I’ll sum up my story. I started fapping when I learnt I had cum, which was around 13 years old. I fapped every single day of my life and when my parents were away and I had the place to myself I could fap more than 5 times an evening.
Fast forward to me being in my 20’s, got my own place and a friend made me aware of a certain tube site. I dated girls and for the most part I would fap on average once or twice a week. I had my own pad and I was banging lots of different girls all the time and porn really wasn’t an issue because I wasn’t viewing as much.
Then when I turned around 25, I started with hookers even though I always had more than a couple of hook up girls I was seeing anyway. Slowly the use of porn was exceeding my sex with real girls. Inbetween I dated four girls seriously (not at the same time) but the porn just got worse and worse.
Fast forward to 28 year old me, ridiculous over-use of porn had a steady girlfriend who I still managed to have sex with but my requests got more and more outrageous. Fapping on average three times a day every day. Fapped every morning and I’d be late for work every single day. I managed to work myself up to a good position at work because between 24 and 27 years old I actually didn’t watch much porn (not any actually that I can remember) and I was focused on my career.
Started losing my shit, late for work, brain fog… squeaky voice, unable to conduct presentations in front of crowds of people (which was a requirement of my job). Went up to fapping on average about 5 times a day. Girlfriend stayed with me, despite ED starting up. By the time I’d see her I would have fapped at least three times that day so obviously my appetite for sex was practically 0 by then despite having a really hot girlfriend who was much younger than me.
Then, I somehow stumbled on this reddit because someone was making a joke of it on another sub. I then went onto yourbrainonporn and rebalanced websites. For the first time ever, I acknowledged that I had a problem and even more significant that this habit had serious consequences.
I went on a countless number of 1 or 2 day “streaks” and relapsed more times than I can remember. I felt like a completely hopeless case. I read up on people’s stories and realised that I was worse than 99/100 fapstronauts. This went on for a long time. I just relapsed on day 1 or 2 or 3 if I was lucky.
Read Gabe’s story and saw his videos, started educating myself by reading books recommended by successful rebooters. All the time relapsing day after day after day. I’d get pumped and I’d go on a 2 or 3 day streak and get cocky BOOM! relapse after relapse after relapse after relapse. Got majorly depressed but still kept reading all of your stories and books (when I wasn’t fapping which wasn’t often).
Then something happened 188 days ago, I was going on another nofap “run” and I am not sure what exactly clicked but I know accounts of abuse on porn sets and Gabe as well as nofap and the other mentioned sites and the books I read all played their part. I remember being on day 4 and wanting to post on nofap but I didn’t dare get cocky again.
I was tempted at many times to just take a quick look at some of my old porn forums to see what was going on in the world of porn but somehow I resisted, I went back to the gym and I went to the book store to get some more motivational books and got some on my kindle.
Between day 5 and 10, I remembered all the shit I enjoyed doing. Playing pool, collecting and reading comic books! Spending time with friends and family! And for the first time in what felt like forever I couldn’t wait to get intimate with my girlfriend. We had sex and I stayed hard, really hard, I enjoyed it so much and for the first time ever we really made love and didn’t have to do shit that would keep me hard (I needed her to talk like really dirty to stay hard for some reason before).
During days 1 to around 20, I had dreams of naked porn stars… my favourite scenes, girls I had sex with in the past. I was so fucking frustrated and I remember laying in bed being attacked by all these thoughts and visions, I felt exactly how Ewan McGreggor was depicted in Trainspotting where he was recovering from heroin abuse, EXACTLY like that. I was tormented especially in the evenings and mornings but I kept telling myself “your sick and your getting better, this wont last forever”… and it didn’t
Skip forward to +-day 20, no images, no laziness in the morning… only energy, only me having my sense of humor back again. My voice was much stronger and I could speak to people without stuttering, NO STUTTER and I had no anxiety when presenting to people at work any more. I was always good with girls but I thought that was because I was such a horny bastard that at the rate I pursued girls I was bound to hook up with quite a few. I felt no need to cheat on my girlfriend, for the first time she was enough, I didn’t even want to betray her and the advances from other girls just got heavier and heavier but for once I wasn’t a sex crazed asshole who couldn’t say no to anything with a hole.
When I see 188 days next to my badge I am still in disbelief. Since these 188 days I have picked up over 10kg’s, I can run 24 km without much stress, I haven’t smoked a cigarette (my PMO problem went hand in hand with cigarettes as I would smoke while PMO’ing). I couldn’t PMO without having cigarettes and half the time I was drinking while PMO’ing and smoking. My health has done a total 180, I’m not tired all the time and the brain fog is completely gone.
Thanks to everyone who has posted their story on here, my eyes well up with tears when I think about how far I’ve come after 188 days. People make fun of this sub but it played a major role in saving my life and making me truly happy for the first time in forever. I’m now living and not just surviving.
You can do it, trust me. I was the worst of worst cases and if I could do it, you can too.
188 Days, I thought I was a hopeless case. But here I am.
by redditcarl
;