Today is my 55th day of no PMO, and, of course, I'm happy to have made it this far. But I'm writing tonight to celebrate another victory... All of the porn that I had ever bought and downloaded (almost all fetish-porn) was on my old laptop. Despite my recent success in avoiding PMO, I had (since the beginning of my streak) left the laptop on a high, dusty shelf in my bedroom. Up there, the laptop (and all of the porn that it contained) was out of sight, yes, but never entirely out of mind, especially since I keep all of my work clothes in that same closet. Tonight, when I got back from work, I took the laptop out of the closet, brought it to the dining room, and plugged it in for the first time in nearly two months. Then, I went through every folder and sub-folder until I had found---and deleted---every single pornographic video and image that I had. As I deleted the files, naturally, I saw some of the thumbnail images of the videos that I had used so many times to start the painful (and painfully hard to escape) cycle of masturbation, pleasure, guilt, shame, anxiety, masturbation... It was hard to see those thumbnail images, of course, because they are snapshots of scenes that I have "lived" (and then quickly regretted) many, many times before. As difficult as it was though, I couldn't help but noticing that their power over me had diminished. I did not get an erection. I did not start fantasizing. I did not feel like I was slipping into a trance and being pulled steadily toward masturbation-land. As I write this message, therefore, I must say that I feel extremely hopeful about my chances of overcoming my addiction and ONE DAY (perhaps many, many weeks or even months from now) being immune to the pull of porn and all of its false promises.
That is no "small victory" @mapache. For nearly two months, you have desisted from a horrible addiction that has taken up half of your life and you have deleted the stash of porn that you used to fuel your habit. That is a massive victory!
