It’ll be ok! You got a whole bunch of people to turn to on this one and help keep you motivated. You just gotta take it day by day and things will eventually get better. No matter how deep you are, there’s always gonna be light at the end of the tunnel.
Today was a struggle for me. I clocked out of one of my shifts for work today and decided to use the free time I had to study (I am currently out of school but I have to retake a class in order to advance to the next level of education). The whole time I tried to study though, that feeling of PMO distracted me. I didn’t give in, but man did it mess with my concentration! I’m sure the more the days go by, the less this will happen.
As much as I was mad that I lost focus and didn’t get anything productive done, I’m proud that I found a different way to shift my attention. Basically all I did was just go on my phone and consume different content. Although this is not my plan for a permanent solution in terms of shifting attention, something is always better than nothing. I’m just trying to be nice and kind to myself during this journey because I know I’ll relapse if I’m too critical.
You’re going to be a better version of yourself by taking this on. It’s not going to be easy, and I know you’re going through some hell right now, but you will get to that light at the end of the tunnel. I believe in you! You got this!
Last night I kind had a break through and came clean to my girlfriend of 3 years everything and I am just so happy to have her and that she so supportive and not judgemental at all I will probably talk about this more later but for now last night has really helped feel a lot better about the situation she is the only one I have told in person but it all just came out last night why were laying together
I think that what you’re experiencing may be psychosomatic (your body reacts to your mental/ emotional state). When going through withdrawal, we can experience all sorts of physical and emotional changes. It might warrant you getting checked out by a medical professional.
By keeping sex in the relationship. All of my sexual energy is directed only towards my wife.
So no lusting or fantasizing after other women. No MBing to those fantasies. No using pornography. No sexual activities outside of the relationship.
That gives me the greatest chance of being sexually content in my marriage. My attraction becomes stronger. I have more and better sexual experiences with her when I rule out all other avenues of sexual expression.
And that’s what our wives want. They want us to make them our one and only. They often desire sex too, but only within the context of the relationship.
I’m married for almost 1 year. I already had 1,5 years of sobriety by the time met my husband so that made things easier (meaning I had been enforcing boundaries for myself within myself).
I reserve myself and my sex drive solely for my husband. No porn, erotic series or lit., fantasising etc. Whenever I’m in the mood, I steer my attention to him. If he’s not in the mood or not at home, I go to the tools that helped me maintain boundaries in recovery.
My husband knows about my addiction and we’ve discussed it quite openly. We both deem watching porn as adultery so that’s another strong boundary for us.
I found it tricky to know what is healthy sexuality for me when we became intimate. So far I come to the conclusion that if something brings us closer or makes me want him, it’s ok.
This is a tough one. Some people have a higher sex drive than others, which is not automatically a sign of an addiction. I think there are other indicators than just frequency.
You may want to consider talking a counselor or therapist to work through some of those obsessive thoughts and feelings. It may be good to also get your wife involved as well
It helps me to think of this like food addiction. In these cases, one doesn’t stop eating all together. But avoids overeating or eating certain types of foods.
And it’s important for me to see that my pmo is not the real problem. It is a symptom of deeper rooted problems within me. If I’m just focusing on the symptoms, it’s like me trying to plug up the holes on one end of the dam while ignoring the source of the flooding on the other side. It’s a futile process.
While it’s important that I stay sober, my main focus is on exposing and addressing those root problems of mine. Root problems such as lack of connection, toxic shame, brainwashing, broken relationship with God, a faulty paradigm, poor boundaries.
And while withdrawal from pmo can show up in the form of physical withdrawal symptoms. I believe the majority of these symptoms are as a result of my mind being brainwashed into thinking that pmo is something of high value and that I need it in order to survive. Did you read easy peasy? If so, what you think of it?
It was helpful for me to apply the Easy Way principles to my lust and fantasy and MB. And recognizing that these inner behaviors were also another form of porn. Otherwise, they would raise up my brain’s toxicity and gravitate me closer to levels 9 and 10.
Also, reading Allen Carr’s books, the Easy Way to Stop Smoking and The Easy Way to Control Alcohol along with Annie Grace’s This Naked Mind helped me solidify the concept of brainwashing that addicts deal with. And how my addiction to porn has a lot in common with those that struggle with other addictions
I’m 6 days into this and the hardest part for me is the lack of release getting used to not doing that all the time is honestly the hardest part for me right now I have unusually large sex drive and I’m trying to calm down and get away from all this stuff do you guys have anything that helps you calm down and push these horrible thoughts away
I started getting really serious about quitting when I was 25 and I would have streaks of a few months in between relapses, falling off for a while, and now 4 years later I am almost at 300 days with no end in sight and life is 99999% better. But you need something actually, literally better to do or you will not get over it. You can find that out by writing it out in ~1000 words:
Write out a vision of the future if you could have what you want, a few years down the line.
Write out how you can actually go about doing that in a realistic, practical way.
And write out how things would go if you unravelled like we all know we would if we let things get completely out of control and sideways.
Then you have something realistic to run towards and run from, and you can course correct along the way when what you want changes which it will the more you experience life. Good luck, I’m dead serious that this works.
As a guy who’s 4 days into it, I’ve found that just doing anything that requires my full attention to shift has really helped. For me, it has been work. The two jobs I work really require me to pay attention to detail. Because I’m so focused on the little things, I’m not thinking about quitting PMO.
I also think exercising could really benefit me too. I havent put that into practice yet because I’ve been working consistently everyday at weird hours that prevent me giving my full energy. But I’ve been taught that exercise is supposed to help!
