The Before – I discovered porn at age 12, and masturbation at age 13, so I’ve been struggling with fapping for the past 6ish years. From early on, I felt guilty and gross after every PMO session. When I was lucid, I hated fapping, and I’d been trying to quite since freshman year of high school. But, by definition, addictions can’t be quit easily.
Often, I would be too busy to be horny, but as soon as boredom (my biggest trigger) hit, boom, the urges commanded I have an orgy of one infront of the computer.
There are a lot of details to my struggle against fapping, but there are a few key points.
- I was a binge fapper. I could easily go a week or two if I were kept busy, but then I’d PMO several days in a row, or several times a day.
- I’m reasonably talented, sociable, and smart. I had great friends in high school. I ran cross country. I got good grades and ended up at a good college. The point here is not to brag, but rather suggest that even people who seem to have their lives together might be struggling with something more.
- I finally got a girlfriend senior year. I could not sexually perform for her. It’s one thing to tell a girl she’s beautiful, it’s another for your body to tell her she’s beautiful. Porn kills intimacy. When she dumped me, I promised myself I would never put another girl through that.
After trying, and failing, to give up PMO in the fall, I confessed my problem to my best friend. He’s a devout Catholic and has been abstinent his whole life, so he had no personal advice, but he is an avid redditor. He led me here.
The During
Reading this page for the first time, I knew this was something special. This is a supportive community. I made my first reddit account (/u/10khrs, to which I forgot the password), set up my badge and jumped right in. (Side note, if you’re a complete newbie to reddit, check out this beginners guide to learn how to navigate and engage with reddit communities more effectively).
Here’s the reddit advice that worked for me:
- Identify triggers. This is extremely important. Personally, browsing imgur was a huge trigger. I willingly gave it up. The great thing about triggers is that they precede the urges. It’s much easier to consciously, rationally avoid the trigger than it is to act rationally once the trigger has been pulled. I also installed StayFocusd, which has a nice little nuclear option to manually shut down your browser if you feel yourself slipping.
- Find a specific alternative to urges. Sometimes, triggers just get pulled, and fapping starts to seem like a good idea. Do something else! Deep breathing exercises and pushups were most effective for me.
- Have hope. The toughest part of the challenge is at the very beginning. One thing that kept me going was knowing that the urges would become weaker. They have. Honestly, I still feel the pull sometimes (there was a link on the front page that should have been marked NSFW, but wasn’t. That’s definitely a trigger. STAY STRONG). Sometimes, you have to fight the good fight hour by hour. But, believe me, it gets easier. Good things will come.
The End
There is no end. For me, NoFap is a lifestyle change. I went from being a good person with a guilty pleasure, to a straight up good person. I don’t plan on turning back.
There have been a number of small, gradual changes. First off, my confidence has increased. My PMO addiction was a skeleton in my closet that always hung at the back of my mind. Now, my interactions are 100% genuine, and nothing is holding me back. Second, I got a girlfriend. This is partially due to my increased confidence, partially due to my changed perception of women (another benefit of noFap), and partially due to /r/seduction. We’re taking things slow, but I blue-balled after our first few make-out sessions. This doesn’t sound like a good thing, but hear me out. Blue-balling proved that my body had reset. Real women arouse me again! This is a very exciting time for me, and I would not have been able to do it without your help.
Thank you, /r/nofap. Thank you very much.
Specifically, I would like to thank /u/jimsfriend for commenting on my first post. NoFap needs people like jimsfriend who check /r/nofap/new and offer support to all the fapstronauts not on the front page. Fellow fapstronauts, be sure to take a little time and help one-another out. Go find a post without any comments. A little bit of encouragement sure pays off.
TL;DR – NoFap is awesome. Identify and avoid your triggers. Stay strong. Fuck the zero.
LINK – Thank you for helping me make it this far. (90 Day Report)
by 10khr
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