Day 55
Some thoughts on the rebooting process so far:
Exercise helps. A lot. Not only does exercising help to stabilize your mood and anxiety, but it also releases endorphins so as to give you a positive attitude.
Consider that masturbating to orgasm (without porn of course) will set you back about 2 weeks, hormonally. I MO’d on day 40 and then again about ten days later. My morning woods still have not returned to where they were on day 40. Yes, I’ve still been learning through this time and growing as an individual, but I think my sexual vitality has been lagging behind and playing catchup.
I have not engaged in porn since I started but I recommend you DON’T DO IT!! It takes time to decrease your sensitivity to a certain addiction. If you reengage that addiction while in the rebooting process, you make that addiction even stronger.
I’m a big fan of playing with my nuts – probably from college. Most frat boys have no qualms about scratching their dick in company. I think this brazenness has led me to touching myself more than I should. In the mornings, this leads to me masturbating but trying to stop before orgasm. I’d rather just refrain from masturbating for now. I tried doing this before but I’m going to try again – no touching my dick unless it’s for cleaning.
Marijuana – The past few years, I used to toke 5-6 times a day, and could be “perma-high” for weeks at a time sometimes. BTW, I have smoked only an eighth over the past three months. To me, that’s basically going cold turkey. I have no guilt surrounding weed and no intention to ever quit. I hope to be a 80 year old pot smoking hippie grandpa one day. I’ve learned so much from the drug and I really credit it to a good deal of my character development. Also, I know how to be a high-functioning (pun intended) stoner, so it’s really never been a perceivable negative upon my lifestyle.
I now have some thoughts on the drug’s negative impacts upon our sexuality. To explain this, I need to reiterate some stuff about our nervous system and neurochemistry. The autonomic nervous system is what controls the body’s equilibrium. It is split into the sympathetic (fight or flight) and parasympathetic (rest and relax) parts. Which part do you think weed impacts?
I would have to say the PNS. When you’re chilling, you slow down and allow yourself to relax. That’s what is so wonderful about MJ. But problems occur when we hijack our body’s ability to engage the PNS by replacing it with MJ, which is basically what I was doing when I used it several times a day. I think this is also why many people say potheads are “self-medicating.” They are self-medicating by using MJ to curb their anxiety.
Anxiety takes us back to the SNS. So we have relaxation being PNS, and agitation being SNS. During sex, PNS initiates arousal, while the SNS controls orgasm. When MJ has hijacked your ability to engage your PNS, what occurs is anxiety during sexual encounters, and a difficulty to bypass it. I think this is what causes a lot of the “ED” among younger people. I have really good results with women and sex in that PNS trance state, where you lose sight of the whole world. I don’t think you can enter this state using the SNS.
Day 65
I have a background in the sciences and am actually beginning med school next week, so for a while I was just enjoying reading pubmed and eating all the info I could.
BTW, I’m still noticing my anxiety reducing each day. I feel like I’m giving my SNS a complete overhaul. I think when I was addicted to porn, the social withdrawal was the result of two factors: I found porn more arousing than real life, but I also found social situations a source of anxiety. I don’t see how a man can be expected to approach women while PMOing – he would be both fretting with anxiety and he would have wired himself to relieve that anxiety by running away and using porn.
I’m on day 65 now (seems crazy!!) and much more courageous in not only social situations, but also in my self-dialog. I feel mentally stronger each day. I’ve been dating around, but am going to wait until I relocate cross country in order to get into something more serious.
BY – onmyway
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