I will get to 60 days semen retention!

Hello everyone,

i'm actively trying to quit porn for one and a half years now.
I'm currently on day 6 and have the ambitious goal to make it to day 30 for the first time in my life since watching porn.

The furthest i've got were 23 days in August 2022. I had a girlfriend for this short period of time and had no need to watch random people fuck even tho i did not fuck her.

After those 23 days i never got further than 2 weeks, even tho i tried really hard to quit porn, i've always relied on it as some sort of painkiller when i had negative thoughts, anxiety or when i dealt with withdrawl symptoms from my porn abstinence.

I'm usually good for like 1 - 9 days, then the withdrawl symptoms (in my case social anxiety related) hit me pretty hard, i push myself through for like 4-5 more days and relapse big time because i can't stand those withdrawl symptoms.

On this attempt i will push myself even further and beat those motherfucking withdrawl symptoms because i know that those are only projections of my brain which is crying for dopamine.

I will use this post as some sort of diary, so that i can look back at days when i felt awesome in case my brain tells me to relapse again and maybe inspire someone who is also struggeling with pmo to get on the same journey and learn from my mistakes and experiences.


What i always notice from day 5 to day 7 and in this case right now on day 6:

Increased testosterone levels and endurance - Even tho i'm on a diet right now
Increased libido
Increased anger - especially when i'm treated unfairly (in conversations, from strangers)
Increased productivity
Thinking about having sex whilst in the gym - especially when seeing curvy brunettes
More positive thinking


I will also list my do's and dont's to prevent a relapse in case my withdrawl suffering brain will prevent me form thinking straight.

What can i do to prevent a relapse:

Being productive - 99% of the time i relapse on rest days (days where i don't work out) because most of the time i only sit on my sofa and watch some random youtube videos. It's always the same procedure: Sitting around, watching some educational content, then watching some random youtube shorts, then watching videos of the ukraine or palestine war with graphic content (i assume my brain needs more and more dopamine) and before i know i'm sitting on my toilet seat and fapping again.

Tomorrow is such a rest day -and i will clean my entire apartment, ride my bike and read.

Thinking about porn - When i'm staying away from porn i usually get some porn flashbacks or fantasies, which lead to a relapse 30% of the time.

To prevent relapses from fantasies i will breathe properly and focus on my breath every time i do get some porn fantasie -it's my own meditational breathing technique which consists 5 seconds of inhale 5 secs exhale, then again but this time i count the exhale.

"Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale -1
"Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale -2"
"Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale -3"

I do this till i get to 10 and start again for like 5 - 10 cycles.
When i count wrong or if my mind thinks of something else i start again at 1.
This will automatically keep your attention on your breathing, because you don't want to start over and over again.

Like i said my first goal will be 30 days porn and masturbation free -after that i have the ambition to go even further but i don't want to set expactation on myself too high because that's counterproductive in my opinion.

I will keep you guys and girls updated, thanks for your time.

 

Day 7 guys! Day 7.

Last night I woke up at 3am and could not fall back to sleep for like 1,5 hours or so. Normally I wake up at this time but fall back to sleep again very quickly.
My vision is a little bit blurry and that I have a little bit of brain fog. Which is totally fine because my testosterone levels are very high so i can stand those symptoms right now.

Right now i don't think about fucking when i see a hot woman. I rather think about talking to her and make eye contact, which is absolutely great.
I also have some inner "strength" to do the things that I don't want to do. Normally my mind tells me to avoid work and work related stuff but now I have some inner "power" in me which is pushing me trough any kind of uncomfortableness.

The plan for today is to clean my apartment, ride my bike (even though it's rainy outside), train my abs and do a little bit of meal prep.

I just want to mention, that I really appreciate the fact that I can post my thoughts in here and that you guys can read them -which gives me some extra accountability and will power.
I will keep you updated. Thanks

 

Day 8...

Today I felt more anxious than the days before, a lot more anxious.
I went to my local supermarket to buy some food and thought everyone was watching and judging me.
In the gym I felt constantly judged while doing my sets, but were able to ignore this feeling and grind like always (testosterone boost from Day 6+ did the trick for me).
I also drink a lot more caffeine recently (i normally drink no caffeine at all). Tomorrow i will reduce my caffeine intake, cause this increases my anxiety.

But I don't mind, like I mentioned in my first post "I'm usually good for like 1 - 9 days, then the withdrawl symptoms (in my case social anxiety related) hit me pretty hard...."
So now begins the real challenge, i need to push trough those withdrawal symtoms without numbing my negative feelings with phone use or wasting time.
ΜΟΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ

 

Day 9

Right now it is really hard to update you, because even writing those lines is very exhausting.
Today i delayed my tasks a lot (still did them), because of feeling very weak and exhausted all the time. I woke up later than the days before and even tho i slept longer, i was / am more tired.

I also was very sad during the entire day and had a big craving to talk to my friends and family via phone -normally i'm ok with being "isolated" but today i missed all of my friends and family members more than ever.

In the gym i was very tired as well and did not work out as hard as normally. I have to add the information of me being on a caloric deficit for like 6 weeks now and lost 7 KG already. Maybe the diet and my porn abstinence resulted in me feeling weak for today.
Im glad that i have a rest day tomorrow which means, that I don't have to work out in the gym. YEAY

Pictures of me before my diet and right now during my diet:

 

Day 10

Today if was feeling tired, unproductive and weak. I did not want to buy my groceries, ride my bike, do my work and clean my apartment. On top of that I had 0 interest in talking to people and even my best friend even tho we are calling each other every single day. On top of that i had some very realistic porn related dreams where i was relapsing.

So what did I do?

I said fuck it and still went to my local supermarket to buy my goddamn food and to interact with the people working there -it felt absolutely excruciating (my head was literally spasming) but i dit it anyways!
I said fuck it and rode my bike till my muscles were burning!
I said fuck it and called my best friend to have a (actually really funny) call!
And I said fuck it and cleaned my entire apartment (even removing dust hiding under my sofa)!

I still don't feel great at all (having some urges and feeling judged by strangers) but i think i feel better than i have had felt when i just lazed around all day.

It's safe to say that i'm experiencing my personal withdrawal symptoms at the moment. But I will get through this -especially with holding myself accountable through this post.

If someone is reading this -i would be interested what your personal withdrawal symptoms were, how you dealt with them and how long it took you to overcome them and feel better again.

Thanks

 

Day 11

My mind craves porn more than ever. I still try to avoid porn related thoughts, but it's very hard.
I have a depression at the moment (feeling useless, everything seems hard and impossible), which comes from my porn abstinence -i'm 100 % sure.

Anyways - i talked to many people at the gym today and had really great and wholesome conversations that's my light at the end of the withdrawal tunnel right now.

And for the first time since watching porn i feel all my bad emotions which is bad and great at the same time. It's great because they don't get covered in dopamine like they used to when i watched porn.

That shows me that i'm an addict and need to grind even harder.

 

Day 12

I almost forgot to post an update, even tho I was on my phone constantly for the past 4 hours..

- Social anxiety is on it's peek i would say (took the bus to my gym and shivered like a mad man)
- Like i mentioned phone / screen time increased drastically
- Even tho my social anxiety is increasing i think it feels more fun and great to talk to people i know or barely know
- The depressive feelings start to decrease (very slowly) -had more energy and will to do my work today

I realize right now that nofap is not the cure for every single problem in your life -something that many people before me realized but i couldn't relate. Nofap just allows you to feel all your emotions again (positive and especially negative) and give you some extra testosterone and self esteem (from not masturbating and not feeling bad afterwards). I also realize that those negative emotions will only disappear when I do something against my insecurities and work my ass off.

Normally I don't use any electronically device past 8 pm -but like 3 days or so it's really hard to turn my devices off (I think my brain needs the dopamine from a different source than porn right now).

I'm really tired right now and will go to sleep- Tomorrow i will stick to my "screen free routine" again and regulate screen time over the entire day as well.
Good night fellas!

 

Thanks man -you don't know how much i appreciate your comment right now going through those urges, withdrawal symptoms and my diet.

There are many men out there who don't seem like the typical guys to have a pmo addiction (Terry Crews for example). I got into this addiction because i'm not good at speaking to girls. There was a time when i was in the club every now and then and had many women making eye contact, leaning towards me while playing with their hair and even hugging me but i did not had the balls to make the next step...
I just want to have a girlfriend and i think quitting pmo will get me into the position where i HAVE to speak to a girl to release the "pressure" haha.

 

I decided to quit porn because it made me feel bad about myself. Every time i relapsed i felt disgusted by what i did and had no energy / testosterone for like 3 days after or so. This affected my well being and performance in the gym extremely. I also had sleeping problems after relapsing. I came to a point where i realized, that it does not fit my overall lifestyle (gym, great diet, self improvement -like meditation etc.).
It also numbed my real feelings like I mentioned earlier -i'd rather have 100 flatlines with very bad mood or even depression than feeling numb and this "dopamine -happiness" that i feel when i pmo.
I also think that we as men need to face our real feelings -even if they are bad and that we have to do something against the root cause of those feelings rather than over indulging in dopamine just to numb ourselves.

"It was making me darn near impotent with my girl." So you had ED? That's normally a really big relationship killer. Glad to hear that you found the cause of your problem and abstained from porn for one year now -you can be really proud of yourself.

 

For my diary:

Day 12

I had a really great workout today -lots of energy and testosterone.
I also had no problems looking other gym members / girls in the eyes -which i struggled with for the last couple of days.

My emotions are all over the place -called a friend and told him about my withdrawal symptoms (he knows the affect porn can have on us -even tho he is not addicted) and almost cried when he told me that he and other friends are there for me.. I'm normally not that emotional -guess that's another withdrawal symptom.

Some other symptoms I had:

- Feeling more sensitive to cold (normally i wear a t-shirt in winter)
- Feeling really tired (but still be able to do my work)
- No need to watch porn / urges gone away - i think my brain slowly realizes that i won't watch porn ever again

That's it for today.

 

That's really unselfish from you. A relationship without sex is really bad, especially if you are the one who is able to perform in sexual activity but can't do so with your partner because your partner has some sort of sexual disfunction.

I hope your doctor didn't came up with the idea to inject you testosterone because of your symptoms and did not come up with the idea that your symptoms could be porn induced - that shows that our modern medicine / doctors don't know anything about the damage porn can do to someone. Do you still have to continue the testosterone replacement therapy?

I'm happy to hear that abstaining from porn fixed your problems. I feel more and more attracted to real women as the porn free days go on -but in a romantic way (less and less sexual thoughts) -which is really nice.

 

Exactly - i think you realize more often if a girl is into you if you abstained from porn.

 

Day 14

Today i felt depressed all the time but were able to do my work and get out of the depressive state by doing some cardio, cleaning my entire apartment and even my basement.

I also notice, that i am constantly out of breath (even tho i'm not overweight or something like this). That could be another withdrawal symptom.

A bit of research told me, that many people that quit porn cold turkey suffered from withdrawal depression too. I also got some advice on how to get out of it in the long term (exercise, letting those negative thoughts run through my head without trying to stop them) which gives me hope again to get trough this period and get into another state where i feel the benefits of nofap again.

 

That's because they consume porn as well and it is not as researched as cigarettes or alcohol for example. Do you mind if i ask why your T is so low -maybe a bit of supplementation, exercise and a good diet can help.