Day 49
How you treat yourself and others has a strong impact on yourself and thus on the decision whether you turn to porn again or not. There are a couple of indicators:
Boundaries
Respect needs and values of others. Accept a no and act accordingly. Be honest with yourself and your boundaries also.
Empathize
Engage and be vulnerable. Express your thoughts and emotions. Create a safe environment. You might need to heal yourself.
Equals
Make intimacy possible. Give feedback based on actions instead of character. Accept differences in character. Don’t shame others. Think of others as your equals.
Forgiveness
Use forgiveness. Let go of painful experiences and focus on the present. Don’t hold grudges because of things that happened in the past.
Independent
Focus on your own path. Build yourself. Follow your own healthy habits too. Don’t be overly dependent of others.
Control
Think of your own anxiety, jealousy, insecurities and other negative emotions. Make decisions for yourself. Focus on your own path. You can’t control others, as they don’t play by your rules. You can only control yourself.
Coherent
Try to communicate clearly. Say yes to what is coherent with yourself. Don’t be passive aggressive and speak up instead.
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Day 50
These have been my cleanest 50 days ever. Building habits each day. Remember: Build the new instead of fighting the old.
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Day 52
The outcome of your actions reveals your true intentions.
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Day 54
When you start seeing not only watching porn as problematic but also edging behavior, you’ll again a lot of awareness and realize how early things can start to go wrong.
Edging can be any pattern that mimics porn behaviors. So it can be doing “research”, go into “click bait”, watch some sexy videos or surf with the intention to find something.
I’ll give you an example:
So recently I noticed a new pattern in my behavior. I would read news more often. I didn’t quite understand it at first but it dawned to me that the underlying reason was me hoping to see maybe some news about an “instagram star” or “celebrity”, whatever could be somewhat “interesting”. At its core, this behavior is basically my brain having the hope to see something, get me closer to porn. This is edging behavior.
In the past…
I would get to maybe a good 130 days streak and slowly engage more in that type of things. I had other means back then. Maybe I’d watch some video on youtube, or do some “research” about a model or something. The urges started to get stronger. Maybe more mistakes pile up, boom, relapse at 150 days.
So, what to do?
I highly recommend taking a couple of minutes at one specific day each week and think about edging behavior patterns you might have. Try to eliminate those. Maybe it’s the best to say goodbye to youtube, if that’s a weak link in your journey. Maybe don’t read the news anymore or only allow yourself news from one source that is safe. By doing this regularly, you’ll get free of obstacles in your recovery and you’ll also get better at anticipating your edging behavior patterns. And the less you have of those, the easier it is to abstain from porn.
Take care.
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I recognize this behaviour so much! I failed because of this even more than from urges. It’s key to recognize the pattern and break free of the cycle.
Thank you for sharing brother!
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Day 56
Next time you see a women at the train station, at the store or on your way to work and your eyes wander to her breasts or her ass, follow these rules to break the habit of objectifying:
1) Don’t look for longer than two seconds.
Or less if you can, of course.
2) Don’t look twice.
You won’t get anything out of looking again.
3) Use the trigger to personify and see what you are not seeing.
Remind yourself that the person you are looking at is someone’s daughter or someone’s mother.
Taken from https://recoveredman.com/17
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Day 58
If you really want to quit, then do this like your life depends on it - because it does.
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Day 60
If you’re having trouble changing your habits, the problem isn’t you, the problem is your system.
How do you improve your system? Set up a recovery plan, connect with your accountability partner and work on healthy habits!
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Day 62
When abstaining, sexual lust and a drive to procreate will build up within you. Remember that when masturbating to porn, you’ve been tricking your brain to think that you’ve had sex with all these different women. From a biological perspective, you’d be doing a good job. Your brain will crave more of that.
So take that energy and put it into healthy habits: go out with people, play music, workout and meditate. Master yourself and use that energy for something useful!
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Day 64
In this very moment, I’m thinking of how great I’m feeling at only 64 days and also how much better I could be feeling if porn wasn’t a part of my life to begin with. In my journey, I’ve experienced times where I missed or craved porn really badly… what a joke, really.
It’s a joke because porn is a product made out of perversity in an industry run by perverts like Hugh Hefner. For whatever reason, people like him are called “stars” and grieved upon their deaths when in reality they are victims of their own uncontrollable perversity. Instead of looking for a healthy way to fix their broken lives, they use their power and position to push men and women so those people give up their dignity, risk their health and ruin their own mental state just to have a bunch of consumers watch porn, jerk off and ruin their lives also. It’s obvious why many “porn stars” commit suicide once the drugs can’t numb the emptiness anymore.
Those people aren’t “stars” either, it’s all fucking abuse. Don’t ever think that anyone could possibly do that kind of stuff willingly. Yes, maybe they have given their “consent”, signed contracts and stuff but look at their environment. Maybe they needed the money badly, maybe they want to find affirmation from other people, because deep inside, they feel the emptiness and brokenness of shitty relationships with others - and those fuckers running the industry make use of that. They abuse them, just to make money by putting those videos out there. Fuck the porn industry, really.
All of us here are breaking that cycle, one day at a time. Your actions count. Every minute you don’t spend watching that trash, is a minute better spent for yourself, towards more compassion and emotional freedom.
Take care.
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Day 67
Even if you do struggle today, tomorrow you’ll look back and be happy you kept your sobriety.
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Day 69
If we were to write three words that we identify ourselves by, most likely those words are somewhat negative. We tend to identify ourselves by a behavior, by an insecurity, or by something that has been done to us.
That perspective of ourselves combined with the lack of self care, little connections and no healthy habits leads to compulsive use of porn in order to “fix” that. Porn in our scenario is a “medication”, it’s that comfort we seek in order to feel good again. In reality, porn or any other sexual experience will never be able to “fix” you.
Forgive yourself for your bad habits. Accept your flaws, because everyone has those, and see your strengths too. Don’t hold on to grudges, because the past can’t be changed, live in the moment. Identify yourself by your character, because that’s you and that’s the part of you that you can improve.
Take care.
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Day 71
Each weak I look at my current progress in recovery and reflect on a couple of questions. I find reviewing my plan and progress to be extremely helpful. Doing so, I notice what can be improved.
Maybe I’m not accountable enough and some things I do remain in secrecy and that can become a problem in the future. Maybe I haven’t been building my healthy habits enough, there’s more I can do. Maybe my supporting circle is lacking someone who really understands.
This is really about raising awareness, connecting with others, having the proper tools in place, making commitments and sharing those with others and last but not least reviewing this regularly.
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You are doing great man, very reflective and contemplative. It’s kind of a synchronicity when you find a thread in this little forum in that little great community and identify or agree with so many points.
I wish you the greatest success, this is a built-up for when the universe around you provides you with subtle invitations into higher realities.
Peace and stength
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Thank you for your words man.
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Day 73
Started my next 30 days sprint today. Increased my commitment. I’m motivated to fully improve. This time, I want to pass 90 days and feel a stronger reboot than back at day 150.
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Day 76
Started this journal on day 26. 50 days later I’m still posting. 50 times 1 day of commitment, going for the right habits, staying accountable and connecting with others.
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Day 0
This post is for clarification.
I really want to gain more control over my mind and actions. I haven’t looked at porn, nor masturbated so it’s still almost 80 days no PM. On the 27th August though, I started a hardmode sprint and in the evening of the 31st August I didn’t resist and had s*x with my girlfriend. Anyway, I know that by reading this it sounds pretty dumb and harsh to reset the counter, if you knew more about the details (maybe) it would make more sense.
Starting today, 1st September, I’m increasing my commitment and going for a clean 30 days hardmode sprint.
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Day 1
Take your own words seriously, it’s crucial. If you say you want to go porn free but have doubts, then perhaps it’s a sign you should increase your commitment and your accountability. If you say you are doing no PM but masturbate to instagram models, then you are cheating yourself. If you set boundaries and define something as a relapse, just to cross that boundary and keep on going without going through the consequences, then you are cheating yourself. Cheating won’t get you anywhere. Feeding your ego won’t help you in recovery but honesty and connections will.
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Day 6
It’s been over 83 days no PM and now 6 days hardmode. This journey is worth every struggle. I connect with others better, I’m more aware of what’s going on inside me and with a stronger commitment, this is also getting easier, even hardmode actually. So take out the risk factor as much as possible and commit to this recovery and you’ll succeed.
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