restarting

No
no porn/porn substitutes.
no fantasy
No masturbation for 30 days

Yes
consistently working on my social life
staying present for my job
building a dating life
spending time in nature
workout out

I'm moving away from a never ending "relapse" cycle or perfection mindset. I'm moving from unhealthy behaviors towards healthy ones. If i happen to act out, it doesn't really matter. My only task is to focus on the healthy activities and keep doing them.

 

update - acted out this morning.
The thoughts proceeding it were - "I will never be able to create a dating life and have a fulfilling sex life. I will always be trapped and single. I'd better look at porn or i'll have to live in the depression of having no access to sex partners"

I think at one point in my life part of that may have been true.
-First though, even if i don't have access to lots of sex partners right now, there isn't really a reason to fall into a deep depression, I can find other things to do with my life and can work towards building up more sex partners in my life. I have the tools to do so.
-Second. I have created a dating life in the past. Several times. When I was in college. A few years ago, even now. I'm dating somebody, not the person I think I really want to be dating, but oh well.
-Third. I can create a dating life. It's totally possible. I've done it in the past, am currently doing it and will do it again in the future. Many people have done it. I've even done it.

So the reasons aren't really stacking up for why porn makes sense. Later I'll keep diving into the other thinking that propels this compulsion.

For today's healthy activities. I'm going to do tai chi, go to the gym, call a couple of friends, do therapy work, and maybe...do my laundry.

 

I'm moving away from a model almost completely that focusses only on abstinence. I've found this: https://www.theharveyinstitute.com/services/psychotherapy.

It focusses on sexual health.

I know for myself I'm not an addict. I'm a person who developed repetitive sexual behaviors - porn/masturbation to cope with stress and as a form of sexuality. I'm 32. I want a real sexuality.

I want a program of sexual health where I move towards healthy sexual behaviors. It sounds like the same thing as abstinence, but it's not. Abstinence focuses all the attention on stopping. Where as sexual health is a moving of the barge towards a different port.

I want to experiment in my sexual life. Sleep with a lot of partners, have flings, have 3somes, have orgies if I want, find a monogomish relationship, try polyamory, find some kinky chick who likes my fetishes.

I want to experiment and live a life that is less confining. I've been in SAA for about 10 years and it's extremely sexually conservative. Frankly the longer i've been in the program, the more isolated i've gotten in many ways. The men who are part of that program are very anxious and socially awkward. Most don't move beyond that state. The rate of relapse is extremely high. As much as 100% of people are relapsing in meetings i've been in. They don't find an alternative sexuality, they just stay in this war with themselves. It's not a healthy attitude and it's not healthy for me to be there. It feels like it's pulled me away from a real social life and a real sex life. I think i'll stay close with my sponsor and maybe 1 meeting, but otherwise it makes me feel like i'm wasting my time.

I have purchased the therapy manual from dr. harvey. I'm reading it and going through it. I really like his approach to compulsion and addiction. I'm going to journal deeply on his work and find an alternative solution through it i believe.

 

i'm starting to develop stronger motivation against pornography for a different reason than just: I shouldn't be doing it.
I'm focussing more strongly on the physical effects.
I'm checking in here daily to report on progress and on issues that area arrising. Most of these blockages will have to do with craving, romance, and socialization.

Tomorrow for my recovery I'll be getting a blocker on my phone, writing here, and doing some therapy journalling.
I'll also be doing a little bit of qi gong and prayer, then connecting with family for the rest of the day.

I'll be using the motivation that i don't want to pmo so that I can have stronger libido for future partners.

 

I've connected with family, done some self care, and qi gong.
Still working on the journalling and blocker.

One of the biggest blockers right now for my recovery is my sense that my romantic life is impossible. That I'll forever be undersexed, which drives me back to using pornography, fantasy and masturbation.

I think a big piece of this is old trauma stuff vs. anything that actually exists in my life right now.

 

I've worked through so many of the reasons that I use P/M/fantasy. So much of the trauma has been resolved. The only remaining stuff is forming a group of friends and feeling in connection with them. Isolation drives this for me.

The other thing is learning to be more attractive in my communication. I have this sneaking suspicion that I already am charismatic and attractive, I just have a narrative that I'm not.

I used to do the pickup stuff, but then branched out into less manipulative thinking on attraction. I'm moving much more towards making a deep connection with somebody and using that as the foundation for sexuality.



Blockers today for me:
my depleted body from PMO, which causes weak erections, difficulty ejaculating, a relatively numb penis, the need for more extreme fantasies (mostly intense anal scenes) to get off, and lack of attraction enough to get aroused with real women.

This is a major blocker for me getting out and getting laid or even getting a girlfriend.

Solutions for this blocker:

There are a few things i'm in control of. Losing a bit of body fat percentage, eating more protein (I lift a lot of weights and I think I haven't been completing my recoveries before my next weight lifting sessions so I end up depleted, taking zinc/ashwaganda/ maybe a chinese medicine formula.

The big one is just abstaining from porn/masturbation.

I'm finding "just stop" doesn't work for me. I need to retrain my thoughts to see P/M/fantasy as getting in the way of better pleasures - getting laid consistently. When I have an urge or a thought, I go through a thought exercise where i refocus on my goals - getting laid easily and frequently - and then see that acting out will get in the way of this better pleasure of getting laid. It then seems to do some rewiring, the craving/urge/thought goes away. I usually need to get up and go do something besides sitting on my couch on my computer.

I used to go to lots of meetings that treated this as an addiction like SAA, AA, SLAA. I'm moving more to seeing that my mind thinks using porn will be easier than learning to talk to women and improve my life so I'm an attractive person. So it's less a true addiction and a bargain that goes on in my head - "it's too hard to build a life that I want, I'll take the easy way out."

So I'm working on that brain training stuff.

Soon enough - maybe over the next week i'll put together a recovery plan, connect with an OCSB sex therapist, and form a little self help group for myself locally.

I need to have a goals sheet and plan out my time so I am productive and not doing activities that are harmful towards my lifestyle recovery.

 

Today is especially rough. I'm having the thought again that it's impossible for me to date and have a good sex life. I'm feeling doomed in so many ways. Just abstaining from porn isn't the answer. There is a lot more going on.

 

I'm feeling really stuck in this model of sexual health where we are supposed to silence our sexuality. It doesn't feel sustainable. Not at all. I'm feeling like it's impossible to really stop these behaviors if other behaviors aren't on the menu.

I'm starting to feel like this whole concept of "stop porn and masturbation" is to an extent damaging. Clearly those behaviors are damaging, but the "just stop" model and not replace it with anything seems dangerous.

I've been in 12 step for 10 years and am feeling disillusioned and to an extent scared.

 

I've begun to reject the addiction model for sexuality. Clearly there is compulsivity, but to become at war with my sexuality has only increased my acting out over the years. I actually act out far more now than before getting into recovery and I feel that the treatment method of "you have a broken behavior, if you were to eliminate the behavior your life will work. If you keep your behavior up, it will ruin you." I have never seen this really work for anybody. I see some people finding alertnative ways to express their sexuality and those behaviors have become a new normal for them. I have also seen people "relapse" constantly and not move on with their lives. They then go further into nofap/12 step groups and disconnect more from their lives. This leaves them more and more focussed on a behavior they can't control.

I've had addictions. marijuana, optiates, nicotine, sugar, amphetamines a little bit. The only way i overcame those was by finding alternative behaviors to meet the same underlying needs. Coming at odds with the behavior and fighting it never worked. I have about 10 years free of drugs. 1 year away from cigarettes, and I have a much healthier relationship to food.

So sex seems like it shouldn't be any different. Why am I focussed so much on trying to eliminate one set of behaviors but not going towards a new healthy set of behaviors? Why can't I focus on integrating my sexuality into my life in a sustainable and healthy way instead of becoming at odds with the behavior. I think trying to suppress the behavior or having a 3 second rule doesn't get to the underlying reasons why porn/masturbation is a good idea. Also, some people have compulsions towards prostitutes or anonymous gay sex and others have compulsions to porn but the idea of anonymous sex is scary. Why do I have compulsions towards porn/masturbation but the thought of having multiple sex partners sounds scary?

I think getting to the underlying reasons why I/we have these behaviors and addressing that is essential so that the problematic behaviors can be integrated and transformed in they psyche. Then the behavior is no longer problematic.

I'm not denying that compulsive activity is a problem, its just that the treatment model is too simplistic and potentially (very probably) damaging to people if they don't figure out the alternative behaviors and underlying causes themselves. I'm not alone either, there is a whole other model called "out of control sexual behaviors" developed by a sex therapist who proposes an alternative strategy to the addiction/sexual suppression model.

I've been at this long enough - 10 years - 1000 saa meetings to admit to myself that it's not working and that except in rare instances the model doesn't work for the vast majority of people who enter into SAA, though I don't know if those are the stats for nofap as well.

So for me personally I'm exploring alternative methods. I want to have a great sex life. I don't want to suppress my male sexuality based on religious, moralistic or flawed therapeutic thinking any longer.

 

I'm now convinced entirely, the process of getting better from this has nothing to do with 'just stopping'. The process is finding a real sex life, seeing that this compulsion damages a real sex life. Doing thought training to remember that you have a motivation for the real thing and that this 'easy way out' will only damage the real thing.

There are multiple motivations present. The only way to be free of this is if all motivations are going in the same direction.
I'm starting to do this, it's working like nothing ever has. I'm not seeing myself as an addict. I'm seeing myself as a person with competing motivations.

I'm honestly feeling so much freer not being in conflict with myself anymore.

I don't see this as an addictive trap anymore. I see part of me that wants a certain kind of life that I can't seem to get and porn makes that feel easier to cope with. Instead I start building that life and see porn as incapable of being in that life therefore I decide not to use porn because the life I want outcompetes that "easy way out - porn" motivation.

This is how i kicked cigarettes. I started exercising. Exercising is more fun. I value it more and it makes it so I had to stop, because smoking damaged my workouts.

I started having a really clean diet too. When I thought, I should go to popeyes. I remembered that messes up my diet and I really want to look good again. So my motivation to look good and fuel my workouts trumps my motivation to eat junk food.

SO........I need the same for pmo. It's not about stopping it's about generating competing motivations which make PMO incompatible with the new lifestyle you are generating. End of story.

(caveat, if you have a lot of trauma. you can have a great life, but if your mind still perceives you in a bad place, that can and is a major trigger for many of us I believe.)

 

Summary - dr. harvey has a model of multiple motivations. It's not "some weird addiction out of nowhere and a brain disease" It's about competing motivations. The motivation to use. The motivation for other things.
Which one wins?

 

I'm starting to see my thinking turn around as I continue to negotiate with my thought. I'm seeing 2 different motivations really clearly. The motivation to have a sex life that is nourishing and the motivation to use porn because getting a real sex life takes work.

The easy way out porn motivation is used to winning. I've been dialoging with my thoughts to convince the part of me that thinks p/m are the answer. I've been working with it to see that by obstaining I can have even more pleasure.

This sex positive, pleasure focussed method is working.

I'm using this inner thought dialoging combined with making my life something that a woman/women want to enter into.
I'm also choosing to go and talk to more women. I'm learning the communication skills that will lead to a healthy sex life.

Once I have a sense of fluency in getting real women, porn will hold even less value for me and it will fade away.

 

Moving into the unknown is difficult. Some days feel absolutely atrocious like nothing will ever change and I'll be locked in a private mental prison till the end of days.

I know that isn't actually true though. That's just how it feels. I've made major strides this year in getting my life much more on track. I understand the pathway now much more about how to get better. I'm just at a growing point. It's hard. It will get better.

I'm very grateful i'm abandoning the "don't do it model" of sex addiction.
I'm embracing a model of moving into something better. That's working much better for me.

 

I'm starting to have some success with the program that I've put myself on.
I'm moving away from the method of "just say no" which is something i've seen.
I'm moving towards a program where I focus on what kind of sexual activities I really want in my life. I don't really "like porn", I gravitate towards it because it's easy. I really want a great and fulfilling sex life with a functional sex organ and a brain that allows me to be attracted to women in a normal way. I used to have great sex. Now I don't have great sex. The sex I have is kinda crumby.

So. I created a strong motivation to not use porn or masturbation so that sex and relationships will feel good in the future. I'm doing a Cost Benefit Analysis on the behaviors daily to illustrate to my mind that the behavior actually isn't very helpful in me reaching my goal.

The other piece is that I am pretty alone these days. I'm going to go to AA meetings where people are really friendly and make some friends. I've done it before and it is a great foundation. I can say "i'm a newcomer with just a few days" and people will be super friendly.

I'll use that as the foundation. I might go to some saa phone meetings. So that gets my brain in order and my social life sort of in order, at least at a foundational level.

Then from that foundation I'm going to start going out more and more to social events and making friends and becoming friends with more and more women till talking to women feels normal and not scary.

To fully move from a destructive porn lifestyle to a functional one, I'm going to need to get good at dating and start making more friends. Maybe I need to define these goals more. Just not yet. Having a vague idea where I am going is better than "just stopping" and feeling like I'm not going anywhere.

For the last part - my body. I'll take herbs, eat well, exercise well, and sleep well to repair the penis/hormone damage from masturbating.

When urges come up, they inevitably will, I'll remember my motivation, do a CBA in the moment, and make a phone call to or at text to somebody who can support me.

I'll make weekly goals about social and dating so I can move into that life -> to support me in this lifestyle transition I'll be hiring a life coach or a specific therapist who can help me in this.

I'm tired of trying to figure this stuff out on my own. I want to work with somebody who actually understands these issues and sees that it's not just a sex problem, but it's a lifestyle problem and have somebody who can help me think through the experiences I have when getting out and getting better at being social. ( I think saa can help a little in this, but they aren't great at it).

I'm going to consolidate this down to a few 3x5 cards that I can read before I do my journal work in the morning.

I also have a meditation practice. Seems like a lot, but really its just support to move from an unhealthy lifestyle to another with some structure.

 

So much of this problem is learning to integrate with life and getting out of isolation.