Background – An Indian guy 34 years of age – had been watching porn since the age of 19/20. Before that I used to jerk off to magazines, even hot pics of celebrity women in newspapers, and my own dirty imagination (mostly weird/kinky sexual thoughts, because of my poor upbringing which is another story in itself reserved for another time I guess). So what defines the 95% of the times I have watched porn is one word – ‘Edging’!
Yes – believe it or not! Right since very young age when I used to keep rubbing off my genitals on bed for long times, I gradually developed an affinity towards heightening my pleasure for as long as possible.
Back then I knew that ejaculating was bad for health and it decreased my vigour/energy a lot – but little did I know that the main cause for that ‘feeling like shit’ after a ‘5-hour-long-edging-porn-binge’ was the ‘edging’ and humiliation/guilt part that I indulged myself in, and not exactly ejaculation. Ok, ejaculating often is also bad but i think most of us know that jizzing post 10 minute of imagination/intimate sexual encounter is a LOT LESS harmful than porn-induced orgasm.
So I got addicted to this way of life. I managed to watch for hours at nights even when I had a job to attend in the morning. This affected my sleep, my confidence, my thought process, my dignity, my intelligence, my health, my job performance and what not. I was depressed 90% of my waking time. I started being afraid of every little thing around me, especially confrontations and people of authority – thus poorer performance still and eventually I quit.
Because of the ‘nature’ of porn that I edged to mostly (fem-om, tra–y) for 13 long years, combined with usual downsides of porn binging – I kept falling low and low into the gutter. I knew it needed to change urgently, and I tried few streaks (once I went so far as about 31 days after finding /r/nofap) but eventually I would get triggered and ‘call of the gutter’ would lead me to eat shit again. On average, I would have watched 2/3 hours of porn EVERY DAY for the last 10 years or more (just an estimate, it could be more also).
I can add pages to my deep shit background but to cut a long story short, I was overall a mess of a person. I knew I needed change, but was unable to go without my usual porn dose for a few days. And yes, once I relapsed after every streak – Oh man! That was a binge the details of which will scare the hell out of even iron-willed people.
Developments – On the way of ‘trying to recover’ from this habit, I came across Gary Wilson’s video (like so many of you know). I ate up this sub, I read various websites (like YBOP, rebooting forums etc.). These things time and again managed to recover my confidence very slightly. Once I read in a forum thread (sorry can’t remember, that is a famous guy in that forum) about how just ‘trying to quit’ without any life plan/passion won’t lead to anything fruitful. I knew it – but was helpless without a purpose/passion/engaging hobby.
I tried to learn ‘creative writing’ and enrolled myself in a 12-weekend course last year. I was learning very well, but due to this awful porn addiction, I started missing classes/assignments and eventually left it in the middle.
I once even attended a 10-day silent ‘Vipassana’ meditation retreat at a hill station in India (so many of you Europeans and Americans were also there) and I thought I would change after that. It did help for few days but then I was ‘back in business’ (sadly). But I am sure if I was forced to stay in that environment under their rules for 2/3 months at least, I probably would have come back as a different person. Anyway.
A small change I started last year was that I started listening to some ‘Mantras’ (our Hindu religion is very rich in this context) regularly, and tried to take a 20/25 minute brisk evening walk whenever I could. To some this won’t mean anything, but believe me these two things started changing me as a person, if ever so slightly.
And then one day – A friend, who was aware of my low confidence/bad health and about my childhood desire to learn martial arts (but didn’t know about my porn addiction) pushed me to take a trial martial art class (Krav Maga to be precise) near his home. That was a Wednesday. I still remember that after that class, I was in pain for the next 2/3 days. I couldn’t even squat properly to shit (here in India we still have ‘squatty’ commodes at many homes), because my coach gave me a mean kick each on my outer thighs. He also very slightly choked my neck and punched me once in the stomach, but honestly after the class I felt much much better than I used to feel after rubbing one off.
2 days later (on Friday) I had to go with the monthly fees, but guess what – a day before that I again jerked off and lost all desire/drive to go. I texted my coach that I would join from Monday (with only half-assed commitment) and with the grace of God, I did manage to force myself to bring my weak ass, monthly fees, two photographs and a ball-pen to sign the disclaimer – on that fateful Monday.
Since then, I haven’t looked back. Something almost magical (seems almost magical to me at least) started happening. I got so passionate about learning for the initial 2/3 months that I frankly lost temptation and desire for porn. Not only that, under my coach’s influence (God bless him) I managed to improve my diet and even sleep to an extent. Everything is linked isn’t it? You want to be fit for the class so you try to take good diet/sleep, which combined with your enthusiasm leads to quick learning and improved performance at a decent speed. You see gradually that you are getting a bit healthier and ‘in-shape’.
And when coach starts praising you – oh boy! You get into that positive spiral (you increase activity X so as to do better in activity Y, better activity Y leads to so many positive reinforcements in the form of Z which further want you to do more of activity X, thus more of Y/Z and so on).
Summary of last 6 months – I haven’t looked at proper porn per se (no videos, no stories, no pics) for last 180 odd days – apart from occasions of temptation. In these tempting moments I might open ‘escort’ sites or search for ‘kin-y females’ kinda stuff on Google or ‘top 10 se-y females of all time’ on you tube etc. But then thankfully I collect myself in 4/5 minutes (simply no touching my John. I just let my thoughts run a little wild for a few minutes), and instead I do 15 push ups, imagine next class of martial arts etc.
In the last 1/2 months my martial art improvement has slowed down due to a number of reasons and I have started taking offs (reasons out of my hand), but still life is much better than 6 months back. Brain fog has reduced a LOT, people have started commenting on my fitness, my innocent/handsome face. That day at a relative’s place more than 2 people commented that I don’t look 34 but rather below 30.
Sometimes I catch females starting at me, which had become a dream earlier. I have started believing in God/Universal Power a lot, that fate governs everything (again some of you might not believe, we all have our viewpoints). Now sometimes (once in a blue moon), people start making small talk with me (earlier I thought everyone wanted to stay away from me). I think my aura energy is getting better to some extent because of better diet, better habits etc.
To be honest, I have NOT become King Kong. I am still single and have a lot to learn about being comfortable with girls/women. I still have depressing phases (though those have reduced by about 60/70% at least), I still have temptations (which I have to manage), I am still afraid of confronting people (but I see my fear gradually decreasing). My diet is still not very good (I take carbs, sugar etc a lot – its staple in India), but it’s better than previously.
It has been 6 months and now I have started feeling a slight ‘zest’ for life. Some people think 6 months is too long a period – which these changes should have happened in 2nd/3rd month or even earlier – to which I say: ‘Everyone here is in a different stage of life, and has a unique background as I have. The more deeper down the gutter you are, the more time/effort will it probably take to come out and rise to the skies, but that is not in our/your hands at all’.
So overall, this sub, YBOP/related forums, my engaging myself in a useful hobby (mine was martial arts, you could get into a language or an instrument also), all under the grace of God – has helped me in getting a ‘6-month star’ flair here. I don’t know how long this will continue, but today I just wanted to share all this with you all, so I did. God bless everyone!
I pray to God to be my friend/supporter in this journey. Ask me any questions if you have, I will be happy to answer.
LINK – My Story for last 6 months
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