The Missing Links - Habit Replacement & Accountability

Before I'd even heard of the NoFap, or stopped to think about others having similar issues with excessive porn use, I'd tried to quit a few times.

I think I managed a couple of weeks at the most but as soon as I reached a point of weakness in my life (hangover / long period without sex / stress), I would just fall back into the routine. In fact the first time after a break would be particularly satisfying and I might spend most of that day with my piece in my hand.

Then my GF sent me a link to a TED talk on youtube called 'The Great Porn Experiment' by Gary Wilson. This really brought home what was actually going on in my brain and is actually how I found out about this website. I recommend that everyone here watches that.

As well as having a new perspective on porn from this vid, it also started a conversation between me an my GF that ended up with us both opening up about our porn use. It amazed me how similar her habits were to mine, I had no idea. For both of us, porn was our 'go-to' tool for masturbation, stress relief and lonely periods.

We made an agreement that from now on we would be completely open with each-other about our porn use and would experiment with abstaining from it for as long as possible (permanently if we could). We agreed on the rules - in our case that was that masturbation was fine but should be limited as much as possible and only achieved through use of pictures of each-other and our imaginations.

So far, it's working great. I masturbate around once a week now and if she is not around it is to a photo of her or with her on facetime (we live quite a distance from eachother).

The best thing is that I don't feel that shame afterwards, the one I remember after watching video after video of porn online. Masturbation now feels kinda clean and healthy.

There have been a couple of times that I have felt weak or down recently, the times when I would usually go to porn, and even though the idea does come into my head, I can quickly over-ride it now, knowing that 1. I have another method and 2. I am accountable to my partner.

I have backed up the accountability by telling one of my friends about my experiment, that means whatever happens with the GF I should be able to maintain this new routine.

I guess what I am trying to do here is rewire my brain patterns that have resulted in porn use for so many years and noticing the triggers that caused me to end up staring at screen for hours with a well lubricated hand.

Hope this helps.