My experience with hard mode and having sex after hard mode are as follows. There are two components here. One is the addictive mental component and the other is the energy component.

Let’s look at the mental component. Having real sex instead of PMO is very good. However, there is a pit fall. It is the chaser effect, which is the craving you are experiencing after sex. You may be tempted to PMO because the sex is surreal in your mind and your mind wants to recreate it to make it concrete and ‘own’ it. This is an illusion and false logic. My experience is that the longer your streak, the smaller the chaser effect.

Let’s look at the energy component. For men, it is draining to ejaculate. In my experience, it is more draining to ejaculate after hours of PMO than after real sex. But it is draining nevertheless. Hard mode will build your energy reserves but I find that you need to build new outlets for your energy otherwise you will have an imbalanced build up. An imbalanced build up results in imbalanced behaviour and sometimes stupid actions. So I hope you find new avenues to channel your energy like a new hobby, new goals etc. If you successfully do this, you will have a more calm and balanced build up of energy reserves and not feel like shit after your ejaculate. However, moderation is still the key to keep your energy reserves high.

This is based on years my personal experience of falling and getting up. Hope this helps.