This was not my first major reboot (it was my second), and not my longest streak (140 days). In 2013 I got really into NoFap, active on the subreddit daily, and it was an integral part of me really getting my act together for the first time in my life. I was going to university, living in student residence, and developed many self discipline habits including working out consistently, meditation, and intense study focus, cold showers, healthy eating to name a few.
I would say that NoFap was the catalyst for this discipline, because it proved to me that if I could resist jacking it (daily since age 13, 10 years of addiction not even knowing it), then I could resist most other temptations too. Temptation to skip a workout, skip a meditation session, skip a class, eat a whole pizza for example. The “superpowers” were real, for me, in the sense that I had newfound confidence in myself, and girls were all over me all of a sudden, which had never happened before.
When I relapsed, and it took a few of those to get up to 140 days, I felt deflated and so unimpressed with myself. I was more anxious, weaker in the gym, focus dulled by brain fog. But every streak got longer until I never thought about PMO anymore, never edged, and the changes felt normal.
Around this time, I stopped going on r/nofap so much because I’d see the same types of posts and stories over and over and just got bored of it. I considered myself cured. I let myself masturbate again, without porn, once a week when I wasn’t having sex. I swear it started out so innocent. Just a little treat in the shower after a long week. No porn, no fantasizing, just myself treating myself. Over months, the habit began anew and I began masturbating regularly again. Fantasy, porn, edging, especially in response to difficult emotions. Sick addiction.
This all happened very slowly and insidiously, and I was like the frog in the pot that doesn’t realize he is being slowly boiled alive. I had this idea of myself as cured, as if somehow since I went through all that before, the benefits still applied to me now, which they surely did not. My disciplined habits fell away. My confidence was lost. I made halfhearted attempts to recapture the magic, sometimes making it a week or two before catastrophic relapse. In the midst of this, I adopted a victim mindset wherein the world was just too difficult, I was a product of the hypersexed culture and I was doomed to masturbate inevitably. Of course this attitude spilled over into other areas of my life like a stinking barrel of toxic ooze. I was stricken by constant fear that I was going to fail out of university and simply did not believe in myself.
One day I had enough and made the decision to do another reboot. A number of factors played a part, but the main one I think was falling in love for the first time. My girlfriend meant so much to me that I was inspired to save all my raw sexual energy for her. After making the simple decision, I tore a piece of paper out of my journal and made a simple 90 day chart to post on the wall above my desk where I would see it every day. Every morning after a day without fapping I would color in a square and watch the thing fill up.
This time around I did the 90 day reboot on my first try. I can’t say it was flawless, because there were a few nights with a few very edgy thrusts of humping the mattress, but overall it went smoothly without any crisis situations. I really didn’t want to have to make a new goddamn chart. It certainly helped to be having regular satisfying sex. The fact that the compulsion to masturbate was still strong, even with access to all the sex I could handle, is amazing to me. I realized through self reflection that porn and masturbation are all knotted up in my sexual and emotional programming, which makes it a very devious enemy that must be dealt with seriously.
Positive changes in this reboot have been increased energy, improved mood, decreased anxiety, better sex, more confidence, increased motivation. Just a general feeling of wellbeing, standing tall, having my shit handled even under fire. I plan to keep this ball rolling and make another chart, this time maybe incorporating an exercise and meditation routine, try and reboot those habits too.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far. If you have any questions about my NoFap experiences or methods, especially if you are new at this, I enjoy answering them so please ask. Good luck to each one of you.
TL;DR NoFapped, felt righteous, fapped again for awhile, felt like a bitch, NoFapped again, feeling groovy right now.
LINK – 90 Day Reboot – My Story
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