NoFap so far

I am a male who has been at pmo for 28 years. An avid Christian, I always felt my faith was reason enough to quit. But I couldn't do it. My average was a little over once per day. What was humiliating about about the addiction was that I felt like I was leading a double life. Not only around the church, but with my wife. We hardly slept together much more than once a year. The loveless, sexless marriage just ended last fall. I didn't need her for sex. I had what I wanted, but also what I didn't want, I had that too. I had the instant gratification, what I also had was an addiction to the fantasizing, porn, and very often it was about situations I had long in the past. I was trying to fix the past, somehow, which is impossible. Still, dealing with the regret of what I didn't get, even after all these years later, was more difficult than just reliving the fantasy. Because I knew when it was done, I could for a brief time, be relaxed and not care anything about women. Anyhow, I wanted to go nofap a little more seriously over the last two years. I never felt good about the fap all the years before and even saw it as a blockade to a better relationship with God, but I couldn't hang on to abstinance very long. There was a month after a surgery where I was nofap, but I never counted that because I was largely on drugs that removed my desire. I was on those drugs because I was recovering from a surgery. When the script ran out, I just went back to the fap. For that reason, I don't count that particular month. It was involuntary as well. In 2015 I renewed my faith to God. But I couldn't go nofap. I could get days here and there, sometimes 2 and once in a while 3, once even achieving 5, but I've gone a little further now, and knowing this community exists, has really encouraged me. I wish everyone the best. My nofap start date is 1/1/18. Today is day 6. A new record.

 

I have some specific strategies.

1. I generally don't look at women. If I am in public, I may notice a woman, but upon recognizing a woman, I do not let myself further investigate whether she is attractive. I continue about my day.

2. Distraction. If I am in a situation where I end up seeing images of a woman, immediately I look away. The movement of the eyes is important. When I am looking away, whatever I see, I focus on that, with intensity.

3. I believe God offers a "grace period". It's a window of time that a person perceives an image that could cause them fap, but because they are actively avoiding, distracting, looking away, or in some other way, not entertaining an image that causes them to fap, God takes that image out of their mind (my mind). I have not stared at the image, have not edged, and am doing the best I can to avoid temptation. The image fades from the mind. It will not make me fap because I was within the grace period. How long is the grace period? An instant. A person can see an image, but if they immediately take active steps to distract themselves, the image has no persistance.

4. Rumination. I try really hard not to ruminate on anything from the past. I may sometimes think of something that might help me from my past, but if I dip my toe into that pool, and it feels like it could lead to a temptation, I stop. I had a bad, long-term habit on ruminating, in MO style, about things I wanted to do with women in the past that never happened. Now I realize that I don't need to ruminate about that any longer. It's over, and I'm best to focus on today, and focus on non-sexual things, especially things that help me move towards my goals.

 

Thanks, you too. I am not certain how they count days around here. It is possible that it was after midnight on 1/1/18 on my last fap. But when I woke up on January 1st, I have not fapped since. In other words, before I went to sleep was the last time I fapped, but I am not sure if it was after midnight on new year's eve. It might have been. So, as of today, I am in the midst of my 7th day. I count it like that, the time I was awake. Either way, it's only a matter of how you count one day. And yes, the community helps. I knew nothing about it at all until, maybe like three days ago. I already had logged in a few days when I started to look it up. In fact, I didn't even know what the term meant. I had to look it up.