DAY 1 I was unemployed out of college, living with my parents, single, and had a porn problem that was destroying my life. Brain fog made intelligible thought near impossible, and anxiety made social contact a terrifying obligation.
WEEK 1
Re-started working out (This one’s proven. Boosts confidence, gives you a sense of accomplishment, it’s a natural source of endorphins, improves brain chemistry, betters your health and energy levels all while making you stronger and more attractive. Literally probably the best thing you can start doing for yourself today.)
Got superpowers and lost them after first week. Continues to serve as a reminder that it’s not necessarily about the number of days in your current streak; I’ve found that it’s more about the inward mind set, a real belief in the goal, that a fulfilling and rewarding life outside of pornography is possible. Sooner or later the flatline is going to hit and a streak number isn’t enough to feed a man in that kind of desert. We need something more to get through those long nights. Don’t lose sight of the reality of your goal!
Discovered the power of community in fighting an addiction. (I can’t thank the NoFap community enough for the encouragement and validation it continues to offer. However community is more than personal validation, a recent study01037-9) showed the effect community had on drug addiction in lab rats. )
WEEKS 2-4
Cravings hit pretty hard. Thoughts of past scenes came racing back, taunting me as I did my best to push the temptations out of my head. I laid awake at night, teetering on the edge of relapse. By God’s grace I got through those nights somehow.
Flatline sunk in. Had no idea what everyone was talking about until I felt nothing inside. It was weird not having a libido, and a little bit scary. I began to wonder if NoFap was worth it. But I looked behind me and saw the dark little hole out of which I had crawled. Nope, not going back. Don’t care if I’m in a desert. Fuck. Going. Back.
Started applying for jobs. Requires immense optimism when all you get back is rejection email after rejection email. Interviews take just as much courage and self confidence. You literally have to be able to sell yourself, which is hard when you’re perpetually fixated on your shortcomings. (Forced me to deal with my fear of rejection)
Started applying for grad schools (last year I had my hopes of going to grad school for physics smashed; really hard to be optimistic when every single college the year before turned you down)
Re-discover joy of reading. Porn, and media at large imo, has captured our attention and in doing so enslaved our imagination to do as it bids. Reading was a way to rekindle my imagination, practice visualization and enhance mental creativity, as well as train focus. Plus books have the power to change us profoundly, have you ever noticed that well read individuals seem to exist on some higher plane?
Started learning guitar. There’s something beneficial to recovery about spending time gaining a skill. Mastery is a road that both necessitates and awards willpower, focus, and character, it is a path that leads to deeper expression of ourselves. Music, specifically, is also healthy for the brain. Check out this TED talk.
Worked on a start-up idea in my spare time. Good experience leading a group, organizing workflow, learned a couple new programming languages. Helped keep me occupied on something other than just not fapping, gave me a bit of purpose while unemployed.
MONTH 2
Objectification of women actually wearing off (took me a while to even associate that term to the internal attitude of wanting to in some sense ‘posses or own’ a girl for sexual purposes)
Offered a job! A relatively large company I applied to saw some of the start up stuff I was doing and offered me a position doing something similar for them. I was so unbelievably stoked. It was like getting picked first in gym class or something.
Got accepted to grad school! The good news kept coming as letters started rolling in. This time I got in everywhere I applied, go figure. All I had to do was actually care about my applications and give them the appropriate attention and planning. Something mentally infeasible for me while under the self sabotaging influence of pornography.
Moved to the city to be closer to work. As providence would have it, a spot opened up with friends in an apartment downtown. No more wallowing in self pity alone, friends don’t let friends wallow in self pity; the fellowship has been indispensable.
MONTH 3
Cravings returned. Bad. – It was like I started taking all of the recent success for granted and the false sense of security lulled me into thinking that fantasizing doesn’t count. Fantasizing counts. It fires up all of those old familiar neural pathways again. It honestly took another 2 weeks to repair the damage this did.
Asked a girl out. There was this girl I’d had a thing for since highschool that I never asked out. I knew she liked me back then as well and wanted me to ask her out, but fear and anxiety kept me from moving. Not any more, we started hanging out more and more and eventually I asked her out. It didn’t work out in the end, but just asking her made me feel like Chuck Yaeger when he broke the sound barrier for the first time. And now for the first time I could stop asking myself that haunting “what if”.
TLDR: Unemployed, single, depressed, habitual fapper => NoFap N’ Stuff => Job, ladies, grad school, will power etc. YMMV but if I can pull this shit off, anyone can, yourself included.
You guys are awesome. Thanks for 90 days of encouragement and validating stories. Keep up the good work Fapstronauts! Don’t fap, and don’t look back.
LINK – 90 Day Report!
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