Recovery

mousta

Member
Hey man,

Good progress you are making here. I've read your journal posts, and I've a couple of takeaways. About the other ways to get that dopamine rush. I think the goal is to return the mind back to its normal levels. Which means you have to sustain these boring days with no excitement or pleasure of any kind. Eventually, I think (hopefully) that will make your mind enjoy little things of life back, and not crave dopamine as before.

About drinking, I really don't know if It's a problem to drink while recovering. I'm not a drinker myself. My intuition goes like this. We are trying to face our problems and deal with it like real men. We shouldn't run away from it. For me, coffee is a real mood stabilizer.

Good job on your streak. Keep it up. You're on the right track.
 

njack2015

Member
Hey man,

Interesting post.  I'm in the process myself of cleaning up as you would have read in my thread.  What I found easy was quitting the porn.  But there are other mediums such as sexting people, pictures of women in bikinis and of course fantasy.

I think the main thing is to keep doing what you're doing. Easier said than done but always picture the future!  No one knows how long our reboots will take but it WILL get better.  But sadly, as I've noticed, there are a lot of low points as part of healing.  I've stayed clean for about a month and seem to be in a constant flatline; no labido, no interest in sex, no interest in women, nothing.  But I reckon I will take a while to heal due to the number of years my brain has been rewired.

Best thing is to keep busy and replace the porn time with other things and trying to stay as sociable as possible rather than locked in your room with a laptop!
 

igetum

Active Member
Hi MountainSummit
You seem to have an understanding father man which is a good starting point.
Your experience with women seems to have a similarity with mine. Though I started sex late (18 years). After two three failures, I have avoided women and sex like plague. I could not bring myself to have another failure. Am six days off and I just want to go out and be social.
 
Hey man, I just want to say I am cured of PIED and if you go back and read my posts you can see how shitty it can be. I just want you to know it is 100% possible to fix and if you stay at it and stick through the flatline you WILL make it. Good luck.
 

BunnyBoy2015

Active Member
njack2015 said:
I've stayed clean for about a month and seem to be in a constant flatline; no labido, no interest in sex, no interest in women, nothing.  But I reckon I will take a while to heal due to the number of years my brain has been rewired.

Hi njack2015,

I think my recovery will take a while as well as I have had problems with ED since the age of 13 and been heavily watching porn since before then. It can be scary when you have no libido, and you went up wanting to fap just to prove that you can still get aroused. Well done on the 37 days, stay strong and keep going.

igetum said:
Your experience with women seems to have a similarity with mine. Though I started sex late (18 years). After two three failures, I have avoided women and sex like plague.

Hi igetum,

I have actually been in quite a few long term relationships despite my ED. During my teens I had sexual partners from the age of 13, but couldn't have sex because of my ED, however I found it possible to get erect for handjobs. I then lost my virginity at 19, but it was a disappointing experience and I constantly had trouble getting or staying hard for vaginal sex. After a while I started to rewire more and more for sexual acts though.

I got into another relationship in my early 20s and went back to struggling with ED a lot, however we kept persisting and eventually I rewired, and had pretty great sex with this girlfriend for about a year, although I had ED when she went on top.

I eventually broke up with her, and had a girlfriend 3 years ago, and I went to the doctor and got prescribed viagra, so managed to have a lot of sex with her, but I didn't tell her I was taking it and I felt guilty and ashamed. I was also dealing with psychosis and depression by this point, which I also didn't tell her about, so our relationship eventually broke down through a lack of trust.

I count myself lucky to have had the experiences I have had, but I don't want to go through a painful rewiring at the beginning of a relationship again, I am not sure I would be lucky enough to find another girl who was as patient as my ex. I also don't want to take viagra again, for me it took away some of the sentimentality away from the intimacy.

NeverSurrender said:
Hey man, I just want to say I am cured of PIED and if you go back and read my posts you can see how shitty it can be. I just want you to know it is 100% possible to fix and if you stay at it and stick through the flatline you WILL make it. Good luck.

Hi, NeverSurrender,

I will check out your journal and see if I can inspire myself. I'm having a hard day of it today. I couldn't sleep last night and threw up at 4am this morning. I've been feeling weird, angry, anxious, and stressed today and keep thinking about looking at porn and getting mental imagery all the time. This is a tough one.
 

firebird

Member
Hi man,

I really enjoyed reading your journal.

I'm especially interested on you how you manage to handle your drinking as I'm kind of in the same situation. Even though I'm a little bit younger (23 at the moment) I'm drinking quite a lot, usually like 4 or 5 days a week, like half a bottle of whine in the evening. Sometimes with friends, sometimes alone. I might be an alcoholic, I don't know, but usually I never cared since it never really interfered with my life. I get my university, job and sports done without any problems, so I never really considered alcohol a significant problem... more like a little flaw, something like smoking. I wonder if there is a connection between PIED and drinking... I mean I have basically been drinking regularly my whole life, since I was 15 or something (Germany, nothing really unusual). And I remember that I was once able to perform even easier when I was drunk, so idk...

Anyways, keep it up - we can make it!
 

igetum

Active Member
Hi MountainSummit,
congrats for making it day ten and don't give in to the urge. I did it ten days and relapsed (MO). I came back and after searching found out why. It was my mind begging, and trying to argue me into giving it some dopamine. Though i gave in, I am prepared for such  a suprise if it comes again. Atleast now I know my mind will try to fight back and I can tell it off. Keep moving you are already making it.
 
T

toreador

Guest
igetum said:
... It was my mind begging, and trying to argue me into giving it some dopamine.

Important point from igetum, make sure you never ever engage in an argument with the addiction. If you do, sooner or later it will get you. Once you've started your reboot process there really is no need to enter into discussions with the addiction. When it comes up with some clever argument why you should do this or leave that or why rebooting as a whole can never work - just tell it to shut up.

Regards, Toreador
 

seb89

Member
Thx for your reply on my journal! Feel I can really relate to your own story, considering your early age experiences and how you never was aware that porn could be the whole problem, until recently. But then again I think that goes for most of us. Today I also couldnt resist to look up some certain ig accounts and like you said, not a good idea. Just put my phone away the moment I realized the dopamine coming up.. good luck man,I'll keep track of your progress
 
Top