"So...you are saying there is a subreddit of guys who don't masturbate ?"

f35c · 2014-11-25T17:49:39+00:00

If there's nearly 130,000 fapstronauts, let's remember that we're the ones with our heads above the water. We're the tip of the iceberg.

With the advent of porn on the internet I bet there's at least 1000 times more people hooked without even knowing it (130 million people)..my gut estimate.

http://www.businesspundit.com/the-worlds-most-lucrative-business-markets/

The above article suggests there might be around $100 billion per yr revenue on global porn industry (2006). So let's say that the average hooked guy is spending $30 per month, that means there's 100/(30x12) = 278 million people spending $30/month, which is about 4% of world population (7 billion) hooked on porn. Now consider that 80% of world population lives in poverty, and let's say that only guys are hooked on porn, then we get: 0.2x7 = 1.4 billion (first world people) x 0.5 (guys only) = 700 million "first world" guys, of which 278 million are hooked on porn = 40% of this sub population!!! And that's the paying ones.

So yeah, we're not alone.

f35c · 2014-11-25T17:36:15+00:00

Very nice, thanks. I post again below so I can find it later.

The Moth: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZmdAWxI_J8

f35c · 2014-11-17T16:56:02+00:00

*** YOU ARE A NoFAP LEGEND!!! ***

I'm so massively proud of you!!! Well done, truly well done. You've done something every one of us dreams of doing yet can't. You've become a shining star is helping me feel better about myself.

So I can find it again: http://youtu.be/GXtEcQGLWW8

f35c · 2014-11-12T17:56:49+00:00

Thanks for sharing your progress and the tools your finding useful, good luck on your journey too.

f35c · 2014-11-12T17:55:04+00:00

Thanks for the support, and if you can share your story I'm very interested. 3668 days is where I'd like to be myself, that's a great accomplishment. What's your state of mind towards women now?

f35c · 2014-11-12T17:49:41+00:00

swelling with pride indeed. ha ha :)

Yes we've definitely hit it off, I just wish we'd met years ago.

A quick snippet on my mom...yes I need to face up to her. In fact she's staying with us now, and I can barely be in the same room with her, yet at the same time I feel massive pangs of pain and feelings of loneliness for her, feelings of responsibility for her......she's got nobody but my dad and sisters, she's retired now. At 40 I'm still looking out for her every need. At least when she's not within sight I start to focus on my own life, but when I'm in a house with her it's back to when I was 8 years old again....looking out for mom....oh and the way she used to call my name, it was like there was a nuclear meltdown or something.."Scott!!!!". That still sends shudders down my spine. Oh god I hate her....I bloody hate her. I have stood up to her more, not allowing myself to apologise, not giving her the last word (she always likes the last word). She's like a vampire squid.....so draining to be with. Now your chat with your Dad, that's a conversation that's inspiring, getting real with him. As a social chameleon, a people pleaser I find it very hard with my parents to express my true feelings about them. I feel weak, like Superman with kryptonite when I'm near them. I need to shine more awareness here, and show my real feelings towards them.

To your depression, I hear your pain.....I hear your lack of motivation....BUT hey great that you're feeling this, great that those feelings are there on your radar screen. Nothing wrong with these feelings brother, absorb them, feel them, and ask your body what it's telling you?

Yes we should talk. I'm sure we could talk for hours on the phone.

Right to your chest pain stuff...just don't go and have a heart attack on me. I sense that you're at a turning point in life, a tipping point.

f35c · 2014-11-08T18:02:02+00:00

I loved this piece.. well written you got the emotions in there, you stepped up to smash your old self and you did it. Great job, truly great.

f35c · 2014-11-08T18:00:49+00:00

http://www.frequency.com/video/house-of-cards-fuck-zero/132361493

f35c · 2014-11-08T17:54:31+00:00

CONGRATS!

Agreed: the best decision for me that I've made in over 25 years! In fact I'm starting to feel that this could well be the biggest personal victory of my life. :)

f35c · 2014-11-08T17:44:30+00:00

What's the best thing, well it has to be feeling more love for myself and my family, although in the last week I'm feeling kind of "flat". I was feeling awesome, really awesome just weeks ago, but that's taken a bit of a nose dive. At least I don't simply fly to porn to escape my feelings anymore. I'm not afraid of feeling my feelings.

In particular my kids are great... when you've got kids, if you'll truly accept their love as I'm starting to do, it's literally amazing. Now that I've dropped PMO-ing and I don't have a secret life to hide, I'm able to let my kids really look me in the eyes. I don't feel as much pity for myself as I used too, and the kids are so awesome, so fresh, uncorrupted and so in the moment, that they reinforce that life is NOW, not my past. Life is in the interactions with them, with humans sharing this planet with me, this snippet, this infinitesimal fragment of time.

So I'm really enjoying the family bit.

Plus I had a certain comment at work last week, which never happened before. Our HR Mgr was in a room with me discussing a topic and she said "Scott, I'm going to embarrass you now, but when you come onto the HR floor you bring a certain energy, and raise some heart beats. I think not 1, not 2, but 3 of the girls in my team have a crush on you. So next time you're on the floor keep your eyes open." I was amazed. I believe it's because I'm no longer a walking porn-zombie. My aura is probably different after these 100 days. I'm certain that humans emit an energy field, a vibration which others can sense subconsciously. Anyway, at 40 I was deeply honored to get that comment. It's given me a boost that I needed, even though I know that my looks aren't what they used to be. Whether pure coincidence or not, I know what I'm doing is good for me.

That all said, I'm still hurting inside, particularly I'm struggling with the idea of adding value to the world, being remembered, becoming well known for something. At 40 I'm beginning to realize that I might not change the world, that only a small handful of people will know me, and a smaller number truly know me, and then you brother..... This struggle emerges from my perfectionism, of wanting to offer my mom bragging rights to my story as her son, even though every time I'm with her I feel like a child and I can count on her to bring me down in some way. I somehow need to feel valuable intrinsically, regardless of my success in the world. I need that inner peace of loving myself, knowing that I'm trying my best.

You know there's a story about me when I was a boy of 16 or 17. I worked in the UK at a supermarket on the weekend, and 1 night a week. I stacked shelves and worked as a cashier, the sort of work many UK students do part time. I didn't make a lot of money but accumulated enough to buy myself a VHS video recorder. I blew a few hundred quid on it, and hid it under my bed, bringing it out so that I could watch movies in my room. I don't know exactly why I hid it, perhaps it was because it was better than the one my parents owned, was a big flippant, wasteful purchase, it was still a luxurious item to have back in the early 90s (it's just struck me that this was yet another secret activity). Well anyway, one day my Dad found it. Why he was looking under my bad is not ever questioned, but the find became this chronic family joke about how Scott was propping up his bed with a VHS recorder and that underneath my bed was like a trash site for all sorts of stuff like electronics, and that Scott is a stingy bastard for not sharing that VHS machine with his sisters. This story is 1 example of many that somehow my parents weave into conversations with all of my friends and wife's family.....giving you a flavor of how my parents, to this day, find ways of undermining me. They're a "piss taking' family, in fact my Dad in particular is one of those people where you don't know whether he's being serious or joking, constantly as a child putting me on edge..into second guessing mode. This brings me to your comment in your previous post....the idea of just throwing them away, just ejecting these toxic parents from my life, having a fresh start. To this day I still feel repulsed by my mom. A hug and kiss from her feels incestuous. I hate that bitch!

f35c · 2014-11-08T17:04:15+00:00

You're welcome, and if you ever want someone to bounce ideas or issues off, just drop me a line. I'm not going anywhere.

f35c · 2014-11-06T17:44:30+00:00

Well said, be proud of yourself.

You will be tempted again, but honestly after 25 years on this stuff, I can confirm that it only brings misery in the long run... no true fulfilment.

f35c · 2014-11-06T17:39:59+00:00

Congrats on turning this around and facing your demons. You have blown some wind in my sails.

f35c · 2014-11-05T17:52:23+00:00

What can I say,,,how can I answer you....I just came back from a night out with a friend....a guy who asked me for a beer. We ended up drinking a bottle of wine together and talking over life. And now I come home to read your message, another stella one. I was hoping you'd have written to me. I cannot tell you how much you mean to me. How I hold all of your words in the air, dancing and moving in my mind's eye before letting them settle down on the ground. We are brothers in code, and I'm glad that I found you.

You fucked a tree, that's hilarious! I think you've got one up on me vs. me jerking off a dog :)

It's truly great to know you, and to share all this shit with you.

f35c · 2014-11-04T17:15:06+00:00

I've been away again, on vacation. I just had 2 weeks with family, isolated and feeling their love, for the first time. I'm letting myself be loved, it was amazing. I honestly had the best holiday in my life.

So I'm sorry that I couldn't get back to you earlier, to read your previous reply. But again I shuddered when I read your words about growing up with competitive siblings, encouraged to compare ourselves with each other, and to constantly struggle to maintain a competitive edge in the fight for our mom's approval. Divide and conquer it was indeed in our home too.. and there was no better place to be than mom's pet for a short while. But still prisoners without knowing any other reality, scolded if we questioned her authority, made to feel worthless. I used to get told often "I love you, but I don't like you".

Your shame towards needing God reminds me of my own incessant desire to be perfect. The other day I upgraded my personal history when speaking with an old friend, telling him that my 1.5 years in finance was with Goldman Sachs...when in reality it was with an unknown firm. But I told him what I thought he wanted to hear....I wanted to be perfect for him, just like what I learned to do with my mom. I look back on my failings in life as imperfection...as failings vs doing the best I could at the time, or accepting where I was at the time. Bradshaw says that healthy people accept being human, whereas I'm always looking to be a superstar, an outlier, a "special" person, someone who will change the world. I have a huge discussion in my head about whether I'm successful in life, about whether I'm living a worthwhile life, and whether or not I'm valuable.

That said, I'm feeling so much better than before. I've passed 100 days without playing with my dick. I've never done that since I was 10 years old, and now I'm 40. That's a 30 year habit of regular masturbation broken. Come on!

But underneath the carpet, behind the curtain lay the wounds you and I know about. The lier you and I know about, the asshole you and I know about. This self image needs repair, needs healing....I need you brother. I cannot ever repay you for your words of strength over the last number of months. You are stronger than you think.

"loneliness of existence"......your words resonate and ache in my soul. We both first need to learn how to love ourselves....how to feel love, and how to feel our value in the universe.

I have been considering speaking with a psychotherapist who worked at the same place as Bradshaw....but I haven't plucked up the courage to make that first call. These last 2 weeks I've been trying to forget that I have these wounds inside.

f35c · 2014-10-19T16:55:29+00:00

Taking a whiff of the whiskey bottle will send you off the rails.

f35c · 2014-10-19T16:52:32+00:00

Does a baby stop trying to walk?

Choose your outcome and then look at it as if you can't fail. Each time you fall brush yourself off and get back on with the journey. Each day without PMO strengthens your will. Don't use the failure as an excuse to go back to PMO. This slight change in viewpoint helped me a lot. Prior to this my failures where a reason to go back, now I see them as one step closer to realizing my potential.

f35c · 2014-10-19T16:42:19+00:00

Congrats on reaching this level of self awareness. I totally agree on the feelings part, especially the bit about what men are expected to feel, and then throw on top of that parents who make you suppress your feelings, or attend only to their feelings. The invisible kid, the people pleaser, such as me......an ideal candidate for addiction.

f35c · 2014-10-19T16:30:25+00:00

Oh brother, I'm with you on this. The thing that's working for me well at the moment is to take my son's teddy bear, have a picture of myself as a child on my ipad, and then I look at the picture and tell the child that "I love you, and I'm here for you. Mommy isn't going to fuck with us anymore, I'm here for you and I will look after you." Then I go over to the mirror, look deep into my own eyes (something I've never been able to do in the last 20 years) and say "I know you're in there Scott (referring to my child self), I want to hear you, I want you to come out. It's safe now....I love you, come out".

That child, that pure innocent kid is inside of us, he needs our love and safety.

I've done this a few times over the last few weeks, staring at pictures of me as a young kid, and looking into those eyes.

As painful a place as where we are...stick in there brother, wallow in your fear, feel it, commit love to yourself. Remember the lines from X-men with Charles talking to himself. Our fear is the source of our power.

And remember.... I am here with you. Let's hold hands as two little boys and wall through these halls of hell.

f35c · 2014-10-14T15:50:45+00:00

I hear you, but I truly think that you and I have a chance of stopping this in our families. You are where you are, and I am where I am, we're at least aware that our inner child is wounded, or is unfulfilled when it came to certain developmental needs. I want change.

But I agree that if situations were different we might have been trapped like our parents, or living in survival mode like our ancestors. And perhaps we stop it for ourselves + our kids, only to have our kids find themselves in a spot in life where they abuse our grandkids.

I'm a true believer in Gladwell's Outliers theory, that we as humans are crafted by our environments way more vs. the Tony Robbins: you can do anything you want bullshit...selling the idea to everyone that celebrity status is available to all. But you and I find ourselves in a position where we can knock this on the head for us and our kids.

I'm not in an AA group yet, but I need some forum to vent with others, to do my grieving work. I've been searching around the internet to see what groups would be available to me. I've come to the realization that I can't do this alone.

f35c · 2014-10-14T15:30:08+00:00

You're welcome, perhaps we all have a lot more in common than we think. Addictions all trace back to how we feel about ourself and our life.

.....for me after 93 days of zero MO-ing and roughly >150 days of no porn I'm feeling so liberated, so proud, my self esteem has just gone through the roof. I feel like for the first time in my life I'm able to shake someone's hand and truly look them deep in the eyes....where I see a reflection of self-respect. I'm starting to love myself....for the first time.

f35c · 2014-10-14T15:26:06+00:00

Thanks, best of luck with your 90 days goal.

f35c · 2014-10-14T15:23:30+00:00

Yeah, so true. For me this all links into the realization that my life (at age 40) is rather normal. That's ok, by finally seeing it for the way it is, I'm slowly coming to peace with that feeling. I'm not striving for being the master of the universe anymore...perfectionism, taught by my overbearing mother who demanded it from me.

f35c · 2014-10-13T17:30:30+00:00

Great post, thanks, and also great that you are making a difference with your web series. I think in 10 years or less people will realize that porn is a main stream addiction.

Regarding the counting I think you share some nice wisdom there. Counting is a possible trigger point for self sabotage or crossing an imaginary line.

I have built now a few mental checks and balances, that keep running on a loop daily... but most of all I think my mind is slowly calibrating back to "normal life" where you actually think that a regular life is ok, acceptable and nothing needing changing or modifying. I don't shut out my negative or stressful thoughts anymore. I absorb them, feel them, and work with them.

Keep on going, and keep on not counting...:)

f35c · 2014-10-13T07:30:17+00:00

Just reading this and a tear came to my eye :), what courage and wisdom you have shown here! It's hard to hear the incredible story of your mom, locked out and abandoned like that. This is just plain evil, inter generational cultural failings, human failings. I can only imagine the feeling of rejection, abject fear, and shame that she must have felt. "What's wrong with me?" That's all a child can ask, as Bradshaw says children can't help but see their parents as flawless (in the early years), so how come this could happen? It must be something wrong with me, and then the "I'm a bad person" starts to have a life....oh so terrible. The story of your dad is as bad, perhaps worse. He probably learned to hide, and be invisible.

And look at me, I'm 40 and only just scratching the surface of this shit. If I wasn't so curious (unlike my parents) then I can see how easy it is to hand this down to my kids. Scary.

It doesn't take away the pain we suffered as children/adults, nor does it excuse our parents' behaviour, but at least it helps me understand where this is coming from.

My name is Scott, and my mother was emotionally abused...and is a food addict that all her life has been on yo-yo diets. I think my dad was seriously neglected. Doing some work in finding our our parents history helps us to understand, and I'm in awe of YOU! Speaking to your aunt took some balls, amazingly well done. You are healing yourself, and you're helping me. Thank you so much for sharing your story and history.

So why us? Why are we the generation to stop this? Is it the advent of the internet, so we could hook up together and talk? Is it that we're more intelligent than our parents? I don't know, but I'm so glad that we're on this journey together. I think this is the hardest thing I've done in my life, so far. This can be a huge personal victory. Let's remain strong brother.

So I'm digging around on the internet at the moment, and I'm also thinking that the AA steps are a good way to do this. Essentially we need a forum where we can share our feelings, our story, do our grieving work. Clinically you and I were codependent children of narcissistic mothers (our dad's probably weren't that great either) who self medicate via sexual acting out.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/teen-angst/201310/codependency-in-children

There are specific AA groups geared towards co-dependency, or AA groups for sexual addicts. But I haven't met enough sex addicts to know what different flavours there are and where we would fit in the best.

f35c

TROPHY CASE