Hi, all
First of all , English is not my language so, sorry for any mistakes.
Second, I want to say THANK YOU to all the people of this forum who are on the same journey with me and specially to Gary and Undedog for YBOP and this great forum.
Now I need to explain that I started this journey last June and I was on a very bad moment in my life.
I am 46 y.o., 3 kids and at that moment my second marriage was going to a very bad end.
And I also was facing a very bad moment in professional life.
Just a bit more than 3 months ago…
I was aware that I needed to make deep changes in my life but I had not energy for that.
I was wasting an average of 2 hours dally watching porn.
And a big part of my days was centered on that.
Not only watching porn but fantasizing about it before the sessions and after them I needed hours for recover myself, feeling really bad, no energy, no creativity, very bad.
So, it was much more time than the hours I was watching porn and masturbating.
I knew one day about YBOP and after reading almost all the site and watching the movies I felt that there was a way to try so I came into it.
It was 104 days ago.
For those who had read my journal I don’t need to say how many ups and downs I had on the journey. And I am aware that they still come back at any moment.
I don’t have a recipe for success.
Actually, I don’t consider myself recovered. I am on the way and I am feeling this is forever.
So, first thing I can say: think about the real possibility of living side by side with your addiction for the rest of your life.
I don’t say that is gonna be this way. Just think about the possibility.
I saw this possibility at the beginning of my way so I took a decision at that moment: dont fight with the addiction. Just try to learn from it.
If the probability of living side by side with the addiction for years, I found more intelligent to be friend of it and stablish a dialog instead of fighting.
So, my first lessons (I learned on the process): dont fight and try to learn from the addiction. It wants to say something about ourselves.
Then I needed to change some habits.
So I introduced meditation in my life and that was very important for me.
Just one hour daily.
And also moments of contact with nature. That for me is very important.
And then I also started to right my journal and read others.
My first 2-3 weeks were very hard.
Headaches, fever, fog brain, very strange dreams and many other symptoms.
Then I arrived to a new stage: the flatline.
That was very strange for me because I never had ED. And suddenly I was totally daed about sex.
Not only my dick but also my mind. NO thoughts about sex.
I enjoyed a lot that time.
It was like a deserved holidays for all my body and mind and soul.
Then the flatline period suddenly came to an end and I started a new and dangerous stage: very horny and no porn to relief.
I needed to do more exercise at that period. And more meditation too.
I also started to learn Japanese at internet. That was a crazy idea but it helped me to keep my mind very busy trying to memorize all those characters and new words and grammar.
After that stage I had some ups and downs.
Not with porn. I feel porn is very far from me now.
But I identified that the addiction to sex has many faces.
And in my case there is another component that is prostitutes.
And I am learning a lot about that.
What happened on my life on that last 3 and 1/2 months?
I came back to my wife and talked openly about my addiction and also about the recovering process I was starting to do.
And now we are together and things are going ok.
Not easy because I felt a lot of pressure from her at the beginning and now is going much better.
Sex with her is also great and this helps a lot because I feel very horny everyday.
My daughter from the first marriage came to live with me after many years living with her mother at a very far city from where I live.
This is also a new experience and it is a learning process.
I decided to start a new professional project that was rounding my mind for a long time and I didn’t have energy to do it.
Now I am feeling strong to do it and I started to talk with many people and the first steps are been made.
It is a big and good challenge as it involves people from different countries and cultures.
There are many things I still could talk but I feel it is enough by now.
So, in my case what helped me was:
– reading YBOP and starting my journal as well as follow many others journals.
– meditation, one hour daily
– walking almost every day about 5 km
– talk with a real friend of mine about my addiction (I didn’t mention this but in my case it helped me a lot)
– realize in the beginning that I didn’t need to fight with the addiction but try to learn from it about myself
– study new subjects to occupy my mind
– ask for help when I needed
Anyway, the journey is still going on and I have a lot to learn about me on the journey.
I wish you very good luck!!
It is step by step, dont try to run, find your own path and walk on it.
LINK – I dont know if its a success story, it is just my experience of 104 days
by Pilgrim
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