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It's time to clean up my life.

Discussion in 'New to NoFap' started by MeandMySkate, Dec 13, 2013.

  1. MeandMySkate

    MeandMySkate Fapstronaut

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    Well hey there,

    I'm going to keep this short because, like a n00b, I just posted everything I should post here in a new thread in the age appropriate category.

    My bad.

    But, here's the short of it. I'm on a cleanse/juice fast, and they have historically inspired me to clean up other things in my life - especially in the health/well-being vein. Welp, my junk doesn't work the way I want it to, and the way it should, unless there's porn involved. I'm 29 years old, a vegetarian, walk between 24 and 40 miles a week, have an absence of stress in my life, and only drink occasionally. I should have no reason to experience any sort of difficulty achieving or maintaining an erection. And yet I do, and I have for years, and I've known for years that it's my PMO addiction.

    Side note, I get the P and the M...but the O? Orgasm? - Thanks!

    It's time to get clean, and that's why I'm here - for community and public accountability.

    And, I've been reading through some of these threads - even before I registered, and really appreciate the courage everyone has to share their story leading up to the decision to nofap, and their journey on their reboot process. I will try to do the same, in kind.

    Also, fair warning, I tend to be a bit verbose through text - just a head's up.

    Thanks!
     
  2. aaron92

    aaron92 Fapstronaut

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    Hello and welcome to the forum :)
     
  3. William

    William Fapstronaut

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    Hi MeandMySkate, welcome to the forum. I post here a lot. Reading posts and replying to them are part of my recovery, so thanks for posting.

    ED, erectile disfunction, is the main reason guys are quitting porn. The first thing I tell newbies is get educated. Watch this video, it will explain how our brain's chemical reward center can end up rewarding porn over actual sex and causing ED.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_RIm9ZMN1I

    Your question about the P the M and the O is an excellent question The real culprit here is the P, porn. You and I, intellectually, know porn is different from sex. The problem is our brain's primitive chemical reward center cannot tell the two apart; they both look like sex to it, no difference. So, the brain rewards porn with a release of dopamine. We love dopamine, it is the best chemical fix in the universe. This by the way is an evolutionary mechanism to reward sex and thus promulgate the species, but that system, in the human brain, has essentially become highjacked by porn. The problem is compounded in that porn is easy and limitless, as in an endless, limitless, easy high or reward. Even a super stud could only have sex with a limited number of partners a limited number of days in the week, but porn, that is endless, 24/7 pleasure response. Also, the chemical reward center rewards new things, novelty, new partners. Most guys are only going to be with so many women in their lifetime, but with porn, the brain thinks you have have tens of thousands of new partners. How many porn vids would you surf in an average PMO session?

    When quitting, you should emphasize quitting porn. You have to get it out of your head completely. Most of the experienced guys here say try and go a while, let's say a week, consciously trying to avoid lingering sexual thoughts. That kills a few birds with one stone. Your brain is dopamine drenched currently, so, not having sexual thoughts will help bring it back down to normal levels--which is the goal. Once you get porn out of there your brain will return to normal dopamine levels. Also, not thinking about sex is necessary, especially for guys here to quit PMO, because sexual thoughts for most of us are porn. You are not day dreaming about the girl next door, you are imagining some pornographic fantasy, and if you are like most of us, the longer you were using porn the more bizarre or shocking your porn use was. That is part of the addiction process; most of us moved past just standard male/female porn a long time ago. I imagine that you, like myself and many others, had/have a favorite fetish or category you trolled when having a session. On a porn site there are a few hundred categories. Each category represents the fetish various groups of men have come to be addicted to or prefer. Point I am making is that until you get porn out of your head you will not beat this thing. Porn is not just watching it, it is seeing it, thinking of it, imagining it, remembering it, and for some of us, non porn imagery that we could indulge in to get that dopamine rush. I PMOed to hard core vids, but standard nudes would still trigger me. Back to the P and the M and the O, I began my journey about 18 months ago. Before I got educated, when I was where you are now, I made a conscious decision to quit PMOing. I quit MOing, or at least radically cut back on it, from every day, sometimes more than once with porn, to two to three times a month. But I kept porn in my life on a daily basis. When I first attempted to quit, I continued to use porn, but I switched the type, I went from hardcore vids to soft core nudes. Hell, I had to surf those with my coffee in the morning just to wake myself up. I did not know it at the time but the fog I was in in the mornings was my brain needing both caffine and dopamine. I told myself I was making progress, but like a lot of guys online here, I could not absolutely stop. I kept having relapses, which is basically PMO binges. Maybe only once every couple of months, but still

    Then, about four months ago I saw the video I posted for you, and I have been PMO clean for about 4 months. I have recently been telling everyone I am PMO free. (When I say everyone, I mean everyone here). But again, you have to get those pornographic images out of your brain's chemical reward center because that part of the brain is so stupid it cannot tell real sex from imagined porn, so as long as you are still thinking of it or seeing it, that dopamine is still being released, and you will never get back to normal until the dopamine levels and the pathways get back to where they were before they began rewarding porn over real life.

    In addition to education, there are tools that can help and I strongly suggest you use them. I and many others recommend them. Porn blockers have helped. I could get around them if I wanted to, but they slow me down. They do two things for me; they slow me down or prevent me from easily, or accidentally, seeing porn, and in that moment remind me why I put them up in the first place. Also, some search engines exist that will totally block porn, or, on google and yahoo, you have some apps or features that allow you to block words or sites. That was big for me because, like I said, in the beginning I moved from hard core vids to softcore, and I don't know if you know it but google images has more soft core pornography than any site I am aware of. I could google blanketyblankblank and boom, it was right there, so, now, that is a site that is blocked. Could I get around the blocks? Sure, but at this point I won't because I don't want to trigger that dopamine release that any porn thoughts cause in myself.

    One last thing, big point, and often overlooked here. A lot of guys struggle with giving up porn, but they really don't explore or understand why. The reason: withdrawals. Since pornography addiction is a fairly new phenomenon we have only recently begun to understand that quitting it involved many of the same withdrawals as quitting drugs. The withdrawals will be very painful and are emotional, mental, and physical. Withdrawing feels bad, which is why guys fail so much; porn makes them feel good, or, translated, porn releases chemicals in their brain associated with feeling good, i.e., getting high. I cannot overemphasize how you must not merely plan on withdrawals, but you must almost want them. You will not quit porn without some withdrawal symptoms, especially a feeling of high anxiety sometimes coupled with horniness that is a dopamine deprived brain's ways of begging, threatening, and punishing one quitting into using again. Plan on them, expect them, want them, they are a part of cleaning out the porn that we must all go through to get clean. The guys who fail here use porn to deal with the withdrawals, the guys who get clean are almost happy to get them because it represents dopamine levels going back to normal. I think it probably took me about 10 days to get back to what I would consider normal, that is 10 days completely porn free and no MO or PMO. PMO is only a symptom of the problem, experiencing porn is the problem, even if you do not M or O. One can become addicted to porn and stay addicted to it even without the MO. MO may strengthen the addiction, but porn is the problem because it releases dopamine. Same with edging, which a lot of guys do. They think the O is the problem, but its not, only a symptom, so when they edge and imagine pornographic scenarios, they are unconsciously releasing dopamine in a response to porn, which is engaging in the cycle you are trying to quit.

    I hope this helps. Good luck in your journey.
     
    Last edited: Dec 13, 2013
  4. Mark

    Mark Distinguished Fapstronaut

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    Hello and welcome!

    This might sound a bit trite but this is a copied and pasted message because I think its important to greet people but don't have to time to type out the same message every time. So rather than just ignore people I figured it would be good to do this?

    Just to get you started can I just make the following suggestions (and they are only suggestions)?

    1. Head over to the forums at the top of the main page. Don't be shy. Wade in and see what grabs your interest. Start a thread. Help others and be helped just by getting involved. Plus its the PERFECT antidote to fapping!

    2. Check out the website yourbrainonporn if you haven't already and make use of the brilliant resources there.

    3. Consider doing a 90 day reboot and get yourself a tracker (see bottom of this post)

    4. Lighten up! Humour really is the best medicine and can really help you see things from a new and and helpful perspective. (And you need that more than anything right now. Right?)

    5. Consider reading the book 'Changing for Good' by James O Prochaska. Is a particularly helpful tool for those who want to make positive and LASTING change in their life. Several of us have found this to be an indispensable tool.

    7. Don't get into arguments (especially over the usual politics/religion stuff) We are all human here and we are in this together regardless of our chosen 'path' (even if you believe truth is a 'pathless' land!)

    6. Thank the founder of this site Alexander. It really is making the world a better place (I truly believe that!) And credit where its due I say!!

    7. Greet and encourage newcomers...;-)

    All the very best to you :)
     
  5. MeandMySkate

    MeandMySkate Fapstronaut

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    Hey there, Aaron, William, and JiltedJohn,

    Thanks so much for the welcomes.

    JiltedJohn, thanks for the resources and the ideas.

    William, I really appreciate you taking the time to explain some of the science behind the porn addiction. It was really really kind of you.

    I absolutely understand the "limitless partners" and, just a bit about the addiction leading us to extremes in our porn viewing that may not be what we normally appreciate during actual sex. But, also, that's a little foreign to me too - I understand how it happens, for sure, but I'm not sure yet if that's happened to/with me. I'm pretty adventurous, sexually, and everything I regularly searched for in a session was stuff that I've performed and enjoyed in real life. I'm curious to see if I enjoyed it IRL because of having amped myself up for it via P, or if my taste in P followed my real life tastes. We'll see!

    I've thought about a porn blocker, for sure. Problem is, I'm really good at the internet - really really good. And, I'm a problem solver. It would be relatively easy to setup a porn blocker with a password I'd never remember and call it a day, but I'm afraid that - for me - that might inspire me one day to feel like it's a challenge to get around it and find P somewhere that the blocker didn't catch, and I love a challenge. So, I'm going to abstain from that route at this juncture. But I'll definitely keep it in the back of my mind, and I appreciate the suggestion.

    Also, I'll check out that video ASAP. Congratulations on being PMO free for 4 months! That's a big freakin' deal! I've beat a couple of addictions in the past, and I know it's never easy. But I also know that it's the best thing to do for ourselves and the rest of our lives. Rock on!
     
  6. William

    William Fapstronaut

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    Hi MeandMySkate, about the porn blockers. When you get serious you are going to need tools to help stop. Porn blockers can be gotten around, but at this point, for me, blocking the porn per se is not what they do for me. They pop up randomly and remind me I am quitting. They won't stop me if I want to get to it, but, especially in the beginning, they reminded me of what I was doing, almost like tapping me on the shoulder to say "no". Just saying.

    Good luck on your journey, and feel free to post. I and a lot of other guys thinks it helps.
     
  7. MeandMySkate

    MeandMySkate Fapstronaut

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    Hey William,

    I definitely understand, and appreciate, the piece about the porn blocker being a reminder - a gentle tap on the shoulder. I'll have to give them a second thought, for sure.
     

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