A New Chapter of My Life (25yo, PMO-free, 90 days)

Yax

Member
Eternally grateful for finding this site and listening to Gabe's talks and interviews on YouTube. Got quite emotional today, to the point of tears. I'm ready for change.

Where I am now: After over 10 years of addiction, I realise this isn't a journey I can make alone, and that I need to start documenting my progress. Now is the time to start really changing. I married young and after 2 years I am now in the middle of a divorce (where my addiction was one, though not the only, factor). I am also moving in a week's time to start studying again (after working for the past 4 years) in a completely new town. Looking forward to this new chapter in my life and think it gives me the perfect opportunity to make a fresh start and start my reboot for real.

My addiction: I am hooked on porn, and for the last few days have been PMOing about once a day. I have had longer and shorter periods of being sober, of up to 4-5 weeks at most, but never more. It came to a point where I started lying to myself and my wife about my addiction and telling myself I was recovering when I knew I wasn't. Have tried therapy and 12 Step group sessions which did help but I was never consistent and honest with myself about my recovery and my relapses. My P addiction also led to problems in the bedroom, both PE and ED. It started when I was around 12, maybe younger, with images of video game girls moving on to cartoon and anime porn, and then real life. Since then, it has developed into being focused mainly on bi and gay porn, which does not reflect my IRL sexuality. I have never moved on to violence/fetishes/etc, only vanilla stuff (something which I am proud of). However, the addiction is sucking away at the joy in my life ? I feel depressed, lethargic and demotivated whenever I'm not actively using. It has effected every aspect of my life - emotional, physical, spiritual, psychological. But I'm looking forward to getting clean again, and hope that writing things down will help.

The triggers: Being alone and bored. Being upset or frustrated. Watching TV shows like Game of Thrones. I usually relapse through my laptop or my phone in bed or in the bathroom. O is followed by immense guilt and depression which draws me into a cycle of further relapses.

The goal: I want to be able to regain control of my life, be more present in the moment, and to be able to experience intimacy without sexual dysfunctions. The plan is to go three months (90 days) without PMO ? do you guys think this is a reasonable first goal? Looking forward to those one month and two month milestones. I figure that moving, being single again and starting studies in a new town will mean that I will naturally have a lot of things to keep me occupied and to give me less time to focus on PMO.

Alright, that's it for now. Will try to post every day or every other day, or as and when I need to. Any tips and encouragement along the way are highly appreciated. Here goes!
 

summercicada90

Active Member
Right on, brother! Welcome to the forum! I haven't been on it that long myself, but you've found the right place to put your thoughts out there.
Few of us have all the answers, and so sometimes you get a lack of responses because most of the people posting are the ones that haven't made it to the other side yet.
And it can be a good idea to take a break from the forum when you feel stable enough and busy enough to not even think about your reboot.

The obvious best thing to do when you first start is to read everything you can about addiction and PIED, and read the hell out of the Success Stories section of this forum.
Here's my quick reference "pack" of go-to pages that I share a lot, and that I myself go back to a lot so I can reinforce the ideas in my mindset.
If you've already seen/read any of them, feel free to skip over it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DclqE-9vFgY (Different spin on the content of Gabe's "Basics of Rebooting" video. Worth a watch.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRJ_QfP2mhU
http://legacy.rebootnation.org/index.php?topic=2956.0
https://yourbrainonporn.com/what-about-fantasizing-during-reboot

If you're that serious about changing, I would say 90 days is a good goal. If you ever relapse, think of it as something you can learn from to keep from relapsing the same way again. And never give up. Like Gabe says, so long as you have the desire to quit watching porn, you're already making progress.

My other tip I find myself giving a lot: Go into Settings in Chrome and disable images. It even affects incognito mode. Goodbye, internet triggers. :)

Good luck on your reboot, man! You're not alone in this!
 

Yax

Member
Thank you for the great tips and the motivation, man! Helps to know I'm not alone. Especially the tip about not spending too much time here, as that means I'm still obsessing over porn... Will definitely remember that!

And thanks for the links too. Been listening to the videos. Turning off images on Chrome was a really neat trick too. Makes using my laptop so much easier, and removes all unwanted triggers.

Day 1:

So far so good. I knew the first day was gonna be tough, after a string of daily relapses, so I decided to fast today and it is helping immensely. Still kind of in limbo until the move next week. Other than packing, not much to do. Currently reading a great book, which was been my go to distraction/replacement activity. But I really feel I need to get out more. Been mostly indoors for almost a whole week now (except a great walk in the woods the day before yesterday which inspired me to start this journal).

Realised that I need to start structuring my week in advance to preempt boredom, and preferably avoid being alone for a whole day. Spending the day with family tomorrow and made plans to play squash with a friend on Saturday. Just need to make it through the rest of today - focusing on packing and getting a few chores done, and I think I'll take a walk for some fresh air even though it's raining.
 

Yax

Member
Day 1 (cont):

Forgot to mention that my sleep cycle is completely screwed. Not been able to sleep all night, and was still not feeling tired in the morning. Forced myself to sleep for a few hours anyway... Is this normal?
 

vince75

Active Member
Hey man, welcome to the forum! Thanks for sharing your story. It seems you're well motivated and that's good. This new unfolding chapter of your life seems quite exciting, starting all over, a good fresh start. That's a great moment to think "this is it I'm getting rid of this". Good idea to plan everything ahead at first, make sure you're busy all the time. It really helped me through the first two weeks :) Good luck!
 

Yax

Member
Relapsed yesterday night, and again today. Feeling really really shitty. Three fucking days... I couldn't last three days!

Will probably get back on my feet and analyze what happened, what were the triggers, how did I end up giving in... But for now I just feel completely floored. Maybe it's good I'm feeling this bad about it, had gotten into a period of non-reflective relapses before my reboot where it felt like I stopped caring whether I caved in. But this is the complete opposite. I literally feel knocked down, but I know I have to get up again...
 

vince75

Active Member
It will happen, it takes a lot of time and many relapses! Don't give up, we're all experiencing the same issues. This year I relapsed many many times. Keep busy and plan plan plan :) Good idea to look back and understand what caused the relapse. Good luck man, we're here!
 
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