It’s only been 3 months, but I’m beyond amazed at my transformation. I’m an entirely new, happy person now. I talked about the benefits I felt and the new things that happened in my life in my previous posts. Those curious enough can view my post history.
Not socially anxious, shy, depressed, lethargic, or suicidal. Just normal and happy 🙂
[From history]
My life involved going to work, doing a half-assed job because I had mental fog and no motivation, coming home, eating shit food, fapping, and going to bed.
When I say NoFap changed my life, I mean it quite literally. I’m an entirely new person now and it’s hard to believe that change was effected in just 90 days.
I had all the symptoms of autism, except for mental development lag and was actively trying to get an appointment with a psychiatrist (which itself was hard, because of social anxiety of calling doctors).
When I fapped, I used to fly off the handle very easily. Now I’m totally cool and in control.
Before I started my current NoFap streak, I was doing laundry in my bathtub, because of social anxiety of going down into the public laundry room in my building. Going on dates was totally not even a hope of mine, but yeah, I’m a totally changed person now.
As for relapses, yeah, porn is very much like a drug. I did some hard drugs in the past and quitting porn was exactly like quitting those drugs. Perhaps thinking of it that way could help you with your relapses? You mention easy to get hooked from just taking a peek at porn… That’s like saying it’s easy to get hooked from just taking a small puff of crack. Would you do that if you were trying to beat a crack addiction? Fuck no, you wouldn’t be anywhere near any crack and you wouldn’t be hanging around in places where crack is smoked. So do the same with porn, stop peeking and stop hanging out alone on your computer: go outside, go to the gym, sign up to some classes so you interact with people away from your computer. That’s what helped me.
I definitely shave more often now on NoFap and my chest filled out with hair (used to be nearly empty 3 months ago).
I’m 33 years old and just had my first date a couple of weeks ago. Just stick with NoFap. It changed my life. The date thing wasn’t even on my wishlist—I had trouble interacting with people for mundane things.
She was 30. We did agree to a second date during the first date, but during a follow up text she made it clear we’d be meeting as friends only. Hey, life’s not a fairy tale, but I’m amazed I had a date in the first place (I’m also 70lb overweight, while she’s fairly decent looking).
I’m already talking to another girl on this dating site and she seems to like me. Back when I fapped, I couldn’t even bring myself to BE on a dating site, let alone have anything decent to say to girls.
Having quit several hard drugs in the past, I’m not at all sold on the “habit is diminishing” thing. It’s not a habit; it’s an addiction. The one cigarette; the one beer; the one hit of crack; and the one wank. They all put the core of the physical addiction that’s driven by chemicals back in place.
The book “The Easy Way to Quit Smoking” corroborates my view and argues against quitting by cutting down, because you’re just torturing yourself with longer and longer periods of cravings, and eventually you’re more likely than not to give up the process.
The virginity stuff… try not to sweat about it. I was supper obsessed about losing it that I paid a hooker to do me. It was a disappointment and wasn’t very enjoyable. I never even knew her name and wouldn’t recognize her if she walked past me today. That’s no way to remember your first time. Focus on meeting the girl who’s worth it, not the girl who will take it 🙂
[Sleep problems are] just for a week or two, tops. Then it gets better. So, don’t overthink it.
Go to the gym, put all electronics away an hour before bed, go to bed a bit earlier to account for longer time falling asleep. Worse comes to worst, you’ll be sleep deprived for a couple of days. It won’t kill you.
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Today, I’d like to share some tips and advice in hopes someone will find them useful:
Don’t watch the streak counter. It’s only useful during the first 2 weeks, for you to see some progress before you start to actually notice the negative effects of the addiction start to wane, at which point improved quality of life will be your motivation. Remember, the goal isn’t 7 days, 30 days, or 90 days. You’re quitting this addiction for the rest of your life and instead of counting days, you just take it one day at a time.
It’s a proper addiction. I used to do hard drugs in the past and there’s a very strong similarity between quitting those drugs and quitting fapping. Your brain is addicted and will try to trick you to get more of the drug. Recognize that that will occur and be wary of “excuses”, such as that you can’t fall asleep without fapping, that you’re lonely, or that life won’t ever be good without fap. It’s just the addiction skewing your reality. Once you stop being addicted, clarity will return and you’ll be fine.
Get busy. This was the biggest one for me. You can’t relapse when you’re in the middle of a 10-people foreign language class. You can’t relapse when you’re pumping weights at the gym. You can’t relapse when you’re with a group of friends in the middle of a mall. Installing a million porn blockers while you’re sitting on your ass in front of your computer browsing “memes” for a week isn’t as effective as losing a couple of pounds of extra weight because you’ve been working out and eating right.
Be with more people. And I don’t mean hookers or hookups. Wish a good day to a stranger or sign up for some classes for your hobbies. Even just go to a public space and smile. Try to do the opposite of sitting in your room, staring at computer pixels.
These tips come from my personal understanding of why fapping affects me negatively. When you orgasm, the chemicals shooting up your brain condition it to desire and repeat the action you’ve just done. These aren’t just orgasm-specific chemicals, but are used to re-enforce other minor actions, such as taking care of your health or being nice to people. When you fap, you condition your brain to desire locking yourself away from other people and to watch sick shit. Not only that, but when you do it a lot, the brain is overwhelmed by being shot up with all these chemicals, so it starts responding less to them. Thus, when the minor actions—such as being nice to people—occur, the minor amount of these chemicals no longer make the brain react, and so, you become an irritable, uncaring asshole to people.
And that is my unscientific model of the fap addiction that helped to steer me for the past 3 months.
Thanks all for the support and I’m wishing everyone success on their own journey!
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