My struggle of quitting PMO

Hi readers! I just registered to this site because I felt like I needed some support/help/advice. Firstly I would like to tell my story so everyone who takes the time and effort to read and maybe answer to my post can have something to work with. So here I go...

I'm a 19-year old guy and on 17th of January 2015 I decided it was time to quit PMO. I had been PMOing actively for about 7-8 years. I first saw P when I was 8 or 9 years old because I had a friend who was 4 years older than me. At that time porn wasn't really something I craved but something that was "nice" to watch from time to time when I was visiting my friend. Back then watching porn didn't trigger any urges to masturbate because I didn't know anything about masturbation. After a few years we got high speed internet at my home and that was the time I really started watching P. That was also the time that I discovered masturbation. At first I didn't connect masturbation and P together but after a while that changed. Even then it wasn't that hard to not PMO. I would have seasons when I didn't PMO at all or just very little and some seasons when I PMO'd a few times in a week but not daily. During the years of my puberty the amount of porn I consumed began to grow slowly. I didn't really move into weirder or shocking material until I was about 16 or 17 years old. I still think that I never watched the REALLY shocking material but the material I started to watch at that age was definitely something that I would not have been watching a few years back (I don't want to really get into details because I don't want anyone to get cravings from reading this). Soon I noticed that the new more shocking material made me a lot more aroused than the "normal" P I had been watching for years. I didn't know the cause of this so I just kept going and watched these sorts of things until I decided to quit porn. But even though I started to watch more shocking P, I still liked to watch "normal" P very much.

I had my first sexual experience with girl when I was 16-years old. If I remember correctly I hadn't started watching the more shocking P yet. So during my first time with a girl it was really hard for me to get an erection. I am sure that this was not caused by P but rather because I was really nervous about my first time with a girl. When I got the erection and got into action I didn't last very long. This happened twice but the third time was totally different. I got an erection without my girl touching me and I lasted for about 30 minutes. During the following sexual encounters with the same girl I didn't have any problems with ED but some problems with PE. The ED and PE problems really started to show when that girl dumped me. I started to PMO again because when I was with this girl I didn't PMO almost at all because I didn't feel the need to do it when I had a real girl to whom I had feelings for. After about 6 months I started to have casual sex occasionally with this same girl and that was the time I saw my ED and PE problems. Sometimes getting an erection wasn't hard at all, sometimes it took a while and some times I couldn't get an erection at all. When the casual sex with this girl stopped I had probably a year without any real sexual experiences. During that time and during the casual occasional sex time I PMO'd a lot. Well, when the time came to get sexual with a different girl, I was afraid of it. I was afraid about not getting an erection and not lasting long. Well I managed to get an erection but it took some time and I noticed that sex wasn't as pleasurable as it was before. And this experience was about 3 years ago. After that I have not engaged in intercourse but I have "fooled around" a bit.

When my ED problems started to show I was desperately looking for a cause to them. Back then I didn't connect my PMO and ED together so I was really frustrated  for not knowing the cause of my ED. That all changed when I discovered yourbrainonporn.com a couple months back. I read a lot of stuff on that site and started to make the connections. ED wasn't the only problem I had because of P. My life was in a state which was controlled by P. I didn't control the viewing of P because the P controlled me. I could go into even more detail but I wont because I would like for someone to read these things and help me out. I know this post is really long but please bear with me for a bit.


So that's the back-story.


So my questions for you guys would be about rebooting obviously. At first when I decided to quit P, I didn't quit MO immediately. During the first 4 days I MO'd 3 times and then decided that I would try to abstain from P and MO. Well after 3 days of no PMO, I MO'd and that was yesterday. I was trying to sleep but I was feeling so horny that I couldn't. The interesting thing is that during the first MO sessions after quitting P I couldn't get a solid erection. But yesterday I could easily get a good erection without any kind of artificial stimulation, not even fantasy. I just focused on the sensations and I got a good erection. It even felt much more pleasurable than before and the O was much more intense than before. I even lasted for about 15 minutes before O. So here is the question. Is this kind of thing normal? To see progress this fast or why did I get a good erection after 7 days without P and why did the MO feel so much better? I'm now seeing other effects of quitting P. I'm more motivated to do things and I feel more happy in general, it's like my mood is just so much better now even though I have been abstaining from P only for 8 days. The urges are sometimes almost unbearable but I hope that I will never PMO again. What do you guys do when you get the urge to watch P?

I'm sure that I have a lot more to ask but nothing else comes to my mind at the moment. I'm really sorry for a long post but I will be really grateful if someone is willing to read this and answer my questions :)

PS: I'm also sorry for any grammar mistakes, English isn't my native language so writing this post was quite hard and it took me an hour at least. 
 
Well this isn't good, I just relapsed :( I was on my computer playing some Battlefield 4 and I got really pissed off and I started to feel a really huge urge to watch porn. The reason for that is the fact that usually if I'm home and I get pissed off because of something I would just PMO. Well first I tried to resist but I just couldn't. Fortunately I did it only for about 30 mins because before I even tried to quit PMO I would just watch porn for hours.

Lets hope that I can keep abstaining from PMO in the future, I really don't want this to happen again. Just to be clear this was only my 8th day of no PMO so I'm quite afraid what the future might bring...
 
Hey man you have to focus and fill your day with activities to keep your mind off PMO. I have been trying to quit P for years now and i'm only on day 11! Never give up and one day we will both be out of this rut we are in. By reading your story it does not seem like your addiction is too strong. Maybe a good 3-6 month of no PMO will cure you. Like you I need to MO. BUT, the only time I MO is when I am with a woman so I can keep all my attention on her. Whenever I MO alone that is an instant trigger for me and I will begin to watch P. But everyone id different. Good luck !
 
Lost Boy said:
Hey man you have to focus and fill your day with activities to keep your mind off PMO. I have been trying to quit P for years now and i'm only on day 11! Never give up and one day we will both be out of this rut we are in. By reading your story it does not seem like your addiction is too strong. Maybe a good 3-6 month of no PMO will cure you. Like you I need to MO. BUT, the only time I MO is when I am with a woman so I can keep all my attention on her. Whenever I MO alone that is an instant trigger for me and I will begin to watch P. But everyone id different. Good luck !

Thank you for reading my long post and replying. I know that I should keep myself busy with something but the problem is that I don't really have many things to do. I work out 3 times a week but besides that I don't have any hobbies. I'm unemployed at the moment and I'm hoping to get in a college but at the moment I cant (I live in Europe so the education system is quite different than in the USA for example and I'm not sure if college is even the right word, but anyway). Let's just hope that I can come up with some daily activities to get my mind off from P. I think I could go without P easily if I MO from time to time but I have read that it would be wise to not MO because if you do it slows the reboot. I agree with you that my addiction probably isn't like super strong which is really good but it's still there. Lets hope that we both can quit the P for good and have a better life! Thank you for your support and good luck to you as well! :)

I think I'm going to start posting here about my days without PMO.
 
January 26th, the first day after my first relapse. As I said before I PMO'd on January 25th. So...

Day one

Early on the day I had no urges but as the day went on I got some really bad urges for a few hours. It was quite hard to concentrate on anything because of the urges but fortunately I managed to push them away and then they went away for the rest of the day. When those urges hit me I really tried to focus on something else and it seemed to work.

I still haven't figured out any really good activities to do during the days besides playing games on my computer, watching TV shows/youtube videos or listening to music. I do exercise at a gym but that's only 3 times a week so I can't do that all the time because my exercise "program" is made for 3 days a week. I have a lot of friends but they usually don't leave their houses unless it's the weekend :/ I'm seriously thinking about sharing my problems with someone but I haven't decided the person to tell them to. Let's hope that everything goes well and I don't PMO ever again!
 
Hey man. First off, congrats on making the first step towards recovery! It's a battle but you've chosen to face it and that's something you should be proud of. Second, your English was damn near perfect.

I'm going on day 60 at the end of this week, and here are some tips that I've learned so far.
For me working out is great. On my rest days I usually go on long walks or bike rides to get rid of some energy without putting any large strain on my muscles, so maybe you could try that on your off days. I haven't had a whole lot of problems with urges after the second week, but when I did I made sure to find something to keep my hands busy (for me I solved a Rubik's cube over and over) and consciously told myself NO! whenever I thought about P or M. Overtime it does get easier. There are plenty of days where I don't think about any of it at all.

Best of luck
 
Recovernor said:
Hey man. First off, congrats on making the first step towards recovery! It's a battle but you've chosen to face it and that's something you should be proud of. Second, your English was damn near perfect.

I'm going on day 60 at the end of this week, and here are some tips that I've learned so far.
For me working out is great. On my rest days I usually go on long walks or bike rides to get rid of some energy without putting any large strain on my muscles, so maybe you could try that on your off days. I haven't had a whole lot of problems with urges after the second week, but when I did I made sure to find something to keep my hands busy (for me I solved a Rubik's cube over and over) and consciously told myself NO! whenever I thought about P or M. Overtime it does get easier. There are plenty of days where I don't think about any of it at all.

Best of luck

Hi there! Thanks a lot for your reply! :) I't always helps to get some support from fellow reeboters. Congrats to you for going that long without PMO, I hope I can go as long as you without major setbacks and even longer. Your suggestions for my off days from working out are quite good, I should really try to think of some good activities to do on my off days since I don't have a Rubik's cube and it's winter here where I live so bike rides are not an option because of the snow. Usually I just play video games on my PC and watch youtube videos/TV shows as I said before this post but I can see how those things might not be the best kind of activities :D For me I don't think being on my computer gives me any triggers to PMO. What gives me those triggers is when I'm home alone. I have been doing exactly the same as you when I get urges to PMO or just MO. I tell myself that PMO is NOT longer an option and I try as hard as I can to push those urges away. That strategy seems to work pretty well. Especially since my one relapse I noticed the massive brain fog among other things after PMO and realized that it's not worth the over
arousal of about 30 minutes.

But anyway, thanks for your reply and I sure do hope that this gets easier after a while as you said. Best of luck to you as well :)


Well, back to my journal

Day two

The second day was easier than the first day regarding the urges to PMO. I only got a few and those weren't even that hard to push away. I didn't do anything out of the ordinary during the day. Just being on my computer and playing video games and watching youtube videos and TV shows (I just started the new Sherlock Holmes and that seems to be really good IMO). I'm still thinking about telling one of my friends about my rebooting and PMO problems but I haven't figured out who I want to tell. Lets hope that day 3 isn't too hard because before my one relapse the day 3 was the day that I MO'd because I felt so horny. I still think that MO isn't as bad as PMO so if I really need to MO at least there's a silver lining :D But I'm still going for no P and no MO so the MO will not be on option unless it's absolutely necessary , which I hope it wont be.
 
Day three

The third day was a bit hard to go on without MO. I felt so horny for long time periods during the day that it was very hard not to MO. I had a few urges for P as well and only one or two of those we really bad. When I got the urge to watch P, I just told myself like before that P is not an option anymore. And that really seems to work. I'm not so sure about what to do about feeling so damn horny almost all the time. Because I used to "release" at least once in two days before starting this reboot. So I think that is going to be my biggest challenge.

During my day I went to the gym to work out but I don't really see the benefits of losing the urges to PMO from working out as some people say. The reason for that is the fact that there are so many hot girls at my gym and I just can't stop checking them out :D But I'm still going to continue working out 3 times a week because I started to work out before I even decided to stop PMO. I'm also trying to be on a healthy diet so no junk food/sodas etc. I've been on that diet for about 2 months now but I have had to make some exceptions because of Christmas and new year + some nights out with my friends. I have a question for those who have went through 60 days or more without PMO. If you watch a movie or a tv show episode which contains a sex scene, what do you do? Is it bad to watch it? Because the way I understand it, the softcore sex scenes are not that bad for you if you can resist the possible urge to go watch P after that? Someone please share their experiences or opinions because I just might be wrong about this. The reason I wanted to ask this was because season 5 of Game of Thrones is starting in a few months and I was wondering that will I be able to watch it as the episodes come out once a week? Since there are always at least one sex scene per episode and those sex scenes usually have an impact on the storytelling, they are not just for showing female private parts so to speak.

Well here I am going forward with my goals and wishing that everything goes well!

EDIT Number x: This no PMO feels just so weird. I get the annoying feeling that I miss the over arousal of porn. I know it's just my brain messing with me but damn it's so hard. I always really enjoyed PMO but back then when I was doing it I didn't know about the bad effects it had on me. My brain is just trying to think about when might be the next time I get to be sexual with a real girl? It keeps telling me that the next time might not come soon so I might as well PMO because I enjoy it so much. I'm resisting as hard as I can but it's so freakishly hard dammit. One of the biggest factors in this and probably the stupidest is VR porn which means virtual reality porn. I don't know how many of you guys/girls here know about virtual reality like Oculus Rift but I have been looking forward for VR a long time. Not just for porn but for many other things as well. VR is not out yet for the consumers but it's coming this year or so I have read.
 
Day four

The fourth day was easily the hardest so far regarding the urges to PMO or just MO. Through the day I got these really big urges to PMO or just MO and it was almost impossible to push those urges away. Every time I felt the urges I somehow managed push them away but it required extreme willpower and concentration. Even though I could push those urges away they didn't seem to fully go away, they always like lingered in the back of my mind and there was nothing I could do about it.

My brain really tried to play tricks on me giving me messages like:
- "Do I really need to go through this?"
- "Is this absolutely necessary?"
- "Think of the awesome feeling PMO or just MO would give me." 
- "PMO can't be that bad really"
- "Where is the line between addiction and a habit? Maybe I should just give in and enjoy some PMO".
- "I'm losing an awesome thing when abstaining from PMO".
- "Why aren't you looking at P already!?!"

Those massages really seemed to affect me and I almost gave in to the temptations to PMO or just MO. But now I'm glad that I didn't. This fourth day almost felt like mental torture and I'm not kidding. For the first time since forever I felt some anxiety and I expect that to only get worse. I very rarely feel anxiety so that's why I was kind of surprised/terrified. I also expect the urges to just grow for a few days until I hit the flatline which I'm actually looking forward to as crazy as it may sound. If I have almost no libido I don't think that I'm going to have many urges or no urges at all. Well here's hoping that I can go through the days until I hit the flatline. I'm now seriously thinking about telling a friend of mine about my PMO problems because I feel that I need some serious support.

Honestly this no PMO is a lot harder than I thought. I always can keep my promices/decisions because I have a good willpower/determination IMO but this is a lot harder than I thought it would be :/
 

Eminem

Member
Congrats on 4 days,  the fist week is really hard,  just don't allow yourself to fall back down. 

Heres a list of things that I find to be helpful
1. Going outside (without a phone/ tablet) until the urge dissipates
2. Taking a short 10-20 minute nap (NEVER more than 30 minutes though)
3. Finding a friend or family member to talk to.
4. Take off the passcode from you phone, and don't put one one again.
5. Eat some fruit, and maybe a slice of turkey.
6. Meditate (breath in slowly through your nose and breath very slow out of your mouth) while you do this try to push all thoughts from your head and have your mind be as empty as possible.
7. Read the bible and take your time in it, I recommended Romans chapters 6-8 to help with addiction
8. Excersize, it can be jump ropes, running, weight lifting, swimming, or some push-ups and sit ups.
9. Try to disconnect your urges from your mind while your eyes are closed and your breathing slowly, try to just push it away and watch it while it raises and lowers.
10. Come on to this forum and help other people, read up on their struggles and give them tips, encouragments, and a virtual high five!
11. Hang out with friends as often as you possibly can.  This will keep you busy
12.  Take a walk it can be good to get some fresh air.
13.  Limit how much you allow yourself to use the Internet.  Try to spend less than 10 minutes online every day
Hope that list helped! If one thing doesn't work then go to the next and just keep going down the list until the urge is gone.
Good luck!
 
Day five

The fifth day was kind of like the fourth. Very hard to control the urges and I almost gave in. Fortunately I went out with my friends so that took my mind off from PMO. It still felt like mental torture but I managed somehow.


BUT today which was supposed to be the sixth day, I relapsed :( The urges were so unbearable and the fact that it was 6 days from my last MO was really adding to the urges. I don't even remember when was the last time that I went even 6 days without at least MO'ing. Well I'm gonna reset my counter and continue as before. I really should try to get something to do because I'm too often just home on my computer and that is bad. It's quite hard to resist to urges to PMO when I'm on my computer. But anyways, wish me luck guys!


EDIT: And I did it again :'( This is making me more mad than sad. Why is this so hard? I'm going to install a porn blocker for my browser.
 
I'm going to reset the days after a relapse so this will be day one

Day one

During the first day after my dual relapse I had only minor urges. So nothing significant. I was almost the whole day out so that helped with the urges I think. Though before going to sleep I ended up MO'ing but at least I didn't PMO. I'm afraid how I'm gonna continue the no PMO since my last relapse.


Well now during the second day I relapsed AGAIN. I went and did the usual thing that I used to do before starting this whole no PMO. I binged for almost 6 hours and afterwards I felt so stupid. I really don't know what to do because this seems to be so hard for me. My brain keeps telling me how much I love to PMO and sometimes I start to think that maybe I don't even want to quit it even though I do. This is really much much harder than I thought and I don't know will I be able to succeed. I'm going to reset my counter again and continue with the struggle.
 
Day one

Day one after my latest relapse was just an ordinary day. I had a few urges but nothing too big. I managed to go without PMO or even MO so that's good.


But the day two was the day that I relapsed for the fourth(?) time. I really need to step up my game because this is so stupid. One thing that is making this so hard is my brain telling me that I don't even want to quit PMO and I'm close to believing that. But now after my 7 hour PMO binge (I know how sick is that...) I feel so stupid and I feel like I don't ever want PMO again. I know that this feeling will fade away and I'm going to have a struggle in the following days. 
 
I haven't posted in a few days but now I feel like posting. I had a rough few days. I MO'd once and PMO'd once last night and I was so pissed off. Or actually I wasn't. I was really starting to feel like I don't even want to quit because I didn't know when I might get a real girl. I think this was the hardest thing for me. Why should I quit PMO if I have no relationships with girls? Well everything changed today. I have been chatting with a nice girl for a week or two and today we met for the first time. We went to have some coffee and I really liked it. She was really nice and beautiful and we had a lot of awesome conversations and at least I felt a connection between us. I was really into her and she seemed to be into me at least a bit. Of course I can't be sure that what will become of us, will we become just friends or something more? But anyway this is the motivation I have been lacking. Now that I at least have a chance at a real relationship I feel like really quitting PMO. Let's hope I can do this now and get rid of this bad addiction!
 
Well I relapsed on Tuesday but I didn't let it make me too sad/mad. I'm trying to continue as before, I'm also trying to not think about quitting PMO because if I constantly think about my addiction it's gonna be harder to get rid of it. I have been chatting with this girl that I wrote about earlier and we are gonna meet again in a few days. How awesome is that!?! :D

Well this was a short post, I actually don't feel like making daily notes here because then I just remind myself of my problem too often. So I'm gonna try to post a couple times a week at least.

But anyways, wish me luck guys! :)
 
So I relapsed today. I don't even know how many times I have relapsed because there have been so many relapses. I was home alone and I felt REALLY horny so I watched P for like two hours while masturbating and after the two hours I O'd. I just couldn't resist the temptation for some reason. I'm starting to think that my ED problems are not all porn related, some of them might be performance anxiety or something like that. But anyways I think I'm going to give my self a couple of "cheat" days per week and during those two days I can MO once per day. I just want to keep the option to MO open because I feel horny very often.
 
I haven't posted in a few days but I feel like posting now :) Something amazing happened today! I met the girl again that I talked about earlier and I had a lot of fun. We watched a movie (Inception, because she hadn't seen it and it is a really good movie :p) and after that we just hang out for a few hours at her place. We really have some chemistry between us. We sat really close to each other and I could feel the "butterflies" in my stomach. We went to eat some food in a restaurant and after that we got back to her house and we just hanged out some more and talked a lot. I noticed that she was sitting a lot closer to me and we had some physical contact all the time. During the day with her I felt like kissing her but I just didn't find the courage to do that, until just before I was leaving. I told her that there was something I wanted to do and I could see it in her eyes that she knew what I meant and I saw that she wanted me to kiss her, so I kissed and damn we kissed for a quite long time. I noticed that I was getting excited and I felt an erection coming. I was really happy with this since I have had some ED problems before but some of those problems might have been the cause of performance anxiety because before I just thought about the erection and of course then I didn't get it. Now I didn't think about that at all and it just happened. It's not a surprise that it was only like a 40% hard on but it's still a lot better than before and the feeling about being really excited just from kissing was a good feeling. So I spent about 9 hours with her today and it was amazing!

Back to my PMO problems, my last relapse was on Monday so I reset me counter today to match the time of my last relapse, I don't think it's hourly accurate but it's almost accurate. After that relapse I didn't have many urges during the following days but now they are coming back. I'm trying my best to fight them off!

I'm feeling so horny now because of my day with this girl but I noticed that while I had some strong urges to PMO, my mind kind of said that "I don't want that anymore, I want to be with real woman" and that was awesome! Anyways I think I'm gonna MO tonight and just focus on the sensations. I know that some think of this as a bad thing but for me it's necessary, or so I think at least.
 
I'm feeling so depressed and stupid, I just relapsed. I feel the brain fog and it feels horrible. I was so close to 7 days without any P. I binged for so long that I don't even dare to say. I feel like I hate myself right now. I have a chance to be with a real girl and I just waste everything by PMO'ing for so damn long. I haven't gotten past the 7 days even once during my reboot if I can even call it that since I have had so many relapses. Why is this so hard for me? I just can't understand it. The urges today were so unbearable that I just gave in, even though deep down I didn't want to. Every day that I stay away from watching P the urge to watch just gets stronger and stronger. I can't seem to get over the first one-two weeks and I know that is the hardest time but still.

I really need some support and help. I can't fill my days with activities since I don't have anything to do. I'm mostly just on my computer and that is not good regarding the reboot at least.

Well, I'm going to continue trying to get rid of this life ruining addiction even though I'm not even sure I can.

Yeah and of course I reset my counter.
 
Oh well, I relapsed again... it feels so stupid to realize that I have relapsed a lot and probably most of this journal is about my relapses. At least I didn't binge for like 6 or more hours, this was about 2 hours and then I O'd. I know that doesn't make a lot of a difference but I just wanted to point that out. I just reset my counter and I'm going to push forward to the life without PMO, hopefully I will succeed. I'm going for a 9 day holiday next week so that ought to keep my mind off from PMO, at least I hope so! :)
 
So, the last week and today were quite bad regarding the no PMO. I have PMO'd quite many times but not daily at least. I really don't know why I have PMO'd this much but I hope I won't do it again. I'm leaving for a holiday abroad tomorrow and I will be away from home for 9 days so here I am hoping that this will be the start of a longer no PMO period. I may post here during my holiday with my smartphone and I may not, we shall see. But anyways, wish me luck guys! :)
 
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