M 43, My laptop was my girlfriend.

Hello,
I have been on NoFap for a week or two and it's probably time that I introduce myself here. Though I have been trying to give up masturbation and porn for a few years and I have known about NoFap for awhile, it is only recently that I joined.
A few decades of excessive porn and masturbation aside, my journey of trying to give it up started in the Summer of 2010. At my worst, I was caught in an endless cycle of looking at porn until 2am, feeling like crap the next day, slogging through my part time job, couldn't wait to get home to check online classifieds and online dating sites, eventually feeling horribly frustrated and rejected from hours of doing that to no avail, and then turning to porn and masturbation for hours on end, until about 2am repeating the cycle once more. At that time, my joke was that my laptop was my girlfriend. It never left my bed. There was no point putting it anywhere else since I'd be beating off to it again the next night.
I was full of shame. My life was extremely private. I was terrified of anyone seeing my laptop and I couldn't leave anyone alone in my home because there were signs of my addiction hidden away EVERYWHERE. I wanted sex and relationships, oh how I wanted those things, but despite my desperate online efforts, most of what I got was rejection. My low self esteem just got lower and the more I looked at porn the more I gravitated towards porn that was degrading and harmful to myself.
I could write for hours about why I think I turned out this way or about my experience in 12 step recovery (SAA, SLAA and AA primarily) . . . but for now I'd like to share my experience with giving up porn and masturbation.

I have met people who have given up sex and masturbation for a year or more (I even met one guy who had given up masturbation, chocolate, caffeine and sugar, all for over 20 years - that guy was really freaking mellow). I was not ready to give it all up right away. I started cutting back some and mostly focused on staying away from online dating and internet porn. Eventually though, I knew I needed a break from masturbation . . . a really long break.
My first attempt began in 2011. I went 91 days with a hot tub incident on day 63. It was very confusing and while some people in SLAA supported me, just as many said that masturbation was healthy and natural and didn't need to be given up. I also didn't know how to define a relapse. At what point does a little bit of porn, a little bit of fantasy or a little bit of touching become too much? There is a lot of grey area between masturbating and not masturbating. I was a compulsive masturbator, too. Sometimes a girl would tease me or something would trigger me and I'd be compulsively masturbating before I knew what hit me. But if somehow, through sheer force of will, I managed to stop myself before the point of orgasm, is that still a relapse? I really found it hard to make those calls sometimes. In the end, I defined a relapse as having an orgasm.
Orgasm-defined-relapse made things very clear for me. Sort of. Until day 63 when I got in a hot tub after exercise hoping that would finally easy my aching blue balls. The jets of water felt a little too good and before I knew it . . . it was too late. It all came out. I felt very relaxed after that, and sad, profoundly sad. I felt like I had lost something precious. From that point on I didn't know if I should count that as a relapse. It was not intentional, but I felt like I had caused it by edging earlier in the day. On day 91 I gave up the pursuit, partly because I was sick and tired of feeling uncertain about the hot tub incident. Was the day before Day 90 or Day 27, was that day Day 91 or Day 28? It was too confusing and I just said Fuck It, I'll reset my counter. And how did I go out on Day 91? I found a hot tub. (Not surprising)

I have had a few attempts where I lasted a week, two weeks, 20 days, one recently where I went 39 days. My record however was in 2013 / 2014 when I went 129 days without an orgasm. Looking back on it now I see that in reality I masturbated A LOT during those stretches. I just didn't orgasm. I was edging. There were days, even weeks when I did really well, but I also binged on porn and fantasy at times and I would get as aroused as I possibly could sometimes just stopping right before orgasm.

What is different this time is that I am really really trying to stop the porn, the fantasy and the masturbation. In fact, one of my goals for the year is No Masturbation in 2018. I slip a little with porn and a lot with fantasy but I have done really well so far with not masturbating which now means not touching my dick with my hands (for pleasure) and no self-stimulation. The experience has been a lot different, and a lot better. It feels much healthier. A few years ago, on those long stretches of no-orgasm, there were a lot of positive benefits. I treasure those experiences and am glad that I did them. In fact, when I masturbated after 129 days I cried like a baby. I realised in that moment that I had just gone through 129 days of torture for two reasons. One, because I loved myself - I loved myself so much that I was willing to go through all that in order to heal and get better. And, two, because I hated myself - I was so full of self loathing that I was in a way punishing myself with denial and blue balls for being such a wanker and a pervert.

Lately, as I have edged less, touched myself virtually not at all and looked at way less porn, I am having a very different experience. I rarely get blue balls. My sexuality feels so much healthier. I am getting sensitivity back in my genitals that had become so desensitised. I never had a wet dream in the past. Now, I feel like I'm about to explode in my pants sometimes, and I'm quite sure that I will be experiencing nocturnal emissions or spontaneous ejaculations (I posted in the 40+ forum about an involuntary emission during a massage on day 40) but I think it is all healthier that what I was doing in the past.

Thank you everyone for the support so far. Hopefully my experience will help others and I can help some of you along the way on this adventure into relatively unchartered territory.