Currently I am at a point where you couldn’t pay me to PMO. My primary motivation for writing this down is the amazing sense of physical, mental, and spiritual freedom I attained after quitting. The benefits are so enormous. I think that if even one guy out there gets serious about quitting after reading my post, then this would be worth it.
I’ll start with the kind of hell I was living in while addicted to PMO, then talk about experiences that led up to my quitting, the crazy physical and mental tribulations that followed and the battle that I put up, and then my life afterwards.
My PMO Hell
At my lowest I was doing PMO every day for probably 10 years, with some extremely rare exceptions. In the year leading up to my quitting I had a sad and steady schedule: wake up, work, come home, smoke a lot of pot, play DoTA/HoN for 4-6 hours, PMO, and go to sleep. I was getting more and more depressed every day, started losing my hair, and my complexion was turning dark. I couldn’t go to sleep without PMO and developed an intense insomnia. In the depths of this mud pit, I made some horrible mistakes with women that I regret to this day. I was so addicted to sex that I ended up pursuing and trying some stuff so deviant it’s not worth writing down here. It was pretty horrible and I felt miserable afterwards. This was a result of 15 years of PMO addiction. I often contemplated suicide.
Three of the worst years were the ones that led up to my quitting. I was 26 when I quit.
I discovered masturbation when I was around 10 years old. I was a poor kid in Russia back then, so my only source of inspiration were nude/erotic stickers that came with certain kinds of chewing gum. My addiction quickly became an obsession. This was interrupted when I was 11 and got into a huge accident. I nearly lost my leg at the knee. Two years of surgeries, casts, and hospitals followed. For about 9 months during this time, I had a cast that literally covered my entire pelvic area, so I couldn’t even do anything if I tried. I remember that as soon as I had the cast off I was back to my addiction.
I moved to the United States when I was 16. We didn’t have internet during the first year, but as soon as we got it I started looking up photos. The situation got worse when I got my own computer. I was in the daily PMO loop in the first or second year of high school. During junior year, I started dating a really hot girl who was several years younger than me. The relationship that followed was all sex all the time. We were both extremely addicted. Some of the stuff I did back then was extremely amoral and terrible.
This relationship actually made matters much worse. After experiencing the peaks of sexual satisfaction with this girl and playing out all my fantasies, the addiction became an insane obsession. I was living my life as a perpetual sex seeking machine.
When we broke up, I quit my job, and did nothing but video games and PMO for almost six months. I got into another relationship just like that first one about a year later and the cycle repeated. When my second girlfriend left me, she actually told me that we are both extremely addicted to sex and that it was really bad. I was stunned. I always thought sex addiction was a joke.
After breaking up with my second girlfriend, I fell into the most intense daily cycle of weed -> HoN (video game) -> PMO.
There are a few things that stand out now in retrospect: – For over a decade I was obsessed with PMO, but never once considered it a problem. – I never thought of quitting, the idea seemed ridiculous to me. – I always thought that every guy was doing the same thing I am. – I didn’t have a sense of how bad things have gotten. Only after I quit a realized what kind of hole I was in.
The Battle – How I quit PMO for good
My story is probably atypical to most of the guys here. I didn’t know there was a community out there. Even if I heard of one, I’d probably think that it’s ridiculous. Also, I had some things happen that can’t be quite backed up with rigorous science or experiments. I’m not here to say everyone should try this way, the main point is to share my experience and hopefully inspire someone to quit their own way, or soldier on through another day of commitment.
At the lowest point of my life and my PMO addiction, my parents and people around me saw that I was getting extremely depressed, antisocial, and unhealthy. I was working for my parents’ business at the time, so they saw me deteriorating daily. One day my dad told me to ask one of his employees about some yoga that she was practicing, saying that it might help me get out of my funk. When I asked her, she said the she practices Falun Gong. I was actually familiar with Falun Gong because I had learned the exercises during a high school field trip years ago. She showed me the URL for the exercise instructions and I decided to give it try that night.
When I was done with work that day (my parents run an e-commerce site) I smoked some pot, played some HoN, and then went to the Falun Gong website (www.falundafa.org). I turned on the exercise instructions and did the first of the five exercises. The exercise was super easy on the surface, but I was sweating rivers a few seconds after starting it. I remember my body heating up and feeling very energetic. I then did three of the other exercises.
After I was finished I felt like going to sleep. I haven’t felt that way for years because of my insomnia. I went to my bedroom and got undressed. Then I remembered that I haven’t PMOd yet. I stood up to go to my computer, but couldn’t quite take a step forward. I strong thought came over me – “If I want to practice these exercises, I can’t be masturbating and watching porn. These exercises feel so pure, I don’t want to mix the two.”
So I went to bed, fell asleep immediately, and slept like a baby all night long, waking up completely refreshed. I was astounded when I woke up opened my eyes, I always thought that it’s absolutely impossible to go without PMO. This was also the first full night of good sleep I’ve gotten in years. For the first time in a long while I felt like I could take control of my actions.
This was day one. It was obvious to me that the Falun Gong exercises helped me make this leap. I didn’t know how or why they worked. Also, I’m not here to say that Falun Gong will work for everyone the same way. Myself, I’ve been practicing it ever since I quit PMO, it’s totally wonderful in many ways. I’ve gotten to know quite a few guys who practice Falun Gong as well and many have told me that they’ve quit PMO since they started practicing. But I’ve also met a couple of guys who have practiced Falun Gong for a long time and still struggle with PMO.
Falun Gong is basically a qigong practice with exercises and meditation (think Tai-chi). It’s different from most of the qigong and yoga stuff out there because it is always free of charge and all the instructions can be found free of charge online. It also has some teachings, basically guiding people to improve their character. The central principles are truth, compassion, and tolerance. I actually didn’t read the teachings for quite a while. In the beginning I just did the exercises.
After day one, came day two. I followed my daily routine weed -> HoN, but again instead of PMO did exercises. Again, full night of sleep and woke up refreshed. At the end of the first week after quitting I started feeling pain in my groin. I had some initial fear, but I didn’t give it much thought. This pain persisted and lasted for about six months.
One of my biggest challenges came to me in dreams. At the end of the second week I got an extremely detailed, extremely pornographic dream and I ejaculated. I remember waking up and feeling really bad about it. Not sure why, but I thought I was bulletproof. Of course failing this way in a dream isn’t exactly PMO, but somehow I was feeling down. In the end I decided to not be moved by it. The dreams came back over and over every few days. It was tough.
Just as the dreams were causing me confusion (I never had dreams like this before I quit,) people around me started to test me to. I remember telling a friend that I quit PMO, and he said it was unhealthy to do that and there can be problems. He thought I was pretty crazy to do it and I saw myself in him. I didn’t tell anyone about the pain, but somehow the word got out and other friends started to pressure me and tell me to go see a doctor. I knew I didn’t have to, but the pressure was tough.
As I was going through the pain and the social pressure, every day before I went to sleep I had the urge. The habits hardwired into my nervous system for over a decade of daily PMO weren’t rooted out. But every day I resisted. After about six months, I woke up one day without pain and I never had that pain again. At about the same time, the daily urges to PMO disappeared as well. It was at this time that I experienced the complete freedom. My health improved considerably, I was sleeping well, and I had a sense of vigor and lightness as though I was 10 years old again.
Life after quitting
I’m 33 now and it’s been 7 years since I quit PMO. I got married two years ago. The strength I developed from being PMO-free helped me form an amazing bond with my wife that wasn’t based on sex. For the first time in my life I felt true love without the pink lens of pornographic lust. We actually decided to not have any sex before marriage – I know – totally crazy by today’s standards – but it worked out amazingly.
My wife is pregnant and we will have a baby girl in September. I went from living a life of addiction to quitting pot/drugs, HoN, cigarettes, and alcohol, alongside a bunch of other bad habits. I wake up a 4:30 a.m. every day and stay productive till midnight most days. I’m feeling like a million bucks, every day. Quitting PMO was a huge step for me, because it was the biggest of my addictions, and after I knocked that one out, the other things came easy. The willpower I developed helped me take control of my life and I went on to take a leap of faith and work in my dream job (journalism). The pay isn’t as good as running a family business, but what I don’t get with money I get back in self fulfillment.
PMO isn’t a problem for me anymore, and my life was improved so much after quitting, I really feel I must tell everyone here that it’s worth every bit of your effort to quit for good. I’ve done some hard drugs before and nothing had so powerful a grip on me as PMO… So you are fighting a hard battle – but it’s worth every bit of the effort.
I’m still practicing Falun Gong and I know I’ll never give it up. I think the exercises helped me make the leap and give up PMO during the initial six months of struggle. In the meantime, the teachings helped me completely break away from the addiction in the long run. I’m not here to tell everyone to try, but it did help me, so maybe it help some of you guys as well. In the long run, it was the moral foundation I got from the teachings that helped me stay PMO-free. So even if you don’t pick up Falun Gong, find something with a bit of spiritual guidance in it – that helped me a lot.
I hope this helps.
Also, I think the guys here are a select few in the world today breaking away from PMO. In my opinion it makes everyone here extremely special, given how widespread PMO is throughout the world. You guys are super special. Supernormal! You can do it and the world will be a better place as a result.
LINK – I quit PMO in 2010 and never stumbled. Here’s my story.
By PanAiWen
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