Zero to Hero

July 23rd, 2020 - Reflection
My name is Sal; this is the story of my most recent (and final) journey towards being the man that I want to be, the man that I need to be.
Before we jump into what's going on with me today, we'll need to shine some light on times come and gone.
I started masturbating after puberty, probably around the ages of 12 or 13 - right when Myspace became a thing. My first "artificial" stimulus was printed pictures of my hot classmates that I ripped off Myspace. I understand (now) that Napster and Lime-wire had a plethora of sketchy internet porn to download at that time, but I never got that far. My dad grew up riding wave after wave of new PC technology, and always had an iron grip on all things "internet" in the household. I didn't quite grasp the boundaries of what internet activity my dad was able to monitor, but I was too terrified to try searching for hot babes, let alone download anything from sketchy P2P networks like Lime-wire or Napster. This apprehension likely saved me YEARS of unnecessary porn use, and I'm very grateful.
Somewhere down the road (maybe age 17?) I grew past that fear and had a pretty good idea about the things that my father would or would not know about in regards to my internet activity. I started watching porn, discovered 4chan, and started climbing down the rabbit hole.

When I was 18, I got my first girlfriend. A relatively new porn user, I hadn't been corrupted long enough to have penis problems, so we had sex ~10 times a week for a couple years, and it was awesome. All this time, I was watching porn, and slowly but surely my brain started to prefer pixels over pussy. By the time I was 20, we were still having plenty of sex, but I became more absent when we were together, and would often watch porn after she fell asleep. The porn beast cometh!

My girlfriend was very sex-positive but definitely didn't approve of me getting off to random girls on the internet. A few times she caught me in the act, got very upset, and I'd spend a day or two convincing her that it was a one time incident. Our sex started to be less intimate, and eventually she sat me down and explicitly told me that we would have a deeper connection if I didn't jerk off to other girls when she wasn't around. If I had a time machine, this would be the very moment I go back to and change things forever.

This conversation was the first time in my life that anyone had ever suggested that watching porn was bad in any way, and it really made me mad. I defended myself aggressively, and made her feel like shit for even bringing it up. How dare she presume that I watched porn too often, and that it might be affecting our relationship! Looking back, this was one of the most embarrassing moments in any relationship that I've ever had. I had a beautiful loving girlfriend who was smart enough to figure out that I had a problem (she figured this out with mostly just her intuition, women are wonderfully intelligent creatures), and had the balls to confront me in hopes of repairing our diminishing relationship. To say the least, I fucking blew it.

Time goes by and I continue to watch porn, masturbate, and sabotage my once-beautiful relationship. We moved across the country together, lived together for the first time, and eventually our relationship fell apart. My porn use ultimately led to the end of our relationship, but I was clueless. It was a pretty vicious cycle.
Porn use addled my brain --> sex became less interesting --> less sex meant less intimacy --> less intimacy meant more porn to compensate --> back to square one
This cycle had been creeping along for years, and eventually our relationship fell apart. Our lease ended, we started living out of our vehicles, and then eventually she broke up with me. At this point I was so addled by porn that I didn't even give a shit (I rationalized this by saying "this is normal after such a long time together").
There were some other factors that contributed to our separation, but years of consistent porn use drove us slowly apart, there's no doubt about it.

The next few weeks I binged super hard, trying to cope with the loss of a relationship that I realized I wasn't ready to give up. I was still living out of my car, so I was alone quite frequently. I would get an urge, get off to porn (cars can be mobile masturbation chambers, you know), then continue on with my day. The amount of times that I jerked off in my car is, to say the least, disgusting. I was working and had friends and a social life, but I felt completely hollow inside. Most of you probably know this feeling. That was a pretty low point in my life.

One fateful day that summer I was at the local laundromat playing PUB-G on my laptop (free Wi-Fi is a godsend when you're living out of your Hyundai) when between games, I discovered the subreddit "NoFap". Oh.. My... GOD!!!The clouds opened, angels landed on my shoulders, and the light bulb turned on. You mean to tell me that there's an entire community of people who have sworn off porn, and they're becoming gods among men? Porn was the reason why I felt like shit every day, and all I have to do is NOT watch it? Sign me up, buddy!

Through that subreddit I discovered the classic book "Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy", which is a book entirely dedicated to the ancient technique of semen retention.
This book became my bible for a short time. I was hooked. I was pretty thoroughly convinced that if I didn't ever cum again, I would transcend mortality and become the Thunder God, or something absurd. I told all my friends that I would never cum again, that they shouldn't either! Together with our combined full ballsacks, we can rule the world!!!!!!!!
I lasted like ten days. Needless to say, that is a battle I'm still fighting.

That September I went backpacking in SE Asia for the first time, and was able to abstain for a month or two. I had fun with some beautiful women, developed some amazing relationships, but eventually relapsed when I got back home. The following autumn I left the country again (this time for an entire year) and continued to fight. Periods of abstinence were always followed by tremendous social success and fulfillment, periods of relapse were always followed by self-isolation and feelings of sexual emaciation. One of my longest periods of abstinence happened when I was living on an island in Malaysia, volunteering for a hostel. Without porn addling my brain, surrounded by young people every day, I crushed it. I had sex with beautiful women, made lasting relationships, and loved almost every minute of every day.

That was the longest period of abstinence I've ever been able to maintain, but obviously things went downhill some time after that. After that eventual relapse I was so devastated, I became completely obsessed with giving up porn (I eventually gave up on the obsession with semen retention, I just wanted porn out of my life). This need to quit porn became almost as toxic as the addiction itself - relapses were followed by periods of extreme self-hatred and isolation. If I relapsed after a week of success, all of my energy would be focused on my failure, not on the progress that I had made. It took me almost six months to understand my toxic relationship with my need to quit porn, and slowly I pulled myself out of that pit of despair. Eventually I made it back to just needing to quit porn, without the added stress of hating myself if I failed.

Time went by, and here I am today. I'm 26, very healthy, have much to look forward to in life, but still fighting that same fight. I've had some pretty embarrassing binges recently, and it's time to dig in for the long haul. I also had my first experience with PIED this past January. Girls don't like impotence. That was pretty fucking embarrassing, maybe I'll talk about it more later.

I'm treating this thread as a safe space for me to compile my thoughts, and express how I feel. This will most likely manifest in the form of a journal (like most of the threads here), but might end up being kind of nebulous.

. If anybody wants to pop in here and ask questions or participate in discussion, I'm all for it! I don't expect anyone to respond, let alone read. This is a safe space for me, but everyone is welcome to join

Cheers!

Your story literally blew my mind. Absolutely amazing.

Enjoy journaling, however you end up doing it. Good luck on the journey brother!

I'm writing to you from the early A.M of what will be considered my "day 3", and figured I should get my recap of yesterday up while it's still fresh in my mind. I've experienced many different kinds of withdrawal effects in all my attempts to quit in the past few years, but yesterday was a unique day, characterized mostly by two distinct qualities.
The first and most irritating quality was, as the title suggests, the hunger. I was ravenously hungry, all day. I ate and ate and ate and nothing could satiate my need for more calories. Everyone goes through periods of their life where their body craves more food than they really need, (especially up here in the Northeast where Winter starts rolling around and your body starts screaming YEAH!! PACK IT ON FATTY!!), but this was pretty unusual for me. In an attempt to maximize my effectiveness at the gym, I count ~95% of all the calories that go into my body, so you can imagine my disappointment at the end of the day when I was laying down on my bed in a pile of crumbs surrounded by empty bowls of yogurt and power bar wrappers.
I'm going to chalk this up to my brain seeking it's typical quota of dopamine through other means - if I'm not getting off to porn, I need to satiate the little pink blob in my skull in other ways. Perhaps I should start doing heavy drugs to counter my neglected accumbens nucleus. Kidding, of course.

The second and most distinct feature of yesterday was, unfortunately, some ridiculous spells of mania. I should get this out of the way right here - I'm pretty much an emotional brick wall. I love and hate and laugh and cry, but I require immense stimulus to have an emotional response to many things that would "move" most people. This is just me, even when my brain is healthy.
In regards to that, all that stability flew out the window yesterday. I felt mostly hollow and terrible and useless and small, but in those long hours where I was simply hiding in my room I would go through these intense bursts of mania, either tearing up at the thought of well, nothing, or busting out big belly laughs for no apparent reason. I acutely remember crying when I was watching a video and thought about how nice Gabe Deem's hair looked. Thinking back, it really didn't look nice enough to warrant tears. Sorry, Gabe.
So yesterday was a shit show. I strapped into an emotional roller coaster and ate two days' worth of calories. On the bright side, I never once considered watching porn. I guess that's the one thing that I should be concerned with most, the rest is just water under the bridge.
Here's to hoping that tomorrow (well, today) goes just as well. Fingers crossed.

Cheers!

"NoFap" reflection
I was thinking that I want to set aside a place at the end of some of my posts where I can reflect/talk about certain things in relation to porn addiction, that might not necessarily fit snugly in a daily journal.
Right now I want to talk about the NoFap subreddit.
If you read my long and overbearing post at the top of this thread then you might remember that I first got my feet wet when I stumbled upon the NoFap subreddit. If you've never been there, it's worth at least checking out, but I mostly want to talk about how much I DON'T like getting engaged with that crowd. *Disclaimer* I haven't been on that subreddit in over a year, so perhaps things have changed.
My personal opinion is that the NoFap crowd is too focused on treating NoFap like a quick fix to solving all problems in life, gaining absurd "superpowers", and then becoming an alpha male who goes through chicks like bowling pins.
It's easy to read the stories of others on NF and get convinced that the ultimate goal of beating your addiction is so that you can become a god with women, and also by the way literally all of the things in your life will fall into place as well. For many of us, abolishing porn from our life can certainly be a window of opportunity in which we improve upon nearly every other facet of life (including our success with women), but to believe that giving up porn will grant you those capacities immediately can be a particularly toxic mindset. The goal of all this is personal growth, is it not? If your foundation for quitting is the desire for a quick fix to all your problems, and to bang girls, you're on very shaky ground. I don't think the NoFap community intentionally perpetuates this idea, but I used to often see journals something like:
Day 1 - I have way more energy!
Day 3 - Girls staring at me daily!
Day 5 - I'm seeing massive gains!
Day 7 - I got the girl of my dreams!
Day 10 - Promotion at my job! etc.
Obviously this is a little exaggerated, but posts on NF often follow this trend, and it's easy to be mislead if you're coming into this fresh. These types of posts are great for motivation, but terrible for realistic expectations.
Obviously NF helped me get on the right track, so I'm thankful, but I think I've outgrown their message.

I feel like I've sort of lost my train of thought, so perhaps I'll leave it here for today. Does anyone else agree? Disagree? Let me know, I'd love to talk about it.

Hi, icemaubid.

The experience and the critical point of view that you have acquired are really excellent.
When you talk about nofap, it is true that there is an exaggerated side to the fact that the community exaggerates the improvements in the early days. But, if we consider only the nofap as being the fact of not ejaculating, it is still very beneficial to conserve your masculine energy and your motivation to undertake projects, achieve goals ...
As to the term "alpha male", there is an abusive part in the interpretation of things but again there are good things to take in this concept. Personally, I don't like this designation. I prefer to say that my ideal would be to become a real man worthy of the name.

Otherwise, I support you in your journey towards withdrawal and wish you success.

This is from a 17 year old guy, so take my lack of experience into account.

Anti-Porn FR,
Thanks for your input
I have gone through periods of my life where I thought that semen retention was the key to everything, but recently I've started to feel a bit differently. In my early days I was pretty gung-ho about semen retention, but as the years went by and I experimented more, my enthusiasm for semen retention changed a little bit. Here's a couple reasons why:

The first contributing factor would be my personal experience, and the profound effect that placebo has on my reboots. I've probably had dozens of two-week streaks in my life, and the way I felt during those two weeks was almost always influenced by how I anticipated myself feeling. If I was coming into a fresh reboot, actively reading story after story about all these men seeing their quality of life immediately improve, the "superpowers" would physically manifest almost immediately for me. Day one even. That is to say, if I expected to feel good, I always felt good.

In contrast, if I started up another reboot just because a little voice in the back of my head said "It's time to do this again, bro", but didn't put much thought into it, my experience with the reboot would be bland. I wouldn't experience immediate results, never got that "godlike" feeling that I got when I really expected to feel that way. So was it the semen retention, or my state of mind? Something else entirely?
The difference in these two scenarios (which I have experienced each of many times), to me, can be chalked up to placebo or "mind over body", whichever one you choose. I don't care, I'm not trying to be too technical here.

The second factor is the science. In all the time that I've spent trying to understand brain science to help me grapple with addiction, my receptivity to things that are unscientific has declined. This, admittedly, is likely a disadvantage. I'm still talking about semen retention here. There is evidence to suggest that T levels rise in the first week, but no science to suggest that T levels stay elevated past 7-10 days. Assuming that T levels are the main driver for a large portion of alleged benefits of semen retention, science slaps a big "nope" on that one. (If I'm wrong about this, someone please let me know!) Of course, this a pretty narrow black-and-white view of semen retention that completely sidelines literally thousands of years of eastern esoteric study that claims that semen retention has immense benefits. The focus on T levels alone is a pretty easy way to keep your mind closed. I acknowledge this shortsightedness, but my now-tuned-for-science brain is asking "where is the data"?

I'm prone to paradigm shifts so I'm pretty sure that some time in the future I will once again put my faith in semen retention, but for now I'm slightly skeptical.
I want to also mention that it doesn't really matter one goddamn bit. If you feel better when you don't cum, then don't cum!! It's really that simple. Different strokes for different folks, as they say 

Cheers!

Yesterday (day 3) was fine as far as abstinence goes, but overall was pretty terrible. The infernal hunger that I was experiencing went away, but I've been dealing with some pretty serious muscle soreness/stiffness. This is strange because it's not something I've ever experienced before during a reboot, but it is something that I recently read about as far as other people's withdrawal symptoms. Is this another effect of mind over body? I suppose I'll never really know. I have a pretty standard lifting routine that includes a bunch of stretching, and I'm generally pretty flexible (and therefore comfortable) but the last couple days have been brutal. I've even had some old shoulder problems flare up, with no provocation. Hoping this subsides soon because I need to get back into the gym, and back to feeling good in my skin.

Body problems aside I spent the entire day yesterday doing absolutely nothing. Another day of isolation, but without any shame. It really felt like the right move.

Today (day 4) I woke up with the same muscle soreness, but decided that another day of sitting around in my room would likely make me feel like shit. I wasn't sure that I could pull off a productive day totally sober, so I took an adderall to fire up my brain and get me going. Nothing stands in the way of high-strength adderall, and I got a bunch of shit done today. I even taught my mother how to shoot a gun, which was pretty awesome.

I used adderall as a substitute for my abysmal levels of dopamine, so I'm curious what people have to say about dopamine substitution in general. If your DM levels drop after you start abstaining from porn, is it healthy to try to compensate by other means? Should you just ride out that "rock bottom" until things start turning around, or should you substitute with other boosters to keep you from feeling like garbage? I'm asking just for the sake of conversation.
Social interaction, exercise, creative endeavors... these are preferred substitutions, with clear social and personal benefits. If we took other substitutions that weren't "good" like video games, substances, easy foods, television etc. (all things acceptable in moderation), we could easily come up with a list of reasons why we should aim for activity pool "A" over activity pool "B". However, what if coping with withdrawal is your only priority? Does it really matter where you get your fix?
If there's any real brain science nerds out there who might have some deeper insight, please share  ;D
I recently read a book called "A 40 Day Dopamine Fast" which has me thinking about the nuances of all this.

I was thinking I'd try to cut down on forum space and keep my regular journals to two per post (minimum), but I had something I needed to get off my mind this morning; figured I could write about yesterday to get my brain firing on all cylinders first.

Yesterday was a pretty sub-par day, pretty close in line with the four days that came before it. Still no ravenous hunger (in fact I haven't really been eating) but I was pretty hollow and generally felt useless. I skipped the adderall - it makes me feel awesome for eight hours, and like a pile of compost for almost a full day after that. Need to remember these things. Still no gym, turned down an invitation to sit and socialize at the lake, just played video games and read to keep my mind busy. The muscle stiffness is still pretty intense and I've decided that it's time to be proactive and take to some rigorous stretching routines to combat this.

I also reinstalled some dating apps yesterday but I'm starting to think that my brain is playing tricks on me. I'm acutely aware that I'm not in a state of mind (or state of penis) to be dating women right now, but my brain wants to see hot babes. The desire for connection is pretty strong as well, but I can't pretend that I reinstalled tinder for connection - that's not really what tinder is for. I'll have to uninstall later today, I think.

I had this epiphany last night when I was falling asleep and wanted to write about it this morning, so here it goes. Pretty early on in my PMO career I discovered that I had a super unique fetish that almost completely replaced any need to watch regular porn. I don't need to talk about what that fetish is, but the point is that I was able to get sexual stimulation from scenarios that were distinctly "not sexual". This fetish has absolutely no place in reality, and cannot be replicated by real people. There is a small community of people with similar interests, so there is plenty of content, but the point here is that most of my sexual stimulation has been coming from scenarios entirely removed from what would constitute as "standard porn".

I would watch regular porn, but it was close to 10% of the time I was PMOing. I never experienced the "escalating porn tastes" because I had almost immediately escalated to something that would forever be the tip of the triangle for me. This puts me in a unique scenario as someone who is trying to abstain from artificial stimulus because there is a dichotomy between what is "porn" to me (the fetish), and what is just "babes having sex on camera". Consequently, I'm now in a state of mind where I can readily imagine sex as it was and how it always will be: the physical and emotional connection, the intimacy, the art of it. I'm not clouded by years of constantly escalating porn desires - I just PMO'd to things that weren't actually sex.
I could've swore there was a mind-blowing conclusion at the end of all this, but it doesn't seem to be coming to me. I'll come back and try to tie all of this up.

Well, I'm happy to say that yesterday was badass and I'm grateful to finally have a (sober) productive day. I didn't feel any of the self-loathing and emptiness that I had been feeling for the past five days, and pretty much crushed it yesterday. I ate well, lifted heavy at the gym, felt pretty damn good all day. I was planning on cooking dinner for a few friends of mine, but that never turned out. I ended up cooking for my mother, drinking some wine, and talking for a few hours. Far cry from hiding in my room, I'll tell you what. I mustered the courage to pay my upcoming tuition bill out of pocket, and went to sleep with a smile on my face.
Nothing spectacular happened yesterday, but often times the best days are ordinary days in which you can have the presence of mind to enjoy the immediate things in front of you, without drifting off into your subconscious and letting pointless ruminations destroy you from the inside out.
I've had a pretty easy ride in dealing with urges so far, but that leads me to believe I'm going to have a hell of a week #2 coming up. They always come around eventually. I wanted to watch some porn yesterday and honestly might have, but am thankful that I have this journal. I feel obligated to adhere, I dread having to make a relapse post!

Reflection: BLOCKERS ***Potential triggers ahead***

I wanted to take a minute and talk about VPN blockers, because my relationship with them has recently changed.
I starred-out certain key indicators that might give people sneaky ideas.

I started using VPN "porn" blockers about a year ago, and mostly with great success. I paid for and downloaded a service called Detoxify onto my cellphone while I was overseas. My android was the only device I had access to at the time, so it was tremendously helpful. This was during a "second wind" reboot where I had all the motivation I needed, plus this newfound system that would keep me from watching porn even if my willpower faltered. This worked pretty well for a while, but definitely wasn't the final word in abstinence.

Over the course of the last year my relationship with the blocker changed significantly, and I had a series of interactions that looked something like this:
Normal settings didn't block ***** sites, so I relapsed.
I turned it up to extreme mode to block ***** sites, but I found a (sneaky alternative), relapse.
I manually blocked (sneaky alternative), but found some fetish content on *******. Relapse.
I blocked ****** but went searching on ******, relapse.
I blocked everything, but found other devices without the blocker installed. Relapse.
Most of the ***** are sites/tools that aren't even designed for NSFW content, but it can be found if you dig deep enough.

In short, I ended up turning it all into a game. There was always a new and more advanced way that I could get access to porn, and I developed a super dangerous relationship with the VPN blocker that I was using. Defeating the VPN became fun. This wasn't the fault of the blocker because it did a fucking tremendous job blocking literally anything that it deemed even possibly NSFW. I couldn't even watch most harmless youtube videos. Unfortunately, there's always a way around it.

Now, I'm contemplating removing the blockers altogether.

Starting to wonder if I'm scaring people away with my immense walls of text  ;D. Didn't you come here to spend four hours reading my brain vomit?? /sarcasm

Yesterday was scary. There was a moment in the afternoon where I consciously decided that I wanted to just.. you know.. check on something (development into a new porn comic that I'm a big fan of), just to.. sate my curiosity. Yeah. That'd be fine. Just check on it. Nothing can go wrong.

Of course, a lot of shit went wrong. Almost immediately I got sucked into this all-consuming vortex that immobilized me, kept me searching the web for more. Pretty standard autopilot behavior after a week of abstinence, been there too many times. What made it unique this time was this feeling of being completely split down the middle - I had this large part of my brain that was entirely focused on looking at more porn, and then a conscious "me" on the inside literally saying "stop! stop! you don't want this! turn off this device!" but being absolutely powerless to do so.  Felt a bit like sleep paralysis.

It's a little disheartening to know that against all my best conscious efforts, I was unable to quell the porn beast inside, driven by autonomous systems in the brain. This is of course still my fault, because I made the conscious decision to peek, which started the snowball. I lost control after that. I didn't M or O, which was a great thing. I think that was the compromise that I made with myself, the contract I signed that handed over full control to my starved reward system.

After that, I thought long and hard about whether I should "restart" the clock, and what defined those parameters for me. I was stressed about this for a good hour when I realized that I was wrestling with a type of mindset that leads to those devastating feelings of guilt and defeat after we make mistakes. It's immensely important to avoid that perspective, lest we use that self-loathing as fuel for more bad habits. Failure is natural, and it helps us grow!
This time, I'm not going to let defeat be defined by some arbitrary all-or-nothing boundaries that have caused me great misery in the past. Yesterday, I was not defeated. There will be no reset. It's really as simple as that. Sometimes we lose momentum, but that doesn't mean you need to go back to the start line. Today is a new day, one without porn, and I'm still charging forward.

You're making progress dude.  Progress is never perfect, keep moving forward.  I thought it was interesting that a long trip away inspired you to keep pmo free like it did me.  Post a ton of walls of text, no problem.  Posting a lot on the beginning of a reboot is a fantastic tool.

squid said:

You're making progress dude.  Progress is never perfect, keep moving forward.  I thought it was interesting that a long trip away inspired you to keep pmo free like it did me.  Post a ton of walls of text, no problem.  Posting a lot on the beginning of a reboot is a fantastic tool.

Click to expand...

I appreciate the kind words It's definitely easier to quit destructive habits when you're constantly engaged all the time (like being abroad for a long time), some times it's in our best benefit to force ourselves into situations that make bad habits less accessible. When I commented on your post about video games, I actually neglected to say that the only way I was able to quit my video game addiction was by moving across the country and leaving my computer behind. Same concept, I think.
I was thinking that combining a fresh reboot with something like a silent meditation retreat would be a pretty incredible (and difficult) way to power through the first ~ten days of abstinence. In such retreats they don't allow you to have any possessions aside from a few sets of clothing (among many other restrictions) so porn would definitely not be an option.

That's a neat idea!  But also, you could do some camping or backpacking.  I feel that an activity that you make that you control to create a good environment for your recovery is maybe a little more powerful than where someone else is preventing you from having the tools for porn.  Just a thought.  Both are good ideas though I think.

squid said:

That's a neat idea!  But also, you could do some camping or backpacking.  I feel that an activity that you make that you control to create a good environment for your recovery is maybe a little more powerful than where someone else is preventing you from having the tools for porn.  Just a thought.  Both are good ideas though I think.

Click to expand...

100% agree with you on this one. I had plans to hike some of the PCT with a buddy of mine who was poised to start in April, but covid put a cork in that one. I had really tremendous success when doing a bicycle tour abroad: no international sim card, no porn. I just moved ~3000 miles and don't have the social circle for camping/backpacking trips (and don't enjoy it alone), but you're right about creating controllable healthy environments rather than resorting to a no-choice environment; it's bound to be better for you in the long run.

The last couple of days I've had a pretty large excess of energy, and I decided that I want to funnel said energy into creative endeavors. I used to play keyboard here and there, so I've been having a great time jamming out. I also downloaded some beat-making software and whipped up something funky last night. I just need a shitty soundcloud rapper to do my vocals and I'll be famous worldwide  .

We humans are the only creatures with the capacity to create things simply for the joy of it. It's our gift from the universe! I value creativity over many other virtues. When I'm in the porn-haze I have absolutely no desire to create or express myself in any unique sort of way. Writing is a bit of an exception (I tend to do more of that when I'm in a bad place), but most of my writing is a form of mental organization/a coping mechanism, not really a creative endeavor. I write less when I'm in a good head-space, and that will certainly show in this journal.

This desire to create and express myself is always a pretty large milestone for me when quitting porn, it runs parallel to my capacity to let go of a lot of baggage that comes with focusing on abstinence. It means that I'm approaching the point where I can simply "exist" porn-free without dumping energy into consciously avoiding porn every day, which can be seriously exhausting. I've been here quite a few times before, so I know I'm not out of the woods. I've relapsed many times during this stage, so I need to stay vigilant and focused.
Regardless, it's important to recognize progress!

I slipped up yesterday (on day 11) after all that big talk! I suppose that's the cost of arrogance. I'm actually not too worried about it, because the way forward is still clear. I'm happy with ten solid days of progress, and there's at least ten more in my future! The following few days I expect to be exceedingly difficult, because the chaser effect is a bitch. I will have to be extra vigilant and keep my willpower strong, because this is the pivot point in which I determine whether I keep trucking forward or fall back into the clutches of porn.

Some of you might be wondering why I don't reset the clock, and it's because I've grappled with that "all or nothing" mindset before and it's caused me great pain. Yes, I relapsed, but I also made great progress and ten days of abstinence haven't suddenly "dissapeared" because I PMO'd one day. Day one for me was the first day of the rest of my life (as every day is, truly), with significance reaching far beyond a daily counter for porn abstinence.

If anyone is struggling to keep motivation after relapse I urge you to experiment with re-framing what "success" is to you. I've found that keeping a positive mindset and focusing on the bigger picture can help to let go of some of the unnecessary shame and guilt that comes with relapsing. After all, any day spend away from porn is a win! Even if you relapse every other day, that's 50 percent less porn than you were using before! Progress is incremental

Here's to ten more beautiful days of abstinence ahead of me.

Cheers!

Reflection: On Sildenafil

So, I ordered some Sildenafil (Viagra, Cialis) about a week ago, and it finally came (wink) a few days ago. I ordered it because I'm only like 60% confident that my PP will work the way I need it to, in case I ever need it to. I'm not in a relationship or likely to be sleeping with anyone until school starts, but better safe than sorry! I want guaranteed success if it comes time to get down.
I've never taken boner medication before, so I thought I should give it a try "at home" before I need it to work in a real life situation. It works a little differently on everyone, so I gave it a test run. 60 MG of basic sildenafil, if anyone is curious. Typical dose.

I took it on an empty stomach, and started playing some video games. Forty minutes later I was like "I feel kind of funny" and touched my dick and it immediately started swelling up, and I was like oooh shit! I went back to playing some video games (I wanted to wait an hour before trying anything for real), but I quickly progressed to a raging boner. I had to sneak past my room mates with a huge tent in my pants, ended up getting to my room, and jesus christ I had forgotten what a full bull felt like. Great success! I had forgotten what it felt like to be ~19 and have the capacity to get a raging hard on any time I wanted (and maybe more than that). Looking forward to the day it all comes back! Not ironically, this is actually when I relapsed. Don't take boner medication when you're trying not to masturbate, kids!

Not too much to report here. Smooth sailing mostly! I lost count of the days and had to backtrack from the logs that I have here in order to find out what day I was on.

I've looked at P once or twice but always caught myself and put it away. I've haven't got caught in the vortex again, I've always been able to pull myself out before I reach the point of no return. Speaks volumes to my increase in willpower, and decrease in my brain's desperation to get more porn.

Hope y'all are crushing it out there!

I honestly forgot that I was keeping a journal here, which is a pretty good sign that porn is losing its greasy knobby hold on me. I'm pretty sure today is day thirty, which is a pretty awesome milestone!

Still crushing it! I peek every now and then, but never get sucked into the vortex. Sometimes I MO without artificial stimulation, though I'm trying to keep that to a bare minimum.

That newly-porn-free feeling has mostly dissipated and I'm starting to feel pretty neutral again, but my capacity to work efficiently and socialize eloquently has greatly increased, as is expected. Might be entering the flatline, though I've never quite understood what that really felt like.
Starting a semester at university pretty soon and I'm excited to meet some women, considering I haven't really seen any since this whole Covid thing started.

Started delving into Taoist literature again, which always gives me a new refreshing way to look at life. I'm currently reading "The Tao of Health, Sex, and Longevity" by Daniel Reid. It's basically a fundamentals book written back in the 80s, poised for empirically-thinking westerners. I'm pretty well versed in Taoist basics so there's nothing new in there, but it's always fun to get a fresh look at something you already understand. The book skips a lot of philosophy and focuses on regiment and routine, and ways you can incorporate the key concepts of Tao into your every day life. It goes a little overboard on hating on modern western medical science (and tells you that the Chinese figured out all the medical advice you'll ever need over two thousand years ago), but overall is a pretty good read.
I would probably recommend just picking up the Tao Te Ching, the "source" text for Taoism, and doing some mental aerobics to understand that the best you can. Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy is a pretty great read as well, which gives you a brief overview of Taoism, and then focuses on the connection of spirit and sexuality. Super relevant to someone concerned with semen retention.

I fasted for three days, which actually completely sucked. I was aiming for a week but at the 72 hour mark I was feeling all sorts of shitty, and decided to break the fast. I understand that things get better after three days, but something was going on with my body and every single part of me was telling me that I needed to eat, and it wasn't just hunger. I might be fighting off sickness right now, because I've felt really strange the past few days. I also have a super heavy exercise and diet regiment that I'm entirely reliant on, so that might have played a very important role in my body not coping well. I'm pretty content with the decision to end the fast because sometimes it's more important to listen to your body than to put it through misery for the sake of willpower and accomplishment. I'll try for a week later in the year.

Loved your Journal... Could you put an update here man.