Watch this first. My story is not one of those great stories. It was full of darkness, and I had so many chances to throw it all away and turn back. And yet I got to 1 year,
and my new day has come. This took me a while to write, so please read it and get as much as you can from it. It might get ranty, but I will try my best.
First, my background and beliefs so you understand where I am coming from. I got addicted to PMO when I was about 12 or 13. I am 22 now. This addiction has been my bane for about 10 years. Regarding addiction – there are some that fap that might not be addicted, I don’t know. all I do know is that I have an addictive personality and PMO became a huge problem for me. This journey was to rid myself of this addiction, and everything else was a bonus, and that tone will be reflected in this report. This is all on hard mode. These are my observations of what worked:
The first and most important thing is Discipline. Motivation is fleeting, and can vary greatly with time. Why rely on that? Discipline is the only way to win. If you were anything like me, you had to build up that discipline with doing other things. Here’s what I did that worked:
- Cold showers – readily available for everyone and a very good way to build up your discipline. Furthermore, the cold water will destroy your urges. I strove to do them every day unless there was no shower available. How do you gauge a cold shower? I would gauge my cold showers by checking my scrotum. If it didn’t shrink from the cold, then the shower wasn’t cold enough. Simple as that.
- No touching the penis unless going to the bathroom or in the shower. I had the unconscious habit of having my hands near my penis or in my pants when they were idle. Also, I would use no electronics in the bathroom.
- Meditate frequently and have some time set aside to analyze the recent past. The mind needs silence, so try to do it in silence.
- one of the hardest ones – stop all dirty thoughts, do not indulge them. You can’t control when they show up, however you can control what happens when they do show up. Don’t try to resist them, that gives them power. Instead, receive them and then dismiss them. I would dismiss them with thoughts like: “that’s nice, but it will never happen to me the way I am now” or “whatever. I’m imagining things.”
- Remember to humble yourself! You are not the center of the universe, and most people only think about how other people perceive them, not anyone else. Be honest with yourself, you are broken. Fix yourself first and don’t pay any heed to others.
- To help you figure out what your underlying problem is, here are some that seem rather common: loneliness, jealousy, and worthlessness.
- I have several post it notes above my desk that describe what I want in life. Do that. Quantify your dreams and feelings.
- I vowed to become a modern gentleman.
- Internet blockers are stupid. There is always a way around it and even then it just skirts around the issue. You need self control, because once you get to a computer that doesn’t have the blocker, you are done for when the urges come. Just don’t even consider it, setting it up is more time on the computer that you can relapse.
I was really far gone when I started. I couldn’t stop thinking about sex, and my environment wasn’t helping things. For people like me, it is necessary to take the No Arousal approach (only for a little bit). Basically, this is what happens:
- Basically, you go into rehab and remove most temptations from the equation so its easier for you to work on yourself. When you are stronger, you can add more in.
- In this day and age, the world will not help you overcome PMO. Avoid as much as you can of it.
- I avoided the internet for two weeks. For some this is impossible, but I waited until I had a school break. At the very least, before you go on the internet find a specific (repeat: not vague) reason to go on it and once you have done it get off.
- Change the music you listen to. Listen to nothing explicit or anything that will arouse you. Personal experience has also led me to avoid things with heavy bass, but that is just personal (and I have no idea why this is the case). Find something calming, or if you don’t like any of that, listen to background/ambient noise like raindrops or something.
- Change what you watch. Watch nothing with a sex scene or nudity. If you can’t do it, watch nothing at all.
- Stay away from video games with romantic routes to them. It will only serve to tempt you.
Where NoA was for some people, the rest is for everyone: You need to replace PMO with something else. PMO is not the problem, is just a terrible solution that you found to another problem. Figure out what that problem is and devote all of your energies to fighting/solving it. You don’t have to worry much about PMO if you got the correct focus.
- You need to find a hobby, and start realizing your potential. I believe that in the beginning, your brain is broken enough that doing this is impossible. Survive about 40 days and you should be good, that’s how long it took me. In the meantime, read, exercise, and figure yourself out (remember, figure out the underlying problem PMO is solving if you don’t know it).
You also need to know who your enemy is. By taking part in NoFap, you are pitting your mind and soul against the toughest enemy you will ever face, your body.
- The body is your toughest enemy because it knows you better than your mind does. It is clever, it is dastardly, and it will give you no quarter. You can’t give it any quarter back. Any thoughts of being tired or giving up come from the body. Do not listen to it.
- The best way to fight it is to learn about yourself as much as you can. Something I still struggle with is using that information to win, but that is something you must do. Be viscious! Fight your body tooth and nail.
- Set goals for yourself logarithmically. What I mean by that is to start really small, and then as you succeed at the little things, make them bigger and bigger. My first goal was 3 days, then a week, then two weeks, then a month, then three months/90 days, and then a year. Don’t follow me exactly, you might have to start at two days, or one day, or maybe even 12 hours. To me, I would relapse at least once every three days (at LEAST), so that’s how I set my first goal.
*Never despair, always keep moving forward, even if you get a setback. Keep putting one front of the other. As hokey as this video is, it helps. Which brings me to my next point…
- Have several mantras. These are quick phrases that will remind you of your struggle and why you fight. “Put one foot in front of the other” was one of mine. Some others of mine were: “Body, I will destroy you”, “I am in charge”, “DIE URGES, DIE!”, “Why would I want to return to my old self?”, “I will be reborn”, and “I will become better than this!”.
- Use cognitive dissonance to your advantage, but tread carefully. Become a hypocrit, deny PMO openly and treat it as disgusting. When the dissonance comes, you must choose the path that leads away from PMO. As you move forward and succeed little by little, you will become less and less of a hypocrit. In the end you will be free and a better person because of it.
- Cry. Seriously. Remove the thought that you need to be a manly man. It’s ok to cry and it will serve to keep you on the right path. And if its embarrassing, it will only strengthen your resolve.
- In the beginning I also frequently consulted the wisdom of the nofap emergency app, even if it wasn’t an emergency. It helps keep you going straight.
- Some of you might this I have taken things to the extreme. But this is how far I had to take it triumph over myself. Who knows how far you will go. Again this is a report on my struggle and what worked, NOT a how-to to follow exactly. (Actually, I think I forgot to mention this before. Our struggles are personal, do what you need to do to win, not what others have. But draw inspiration where you need it.)
Most importantly, you need to find your reason to fight or you will get nowhere.
- I recognize that the above sounds like I’m a lunatic if you are not 100% commited to overcoming your addiction (if you even believe that you have one).
- My reason is very complicated, but I’ll shortly touch on it. After many years of fapping, I would get terrible pain when peeing or other cramps. That wasn’t the reason though, one of the reasons was because the pain would not motivate me to stop. That was shameful, and was the blaring alarm that I actually heeded. Even if it brought physical pain I still would fap. How disgusting, how stupid, and how terrible am I because it got to that. To me, PMO was a huge chain that had me tied down. I was not in control of myself anymore. My conception of women was terribly skewed: I had a certain hate for them because it felt like they held all the power over us with sex. When I saw anyone of the female sex, all I thought about was banging them. That was stupid and disgusting. I couldn’t take them seriously, and that brought me serious shame as well. I was doing a disservice to women everywhere. After a certain point I hated myself. I was a hypocrit and I was struggle to stay afloat in the demanding world. I had to change, and I had to free myself. I vowed to rid myself of this terrible sin (I had religious reasons too).
- Get angry with yourself frequently. In my weakest points, the thing that saved me was to simulate a relapse in my mind and then berate that simulated self. I would recall the worthless feelings I had, the hate, and the self delusion. I didn’t want that anymore.
- As you can probably tell, I have very strong feelings about myself. I don’t know how strong they have to be to succeed, but that underlying problem I was talking about before is probably what will muster those strong feelings.
Just want to touch on my religious component. If you are not religious, or Christian, please skip this. What you need to hear here is pray to the Mother of God, the Theotokos. Akathists to her really help. Pray to her faithfully, ask her for intersessions to the lord to give you strength against PMO, and she will answer your prayers.
Finally, just what will you get out of this? I’m sure this is the part you are most interested about reading: the ‘superpowers’ I got from going through NoFap. I disagree, what you think are superpowers are not actually superpowers. Developing discipline is a good skill that will help you do anything. Face the truth and develop humility and that will change your whole outlook on life. These things will change you subtly, but the changes seem to be huge to others.
This post was a labor of love. I love you guys. Obviously not in a sexual way, and its a love that you will understand as you succeed with further streaks, but its an empathetic love. I understand what you are going through. For some of us, the journey is tough. I shed many tears along the way.
Think of this: Every man is called to be a warrior. But some of us can’t fight or are too weak to fight, so does that mean some of us can’t meet that calling? WRONG. I am physically weak. I don’t grow muscle like some, and I’m not fit for physical labor. I am warrior of the mind, and I think that’s the calling that we have as men. Integrity and honor. There are many arenas we fight in.
This report is dedicated to the chat group that I belong to, Warriors, who have kept it together and continue to struggle together for about a year. They truly helped me along, and I hope to help them along with this report.
This post is just trying to tell you to NoFap Up. SO DO IT.
Some quotes from people much smarter than I: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. See a pattern here? Some more: 7, 8.
One last thing. To those of you that like to just read NoFap posts to feel better about yourself, at least admire our struggle. I don’t know what your beliefs are regarding us, and you won’t understand us unless you are doing it but we are trying to change ourselves for the better, and that is definitely something you can understand and admire.
tldr; read the post, if you actually care about NoFap, you lazy butt.
LINK – A one year streak: a report of my findings and successes. (Long Post)
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