The First Of Many

Hi NoFap,

Background: I'm 28 and have been using porn since before my teens (I don't know specifically) I had lots of free time after school while my divorced parents were at work and I filled this loneliness often with porn and masturbation. As I grew older, the Internet became my source for newer and more exciting porn on demand. Around 16 - 20 I played online games and masturbated for nearly all of my free time.

I went away to college and finally lived alone. Here I masturbated daily to P if not multiple times a day. I wasted so much time smoking Weed and PMOing for much of my free time. I met the love of my life and continued using porn when she was away.

I finished school and moved in with her and the issues with porn remained. PMO wasn't enough and I would often search craigslist for other people to have sexually charged conversations with. My girlfriend caught me from time to time by finding email chains and pictures of me posing nude for others. This destroyed her and traumatized her. It took many years for her to convince me that I had a problem. It was only when she thought of leaving me that I finally realized. I tried using NoFap at this point and had a decent little streak. With time that faded and I was back to PMO. My girlfriend began distancing herself again and we were close to breaking. This drove me to get real help and I joined a men's group and saw a therapist in conjuction. This group was great sort of at first (I'm still a part of it). I learned why I was using P and how my childhood affected that. I did Okay for a while but ended up PMOING during the day and going to my group meeting and lying about having been clean. This went on for a few months.

Finally my girlfriend told me she was leaving after 7 years together. This was the love of my life walking out and this time it was for real. I was ready for marriage and she was looking for a new apartment. She followed through and moved out one month ago. This motivated me to the end of the earth to finally beat this addiction. I didn't want the love of my life looking back and defining me as a porn addict who couldn't ever figure it out. I also really want to get her back and know that the first step will be to finish my addiction with PMO.

Now My Success:

I've now gone 30 days with no P M O and it feels great to say that. The first days were hard but then the urges just diminished to manageable levels. I've been volunteering in the kitchen at my church, working extra on the weekends, engaging socially with new friends with every opportunity I get, and have been exercising as much as possible. Above all, I have been exploring my relationship with Jesus and have been praying daily.

Tips for success: set guardrails for yourself. I cut Internet to my house, have an app called covenant eyes on my phone and my accountability partner is my therapist, I've seen counciling, am a part of a support group, have told other friends about this problem (they admitted they struggled too and joined me in this quest), and have kept myself busy as much as possible.

My benefits so far:

My mind is clearer, I'm able to be more sociable, I don't care what others think as much, I'm more assertive, have more energy, have way more time, am in better shape (lost weight and built some muscle) and I feel much better about myself.

The pains: I have some mood swings (still very heartbroken), some urges to M, sometimes I'm lazy, being bored sucks (this is when I check nofap to keep me focussed), sometimes I feel depressed.

I hope this helps some of you out there who think you can't do this. Obviously I had a serious problem and here I am at 30 days clean. Yes, I had a serious crisis that jump started my motivation, but I hope you can see how much of your life may be at stake in the future if you don't do something about it now. Today CAN be that day for you. Make it that day and make tomorrow that day and then the next. Do this knowing that getting over this addiction can actually take 3 to 5 years (according to my therapist). Do you really want to waste another day, week, month or year masturbating to P which will only put your recovery that much farther out? Where do you want to be in 3 years? Who do you want to be? Do what is necessary now and radically change your life TODAY!

Thanks to everyone else who wrote a success story. They have been my inspiration and distraction over the last 30 days. Keep it up!

 

I agree this only feels like step one. Now my new focus is on to 60 days. I obviously want this to be forever, but I'm also not superman and know that it's better to achieve many small goals in pursuit of a larger goal than to just shoot for the largest of goals from the start. Thank you for the support.

 

Thanks. I definitely will. I'm feeling great about my ability to fight urges so far.

 

Thanks man! I'm sometimes curious if I'm in a flatline because the urges are pretty slim and easily controlled. I still find women attractive and can still get it up if a sexy thought comes to mind. Morning woods are there some days and others there are none. Any opinion on the flatline? If I am in one, it's not very prominent. It seems like for most other guys, it's extremely obvious when they hit flatline. Anyway, keep up the good fight.