I like your plan, I think that sitting in the evening or morning and planning the upcoming day in advance is a good way to prevent relapse and get a good grip back on life.
Usually my problem is that, especially after a very productive day, I get overconfident shovelling my day full with tasks and that I don’t plan precisley what recreational tasks I will be doing (even though those are more important to plan in advance I reckon!).
So yeah I’m curious how this will work for you, keep us posted.
I wish you all the best for your recovery!
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I like that you acknowledge it as a coping mechanism, so true - and me too, in much abundance.
Worrying about so much these days,… but just letting it go.
But still being active, standing tall, not moping about, being kind, sensitive, mindful, hopeful, pursuing a particular lovely lady, playing it cool without neediness, not falling into assumptions but making the effort.
I’d say the same, things can get horrible,…
but really, Do they? I mean, Really? Are they?
We may have drained ourselves, and tainted our minds, but we can still clench our fists, and swing that sword of truth at those things that disable our greatness.
You’re a genuine truth seeker 
You’ll still be alive, you’ll survive, you will be alright, and you’ll keep learning and growing, as you already are.
Excuse me if this is preachy or unneeded.
I don’t have it sorted, I’m back at Day 1, but so what? I’ve gotta laugh at myself 
The Superpowers are there from Day 0,
Wishing you well in your exams.
Just wondering, which language do you mainly speak in your part of Switzerland?
Keep seeking the truth, Keep asking,
Keep digging, Keep stepping outside yourself, Keep renewing our promises.
We’ve both gotta to get off this fence, and ask “Yes or No?”
What do you like to play on the piano? Do you attempt Bach?
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thanks a lot guys for your support!
First exam went surprisingly well. The closer the exam came, the more I was able to calm down. I went for a walk every day which helped a lot.
@anon67854825 I’m from the eastern border, the German-speaking part 
I always played classical pieces. When I was younger typically Chopin. I’m currently working on one of the “easiest” pieces of Liszt (Liebestraum, No.3) Damn, all his pieces are so hard 
But it’s nice to challenge myself. Brings my skills a bit further
Thanks a lot to everyone
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I haven’t posted an update in a very long time. Mostly because everything went horrible.
I started really badly into the exam period.
I was extremely stressed since I had a lot to do with lab courses, work, studying and so on. First exam was also the hardest to learn for.
Because of that, I started all my bad habits again. Didn’t make breaks, was extremely unhappy since I didn’t do anything but studying. It was horrible and thus started to fap again. And i did it a lot 
My monthly average dropped below 1 day…
With all my bad habits, suicidal thoughts cam back.
But I got the turn. 10 days ago was my first meeting with my therapist. We figured out many issues and which things we will have to approach to get rid of my addiction. I got new motivation to get happier. I forced myself to change my habits again. I restarted my morning routine and made it even better. I really love my mornings now. I have the strong opinion, that it is not possible to consistently getting up early unless you have an important reason or a joyful start. Since I don’t have to get up at a specific time, the later needs to work in my case.
I also incorporated a great learning / free-time balance which is the first time I did something like this. And it is great.
Now, most of the exams are over. Just one more in 10 days.
Now that my day-to-day life is in a decent balance, I can again start to approach all my internet problems. Counting smartphone, youtube, twitch, and ■■■■.
One thing that really helps me is to monitor my happiness during the day. If it drops to low, urges come more frequent. Thus, this could be a great way to detect urges before they occur.
Also, yesterday I downloaded clockify. It’s an app where you can time how long you did something.
I will now time all the time I spend on the computer. For example, before starting to write this entry, I opened a task “Forum” and started a timer. This timer now shows how much time I spent writing this entry. Somehow I will also need to keep myself accountable. Hence, every few days I will write down my stats here.
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feels great. starting to get a good (little bit cheated since i am on holidays. thus way easier to stay clean) start of a new streak.
currently on holidays. hence, i don’t want to watch porn. -> close to finishing day 6
the last 2 months i relapsed so often, that i definitely feel the addiction again. something in me just wanna watch it, but i’m stronger.
after these holidays i will be on a 2 week streak which will give me a good headstart
cheers
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the two weeks of holidays are over. Currently I’m holding the longest streak of the last half year which feels great.
I feel like this could be a huge turning point. I see the two options I have. I can continue a life where I feel like I currently do (or better) or I can step back into the misery of pressure and overcompensation.
Meeting my friends during holiday showed me how important it is to do the things you love. Having fun doing them without the need to be better than your friends. Doing sports because you like doing it and not because you need to be better than others to get their respect.
Yesterday I edged for a short time. It was an eye-opener. Right afterwards I was back in the digital-world-trap. The pressure to perform and all the negativity was back. Thankfully I was able to pick myself up and get that holiday-feeling back.
During the last 14 days I got a taste of how it could feel without this fucking addiction. And that is what I wanna have for the rest of my life. I wanna be able to feel like a child. Being in awe of my surrounding, doing stuff just because I want to, not having to compare myself with others all the time. Being open-minded and simply happy.
I hope I can do it
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There is one thing I just don’t understand
Today, I went out with my friends from work. Due to health issues, I wasn’t able to drink at all. Everyone else got drunk. At some point I got disgusted about how they lost all connection to the real world. They behaved completely different than how they are.
But than, I was wondering, what am I doing all the time? I do the exact same thing but every day. I disconnect from life. I’m not listening to how others feel, what others say. I don’t wanna feel my body and my surrounding.
I remove all the feelings of hunger, love, growth, connection by entering a digital world. I don’t talk about porn in particular but all the shit I do online.
There was this very important moment a few days ago, where it felt like a curtain lifted. I felt life like I never did before. I stopped seeing myself in the center, I saw others as well. I loved it and that’s how I wanna have life all the time. But what do I do? Instead of connecting to the world I go home and start games. Once too hungry to ignore it I make some food and eat it in front of the TV. Afterwards I continue to watch until it is late and I have to go to bed. Am I really wondering why I hate life??? I’m literally living in a digital world. As much as possible, I try to disconnect from everything else. How should that make me happy??? It sounds so stupid.
There is so much panic when thinking about quit using my computer in general. There is the fear of never being happy anymore. It is so ironic since the compute is exactly what keeps me from being happy. It’s the fear of needing to do something. It’s easy to spend time on the computer. I don’t need to do anything. The game will give me a reason to progress, youtube will just give me the next clip and on twitch there is always someone who streams. Same with porn. You will always find something. There is no downtime and you never need to think what to do. In real-life that its not the case. You always need to make decisions. What should I cook? Where should I eat? what should I do afterwards? I hate making decisions. For me, they always resemble something to loose. I can always make the wrong decision which will give me a disadvantage. I don’t see the positive thing. I have the options to choose between things I like. Why should there be an option for failure?? If I have nice things to do and one thing I don’t like I can still just choose the nice things. So, having the option to choose always means something positive.
I’ve been trying to get rid of porn for so long now and my motivation to do so is as low as never before. I was always the opinion that I won’t be able to let go as soon as I don’t know why it has such a tight grip on me. At the moment this believe is as strong as never before.
The question is NOT, why am I addicted to porn. The real question is, why do I wanna flee from the real world. Why can’t I spend time offline? There is something in the real-life which induces a high amount of fear. I was always really good as dissociation in a huge variety of effect. I didn’t wanna write my exams -> i got sick. I didn’t wanna go hicking -> my knees started to hurt. I had to do uncomfortable things -> I immediately fell asleep. I don’t wanna cope with the feeling of real-life -> I go online.
I have to think a little bit about that and maybe also talk with my therapist about it. But I really think that this could be the problem. I have a huge fear of taking decisions.
Once more, it felt really good to clear-out my head.
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Hello,
Just want to show you some typical way of thinking in the state you described (fleeing the world)
There is nothing to do in life, it just sucks, it’s painful useless, and has no sense… In life you have no power you have no talent nobody can like you. But in game you just have to train to be better you can change who you are. In game you have an objective , your actions are meant to do something. In life whatever you do you end in pain, not in game , you always have another chance, you have no fear, and you can’t die.
Having a link with someone is much more painful than dying , this is why digital world is better , there is nothing, no pain of course , but no joy.
I hope this might enlighten you.
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I mean, that is the exact feeling I have to lose. Life is great. There are so many amazing things to do, to discover and to experience. I just have to stop hiding from it!
I feel like, finally, I’m ready for the challenge. At some point, I’ll have to stop hiding and make the step. Every evening before my bed routine, I will come back to the forum and write down how it went. I need the commitment.
The goals for this week:
- No gaming!
- No P
- No twitch
- No useless youtube (that’s probably the hardest, since it is hard to define what useless is. I think I will start with following definition. “useful” videos are the ones which are sports or science related and, in its content, positive and not destructive.)
I feel like I have to force myself into the happy feeling of living life to the fullest.
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The whole day I was like “I will start tomorrow, I already relapsed so what’s the point”
But that is just wrong.
There is only ONE point where you can start changing something and that is right now.
You can’t change in the future or in the past. You can only actively influence the present moment.
So here the promised statistic:
Today I relapsed 5 hrs to all four sources.
I played games for about 2.5 hrs I watched porn for 1.5 hr while watching twitch and before and after that I watched negative youtube videos for about 30 min.
Lets see how I do tomorrow
- 28.4.19: 5hrs
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Today was great.
No relapse at all. Did a lot of other things. Particularly positive was the amazing dinner I cooked.
Hold true to all rules. The only youtube I watched was the new episode of Last Week Tonight which is a great show.
See you tomorrow to another relapse free day?
- 28.4.19: 5hrs
- 29.4.19: 0hrs
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It can’t always go up. This day was a horrible relapse day.
The problem is, not doing any of the mentioned things is really tough for me, since I typically spend hours each day doing them. So, I need a good plan and high determination to do it.
That’s what I was lacking today. I came home without thinking about what I wanna do, without even thinking about this challenge.
This led to about 3 hrs of relapse to porn while at the same time watching youtube videos.
- 28.4.19: 5hrs
- 29.4.19: 0hrs
- 30.4.19: 3hrs
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Today was a bit different. It was a holiday. I was the whole day alone in Germany -> had to find something to do for the whole day. I think, it is obvious, that I will relapse more on a day like this, than on a day were I have to work the whole day.
Another thing that came to my head today is, that probably I’m simply not used to having free time. I started with my computer addiction in 7th grade. After that, I always either played sports excessively or did something on my computer.
i completely forgot, how you really send free time. I guess, the more I just do it, the better I will be at it.
I’m looking forward to the point, where I can feel boredom again. Where I don’t HAVE to do things but where I also can stand a few minutes of just doing nothing.
Recap for today:
Played games for 50 min. Watched porn for 40 min. Negative youtube around 10 min
- 28.4.19: 5hrs
- 29.4.19: 0hrs
- 30.4.19: 3hrs
- 01.5.19: 1.5hrs
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today was easy. was busy all day. the only difficulty was not to play smartphone games during my 4hrs train ride home.
because of that 0hrs of relapse today.
tomorrow will again be a little bit more difficult since i don’t have to work
- 28.4.19: 5hrs
- 29.4.19: 0hrs
- 30.4.19: 3hrs
- 01.5.19: 1.5hrs
- 02.5.19: 0hrs
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Yesterday was a pretty good day. I had a lot of free time and to a good degree, I used it for useful things. Still there was something like 20 min of porn. So, not completely happy but still it’s pretty good.
Also, I had the most amazing meeting with my therapist. We found out, that the change between activities, where i have different option induces fear and hence I wanna flee from it to the digital world. We also figured out why. Finally, I have something important to work on.
- 28.4.19: 5hrs
- 29.4.19: 0hrs
- 30.4.19: 3hrs
- 01.5.19: 1.5hrs
- 02.5.19: 0hrs
- 03.5.19: 0.5hrs
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Today was rough. I relapsed a lot! Didn’t feel that happy today and due to many problems I was not able to keep up the momentum.
I started the day with 30min of Youtube which led to 1.5hrs of porn and 30min of gaming.
After the bad start, the day went quite well until around 4pm. where I again started with 30min of gaming and 30min of porn. So:
30min youtube
1hr gaming
2hr porn
- 28.4.19: 5hrs
- 29.4.19: 0hrs
- 30.4.19: 3hrs
- 01.5.19: 1.5hrs
- 02.5.19: 0hrs
- 03.5.19: 0.5hrs
- 04.5.19: 3.5hrs
This was now the first week. At first, i wanted to do that experiment for only one week but it showed that this really is what I will have to work on. Hence, I will continue in the same way (with the additional inputs and exercises from my therapist)
As a recap:
Week 1: 13.5 hrs of relapse… I can definitely do better
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If you fall, you have two options:
- You fall to self-pity, you see the day as a failed day, you feel bad about all the wasted time
- You except what happened and you start right now to change.
I fell horribly this day. Having so much free time really is a tough thing for me. Habits need to be broken, new once formed and confidence need to be strengthened. But I’m on the right way.
it started with 20 min of gaming and 2.5hrs of porn. After that, i picked myself up and ended the day in a good way.
- 06.05.19: 3hrs
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Damn it went so well! Whole afternoon / evening was amazing. I really stick to my plan and didn’t relapse. Right until before I should go to bed…
So, another 30min of porn…
- 06.05.19: 3hrs
- 07.05.19: 0.5hrs
Two completely different days.
Yesterday was great. I didn’t have time for relapse but more important I joined a conference. During the break / dinner I stood on a table with my friends. But at some point I realized that I don’t wanna spend the whole evening there. So, I started to network and moved from table to table and talked with everyone I knew. Even if I have barely knew their name. It was great to not hide on my table but meeting new people.
And it was already worth it. I got ideas / offers for an amazing PhD position.
Today the exact opposite. I was very tired (went to bed late to to the event and had to wake up too early). Instead of taking a nap during the day, which I definitely should have done, I tried to stay awake. Because of the stupid concept in my head that being tired is a weakness… I definitely have to be able to change that. So, I did a lot of shit today.
1hr of TV
2hrs of Gaming
1.5hrs of porn
- 06.05.19: 3hrs
- 07.05.19: 0.5hrs
- 08.05.19: 0hrs
- 09.05.19: 4.5hrs
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At the moment, it’s not the easy or busy days which are important for me but the hard ones. I have to learn to handle my feelings. To know where they are coming from and what I can do against them.
So, Yesterday was one of the more useless days. I was extremely tired and would have relapsed immediately if I had time for it. But I was so busy, that I couldn’t.
So, 0hrs yesterday.
Today was a bit different. Still, I felt horrible. Was tired and angry. Wanted to relapse so badly but I didn’t. Instead I tried to figure out where the feelings are coming from. I tried to feel, what activities I wanted to do. I played computer games at some point. For maybe half an hour, I really enjoyed it. after that, I continued for another half hour which I really shouldn’t have.
I felt a change. I became annoyed by the game and got angry. I felt, how my grip on the real life slipped. But still I couldn’t quit. I wasn’t able to turn it off. After 30min of struggling, I turned off my computer and went outside.
Still, the whole day, I was really angry an mad for no good reason. Until I went bouldering in my local gym. It is so amazing to see how my social skills improve. First the event on Wednesday, where I talked with everyone I knew at the conference. The same today. Everyone was amazed, since the best female bouderer came to our gym. At some point, we were doing the same boulder and started to talk to each other. A thing I would have NEVER done a year ago.
Today, I count as a 0.5hr relapse to the gaming.
- 06.05.19: 3hrs
- 07.05.19: 0.5hrs
- 08.05.19: 0hrs
- 09.05.19: 4.5hrs
- 10.05.19: 0hrs
- 11.05.19: 0.5 hrs
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