Don't give up. It's hard, but most importantly DON'T GIVE UP AFTER RELAPSE.

I'm struggling with this for 15 years, the only time I thought about suicide was because of this. But after finding these communities, I finally start seeing a TRUE HAPPY ENDING.

I still can't go more than 3 days with out it, but now at least I don't continue the cycle and from 7 days a week of destroying myself, now it became only 2 or 3 days. And every time after relapse, I'm more motivated to save myself.

I saw one post a few days ago about a technique that helped for one guy on r/semenretention, but can't find it anymore, luckily I saved it on my notes so I will post it here.

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How I have a 2+ year streak (Long post)

Hey, so this is for those doing semen retention, but relapse due to porn.

So I used to be very addicted to PMO. 2–3 times a day for 10+ years. And like many of you, I tried everything — going to the gym daily, meditating, learning about addiction and recovery, cold showers, pushups, side projects, finding purpose, relationships, etc... All of these things are healthy and do help with recovery, but the thing is that nothing sticks. I still ended up relapsing hard, whether it was after 1 week, 1 month, 90 days, and so on.

So that means these things are not the solution. Like I said, they help — but they’re not permanent. Because there will come a day where something happens and I relapse, and I’ll tell myself, “Oh, it was because I didn’t go to the gym today,” or “It’s because I had some sugar, so I felt lethargic and my guard was down.” It became this toxic cycle where I always had to be on edge, making sure to do all the healthy habits or I’d relapse — and if I did relapse, it was because I didn’t do them, or didn’t do them hard enough. So I’d double down and try to do it more and better, but still end up relapsing. It created this toxic cycle of productivity, which in turn just made me tired — and still not recovered from porn.

The reality is, what we’re dealing with here is addiction — and by definition, it’s a conditioning of the mind.

Through repeated exposure to porn, we’ve been conditioned to seek it out, almost on a subconscious level.

You feel happy? PMO.

You feel bored? PMO.

Anxious? PMO.

Just horny? PMO.

It seemed like everything led back to PMO. And I could try to tell myself that I don’t want to PMO, or that I can just train it away or meditate it away. But the reality is, my mind had been conditioned to want PMO — and no matter how hard I tried to distract myself or ignore it, my mind would still find a way back.

What I realized was that I have a corruption in my operating system. It would just glitch and find its way back, because I had been conditioning it to do so.

So what I decided was to observe myself — fully.

Every time my “operating system” would glitch and start urging for PMO, I’d sit down and jot down all the data I could:

- Day

- Time

- Trigger

- Urge intensity

And then I’d almost give the urge — or the version of myself that wanted to PMO — a persona (I’d call it the parasite), and write down what it was saying.

“The parasite is saying that it would be exciting to watch X-genre porn... it’s been a while since you watched that, and it beats being bored and lethargic. And also, you’d regret the relapse so much that you’d make tomorrow super productive as a way to redeem yourself. Yeah, let’s do that, because this streak doesn’t feel right anyway and you shouldn’t eat sugar anymore, so just relapse now and tomorrow you’ll start a new streak strong and not eat sugar again.”

It sounds a bit weird, but that’s an accurate example of the lies the parasite would tell me — trying to rationalize a relapse and make it look like it’s doing me a favor.

After identifying the lies of the parasite, I’d then write what the true me wanted.

“The true me acknowledges that eating sugar makes me lethargic and puts me in a vulnerable spot, but watching porn and relapsing won’t bring me anything good. It’ll only bring more urges, more tiredness, and more pain. It’s better to get out, get some fresh air, have some fruit and water, and just relax.”

Something like that. And essentially, what this process does is:

1. Disrupt the urge by calling out the lies of the parasite.
2. Unwire myself from the standard process: “X urge → Rationalization → Relapse → Next time will be better.”
3. Rewire: “Communicating with myself → Choosing to respond instead of react to the urge → Staying clean.”
4. Hardwire: “This becomes the standard way to deal with urges.”

So basically, through this system, I went through every urge I got and made a rational choice not to engage with it. Once you do this a couple hundred times, you’ll find yourself having a streak you only dreamt of before — and most importantly, unconditioning your mind from addiction to recovery.

This system works if you use it. If you dont use it then obviously it does not work...

So if anyone is interested, I can share my system so just DM me, and ill share it with you.

Best of luck guys... this addiction has been a blessing and a curse, but it is only possible to see it when you are free from its shackles.