I finally overcame the 90 days Nofap, no porn, no masturbation, no orgasm challenge. It has been quite a journey ! It wasn’t my first time however, since last year I have managed a 100 day streak of no masturbation and orgasm.
Sadly I looked at porn once around day 70. It didn’t affect the result much, but I couldn’t say that I’ve made it officially 90 days with no PMO.
The big change this time is that I changed my focus, I did it for my relationship with God as my main motivation. All the other positive changes were merely (sometimes quite great) pluses.
The main results right now are :
- Better self-control. Before, when I was frustrated, angry or impatient, I used to lose my temper very quickly and it lead me to unhealthy coping mechanisms such as PMO, aggressivity, escapism in video games, food or exercise binging. PMO however was my coping mechanism of choice since it usually was the most effective and then I could feel refreshed and in control for a while. Today I am not always calm or good tempered, but I am not a rollercoaster of emotions anymore, and I have healthy coping methods, ie. I try to address the issue whenever possible and if not, I pray for patience or wisdom.
- Not exclusively emotionally driven but both emotionally and rationality driven. Once my emotional and mental state improved, I realized that I actually never used my brain that much for decisions. It was overwhelmly based on a feelings and intuition. However, rational thinking and emotions need to work as a pair.
- Quality of life has improved but life is still a big pain in the ***. The best comparison would be sport or video games. As you improve or level up, you reap the benefits of being healthier, more alert and working harder, but there are also new problems that arise that need to be solved.
- All the other praised nofap benefits : better empathy with people, better relationships, improved mood, more energetic, healthier libido, higher attraction toward normal people of the opposite gender, seeing the other gender as a human, a soul and not merely a sexual object (it has become a conscious decision which I avoid, to start to fantasize on women or pictures of women), better health and confidence (although my stress levels were actually quite high and I couldn’t relax for a while).
Purpose : PMO wasn’t in line with my beliefs even as a former atheist/agnostic. I discovered porn at around 11 and it was all very fun and exciting to begin with but at around 15, it was the first time I used PMO to cope with other issues in my life and by 16 I told myself that there might be something wrong with the way I used pornography. So from that time I started to limit my use of PMO. At 19, I became Christian and I understood that they were morally wrong reasons for PMO as well. It was a very stressful time of my life because of university and the whole change of beliefs. My porn habits had actually gotten worse for the next two years. At 23, I told myself that I had to quit no matter what, it is a mortal sin for a reason and it has become the main hurdle on my conscience.
To quit, I used every possible technique already mentioned on here (except having an accountability partner) such as getting myself distracted, working out, working, cleaning, socialising ie. fleeing techniques. I also used confronting techniques, ie. waiting for the urge to go away or overcoming the urge. Music also helped me. Finally I worked on building good life habits and prayed a lot.
Interesting fact, in my first streak, I had very strong urges at day 10 then a wet dream at day 17 and then the cycle of 17 days repeated itself. In this streak, I only had one wet dream around day 50. I also had one point in time around day 60 where if not for the streak, I would have given up.
Also, I haven’t dated anyone but I do not feel constrained by this PMO issue as much as before. I might still fail though, I am still tempted, but I hope that if I fail, my lows won’t be that low anymore.
My fellows fapstronauts, I wish you the same success and encourage you not to give up. It took me 8 years of actively fighting the issue but it’s worth the effort. Also another advice would be not to make nofap a #1 priority in your life, but as you work on improving other areas in your life, the nofap challenge will like a part of a puzzle, fit into the bigger scheme of your life and it will be more easily overcome.
LINK – 90 days of Nofap success !
By Poleon21
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