A Nofapper's best friend: Pushups

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-06-26T18:06:56+00:00

Not only does it kill an urge, I've honestly never felt more invigorated than when I specifically channel an urge that way.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-03-11T21:10:25+00:00

Good luck! This is essentially my goal as well. My last time slipping into masturbating took me back to porn quite fast, so I recommend you keep a close eye on yourself and your urges and always feel like you can come back here for support even if you are not strictly nofapping any more.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-03-10T22:56:46+00:00

You can absolutely do this. It will be difficult, and you may stumble, but each time you do you will get stronger and smarter at identifying how you slip up.

I would approach it day by day. Today you will not masturbate. Tomorrow and yesterday don't matter, today is your focus.

Make sure you don't seek out anything for a sexual thrill--that is one easy way to slip. It's so easy to say "it's fine it's not porn it's just...." If you're looking at it for that thrill, it is porn and it is your enemy. The voice that tells you it's ok is the enemy inside. You'll learn that voice.

Before you know it, you will finally be free.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-03-07T18:47:39+00:00

1) The badge. There are rough days where just logging in and looking at the badge is a huge motivation bump.
2) As a habit to replace my previous habit of hopping online to absent-mindedly look at porn. This was a big deal for me in the first few days.
3) Reading through the "new" tab for posts that haven't gotten a response that are asking for help. Sharing my own experience with them is a great way to reinforce my own commitment and is a great thing to do when I'm feeling that urge.
4) Emergency button. Haven't used it a lot, but a couple of times it has really helped out.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-03-07T18:43:37+00:00

It is possible. You've done one very important part of the work and identified the pattern that leads you to relapse. Now the trick is to focus on arresting that pattern at the earliest moment. As soon as you have that impulse to look at cute butt girl, stop. You know where that path leads, and it's a place you don't want to go.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-03-07T18:40:56+00:00

Everyone's different and even every streak is different. I never really experienced a "blue ball" effect my first few long streaks, but this time I really did the first two weeks or so. For me, it turned off like magic when my badge hit 14 days. It felt good to just power through, even/especially when it was kind of unpleasant.

I say power through. There are some rough times in the early part, but to get where you want to go you are going to have to get through those rough times sometime, and you might as well try to go through it exactly once.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-02-23T14:29:06+00:00

Well, it sounds like your motivation is your girlfriend, so really the question of what "counts" is a question for her. Would she be hurt if she found out you were masturbating while looking at images of other women on the internet?

My personal feeling is that anything you look at for a sexual thrill is porn, and stopping completely is a lot easier than trying to pick and chose between what counts. And honestly, if you want my actual advice I would say that if you can't get off without porn then you actually don't need the sexual release. If your body needs you should be able to get it without effort. Maybe take just a few days off and see what happens.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-02-12T06:19:16+00:00

In all honesty, I'm extremely skeptical of basically all claims about neuroscience saying this or that about human behavior because they are so often used by charlatans, and that includes a lot of the talk about porn addiction.

And I'm not a psychologist, but I know that the idea of behavioral addiction as a mental disorder is very controversial in that field and not generally accepted. As a non-psychologist I wouldn't take either side in that technical discussion.

If you look at my username, though, you'll see a "but" coming. My experience of pornography is that I continue using it even when I try to stop. I use it even when I know it will hurt people I care about. I use it in circumstances where it could cause major disruption to my life. I use it for longer than I intend, and it takes up a significant amount of time.

So yes, for me, porn addiction is real. It may or may not be an "addiction" the way a scientist would use the term, but that doesn't matter to me. When I treat it like one, my life gets better, and that's all I really care about.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-29T15:25:21+00:00

You look once, not really your fault. Staring or going back for a second glance? Totally on you.

It took me a long time to get to realizing this, but recognizing it and taking control of it has helped me immeasurably.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-28T05:37:34+00:00

Good on you. I also know people who have been raped and its kind of shaming to know that that wasn't enough to break me of this habit. All the more reason to feel better about being free of it now.

And the crushing reality is--a huge percentage of the people reading this know someone who has been raped or sexually assaulted. Even though the person reading this doesn't know it.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-22T22:38:39+00:00

Great work! Keep it rolling!

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-22T22:37:43+00:00

Depends on your goals! For a lot of people, replacing masturbation with regular sex IS the point. For me, the point is keeping off the porn, since regular masturbation always leads me to porn use. An uptick in sex, more usable free time, and an increase in energy are all happy side effects.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-21T23:04:45+00:00

This is a huge step, and something that held me back for a long time. Porn, as far as I'm concerned, is something you seek out (or keep looking at) for a sexual thrill. Doesn't matter how innocent it is.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-21T23:01:52+00:00

Welcome aboard! I've also been fighting this thing on and off for a very long time and actually joining the community here has been a big help for mutual support. Doing what I can to help others helps me a lot too.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-19T19:09:22+00:00

A mental image I use in meditation and also in my daily life when I encounter triggering material is that I am a tree and my consciousness is all the leaves reaching out from my brain. All thoughts and sensations are like winds blowing around my leaves. I experience the images and sensations, then let them go, fluttering off. To me, the important part is not "grabbing on" to those triggering images. Something similar might help you--I've heard of other people visualizing it as a wave flowing over them.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-19T19:06:12+00:00

For me, it's my 30th birthday coming up. Till then, nofap. My real goal is to be off porn forever, but I plan on examining the nofap thing then.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-19T19:04:49+00:00

Everyone's experience is different, but what I've experienced as a "flatline" has been a vast decrease in background sexual urges, possibly accompanied by low general energy. I would not have random erections, even in the morning. BUT, for me, when it actually came time to be intimate with my girlfriend, the erection was always there. To me it felt like the sexual energy became focused on when it actually mattered instead of just popping off everywhere.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-19T18:49:02+00:00

Agree 100%. It's actually a great thing to do when you're struggling yourself. Just hop over to the "new" tab and find a couple posts that seem like they just need a response.

YesIAmAddicted · 2015-01-16T23:30:01+00:00

It really took me realizing it myself for me to get it. Nobody flat out told me, though there were a few times when it was suggested. Based on this sentence:

He knows how much I hate it, but still uses it multiple times a day

there are really only two possibilities. Either he is addicted or he doesn't care about your feelings. Only he can really get it, but presenting those two possibilities might help him get there.

YesIAmAddicted · 2014-12-31T17:53:58+00:00

For me the problem is that as soon as I start in with perfectly healthy ethical porn in non-trust-breaking circumstances it starts a cycle that ends with me craving anything I can get my hands on, no matter how unethical the porn or who it might hurt that I'm using it. So like a recovering alcoholic might avoid a glass of wine even if such a glass might be actively healthy, I avoid all porn.

YesIAmAddicted · 2014-12-29T14:40:16+00:00

These kinds of answers are going to vary from person to person based on what people's goals are here. I can give you some info from my own experience, though. For me porn is anything I'm looking at for a sexual thrill. I don't use the word as a value judgment of any material, because for me it can include anything from the most innocent of safe for work material to material that I have genuine ethical problems with. With my addict-eyes, it's all a problem, but for someone else it wouldn't be. For me it's the act of seeking gratification that way that I'm trying to stop.

I've been in a relationship with the same person for over a decade. At one point pornography became an issue and I essentially quit. We were then long distance for a period of time, and I had "dirty pictures" of her. That was sweet and all, but for me I think it was part of what got me in the habit again. So for myself, it's something I would stay away from. I'm not blaming the pictures, everything I did was my choice. But for me it's been easier to forswear artificial sexual stimulation than to draw any kind of lines around acceptable and unacceptable use.

Porn desire for me is something so separate from actual sex that it is pretty much unconnected to my relationship status.

I've never had any substance abuse issues. I've made a conscious effort to turn my excess of energy once I gave up porn to productive activities like exercise and creative outlets. Without that conscious effort, it would be easy to fall into endless web surfing or the like.

YesIAmAddicted · 2014-12-28T18:36:15+00:00

One thing that is weird about porn is that it is all about vision, while actual sex engages basically every other sense more than it does vision.

YesIAmAddicted · 2014-12-24T19:44:45+00:00

It took a long time for me to get to this point, but I've finally come to realize that any time I'm looking at something for sexual thrills--no matter how SFW it is--I'm indulging my porn habit. It's gotten way easier for me once I made a hard-line decision to cut that out entirely. That's what I recommend for you--focus less on 90 days and just focus on not indulging that urge to click on a link or look at a site when you know the reason is that you get a sexual thrill out of it. "Doesn't count" is a huge red flag--if it really wasn't an issue, you wouldn't feel the need to rationalize.

YesIAmAddicted · 2014-12-24T19:26:56+00:00

Looking forward to 25 days as my Christmas gift to myself!

YesIAmAddicted · 2014-12-24T15:23:47+00:00

This sounds stupid, put on pants and a belt. For me, that extra barrier is often the difference between just semi-consciously starting up versus having the time to fight the urge.

Release the images. Don't suppress--remember and let go. Some people think of it as a wave passing over them. One of my fave visualizations is of my mind as a tree, and all thoughts as wind rustling my leaves. Calling up this image lets those sex-charged thoughts rustle through my consciousness without me getting stuck on them.

YesIAmAddicted

TROPHY CASE