stress this enough.

I'm not sure if anyone will read this or if anyone will read this far. I know a lot of this is just jumbled thoughts on a page but at the end of the day writing this has stopped me from relapsing and hey who knows maybe someone will read this and can relate to it. But I'll just finish by saying that I've been reading things everywhere about performance anxiety and I'm trying to tell myself to forget about this whole thing and that it'll go away because at the end of the day my ED is now in my head and as long as it's there, it'll be a problem.

Stay strong brothers.

 

I'm incredibly ashamed to say this and a huge part of me doesn't want to... But I relapsed today. Over 400 days of work and discipline have gone. down the drain. And I feel like shit.

 

Yeah that's the way I'm looking at it... In a strange way I don't see this as a 'relapse' anymore. At the time I was filled with shame but I consider myself to be recovered in the sense that I'm not what I used to be anymore (a binging addict)... I genuinely do see it as you say with being clean for X amount of days and having slipped up just the once.

Thanks everyone for your kind words of encouragement. Back on the grind now and not planning to slip up any time soon. Hope you're all well.

 

For the past 2 weeks I've been using PMO relatively frequently. Strangest thing about this whole thing is that I'm not even enjoying it and the P just doesn't excite me. Didn't realise how deep this addiction ran until I realised I'm using it for no reason. After 400+ days free I've fallen back in to the trap. Anyone who has relapsing on their mind, take it from me it is not worth it.

One sidetone, though... My ED troubles with my girlfriend have disappeared. I get hard and stay hard and am able to go again not long after... Yet I can't get properly hard when using P. Very strange... But surely a good thing right? My brain must be re wired or at least partially.

 

Hey guys, I'm not sure if any of you still use this site or whatever... But I just need somewhere to get a load off my chest. If anybody reads this or not, I know I'll feel better just for saying it and admitting it to somebody.

So, last November I ended a 400+ day streak of no PMO. I'd fixed my ED (although i did have omsk bizarre issues towards the end of the streak but i believe that this was all anxiety related) and I seemed to be in a good place. But since last november, I've once again become an addict.

I can still remember the guilt I felt after that first relapse - I wanted the floor to open up and for me to fall in. I was hoping and praying that it had all been a dream and that I hadn't actually just wasted over a years hard work and discipline. But I did, and at the time I thought I'd deal with it. However, I wasn't as strong as I thought and I wasn't able to keep the demons at bay. My brain immediately began to rationalise the use of PMO for me and tell me 'you've done it once already - may aswell just do it one more time' and it would continue like that and I'd constantly tell myself 'one more time and tomorrow ill start again' or 'well, its friday now so ill start monday'... But it never worked out that way and now 10 months have passed.

At first, it never really affected my sex life - if anything it made it better. My erections were back to normal and i wasn't having the issue with PE due to slightly reduced sensitivity and all of that. and in fact until about 2 months ago everything was fine(ish) - until one day recently my girlfriend an I were in bed together and it wouldn't work. There have been times since then when it has worked but it just doesn't feel the same... And sometimes it all starts well but then it goes down and I have to have the awkward conversation... 'oh, its not working again...' - 100% the most embarrassing conversation a man can have with a woman (or atleast it seems so to me).

The thing is, I never realised that it had completely taken over me again until I realised that I had taken up all of my old habits again - using multiple tabs, looking for very specific scenes etc, not being able to go anywhere with looking at every woman I walk past. I've become everything I left behind and the time has passed so quickly that I feel like I've got a mountain to climb to get back to where I was. And the worst thing about all of this is that I can't tell my girlfriend that I've been using P for almost a year solid because she's asked me once before if I have been - but i was far too embarrassed to admit it to her. After the months and months of discipline I went through before we were finally able to have consistent intercourse and for her to be so understanding etc... I just can't tell her.

I guess what I'm trying to say (in a very long winded way) is that relapsing is not worth it, at all. But its not the end of the world. However, a relapse is a relapse... DO NOT let yourself be drawn in to your old ways and habits because before you know it, you're back to square one just like me. It took around 5 or 6 months for me to heal the first time around, I'm hoping to god that this one won't be so long. But I'm in it for the long haul and I want to get better. For good this time.

Today is day 9.