Reboot Again, no more solo

Reboot Again, no more solo. I will try and keep it short as I know oftentimes people do not read long drawn out post in these forums so I'll try and keep it simple and answer any questions you may have.

As my username may suggest, I have been blessed to now be experiencing the anxiety level. that started just about two years ago almost to the month, experiencing the first time in my life in a anxiety attack. PMO, has been a very strong routine since I was in my early 20s. Prior to that I had exposure but never really thought much of it as life was simply too busy. As the thread title suggests reboot again, I'm okay giving myself credit for limiting the amount to once or twice weekly. Prior it could be an everyday occurrence. With little or no break. In 2017 I had no PMO, for six months, after that is when the weekly occurrence started, but was much more manageable than a decades previously. It was a level I stayed at without any problems, or are none that I would admit. Anxiety was present at the same time the abstinence begin and with amitriptyline I was able to keep those levels at a very minimal and manageable.
Unlike the millions of times before I had attacked this problem, I'm able to do so with a sort of calm and understanding that I am simply trying again to make this work.
I can see putting a lot of pressure to sustain periods of time do not help at all at least not for me. The more pressure I put on myself to meet goals the harder it becomes to meet them. I was able to cut usage down to a third of what had been for decades. To me that his success but not quite enough. Whether 100% PMO will it ever occur is something I don't need to think about. As I know it's very easy for me to think about nothing else being it's been going on for so long.

Anyways here I am, looking to attempt my first reboot in a long time. In the last two years the most time that has gone in between has been a week or two. And then only once or twice a week. I am not making an excuse I'm painting a picture for anyone that may be reading this this is what I'm going through. I do think I have made progress over the years but for me it's going to be a long drawn out solution. And I have come to terms that I need to be working on this daily, but not the pressures to meet goals that have been unrealistic for me at this point. I'm going to be doing the way I used to do when I had been drinking, I did so one day at a time, and now I've not had anything to drink in over 12 years. So I do know it's within my mind and my system to end addictions. In closing you may think I replaced one with the other, no there's those and many others and I have eliminated all three that I had at one point and only have one left and that's why I'm here. Think you for welcoming me here and give me the opportunity to use these great resources.

 

Thanks guys, I am on a 7 day itch program it seems. Well 7 to 10 days and have cut way back to maybe 1 hour a week or two. Not excuse making. But once was PMO twice a day, elctro stim, and unfaithful. I stopped my unfaithfulness outside the home in 2001. I stopped the estim in 2009. I cut back on days starting in 2012. I have tried cold turkey it never works, I know Ive tried a few thousand times. I cant quite see the light at the end yet..... but I have not regressed either slowly and hopefully in time it will no longer matter. It was like that for me with Alcohol. I stopped for 10 years then drank for two more and now its been 5 years. So I try and look at how I quit drinking and I did it slow until it really never even mattered.

 

Rinse repeat, rinse repeat. Was a time 25 years ago I thought I would become bored with all this and simply end it. Last year I had near 4 months and it was glorious. Stress went away, I was really happy and thought I had this beat. I can't recall prior ever having that much time.

I am going to try another approach, one I have not tried. Lets face it PMO is kinda my job too. I think about it, pretty good at no pun intended, I have even been paid to watch it. Have learned to not let it take allot of time from other things. I even have other things I do, and am pretty successful at writing. And my wife thinks I have this beat, I know it bothered her years ago where she blames the PMO progression on me doing some very bad things which are decades behind me.
We both have had troubled childhood ( not excuse making), I can see how some things that happen to me molded my sexuality to ask myself whether I was gay or not, best way to find out was indulge what I thought would convince me I was not gay. I am not Gay, I am more repulsed by mens nudity then anything remotely sexual. So now that I have settled that, it all so mean I can't use that as an excuse. My dad drank allot, ( was not relate to my past issues above) But I drank and at first thought I drank cause my parents did, thats what all the psychologist say, so I proved them wrong and stopped drinking.

Its within my brain to stop behavior. I am also not stupid by any stretch, I am not narcissistic but I always see 10 steps ahead of everyone else. It made me a great business owner, and helped my politics and creating laws. It also made me a master manipulator. A part I do not like about myself at all. And in my PMO part of life I use it to my full advantage.

But I digress, my other approach is since PMO is like a side job. In my head it seems like just as much effort is done as I would at any job. So I am going to convince my brain I am not quitting PMO, but leaving that job behind. So all my old belonging ( in my case, toys, TB's of material and all sites I will close and leave my job. It may seem funny to some but quitting isn't the problem, Ive done it thousands of times before. ( sarcasm but true). So instead of looking at PMO as and addiction I must end. I think perhaps just reinventing my future by quitting my job. After all I did that once to take on PMO as a life long career, I think its time I looked for another job.

I do have one in mind, I am a writer, and if I just dedicate my free time to it and not PMO. But that wont be good enough, because I often have time when no one is around and is why more serious brain tactics are needed.
I know I am a good person, I have allot of pain, so much so that I seldom even feel physical pain when it happens.
Sliced my hand open and deep two weeks ago why helping family on a job, I cleaned it with peroxide and used electrical tape and went back to works occasionally changing it because it was a deep wound. I have other wounds that are deep and after decades still bleed and hemorrhage. And thats the issue I must deal with. Saying I am setting a time to quit and stay quitting wont work, tried it and failed enough times to know i will just manipulate and justify until I engaged again in PMO.
Being pain is something I deal well with, I am going to wait until its the worst pressure day to PMO and then tell the boss figuratively I quit. And pack my crap and walk out.
To some it may see odd and weird, but around 40 years of PMO and no light, I have to try something much more dramatic that may give me hope.

Here is to another day zero, lets see how this plays out. Quitting after a PMO session is easy how many deleted files and said never again and were back soon enough regretting they threw out or deleted all their stash. I have been there and in 20 years must have had over 60TB worth of material I either removed or threw out. Not to mention the thousands spent.
God Help me, that I can get this next step done. I am running out of options.

 

Well today I gave my . Boss at two weeks notice. If you read two posts up it'll make sense when it is said. With that means is I closed out all paid and free websites that I had. I also eliminated approximately 95% of my hard drive. Their other external drives that are going to need to be dealt with as well. So as I begin to clean out my desk so to speak and give my two weeks notice I am starting the path down of slowly eliminating what I have. I know too many they would say it's dangerous process and you needed clean cut and end it. Being I am a veteran at clean-cut and ending it with zero success obviously I have to try something different. That is how I stopped drinking have been sober for many many years doing that process. When I tried to quit all at once I kept coming back to it every month or so however if I paid it off but he would including the job I eventually lost interest and got other things to do.

Among other things that I do in my life I am a pretty successful writer probably would be more successful if I didn't spend time with all this junk. So now I have five projects to work on the going to try and focus and do those things as I clean up the other mess. Instead of watching videos I'm going to be creating some for my family. Some helpful ones for the day that possibly I'm not here to pass down. I'm in a try and take everything that was negative and can use that same activity in something new. This may not work for everyone as mentioned above it's been a huge struggle. For more than three quarters of my life and something I am very tired of doing all the time. It's not that PMO is not enjoyable obviously or we wouldn't do it. But I know its fake, not real and has nothing to do with reality whatsoever. I have tried something similar is not as drastic before and the problem was that I trick myself into thinking I had it beat. This time I will not have success and think that I've got this. I need to humble myself and realize I need to take this very serious to get out of it. If I do it'll be the greatest accomplishment of my entire life. I am hoping that most of you do not have to look at something such as this as a entire life accomplishment. But spending nearly 40 years with this difficulty means that it would be something life changing. I am not encouraged, I am not even hopeful. I have been this route before and know that encouragement for yourself, and too much confidence is just as bad as PMO itself

.I have to remember and I should know better, that instant gratification is what it's all about it's not about spending time involved with other people and building relationships it's something about gratification and being done with it. Why think this is my first step among many.
I hope I can spin this the right way and get out of it. I am probably me myself being more honest about it this time than I ever have been. I've read many articles by people in this forum that have helped me see, that I can't touch of arrogance seems to come about anywhere between three and 12 months with the individual. They start feeling confident that life has changed and they're doing much better and it seems to be somewhere of a breaking point when it happens. It's like the alcoholic is been sober for 10 years and thinks they can actually have a beer and be okay.

The problem with many people with the same problem that I have is that we are highly intelligent people with high IQs that can manipulate everything around our lives and be successful at it. Instead of using our intellect to make is better people to ourselves and those around us we use these incredible skills to manipulate and lie to others including ourselves.

I am so desperately trying to be as open and honest with myself as I possibly can, well here's to give you my two weeks notice to my boss, LOL I know it may seem funny to use an analogy to others reading this but it's what I have to do I have to start convincing myself that I need to walk away, but I have to do so in a way a responsible person would do. Heroin addicts don't quit overnight neither there do meth addicts often the success is done by weaning off the individual over time to where it simply doesn't matter anymore. That's why methadone was invented and other medicine to help a person ease off of the drug of their choice. This is our dream of choice and we have to be realistic and not think did a quick cut easily be long-term we have to give art sells time to replace it and then it won't even matter. I know some may not agree with my analogy and it may not be for any one else. But after 40 years of doing this I know what's best for me perhaps this may work for other people but I'm doing this for myself this time not for anybody else and not for any success that I need. I am doing it because I have to put this behind me. My life is gone on too long without peace and tranquility, which is hard enough to attain without me putting things in my own life that damage me.

 

Well today marks another obstacle and beginning I started taking every hard drive every backup drive, and every flash drive etc., and started formatting everything, making sure that they information is wiped so I cannot simply use an undelete program like I have in the past. I'm making sure I'm overwriting the areas so makes it extremely difficult to save anything. I am right around 7 TB removed right now

.Anyone want to buy some old hard drives? LOL just kidding when watching or anybody that would might try and get the information not be here anyway there's a lot of money sitting on these drives but it was a big step for me get rid of them. I have just a couple of more but it takes time to get everything cleared off unfortunately usually do one drive at a time if you going to do a clean wipe and erase the partitions.

Who knew removing PMO materials would be just as exhausting as collecting it either working about six or seven hours right now on it. Most people may think will just delete it through the drives away and be done with it. I know myself too well and that would not be good enough and is why yesterday I close the accounts even ones that were active, all my free accounts. Even some that I had a huge following of several thousand people I removed the enclosed it.

I also got on track to write my book today and why my drives were being erased which takes some time I worked overtime in the yard filling the entire pickup truck load of yard debris trying to keep busy so I wasn't thinking about what was one on my computer. It's gonna be a long haul I can tell.

I'm not sure I can advise this for anyone because you're not losing probably is as much as I have immaterial and many decades invested. That is was making a big move for me and being drastic enough. Some of you are at the point where you can simply delete your accounts and what one or two hard drives and be done with it and start your mission. I have been around the Internet so long that I know how to gather resources in a tremendous amount of time so I need to make sure that I make it difficult for me to accomplish that task. I'm not worried or depressed. I know it's a take some time and I'm willing to give myself that opportunity. I will not do what I have seen others do and fail and that is making a goal and heading towards it. Setting myself up for another failure. It's how we simply look at things. When we put an obstacle that we have a desire to accomplish and we do not accomplish it would look at as a fail, and it simply in our DNA to feel that way. Some may have the ability to work past that what I've seen is the longer that somebody is down this rabbit hole like I am the harder it is to use simple techniques to rid yourself of the problem. I've read through most of this website and the helpful material it's out there. Which also helped me see the person I am and what techniques will work and what won't. I can see on many posts that some people want instant gratification result from putting in their work and ending this addiction. That's not who I am. And I know that any kind of instant gratification is bad for me to look at because it's setting myself up to fail. and I have failed at this probably thousands of times.
But I know I am heading in the right direction, whether I succeed at this or not I know today just for today I'm heading in the right direction