Hey Guys,
I am a frequent reader and have found success stories incredibly inspirational so I thought I’d post my own. I’ll tell you guys a bit about myself, the challenges I faced, my benefits and some tips I found helpful. I hope this post can help some of you on your journeys!
I am 22 and up until now I had probably been watching porn since I was 14. I first tried to have a go at quitting porn and masturbation when I was around 18. I had my first real girlfriend at 17 and when we tried to have sex for the fist time I struggled maintaining an erection but at the time I thought it was just nerves and I would always have to think about porn to get hard for sex.
I was watching porn probably everyday when I was 18 and started to feel that I had a problem but I only decided to give quitting ago after I had heard about trying to go 30 days in a podcast. I thought 30 days how hard could that be ? I lasted about 2 weeks…. I tried again and again and I got closer but I kept breaking. It was weird because in other aspects of my life I was extremely disciplined and motivated, I did well at school, sports, exercised everyday etc… but still I struggled so hard!
My first real success was in the summer after my first year of University, I applied to work abroad in a summer camp in america as a sports instructor for 2 months and then travel for a month after. During those 3 months I was so busy meeting new people having new experiences that I was too busy to look at porn and rarely masturbated!! These few months also were some of the best months of my life. I was way more confident, I made loads of new friends and got with loads of girls even having a girlfriend out in America, obviously this wasn’t solely due to not looking at porn but also the environment I was in but I would like to think no porn had something to do with it.
When I returned from America I decided to carry on with no porn however I quickly returned to old habits… It was so fucking annoying!!! I couldn’t believe it, how could I be so weak?? However I didn’t go back to square 1 after that long streak I was definitely watching porn less frequently. I decided to go back to camp that summer and prior to going back I was on a 30 day streak… I again went the whole 3 months! And those 3 months were awesome too! I met more people, I got with girls and went travelling climbing the white mountains with a friend of mine something I had always wanted to do!
When I got back from America I took a year out of uni to intern/ work in industry (it’s called a placement year and is common in the UK). The job was extremely tough and difficult, there was a lot of pressure and I was working almost 70 hours a week, which was a huge change from being a student (getting up late and doing less than 25 hrs of lectures a week). Around 2 months in I relapsed and fell into old habits, the pressure and hard times at work got to me and I broke. I used porn to cope with the struggles of my new job.
After a month of relapsing I decided enough was enough… there was no big moment or event that pushed or really motivated me I just remember looking at my reflection in the computer screen and thinking fuck this! And I knew then this time it would stick.
I started working my ass off at work, I didn’t just work long hours I made sure that during those hours I was working hard and giving it my all. I made sure I found time for myself to do things I liked I went to the gym most days, spent way more time with friends. I stated going out again, going on dates and getting with real girls. 258 days later without porn here I am…
Within those 258 days I got myself a girlfriend, smashed PBs in the gym (benched 125kg for the first time , and cleaned 107.5kg!), got with way more girls, became way better friends with my old friends and did incredibly well in my internship and got a job offer at the end… I’m sure this isn’t all down to me stopping watching porn but also me wanting to change and improve other aspects of my life however I think me stopping watching porn made me more driven and motivated to get things done ! Below I’ll write some tips that I think are important….
Tips
1) STAY BUSY!!! You can always do more, all my streaks camp, starting my internship… were all in periods where I was super busy. Make sure you are always doing something! Work your ass off at work, exercise, spend time with friends, study just get out the house and do more!!!! I can’t stress how important this is
2) This helped me especially on the early days, write a list on your phone of reasons why you want to quit looking at porn ! I read it every night and when I was a bit lazy in the morning to get out of bed after my alarm went off I read it in bed for motivation. Keep adding to the list and read it frequently. By day 30 my list was huge.
3) Talk to people online who are going through the same thing I met someone on a porn addiction app and we messaged and checked in each other daily on whatsapp this definitely helped me a lot !! We didn’t just talk about quitting but loads of things, it’s helpful to know someone going through the same thing!!
4) Never give up it took me countless attempts to get the streak I have now !!
Thanks for reading- Please feel free to ask anything!!
Good luck, stay strong!!!
LINK – 258 days porn free ! Long time reader First time poster ! hope it helps
BY – kaz212
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