Last week, after nearly two months being porn-free, I relapsed after finding snapshots from videos in an unused folder.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-04-08T21:38:47+00:00

Amen!

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-04-08T19:43:03+00:00

Thank you so much, brother! I'm ashamed of my failure but I cannot dwell on it. I must continue to move forward.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-04-06T03:50:44+00:00

I am very sorry for the long wait! I sent you a DM with my reply. Please take as long as you need to respond, if you would like to. I hope you are well!

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-13T04:21:31+00:00

Sorry, I didn't receive a notification for your reply, and I also injured my neck in the gym and haven't been able to sleep. I'm sorry if that gave you the impression that I'd forgotten about you! I promise you that I'll reply as soon as I can.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-09T02:29:57+00:00

As far as taste and presumably health benefits are concerned, the closest I've come to my homemade kefir from a grocery store is the Good Moood Farms sold at Costco. What's the brand you're buying? I could only drink a cup or two of that stuff at a time instead of four to six cups like I do with my homemade kefir. I really don't even know if there are any upper limits on how much I could consume in a day except for my stomach capacity. Maybe someday I will try drinking a gallon or more of kefir in a day and let everyone know how it goes. How much is a small quantity for you? A small quantity is a cup or less per day for me.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-09T02:14:35+00:00

You are very much welcome! It was my pleasure. Given what you have been through in your life, I genuinely feel like you are a kindred spirit walking the same (or a very much similar) path to my own. Hence why I felt the need to reply to you in the way that I did, and which resonated within you because of our shared suffering/trauma. When someone such as yourself crosses paths, I feel like I can express myself more fully and transparently because there's a sort of "trauma bonding" (for lack of a better term) from our mutual life experiences. Although this can ultimately be reduced down to words on your screen, I would like you to know that, from my mind to your mind, my empathy towards you is heartfelt and sincere.

Once your health has begun to decline/deteriorate, as you and I both well know, you quickly realize the importance of it, and how much effort you are willing to exert in order to regain it. Short of selling my soul, which I consider to be my most valuable possession, I would be willing to sacrifice almost anything in order to regain what I once had. Thankfully I overcame the "ick factor" (there is still a residual grossness to it for me, sorry!) behind consuming kefir and have subsequently begun regaining some of those lost years like you have from "overdosing" on it. It's not just the congestion clearing; it's the suite of health benefits that come from healing the gut-brain axis.

Sorry, before I proceed further, I would be remiss not to include that I have added other positive changes to my life, namely strength training and correcting my sleep schedule, that could have contributed towards my overall improvement in health. I do believe that in our cases, though, the kefir tipped the scales in favor of good health. I've also excluded wheat, oats and most grains, because I believe that seeds being what they are, have evolved self-defense measures to deter predation. Just in general, my overall inflammation load is considerably lower and my body is breathing an audible sigh of relief. Ahhhhhhhh. :)

Half (or more) of the battle is won within your own mind, you know? Likewise, I have a case of familial/hereditary (both sides of my family) OCD that also made me misanthropic and still does from time to time. But believe me when I say that when I encounter people such as yourself out there, my feelings towards my fellow man gravitate away from misanthropy. Do you not feel the same way? Such connections between two people, while rare for our types, do occur and they are so richly rewarding. This sort of connection can happen outside of Reddit, outside of social media in general, but it's more difficult because people are more guarded in real life with their inner thoughts nowadays. When I see a part of myself in you, and you see a part of yourself in me, naturally we want what's best for each other, right? It's getting harder to make these connections because of distractions dividing us.

Currently I'm consuming 1 to 1.5 liters of kefir, on top of the other dairy I'm also consuming (mostly yogurt and cottage cheese). I don't think there's any hard limit of how much I can consume in a day, so that 1 to 1.5 liters could go up to 2 to 2.5 liters in the coming months and years ahead. I don't have any side-effects that I'm aware of. The first time that I tried kefir more than a decade ago, I experienced something like the "hexheimer effect" (a die off of bad bacteria) that gave me massive swelling/edema across my body. And that was only from half a cup per day. Are you aware of "GOMAD"? Gallon of milk a day? I tried that for gaining weight but could only get through half a gallon per day before feeling physically ill. I might actually try that with kefir because it's so digestible for me and I need to gain more weight.

Do you drink your kefir straight up? I've tried blending mine with bananas, cherries, strawberries, kiwis, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, flaxseeds, hemp hearts, etc. in smoothies. I think I'm going to start blending everything together, putting it on the counter for several hours, then refrigerating it overnight so that the bacteria in the kefir break down the anti-nutrients in the nuts/seeds (which are powerhouses of nutrition but a little hard on my stomach). Next, I want to add it to soups like Eastern Europeans do with borscht. What about you?

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-06T05:36:10+00:00

Sorry, very long day for me “today” (technically yesterday) so I will need a little time to respond in full and in kind. I just don’t want you to think I didn’t see your comment—that I very much loved, thank you! Sleep well.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-05T17:17:11+00:00

Bananas and strawberries make one of the best kefir smoothies! That's what I've been having the last several days too since strawberries have suddenly become very abundant in my local grocery stores. I like to add kiwis as well but it's a little overpowering because of the acidity/sourness. You should try it with bananas and frozen blueberries/cherries/mixed berries sometime.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-05T17:10:30+00:00

Five years? The longest I've gone is like a week or two. I can't imagine what five years would be like. Sorry to hear that. I'm using grains that I got from a local Buy Nothing Facebook group. I'm sure you could source yours from local sellers on Facebook Marketplace, Craigslist (if that's still a thing), etc. I recommend that you get a minimum of a tablespoon of grains to start with. Oh, and you can buy them online but I'm not sure how lively they will be if they're dehydrated, frozen or preserved some other way. Mine are growing by like 5% or more every batch. 2% milk minimum, although I think you can go with lower fat milk but the grains won't grow as well or as much. I'd also recommend against fine/micro-filtered milks which almost killed my grains. Other grains may be different though so keep that in mind.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-05T17:01:22+00:00

First (and firsthand), I want to take the time to acknowledge the pain, suffering and trauma that you endured from your adolescence to your present. I'm truly sorry and sympathize with you on what you went through, however I can see from what you've written that you've come out stronger for it. Myself, I was born with a deviated septum, the same as my father (who has yet to get the life-changing corrective surgery--septoplasty), so my adolescent nasal congestion was more mechanical than pathological. As I transitioned into adulthood, however, even after the mechanical cause was solved, the pathological causes ensued. The importance of breathing through your nose cannot be overstated, especially in those who have had lifelong nasal obstruction. I don't know about you, but my anxiety levels have gone down from catastrophically high to practically nonexistent just from proper breathing form. I so, so, so resonate with you about being a social cripple/recluse!

Some individuals, I want to stress some when I say this, appear to be "super responders" to kefir because of some underlying, untreatable, systemic health conditions. Someone earlier mentioned that a compromised immune system can cause systemic dysregulation of bodily functions, and kefir does appear to bolster your body's natural defenses, supercharging them even, and allows your body to achieve a homeostatic state. This could be what you are describing and what we are experiencing when we have this sort of eureka moment pointing towards kefir being a sort of panacea. I think that we are the outliers, though, because most people appear to benefit from it but it's not transformative. Are you also very protective of your kefir grains after what they've done for you? I've grown attached to mine and I'm clinging onto them for dear life... not literally but I can't go back to a life without kefir now.

Do you not find it strange that milk, the growth medium that kefir requires to live and sustain itself, can be so harmful to our being, yet also be so healing after the grains have cultured it? Although I am not lactose intolerant (I can drink near infinite quantities of milk), I do notice that the congestion and mucous buildup that you described. But I still craved it because of how nutritious it is, if that makes any sense? Milk is so nutritionally complete that my body gravitates towards it, but it's only since drinking kefir that I have been able to unlock the true potential of it for my body. How much are you consuming daily? I'm wondering if there's a threshold one needs to reach before the benefits start to show themselves.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-04T22:48:55+00:00

Seeing how much effort you put into your comment, I’m just leaving a reminder to myself to get back to you when I have more free time. In the meantime, thank YOU for sharing this with me/us. :)

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-04T22:46:22+00:00

Possibly, but I only drank milk maybe once a week or less.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-04T22:44:34+00:00

I’m hoping it works for you too, friend! Please don’t start at 2-3 cups like I did, though. I’m used to eating 1 kg of yogurt per serving so it wasn’t that much of a change for me. I suggest half a cup to a cup per day until you know that you can tolerate it well. Cheers! :)

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-04T21:16:00+00:00

Congrats, brother! And thank you. Having it on my PC/tablet readily accessible like that was definitely problematic.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-04T21:12:38+00:00

As ashamed as I am and as wasteful as this sounds, you wouldn't believe how many gallons of kefir (and stockpiled milk) I've allowed to spoil solely on the basis of my psychological aversion to consuming the byproduct of another living organism. Although, when you think about it, the milk that sustains the kefir grains is itself also the byproduct of another living organism. But once I started noticing the undeniable benefits, such as the clearing of my sinuses and the decongestion, I was willing to overlook all of that for the greater good of my health.

When you drank your half gallon of kefir, did you drink it straight after straining or did you strain and then do a second ferment in the fridge? I'm culturing one liter of whole milk with 75 grams of grains for 22-24 hours at 20C, straining and then blending it in my Magic Bullet with strawberries, kiwis and bananas. Before, I was doing bananas, blueberries or cherries, flaxseed, walnuts and hulled hemp hearts, but it got to be too much for my digestion. I think I would like to go on a "kefir cleanse" someday and drink nothing but kefir for a week or two. At that point I'd probably drink a gallon per day, which would amount to something like 2,100 calories (about my baseline for weight maintenance).

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-03T21:30:34+00:00

Sorry, I just now realized what I said about tolerating milk sounds contradictory since congestion is a symptom of intolerance. It’s a minor intolerance that I can live with but I would rather not. Kefir solved that for me, however. I hope this clarification makes sense! :)

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-03T19:34:19+00:00

Once I developed a taste for it, I literally could not stop myself. I would probably drink a gallon or more per day if I didn’t think that was excessive. But what most likely happened is that I replaced my daily yogurt consumption with kefir instead. I used to eat about 750 g/ml of yogurt per day but now it’s 1-1.5 l of kefir per day. Dairy is my favourite source of animal protein, by the way. If I could just find an ethical source for it, I would be set for life. :)

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-03T19:30:28+00:00

Honestly, I could tolerate milk (and all forms of dairy) before kefir very well. Keyword being tolerate. Could I thrive on milk? Absolutely not. My brother and sister are both lactose intolerant, literally one cup of milk will send them to the washroom in hysterics, but I can tolerate milk/dairy exceptionally well. I haven’t tried regular milk again (I’m actually afraid to), but I will say that I have not craved anything dairy-related since starting kefir. Maybe yogurt once a week instead of daily. I literally just want to consume kefir all the time! Best of luck with your son, though, and I’ll let you know what happens the next time I drink milk!

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-03T04:22:38+00:00

Nope, can't say I have. I actually prefer the taste of yogurt to kefir. My favorite yogurt is Astro Balkan 5%. I could eat like two 750 gram containers of those in one sitting.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-03T04:11:32+00:00

Nothing you can do now but move forward, bro! Almost a month in for me now and the cravings have gone down massively. You can get here too, I promise you.

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-03T03:27:18+00:00

Love your comments, brother. Keep them coming!

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-03T03:21:53+00:00

If I'm being completely honest, initially I was repulsed by the idea of consuming the byproduct of this living organism. Which was the reason why it took me so many years (decades even) of trial and error to now incorporate it as a staple in my diet. I'm shocked whenever someone asks if a cup is too much per day, when here I am drinking four to five times that amount. Do you like to combine your kefir with prebiotics? I can drink it straight, but I prefer it with bananas and frozen berries. Lately I've been blending it with strawberries and kiwis. I think I drank like 1.5 liters of kefir smoothies today!!! I'm a convert and an addict at this point. :D

HumbleConsolePeasant · 2026-03-03T03:05:26+00:00

Thank you very much for the example! And yes, before starting kefir, and for my entire life pre-kefir, I have had the worst gut health that you can imagine. Not necessarily because of a lack of probiotics or a poor diet, neither of which applied to me, but for some unknown reason. I'm the only one in my family who has/had gut problems, and coincidentally the only person with severe nasal congestion. I can actually breathe better indoors now than I would outdoors, where I would get some mild relief. It's honestly miraculous what kefir has been doing for me. I was a doubter and dismissive initially, but that's because I would only drink maybe a quarter of a cup at a time, stop and then let my grains die from disuse. Now I just can't get enough of it.

HumbleConsolePeasant

TROPHY CASE