Today is day 61 completely PMO free. I don’t think I’ve ever had this long without P or M since I started by porn career at about age 13; I’m now 58. I don’t even want to know, if I was able to add up the hours, how many complete days or weeks of my life have been spent indulging this addiction. I’ve also been trying to stop for almost as long as I’ve been doing it.
There’s was always another day off in the distance when I would concur it, “when I’m 18, when I’m 21, 25, 30, 35, 50, when I get into college, when I get out of college, when I get married, when I get divorced, when I get remarried, when this project is over,” yadda, yadda, yadda. You get the idea.
Aside from the negative effects directly caused by the addiction, there was also the negative effects caused by constant relapse. I quit smoking when I was 24 and quit drinking when I was 39. It was AA meeting rooms that I first heard about SA and sex addiction and I thought “finally, the way out of this!” It didn’t work for me.
When I first found yourbrainonporn I also thought “finally, the way our of this!” Although it didn’t happen right away, the knowledge base that I got from YBOP about how this is really a dopamine addiction is the foundation for my success so far. I have also been reading all the posts on this website from Jon64 and William. The brain science on YBOP and William’s insight into how to bring that knowledge to bear in the day-to-day struggle have really been transformational.
In addition to having all of that ammunition, the one thing that has been keeping me PMO-free these last 60 days is I avoid like the plague not only porn (duh!) but also any porn substitutes. For me that includes racy TV or even TV shows that have attractive women on them, including some cable news channels. I don’t look at pictures of girls in bikinis or underwear or even fully clothed.
I also avoid allowing myself to look at the women around me. Obviously if I’m talking to someone that’s different, but walking along the train platform or waiting on line in the deli, or sitting in a restaurant, if I see an attractive woman I just look away. That is the exact opposite of what I’ve been doing for the last 45 years, and it’s working. It may seem unnatural, etc., etc., but I don’t care. That is a price I am very willing to pay. I’m not consumed with lust, I’m not jerking off to porn, and I’m not that letch ogling every female that happens to pop up in my field of vision. No porn, no porn substitutes of any kind, including fantasy. That was a killer for me too in the past. Well, I feel like I’m babbling now.
That’s what’s been working for me and that’s what I’m going to keep doing. God bless to all of you guys and gals and have a great PMO-free day!
LINK – 60 days! Here’s what’s worked for me
BY – alamar365
INITIAL POST (2 years earlier) – I want my life back
This is my first journal entry. I am a 56 year old man, been fapping since age 13 or 14; a very long time. Like most people my age it started with magazines, developed into movies, then came the vcr, the dvd, the home computer, and finally the smart phone. I have 17 years sobriety from alcohol but have not been to an AA meeting for 8-10 years. No real temptation to drink.
This PMO addiction has been killing me slowly for years. I told myself I would stop when I turned 18, when I got into college, when I got out of college, when I turned 21, when I got married, when I got divorced, when I got remarried, blah, blah, blah. I found the information on addiction at YBOP eye-opening and hoped just knowing the brain science would be enough for me to finally quit; it wasn’t.
I had a period of 22 days back in April-May. That was the longest period in many years. Since then I’ve gone an hour, a day, 5 days was the longest, I think. I was a regular member of SA but have not been back there for years either and have no desire to go back. I am hoping that commitment to getting clean and reliance on this and other websites will finally help me get out of this hell I’ve been in. I am in my second marriage, about 3 weeks short of our 20th anniversary. Two kids from each marriage the eldest being 27, the youngest 15. I told them all about the alcohol addiction but not about this one.
I told my wife when I was going to SA for the first time about 16 years ago. Our relationship has never been the same since. I read the inspiring messages of guys who have clocked serious recovery time and that it what I really want, not the images I’ve trained my brain to crave. That’s enough for now. Best of luck to all of you here.
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