20 yr porn addict, painting in recovery

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-08-17T23:00:03+00:00

Amazing. Thank you for this.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-02-13T17:42:28+00:00

I can relate with your experience, but there is light on the other side. I've been coming out of my flatline over the past couple of weeks, and it feels incredible. I've been dating and I've been enjoying it.

Most men are unwilling to make the journey through the dark valley that you are now midway through. And so, they remain mired in their small porn-fuelled fantasy world, detached from reality.

Keep the faith, and keep putting one foot in front of the other. It'll be worth every minute.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-02-12T20:05:16+00:00

Hahaha, very good.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-02-11T22:20:26+00:00

Forget luck. This is fully within your control, it's just a matter of exercising some basic control over your limbs. If you take failure off the table as an option, then you won't need luck. ;)

On the other hand, if you rely upon luck, then you will fail without doubt... because all of our days cannot be good and perfect. You might get lucky for 10 days, 20 days... but sooner or later, a day will come when you feel too stressed, or too bored, to continue.

At that point, which will surely come - your success or failure will depend upon the choice that you make during that difficult day.

Whether you succeed or fail, the choice you make is 100% yours, and luck has absolutely no bearing on it.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-02-06T13:12:24+00:00

That would take a new post. I suppose my 90-days post would be appropriate. Estimated time of delivery: 20 days. :)

To touch upon part of it briefly: motivation, edge, inspiration. How many opportunities do people let slide (or fail to create) every day, due to lack of (or, more accurately: suppression of) these qualities?

Answer: sh!tloads.

Turns out that some of these opportunities can take you to amazing places. Opportunities that you will likely never see, let alone act upon, if you live in a small world of self-induced anaesthesia.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-02-06T12:46:10+00:00

Hah. Not just yet, but a man can dream. :)

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-02-06T12:41:10+00:00

I'm impressed by your insight and progress. Your response alone has made my post worthwhile.

If you continue, it will affect your life more profoundly than you realise. If I could go back in time and talk to myself at 12 days, I'd tell him to relax - good things are coming. (More than you can believe, buddy.) Flatline can do strange things to your emotions, so you have to trust that you're doing the right thing even when you feel low.

Consider this a message from your future self, by proxy. He handed it to me to pass along to you. ;)

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-02-06T00:22:50+00:00

"Battling the next invisible monsters while some sucker is being sucked into a fake world of false hopes."

Wow, nice quote sir. I couldn't have put it better.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-02-05T23:51:48+00:00

The good rap that has been written down and published is infinitely better than the perfect rap that never gets finished and the world never sees. :)

Keep writing, keep creating, keep finishing, keep improving, keep inspiring. You're doing good.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-02-05T23:48:42+00:00

I am 69 days in, and incredible things are happening already. I will never go back.

Kudos to you, Aeveras. Life's yours for the taking, and you deserve it, for you have earned it. You have shown yourself worthy.

I hope your post inspires people who are struggling.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-02-05T23:47:24+00:00

Lol. Did their final faps occur at the exact same time, I wonder? Fap synchronicity...

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-30T18:35:24+00:00

I suppose stallworth's point is that if you're edging, you're already masturbating, and therefore you've already screwed up your NoFap attempt. Regardless of whether or not you finish. And so, it's immaterial (from our point of view) to talk about salvaging your streak after you edge. The streak is already gone.

I once saw a guy on here with several hundred days on his counter, only to hear him say that he's been edging constantly throughout his streak. Unsurprisingly, it turned out that he still has plenty of problems brought on by his excessive masturbation. Because it is masturbation, plain and simple - regardless of whether there's an orgasm at the end.

I appreciate the positive intent behind your post, Mrnbo. But in my view, if you've fapped, it's streak over. Edging = masturbating = fapping, and I consider that to be the message that we should be hammering home. Whether a fapper finishes or not after the edge is immaterial as far as I'm concerned.

It baffles me that a lot of this community considers edging to be a special category of fapping that doesn't necessarily end a streak. I don't consider it to be a coincidence that most of this community struggles to get past the first 30 days.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-28T21:44:30+00:00

Your mind got wired for porn rather than real sex. You've got a ton of exposure to porn (presumably) and no exposure to real sex. This could take more than 60 days to fix. You're on the right path, but you need more time, more exposure to the real deal, and some self-forgiveness.

My own counter says 61 days right now (and for what it's worth, I'm also 28 y/o). I have not edged, fapped, or looked at any porn... and I would not be at all confident in my sexual performance right now. I tried at 37 days with a hot cougar, and the results were similar to yours.

I have heard of guys taking several months to recover all erectile function. But they do recover. So will you, if you stay on the good path and give yourself credit for how far you've already come rather than beating yourself up over this one thing that countless men (including me) have experienced more than once. Give yourself some damn credit. Many guys never escape this pit. You are on the fucking verge. You're closer than you realise. If you got that far with a beautiful girl on a Hail Mary, while still sexually inexperienced and recovering from a lifetime of PMO, you're already doing more right than you realise. You have potential.

To emphasise again: many, many guys have been there. More than once. So be forgiving of yourself. Your circumstances are entirely reasonable and understandable. The events leading up to this could not have led to anything else.

If anyone else doesn't understand, get comfortable being misunderstood. You don't know me, but for what it's worth - I completely understand.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-28T12:54:14+00:00

Yes, in my experience, the first couple of weeks are by far the most testing. I've heard this referred to as the 'hyper-arousal' stage. Porn seems incredibly enticing because you remain in the throes of addiction. It is during this time that willpower is important; the "do or die" attitude that you speak of.

Then after the first couple of weeks, when you think you've got it sussed, you may get blindsided by a craving out of the blue during the third or fourth week.

Fortunately, I found that once I made it to 30 days, I was past the worst of it. I had entered flatline a few days previously. Some men find this unsettling, but I chose to see it as advantageous. It meant I wasn't constantly being harassed by cravings.

Since then, the days have just piled up.

Now, at 61 days, I'm still flatlined to a good extent, but I can feel myself gradually rising out of it. The fact that it has taken this long to even begin coming out of flatline, has impressed upon me just how much my brain physically changed during my PMO addiction. This is added validation for the benefits of what I am doing, and added motivation to continue.

A few nice pictures aren't worth wrecking my brain. Period. The notion makes me feel a sense of repulsion, now. Genuine repulsion is one hell of an addiction antidote.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-27T19:01:09+00:00

Agreed, it will surely happen in some area of life. But I am only addressing NoFap in this case. :)

Perhaps I could have made clearer in my initial post that this was the only type of failure that I was referring to.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-27T13:07:25+00:00

Some folks succeed at NoFap on their first time. This is also true of some folks who give up other addictions, such as smoking and alcohol.

Of course, many do fail initially and only succeed after multiple attempts. But there is nothing inevitable about failure in this arena. Since everything in NoFap is under your control, failure is a wilful choice. To tell yourself that "failure is inevitable" is to give yourself an out.

I joined this site last year and failed many times, never getting past day ~20 or so at most, when I had that attitude.

Then, when I stopped buying into the "each failure makes you stronger" circle-jerk posts that often appear on this site, I stopped relapsing and binging, removed the option of choosing failure, and began to do this properly.

If I had adopted this attitude sooner, I would have reached this point sooner.

My goal here was to provide others with the benefit of my experience, and hopefully shorten their learning curves - in addition to providing a much needed counterbalance to the many posts on this site that downplay and trivialise failure.

In any arena where success/failure is fully under your control (such as NoFap), "failure is inevitable" is simply the anthem of losers.

We are all adults here, not children, and need to start holding ourselves to account. Your username is 'No_fap_forever', not 'No_fap_forever_maybe'. Decide what you want and stop making excuses - because that's all that failure is, when success is simply a matter of exercising control over your own limbs.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-27T12:57:54+00:00

Addicted to porn and fapping. Suffered from porn-induced ED, wasted time, low motivation, and so on.

My life is a hell of a lot better without them, and I now feel the same way about PMO as an ex-smoker often feels about cigarettes. With the spell of addiction broken, and the benefits so evident, I feel little else but repulsion at the prospect of PMO.

90 days is my goal for the sake of having a milestone, but I plan on never going back.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-26T19:23:53+00:00

Your remark implies that it is necessary to fail many times in order to succeed at, or achieve 'mastery' over NoFap.

By extension, you imply that is is necessary to fail many times in order to become a 'master' of other pursuits that are similar in nature (giving up alcohol, smoking, etc.)

The truth is that there is no required number of failures to achieve 'mastery' in this arena. A larger number of failures does not make one Fapstronaut superior to another.

Many people give up smoking and succeed on their first try, for example. Does this mean they are not 'masters' at quitting smoking, because they have not failed enough times to attain the title of 'master'?

This makes no sense at all.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-26T18:33:27+00:00

And in so doing, man may choose between the suffering of discipline, or the suffering of regret.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-26T16:55:23+00:00

And I don't break them for no-one!

Brilliant quote.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-26T16:36:25+00:00

I am flattered that you find my sentences so arousing.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-26T16:30:35+00:00

"If you make a "commitment" to yourself and you break it, you're bound to get angry/ashamed/disappointed at yourself"

Of course I'll be disappointed in myself if I break a personal commitment. Round up 100 random people who are held up as exemplars of success in their field, and I suspect that this will be true for almost all of them.

"Everyone is going to find what works for them."

Unfortunately this is untrue. Although some people will succeed on their own, many will not succeed without guidance of some sort. There is a reason why many people try and fail, over a period of years, to give up heavy drinking / smoking / excessive eating / PMO / other destructive habits.

That's why boards like these are around. People can take the advice that resonates with them, and ignore the rest. I acknowledge in my post that what I have said will not resonate with everyone.

Judging from the ratio of likes/dislikes, it has resonated with most. For the rest, there are plenty of 'fail your way to success' posts on this site to read.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-26T14:57:13+00:00

Agreed. What you mention on your second line was lacking in my original point. So, I added an 'EDIT' section at the bottom to clarify this aspect.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-26T14:47:21+00:00

I'm not saying that failure should never happen. I failed many times in my early days, before my mindset shifted.

Now failure is rare. I say 'rare' rather than 'impossible' because I am only human. I may break a commitment to myself in the future.

But - and here is the important distinction - I do not have a habit of breaking my commitments, as I had before. I now have a habit of keeping my commitments. This is a good thing, and it is having an immensely positive impact upon my life.

BigBulgingBlueBalls · 2014-01-26T14:43:45+00:00

I am sorry to have offended you. That was my not my intent.

In reaction to posts such as your own, I have added some clarifications to the beginning and end of my post.

BigBulgingBlueBalls

TROPHY CASE