After 15 years of nearly daily PMO and half-hearted attempts at quitting, I’ve finally achieved some real measure of success and for the first time in a long time I’m proud of who I am.
I am in my early thirties and have been with the same girl since our senior year in high school. I developed an addiction to cybersex and erotic roleplay before we got together, and sadly have struggled our whole relationship to kick my habit. We’re married and have kids now. Every once in a while, things would improve for short periods of time but I’d never truly beaten it. I feel miserable about the things I’ve done behind her back. For so long I’ve felt lower than low, like I must be the worst person in the world to behave the way I do.
Those feelings of guilt and shame never really motivated me enough to change, however. A familiar feeling to many of you, I’m sure, is the excitement and thrill of discovering some new form of PMO, or planning out just how you’ll edge for a few hours while the house is empty. Even during periods where I was ostensibly trying to stop myself, the feeling that my failure was inevitable was usually a self-fulfilling prophesy that lead to dramatic binges.
After a particularly bad relapse earlier this year, I did some searching around and discovered this website. It was a revelation to me that other people also struggled with the same issues, felt just as bad, and were trying to quit. I started a reboot log 92 days ago and have been PMO-free since.
Here’s what worked for me, with a few of my thoughts and motivations along the way.
1) A positive outlook.
Beating myself up for 15 years did nothing except make me hate myself. I hope it doesn’t seem too trite, but shifting my mindset from “I’m a horrible person and a total loser” to “I can do anything I set my mind to and I can be the person I want to be” was absolutely key to beating the particularly dooming feeling of inevitable failure.
2) Focusing on feelings.
I realized that PMO felt really good in the moment (obviously, that’s why I’m addicted!) but that the shame and regret afterward are even stronger. Remembering how that shame feels every time I felt like giving in was usually enough to get me through an urge unscathed. A particular breakthrough moment for me happened when I wrote about my last relapse, what lead to it, what it felt like, and why I wanted to avoid that feeling. This let me replace the feelings I subconsciously associated with PMO, taking me from ‘this is fun!’ to ‘this makes me feel terrible’.
3) Leave the house.
Literally just go for a walk around the block. If you don’t feel better and think you might still fail, walk further. Sitting around your home twiddling your thumbs and trying to will yourself to be strong is an uphill battle.
4) Identifying non-PMO factors.
The most extreme measure I took was to try to rewire my brain in every arena. My thinking is this:
- PMO releases a massive cascade of fun and addictive brain chemicals.
- Most forms of entertainment do the same thing to varying lesser degrees.
- My brain craves these chemicals, and has been made weak by overexposure to them.
- It is unreasonable to expect my brain to resist these chemicals from one source when I am still overloading it using a different source.
To improve this, I did a lot:
- Blocked all social media and time-wasting websites
- Canceled all streaming services
- Stopped playing video games unless invited to play with a friend.
- Installed an app blocker on my computer that prevented me from even opening a browser outside of a specified time
- Stopped listening to podcasts
- Once I realized I was just reading more and more clickbait news articles, I blocked the news and a bunch of blog sites as well.
- I had already gotten rid of my smartphone years before, but if I hadn’t I would have done that here or invested in a lockbox device or similar.
I think that all of this, while extreme sounding, was really the key. It established a healthier relationship with all of my devices and reframed them as boring work tools, rather than devices for mental stimulation/numbing. It might seem like overkill to some of you, but I think this was the biggest component to my success and I wish I’d done it years ago.
The results so far have been astonishing. I’ve never felt better in my life, and I’m finally getting closer to being the person I want to be. I have more patience with my kids and more time to spend with them. My attention span is better, I work more efficiently and effectively, and have more energy at the end of the day. In the last 90 days I’ve read more books and picked up more real hobbies than I’ve had in the last 10 years. I picked up photography and bought a camera. I started playing pickup soccer, and with it started running and yoga to get in shape.
Moving forward, it will be more of the same. I am getting movies from the library when I really feel like I want to veg out, and will probably unblock the news closer to the US presidential election, but there is little redemptive value for me in spending large amounts of time online.
I hope that this helps someone out there. You are in control of your life and can choose how to live it.
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