EARLIER POST – So, let me tell you a little about myself. As of this writing I’m 21 years old and have proved to myself, my parents and my peers that I am absolutely the worst when it comes to addictions. Luckily, I also know this about myself and I’ve been able to kick most of my habits.
When I was 14 I started drinking, alcoholism runs in my family and my dad is a well functioning alcoholic so I started looking up to ‘drinking’, thinking it was just a part of life in my family or some stupid shit like that. Around the same time I found weed and cigarettes, both of which I came to abuse. About 2 packs of cigarettes a day, or three if I was out drinking. I was born and raised in Amsterdam, so weed was readily available.. and I made good use of that, the year before I stopped I was smoking at least 10 joints a day. All in all I smoked cigarettes for 3 years, weed for four years and I drank about 6 years. At my peek I drank about 80 beers a week. I haven’t had a drink in a month now, and in the previous 12 months I’ve been completely sober for about 10 months.
Aside from that, gaming, internet in general and gambling have also been major weaknesses for me.. luckily I managed to stay away from those largely and, knowing my weakness on this point, I also avoided hard drugs like heroin, cocaine etc. Otherwise I would have been royally fucked.
Coming from someone with plenty of experience with stopping substance abuse. Let me tell you, PMO is by far the hardest habit I have to kick.
Now, why I decided to kick this habit too:
About a year ago I developed a stomach ache which caused diarrhea about once a week, a feeling like someone was slowly pushing my stomach upwards constantly, vomiting a couple of times a week and often having the urge to do it without anything coming out. It lasted for about 5 months before I finally got it fixed (It took the doctors a while to figure out what exactly it was I was having trouble with).. and it may come as no surprise that I was pretty dreadful to combine with my studywork and my part time job. I was constantly afraid of getting pains or discomforts while at the job, or while at college. At the same time I developed hay fever which I didn’t figure out until I got exactly the same symptoms a year later.) which caused terrible aching in my eyes, a feeling like I had to cry, sneezing and a constant pressure in my sinuses.
So not only was I walking around feeling like someone was constantly punching me in the stomach, I was always, or so it felt, on the verge of crying all the time. This caused me terrible panic attacks, followed by overall anxiety and depression.
So, stopping PMO is simply one of the steps I’m taking in ensuring a better life for me. This whole situation might be the best thing that has happened to me, because it made me go see a psychologist, made me stop drinking, made me consider PMO as a problem, made me start meditating and kept me more motivated to continue my workouts.
I’ve tried no PMO a couple of times now, and I’ve since come to this rhythm:
-2 weeks no PMO
-relapse, binge of 2-4 days
-2 weeks no PMO
For some reason I can’t get well past those two weeks, I always crash there. So now I’m going to try to get to 90 days, hopefully with your support!
18 august is day 1.
HERE WE GO!
I also feel so much more energy, so more on edge.. active, focused when I don’t PMO that I want to know where this will lead me.
Waging a war on dependancy; first battle won
November 26, 2012
For those of you who don’t know me, I’m Primetime and I’m glad to say I just got my blue star after 100 days of total abstinence. When I first started on this journey I never thought I’d get this far, I had not even passed the 14 day mark yet!
I’ll give a brief introduction of the things I experienced before I stopped PMO. At that moment in time I had already stopped drinking, smoking weed, video games and cigarettes.. some of the things that I had a lot of trouble with. I usually phased from one addiction to another, it started with playing video games for 10 hours a day, then I progressed to 10 joints a day.. after I stopped that, my drinking escalated to 80 beers a week.
In the mean time, PMO was a recurring theme in my life. When I think about it, I’ve gone through all kinds of fetishes over the years. Bestiality was my thing once, but lately it had been mostly degrading, humiliation porn.
Symptoms I had 100 days ago (I’ll rate the severity on 1-10 scale, so I can tell you how much it improved):
• HOCD 7/10
• Social anxiety/panic attacks 8/10
• Depression 8/10
• Lethargy 7/10
• Brain fog 7/10
• Warped sexuality (having to think about porn scenes during sex to stay hard) 7/10
• Overall pessimistic outlook on life 6/10
After 100 days of no PMO?
• HOCD = 1/10
• Social anxiety = 2/10
• Depression 1/10
• Lethargy = GONE
• Brain fog = GONE
• Warped sexuality = 1/10
• Pessimistic outlook on life? GONE.
Now don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t only “no PMO” that got me through these things. It took some work, some sweat and some tears. And the battle isn’t over yet, but I made it far enough to celebrate for now. Social anxiety for one thing isn’t something that is going to fade away on it’s own, it’s something you have to work on every day. Get outside of your house and more specifically outside of your comfort zone every week. If you’ve had a hard week out of your comfort zone, that’s cool.. you can stay inside for a day or two, chill, get some sleep and recover. But be sure to be on the frontline again next week, and go kick some ass. I’ve had presentations almost every week the last couple of weeks, if you would have told me that a year ago, I think I would have cried. But now? I’m ready and I look forward to doing them! 
( I don’t often use this emoticon, so this is serious joy right here. )
Things that helped me kicked all those things ass were:
• Cutting out coffee, drink tea instead. Drink plenty of water too, and lay off sugary drinks
• Throw away your tv.
• Limit time on the internet ( still struggling with that myself, this one I really want to conquer these next 100 days. )
• Cut out ALL masturbation, don’t bullshit yourself.
• Meditate every week, preferably every day.
• Exercise 3-4 times a week
• Go out with your friends ( sober if possible, and it IS possible! ) once or twice a week. Go grab a cup of coffee and some lunch if you don’t want to be around drunk people.
• And of course: KEEP A FUCKING JOURNAL!
Having a steady job and work at college really helps too, get a rhythm boy! Try to wake up early and go to bed early.
Now, I’m really glad to have found this forum and all the people on it. I wish you all the best of luck in getting your stars and most of all, in improving your lives. Wish me luck in getting through the next 100 days!
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