The journey to a new state of being

Hello fellow rebooters.

Brief Intro
I am 25 years from UK. I have been watching porn online since around 13/14. It's been a couple of years since i first realised that i am unable to get a full erection or stay erect without porn. As a result i have become anxious about my sexual performance and avoid situations which may lead to sex. Because of this i have not had sex in a few years. At one point my porn use was daily. Sometimes i masturbated to porn several times a day. Since early 2017 i have been able to reduce my PMO to once every couple of days (5 days max).

Negative Impacts
I believe my porn use as made my anxiety worse and depleted my social energy. I have even had moments where i have been depressed; feeling not good enough and obsolete.
Physically i feel weaker and i find sports a bit more difficult.  After periods of porn use my muscles feel stiff and my knees feel a bit weird. My motivation has also fallen as a result of the above and my discipline feels non-existent. My concentration and memory have also become increasingly poor. My hair has also started thinning.
Porn my not be to blame for all of the above but it has at least made my life worse and impacted some of these. From reading and experience i believe it is all connected to excessive PMO in some way.

Goals
I WILL quit porn. I have to if i want to reach a new level and have a happier life. I want to be able to 'feel' again.
I want to make it to 90 days at least just to prove that i can do it for a long period of time. 
I will build my muscles a bit more (just enough to be lean) and become fitter.
I will improve my concentration.
I will reach a point where i can maintain a full erection.
I will be more confident
I will grow my hair.

Up until today i had not PMO'd in 15 days. Today was suppose to be the 16th. I have PMO'd twice today. The shame when you do PMO can be overwhelming. I get proper energetic and start thinking of all the things i should be doing or am going to do. I basically overcompensate for what i see as me failing.
To calm down i force myself to sit still and just breath deeply. If i can't sit still i walk and breath. Sometimes it works other times it simmers but doesn't disappear.

I will be putting an app blocker on my apps again to help me not access any visual triggers (photos, vids etc).

Honestly, I've read some of the threads and success stories on here but didn't feel like i would be able to come on here and share such personal stuff myself. But I want my own success story so here i am.
Let the journey begin!

Good luck man!

What are you mean when you say "I will grow my hair." ?

Do you think that hairs can be return as in the past after reboot? I ask it just for know it. Thanks.

I'm not sure but i can say that thinning parts of my hair are growing. I think that excessive PMO can have an impact on your hair, particularly the parts that are more DHT sensitive.
My diet has also helped though.

Thank you!

Welcome Major! I wish you the best with your reboot!


Sorry to hear about your relapse yesterday. But success earned, not given. At least you know that you made a mistake and still chose to come here. When people relapse it usually goes two ways: they binge and just give in; or they learn from their mistakes.

Try writing down what exactly made you relapse. Were you triggered by a picture, a thought? Stress? What were you doing before you PMO'd? This way you can recognize certain patterns and hopefully prevent any relapses in the future. Urges are temporary, I always go to the store, go for a walk, take a lukewarm/cold shower etc.

Working out is a very good thing to do. It's a natural anti-depressant and it will simply boost your motivation and energy! I always give this advice to everyone. Keep this up! It's very important to keep going.

I just hit my 90-days a few days ago (not including one MO session with a partner) and the results I am seeing already are huge. But be prepared for your mind playing tricks on you, they will come. You might lose complete trust in the reboot, get big mood swings etc, you probably know most of these, but just another heads-up!

A lot has happened since my last post and to be honest i wish i had read your advice sooner. Thank you though. I hope that i will be able to reach the stage you are at.

As for triggers, I realised that the thought of potential sex (where the situation seems likely) triggers me.
A week ago that is what happened to me. I ended up binging a bit. 2 days one day then once more the next.

The shame and anxiety that followed was hard. I kept moving and trying to be active but i could feel my mood plummet. I did not want to be around anyone and had a period of fatigue.

Few days ago i had a sexual moment with a woman and found it impossible to maintain and erection. Not only that but i also found myself being extremely anxious about my performance, so much so that at time i recoiled from touch.
It was very difficult to get off.

Another sexual encounter just after that with a different woman had similar results. It was so apparent how porn can lead to unrealistic expectations of a woman's body and of sex in general.

I will try and do a bit of exercise following this post in hopes of getting back on the goals i had mentioned at the start.

Urges are temporary.......this is something i need to remember as i often find myself returning to triggering thoughts

I also want to admit that the shame of failing so soon after starting this post kept me from returning here until now.....

Day 2

I have no urges as of yet although i have had small thoughts of just knocking one out without porn. I do not believe that would be helpful.

Despite not maintaining an erection during my last sexual encounter I do not feel ashamed. I feel pretty good to be honest. Why? Because prior to this month it had been over a year since i had been in a situation like this. I was also made to realise that the sexual experience is not limited to just penis penetration. This is not to say that i am no longer anxious about expectations. Just a slight shift in perception i thought i'd share.

Day 6  - Ended up PMO'ing. It's like I told myself that one little peak would be okay. SMH. I am thinking to write down the things my mind will try and tell me about using porn and why i have to ignore them.
PMO came with a brief feeling of shame and the plans i had planed were ruined pretty much.

Back to Day 1 starting today. I am going away for 2 weeks which should be helpful. Any advice on what i can do while i am away?

Just a little bit of advice that I found helpful: If you really feel like you need to PMO then just MO without the porn. You will feel exactly the same as if you did PMO but you didn't totally ruin the progress you've made

I came back from holiday a few days ago. Being busy in another country definitely helped. Today is my 16th day no PMO.

On Day 6 i remember having huge urges but kept myself busy.

Day 14 was followed by some intense dreams, although it wasn't a wet dream i definitely remember having sex in it and it was not related to any porn material i had previously seen.

My social energy has been much better and i have found myself needing less breaks from socialising as well as being more sociable in general.

The real test is being back at home.

Keeping my mind occupied with other things/tasks is definitely a good coping mechanism.

Entering the 18th day.....

My brain is starting to play tricks on me. It's basically telling me to just have a glance at porn. So far the temptation can be suppressed but i do wonder if it will get harder as my erections and libido return.
I am currently at a flatline.

I have also started taking Red Panax Ginseng Extractum. Natural remedy that is said to also help with ED. On my 3rd day of this. Not too focused on the ginseng tho tbh.

*sigh* i've made it 19 days and then i messed up.
I became complacent and didn't upgrade my app blocker when it ran out.
Been getting the urge quite a bit over the last few days.
BUt i suppose a trigger is thoughts of a lady i'm currently seeing.
Trying not to be too depressed about it. Although it is hard.
Will I ever make it to 30 days???????????!!!

Hey man! Don't give up. We're all in the same situation, many of us have tried and tried, you're not back to 0 but I'm sure you know that! You've built a lot of confidence and expertise already. Don't feel bad just think about what made you relapse, write in your journal, and then when in two weeks you go back to it you will know what to avoid. Good luck!

Be resilient, and keep sharping your mind, that is what is making your mind sharper and sharper and more resilient. By facing those challenges and even though "losing"(on a hipotetical future) you are just making huge progress, if only you keep the poison away. If only you just keep your hands of...and eyes and mind of... you will win.

Hello people, it has been a while.

Since my last update it's been a lot of ups and downs. When i have relapsed it has triggered a lot more anxiety and even 'depressive episodes'. This is so hard (would be a good pun if i didn't have ED lol). I am literally writing on this simply to keep my hands occupied and to take my mind off of this artificial urge to relapse again.

Currently on day 8. I'm going to be tallying my days in two's. So every two days i will be tallied as one day (so it's my 8th day but the tally says 4).
I'm hoping that seeing so little days will give me a further push to not relapse. Especially in these early stages.

It's difficult times but change needs to happen. For now i just want to try and last til the end of the week.

I do feel a lot less anxious than i did following my last relapse.