Dick Suffers is furious with porn

Hey guys, I'm a 28-year-old guy who would like to quit porn before I turn 29. I intend to make a post in this thread every day, to help keep me on track.

A little bit about me: I'm very lucky to be in a 6-year relationship with a wonderful girl. I'm in my last year of college, majoring in Computer Science. My main hobbies are programming, meditation, and exercising (although lately, I haven't actually been exercising regularly). I'm a loner with a fair amount of social anxiety, so I tend to stay at home by myself pretty often, which makes quitting porn a challenge. I also consider myself to be addicted to the internet, as I spend lots of time browsing random websites and watching Twitch.tv. I actually want to quit this "mindless web surfing" as much as I want to quit porn, so I will be writing about that as well.

At the beginning of October, I started using an app on my phone to log the time I spent on various activities. I did a pretty good job of using it regularly, so I think the numbers that I got were pretty accurate. Here's what I logged:

October
<Activity>: <Time spent> (<Percent of month>)
Internet (home): 125 hours (17%)
Porn: 40 hours (5.5%)
Study: 50 hours (7%)
Meditation: 16 hours (2%)
Writing: 8 hours (1%)
Read: 8 hours (1%)
Housework: 7 hours (1%)
Exercise: 4 hours (0.5%)
Total time logged: 258 hours (36%)

I can't say that I was surprised to see this, but I was obviously disappointed. So I decided to put down some rough numbers for what I wanted to see at the end of November. The app I use also lets you make daily/weekly goals, so I made the following goals:

Internet limit: 1 hour 30 minutes a day
Study goal: 15 hours a week
Meditation goal: 7 hours a week
Writing goal: 3 hours a week
Exercise goal: 2 hours 45 minutes a week

For this first week of November, I've met the studying and writing goals. However, I failed to meet the exercise & meditation goals, and I went way over the internet limit. (45 hours this week!) So I've definitely got some work to do. That's why I'm here.

It's 3:45 PM now. For the rest of today, I've got the following things on my checklist: stay off the internet, meditate, exercise, study, and do some housework stuff. Tomorrow, I'll report how I did.

Hey bro - welcome!

I'd strongly, strongly encourage putting up some pretty significant filters/accountability software on all your devices.  If not, you'll never kick the habit. 
Also - have you shared with your girlfriend? having her support could be hugely helpful.

Keep updating man!

Hey man, thanks for the support My girlfriend does know I'm trying to stop, and I try to let her know how I'm doing.

You may be right about the software. I've tried using web/app blockers in the past, but when the cravings got strong I always managed to find a way around them. That doesn't mean I can't keep trying, though. (And it also doesn't mean they weren't helpful even if they weren't foolproof.) If this attempt doesn't work out, I will take your advice. (And anyone reading this can remind me if I don't ))

Today is day 1, and I'm happy to say that after my post yesterday, I did everything I said I'd do. I couldn't fall asleep for a few hours late at night, which has been a trigger for me in the past. Instead of going online and potentially relapsing, I laid down with my headphones on and listened to some podcasts.

Because I couldn't fall asleep, I did let myself sleep in a bit, which can also be a trigger for me because I'm less likely to stick to my morning schedule if I don't wake up with my alarm. But I'm doing fine so far. My "autopilot" morning schedule is to wake up, make coffee and cereal, and eat at the kitchen table while I write. Then I meditate for about an hour, and then I either do a workout or start packing up to go to school, depending on the day.

Since I slept in today, I've got to wrap it up shortly so that I still have time to meditate. I'll be on campus all day today, so I don't need to worry about PMO until I get home late at night. So when I do get home, my goal is to stay offline and get to bed early.

Hey dude....  Welcome to reboot nation. I am also interested in monitoring my time...  Can you please tell me the name of the app..?
Though I do not watch porn these days...  I'd like to use it to monitor other activities...

You bet, the one I use is called "aTimeLogger" for Android. It was the first app I downloaded when I searched for "time logger" or "time tracker" or something, and it works really well. It helps keep me on track while I'm using it, and then after a few days/weeks I can use the data to get an idea of how I'm doing.

The thing that's really important, I think, is that I stay honest with myself about what I'm doing at the moment. If I start surfing the web at home, I need to actually open up the app and click the button that I made specifically for that activity. If I forget to log something that I should have, I need to go back and enter my best guess of when I was doing that activity. I may not change any habits just by doing this (and I didn't change my habits as much as I wanted to last month), but I think that I'm at least becoming more and more conscious of the habits I do have and the results they lead to.

Today is day 2. Like I said, yesterday was a long day on campus, so I didn't need to work very hard to stay offline & away from porn. I stayed on track in the morning, and after I got home I managed to only go online for 20 minutes, without looking at porn. I did experience some lust/cravings, especially in the form of porn-related dreams last night. I'm happy that I'm here at the kitchen table this morning, writing, instead of acting on those cravings.

Besides writing in this journal, today my goals are to meditate, study, and do a workout when I get home from school. I'll have some free time in the evening, and I want to spend some of that time planning my day on Thursday. On Thursdays, I only have one evening class to go to, so I have the entire morning and afternoon to spend on either good habits or bad habits. I'll write more about this tomorrow morning, but I think I want to do all my non-studying tasks at home in the morning and then walk to campus in the afternoon.

Just got a counter. Yesterday, I deceived myself into thinking that my goal was "just" no PMO. If that were my only goal, then today would be day 3. But it isn't -- my goal is no porn. So I'm starting over again at day 0 and aiming for one full week of zero porn. I've installed URL-blocking browser extensions on my phone and laptop.

What happened was: I got home from class last night, I was tired, and I laid down in bed and looked at porn on my phone. Then I looked again a few times after that, including this morning as soon as I woke up. At some point, as I made the transition to "time to get some breakfast," I decided to start writing this post instead of continuing the web surfing. And I feel much better now. The bad news is that I looked, and I failed to properly manage a major trigger: coming home from school and feeling tired. (Also, I could have realized what was happening more quickly. In the future, if I relapse, I will try to make a post about it in this journal as soon as possible so I can turn things around more quickly.)

The good news is that I didn't PMO, and I quickly decided to start over again and stay engaged in my recovery. Today is wide open, and I have the ability to fill it up with positive, healthy activities. I've made a good checklist, and I know exactly what I'm supposed to be doing for today.

EDIT: Had another setback. Time to get back on my feet and turn the day around again.

Yesterday was an ok day -- not great, but ok. I did manage to finish most of my checklist. This morning, I'm feeling a little sluggish and unmotivated. I just want to finish my checklist (write, meditate, study, and exercise) and stick to healthy activities as much as possible throughout the day. Specifically, if I can make it to tonight without looking at porn, then today was a big success.

I just relapsed again. I felt tired and unmotivated this morning, and I went online when I woke up instead of writing in this journal thread. I stayed online for too long. (You know when you're sitting on the computer, you don't really want to be on the computer any more, and you're just anxiously trying to come up with a new website you could possibly look at that you haven't visited twice already?) Eventually, this dangerous web surfing lead to me looking at porn, which lead to PMO.

For the future:
(1) I should have gotten ready for bed earlier last night, giving myself an hour to read a book and unwind. I stayed up late finishing some homework for Database class so I could have a better day today, but this almost certainly resulted in me having a worse day instead.
(2) I should have put my laptop on the kitchen table with the coffee mug next to it so I could see it when I woke up (this has been a useful cue for me in the morning).
(3) I should have planned out my morning, visualized myself following my schedule, etc -- anything to make myself more likely fall into the right "groove" of writing -> meditating instead of web surfing -> PMO.

Right now, I'm going to do some dishes, meditate, and then start studying. The worst thing I could do for myself right now would be to blow off the whole day because of one relapse. Instead, I will accept that I made some poor decisions last night that partially led me to relapse this morning, and then immediately start trying to make good, healthy decisions for the rest of the day.

Hey man...  You can make it.  If you believe in your self, you can.......  Don't take too much pressure on yourself.  Try to limit the use of Internet and change your habits.  I too thought often that I am addicted to Internet.  My phone got damaged and I had to be without a device in which Internet could run for 3 weeks. It changed my phone and Internet use......  You will see the difference too if you just change your habits. 
Good luck

Thanks man, you're right. Changing old habits can take a while, but I think I'm on the right track. I just have to keep practicing better habits for the morning and for when I get home. Once I've made these new habits stronger than the old ones, staying away from porn/internet should be a lot easier.

Yesterday, I had a great day after my post. I was productive for the rest of the day, and I was even fine going to an engagement party in the evening (only a small amount of social anxiety). I'm glad that I admitted to relapsing and made a post right away instead of going even further down a bad path. Accepting what happened helped me let go of the guilt and turn my day around.

Since it's halfway though November, I want to give a quick "Time Logger" update. The activity is followed by how much time I've logged for that activity (in hours:minutes) for the past two weeks:

Internet: 59:04
Study: 42:07
Porn: 23:31
Meditate: 12:35
Writing: 6:36
Read: 3:41
Housework: 3:34
Exercise: 2:56

If I keep working on limiting internet use and staying away from porn, it looks like I could make an improvement over last month. My studying and meditation has gone way up, which is good to see.

Today, I'm going to be studying out of the house for most of the day. When I get back, I want to exercise, meditate, and set myself up for a good day on Monday.

Yesterday was a rough day: woke up at 3 AM and couldn't get back to sleep, made it through the day, then relapsed after I got home. I probably should've taken a nap as soon as I got home, or started exercising right away or something. Instead, I sat down with my laptop for a short break while I ate, that short break became a longer break, porn -> PMO etc etc. (The usual cycle!)

I did learn my lesson from last time: Last night, I got ready for bed early, put my laptop on the kitchen table with my coffee mug, and mentally rehearsed what I would do this morning. And it worked -- I'm sitting here and writing, and I feel like I'm going to succeed at following my schedule this morning. I plan on meditating, exercising, and packing plenty of food before I walk to campus.

My day is pretty much all planned out today. My main challenge will be after I get home from my late class. I'll have to stay away from porn and make sure I get to bed at a good time, to set myself up for a good day on Wednesday.

EDIT: Quick update: I followed my plan for the morning, so I feel really good now. Now I just have to make sure I don't look at porn when I get home, and that I get a good night's sleep so I can have another good morning tomorrow.

I relapsed yesterday. I decided that enough is enough, and it's time for a new strategy. My biggest trigger for relapsing is simply being online at home, so yesterday I made a commitment to myself to stay off the internet while I'm at home for the rest of the month. I put a new tracker in my signature to reflect this decision.

This means I won't be able to write in this journal unless I'm out of this house. (Which is ok. Right now, I'm sitting in a quiet spot on campus, and I'm about to start studying after this post.) Instead of waking up and writing in this journal, my new morning routine will be to wake up (after a good night's sleep!), have a snack, and start meditating right away. Then I can eat & read a book, or start exercising, or pack up and get out of the house.

To help keep me on track, I've made up three phrases which I've been repeating to myself:
(1) "When I wake up, then I will meditate."
(2) "I will not go online at home in November."
(3) "I will not look at porn."

By repeating the first phrase to myself, I'm hoping that it'll "jump into my head" every morning when I wake up. I've been using the second and third phrases to quickly put down any cravings I have as soon as I have them, before they have time to grow stronger. I think this is an important skill for me to learn: if I don't immediately deal with cravings as soon as they arise, then the "addict" part of my brain can easily talk myself into going online or looking at porn "just this once."

Got to go now. So far I've been having a really good day, and I hope this trend continues for the rest of the month.

This is what i am thinking to do for the porn blocking thing.

The devices in which i use porn:
1) phone
2) laptop

softwares that i am going to use:
1) k9 in laptop (if it comes to it then even paid version, i am an open source guy use both window and ubuntu)
2) comvigo in phone
3) set up an open dns network in the wi fi zone so no porn can be viewed.

In laptop, there is no anti porn in ubuntu so I am going to install k9 in windows and then register it with my friends id and i will ask my friend to set a password and that he does not tell me for the next five months. the same will be done with comvigo. the problem arises about the ubuntu. so what i am going to do is that i am going to transfer all the data of ubuntu and then ask the same friend to change my ubuntu password. then i have no access to ubuntu (it is very difficult to hack in my ubuntu because i have changed a lot of settings, i do not know the process and will not try because of the fear of corrupting the drive.)

The problem is that I have not yet told the friend about the reboot of addiction. SO i  am just going to lell him that i waste a lot of time watching it and want to get away for some time. any guy can understand that "Wasting a lot of time on porn" Right? 

It is very important that you register with an account whose e-mail password you do not know because you can be tempted to recover password of k9 or comvigo by deception tactics of 'forgot password'.

Also in your mobile phone take up some data which is important and cannot be transferred, with this you cannot possibly factory reset your phone. the data can be complex app settings or unfinished books on kindle. (you will lose a lot of bookmarks and they are a pain in the ass to relocate them, if you are a reading guy, you'll understand.)
 
Open dns is very important because it will block porn from a whole wi-fi connection so incase of a third divice you will not be able to access porn.

hope, this helps. and do inform me if you find a glitch in this plan.....

Dream_nofap: that looks like a good plan to me. Have you tried it yet? How is it going? I will probably try to do something similar.

This is going to be a quick post. I was successful for 3-4 days without looking at porn or going online at home. These days were really good, and I can't wait to get back to them -- it felt like I was making steady progress. Unfortunately, I slipped up on Sunday after coming home from studying, and I've been following my old, addictive habits since then.

This morning, I woke up early with a lot of anxiety, feeling tired and miserable. I exercised and took a shower, which felt good, and now I'm writing in this journal for the first time in a few days. It's time to get back to my healthy habits and take better care of myself. I'm about to meditate, do some housework, and then work on programming assignments.

I wanted to make a quick update about the past 2 weeks, since I haven't been posting. I had to push hard to finish some programming assignments, and I've been feeling really out of whack ever since. Lots of porn and internet, unfortunately. Things will slow down soon, and I want to start posting here regularly again once they do.

Ok, it's time to get back to work For the rest of today, I'll be studying for a final exam. My goal is to stay on track, take breaks to step away from the computer, and stay offline for the rest of the day (besides studying). Tomorrow, I want to do some cooking, exercise for the first time in a while, meditate, write in this journal, and work on my last programming assignment. I'll have more time to write a longer post tomorrow -- right now, it's time to study!

I'm trying to be as accurate and honest as possible, so I've updated my counters: 4 days, 4 failures. Today was actually a slight improvement over the past few days (in terms of being productive and not wasting too much time online), so I'm grateful for that, but obviously I want to do better.

How can I make the rest of today as good as possible, and carry that constructive energy into tomorrow? First of all: make a schedule, and carry it out. Write in this journal, and try to make this a habit again. Then, meditate and exercise, which will take me to about 7 PM. That leaves enough time in the evening to do some Christmas shopping and send in a job application that I've been meaning to do for the past few days. Other stuff I want to do: shower, read before bed, and get to bed early.

That's my schedule for the rest of today. I intend to stick to it as closely as I can, and report tomorrow on how I did.

Tomorrow, I intend to get up at 7:30, eat breakfast, and meditate. Then, I want to pack up and head to campus for a full day of studying & other productive stuff.

Well, I have time now, and I'm finally sitting down and writing, so I want to spend a little time writing about my goals, and getting them clear in my head:

• Meditation

I want to meditate every day, ideally right after breakfast. To support this, I want to follow a morning schedule of waking up at 7:30 and mentally preparing myself while I eat breakfast. This way, I can start at 8 and hopefully enjoy a high-quality meditation. I want to start every day like this.

• Exercise

I want to get back into the following schedule: full-body workout, every other day. On off days, I want to do some cardio: either go for a run or go to the gym. Working out regularly makes me feel better (just like meditating regularly), so I want to prioritize it. On full-body workout days, I want to experiment with working out right after my morning meditation, treating these workouts as a kind of meditation practice.

• Job Searching

Next semester is my last one, so it's time to start looking for jobs now. I've never been good at this, as I tend to procrastinate. I use porn and the internet to hide from/forget about unpleasant tasks like this. So my plan is this: over Winter Break, I want to head to campus every day after my morning meditation/exercise. Once I get there, I'll sit down with a list of tasks for the day and try to check them off. Sending out job applications will be at the very top of this list, so I'll be forced to get it out of the way before I move on to anything else on the list.

• Programming

I have at least one project I want to work on, which I can add to my resume. This is what I'll be doing when I study on campus, after I've finished the job searching for that day.

• Social Anxiety

I want to find a club to join for next semester. I also have a friend who I haven't seen for a while, so I want to call him up. These are both big steps for me, and they're steps I need to take. I have become too isolated recently, and I don't think it's healthy for me, so it's time to work on this problem.

• Porn/Internet

I've got an "online at home" quota of 1 hour per day. I'm here to quit porn for good, and to develop a healthier relationship to the internet. I believe that I can achieve these goals by: (1) keeping myself busy with the healthy habits/goals that I've written about above, and (2) writing in this journal every day that I can. By writing in this journal, I can analyze my addictions and bad habits, and come up with the appropriate strategies to overcome them.

Ok, it feels good to get these goals written out.

One last thing: I read something the other day about a study involving journal-writing. (Ah, I just found it again: https://www.reddit.com/r/nosurf/comments/3vm7ks/what_do_i_replace_my_surfing_to_with/)

"Group 4 focused on answering why and pictured themselves as being removed from the situation." Here's what I'm taking from this: when I experience some kind of relapse or setback, the most skillful thing to do when I write about it is to do the following: Imagine that it's something that happened to someone else. Knowing whatever it is that I know about addiction, psychology, and human behavior, how would I explain to this person why they experienced this setback? What advice would I give them/me about how to avoid encountering similar setbacks in the future? Something to keep in mind for future posts.

that's cool to search job.
keep on doing that.
take some part time job if possible, just right now.
make some money too.

I had 3 awesome days without any internet or porn. Then, 2 days ago, I peeked (this was the beginning of the downward spiral, I think, even though I didn't realize it at the time). I looked again yesterday (also going online for 90 minutes), and then this morning I had a major setback as soon as I woke up: going online and falling back into PMO from 8 AM to 1 PM.

The difference is like night and day. Up to today, I've been feeling great. I've been reading a lot, my meditation's been going well, I've been exercising regularly, and yesterday I walked to campus for my first day of studying and job searching. Today, I feel like crap. I feel like I let myself down.

But this isn't productive. Why did I experience this setback? It started when I made the choice to look at porn 2 days ago. Porn is not an option for me any more: I've decided to leave it behind me, and any desire I have to look at it is just my old conditioning kicking in. I can always choose to say no to these desires, and the more I do so, the weaker they'll get.

Also: I haven't been serious enough about following a schedule. My daily schedule is: wake up at 7:30, meditate, exercise, leave for campus. I intend to stick to this schedule every morning that I can, until it becomes automatic.

This morning was a big setback that was brought about by poor choices over the past 2 days. The skillful thing to do now is make a schedule that supports my goals, and follow it. Even though this morning sucked, I can make the rest of today as good as I can, and I can carry this momentum into tomorrow by following my daily schedule.

[br]

EDIT 12/23, Quick update: Yesterday went much better after I made this post. Now I'm about to follow my schedule and have a good day.

It's 2016! Today is day 5 of zero porn & not going over my daily internet limit. Although I don't normally make New Year's Resolutions, I've decided to set three for myself this year:

1. No porn.
2. Meditate every day for at least 40 minutes.
3. Exercise at least 4 times a week, every week.

So far, so good: yesterday I meditated in the car for 40 minutes, as my girlfriend and I were sleeping over our friends' house. After I'm doing writing this post, I'm gonna go meditate and exercise. We just got back home about two hours ago, and the "trigger" of being back home set off some cravings to look at porn. I will have to be careful if I want to fulfill my resolution. I want to keep myself busy with healthy activities (meditation, exercise, writing, reading, cleaning, doing anything outside of the house, etc...) while my brain rewires itself away from porn and web surfing. I need to wean myself off of these cheap, fast, easy sources of dopamine. I need learn to rely on more healthy, sustainable, challenging, and growth-promoting sources of satisfaction. This will lead to greater happiness and well-being in the long run. Along the way, I will need to learn how to tolerate and cope with unpleasant emotions like strong craving, anxiety, boredom, and frustration.