Step 3 - Week of Abstinence

Finished day one without any incident. Although I think my body is waiting, like a dog sitting there, tongue hanging out, staring at you and asking, "So, when are you going to fill my bowl up?"

And the odd thing is, I've had lots of opportunity today. As a matter of fact, it sort of sucked. Everyone was gone from the home all day. I woke up with time on my hands, came home to lunch with no one home, and traveled by myself in the car for an hour and a half. Normally I would have been all over that opportunity. No fair! . So it felt odd not to do it, but I kept my mind focused on other things during all that time, and never had any serious temptation to let 'er rip. Not even any minimal stimulation.

Day 2 should prove interesting. We'll see how long I stay on this bucking bronco. Though I think the strong bucking has yet to happen.

Not much to report...and that's a good thing!

Most of the day was pretty busy. Had some opportunity in the morning and taking a shower, but didn't do anything then. Came home late for lunch, but no one home for most of the time so I would have had plenty of time then. But I had to eat. I could right now, as I'm up, everyone else is asleep, and that is a common time I would do it. But So far, no urges to go for it. I've yet to experience my body screaming for it.

Mostly I've just kept my mind on other things, even when I could have made time to do it. I know I don't want to. So I don't even want to open the door for that opportunity. So, day 2 passed without incident, stimulation, or orgasm.

But I take the first comment back. I actually do have something fairly to report, not directly related to my current abstinence program.

The church I attend is a 45 minute drive each way, and being Holy Week, we have services every night this week. Tonight, unlike last night when I was alone, my 21 yr old son came with me. On the way there, he related to me what he and my wife had discussed, which was something I've related here, the night I was very frustrated that my wife didn't seem to want to have sex with me, and I prayed about it in the driveway around 3am before coming in and going to bed, and when I did, she woke up and for some inexplicable reason, decided then and there to have sex. I took it as an answer to the prayer.

Anyway, we discussed that some going there, but on the way back he told me how he wanted to control something that he felt had taken over his life, and of course I guessed it was masturbation. We ended up having a long discussion about how to control masturbation, not giving up, etc., all the stuff we talk about here, including porn. I was able to tell him about what happens in the brain, and the affects it can have upon relationships, etc. I think I was able to give him some hope.

But afterwards, I thought, three months ago if we'd had this conversation, there wouldn't have been much I would have told him other than, it's okay, doing it is fine. Oddly enough, he initially didn't want to tell me what it was, he only said that he didn't want to say what it was because when he did, inevitably everyone tells him that its natural, that he shouldn't worry about doing it as often as he wants...you know the spiel. So he was just going to decide to not do it, but not tell anyone (except he was telling me all this). After I correctly identified what he was trying not to do (not at all hard to guess ), I was able to offer him support in that desire rather than telling him not to worry about it. He didn't like the way it was controlling his life, and how much time he spent doing it and thinking about it.

So we had a very productive discussion, and one that I think will help him. And I have to give kudos to Marnia and Gary and the folks here on this site, because prior to this, I don't think I would have anywhere nearly as helpful about how to quit, given my dismal record. Now I'm like a fountain of info and support. And we'll no doubt talk about it further in the days ahead as he works to progress on it.

I'm very, very proud of him. He decided he didn't want this controlling his life, and despite what everyone else was telling him, he was determined to put a stop to it anyway. I'd say for a learning disabled man, his smarts are better than most. And I'm glad I can actually help him in that task instead of being one of the naysayers.

Thanks Marnia for the supportive comment.

Well, I'm beginning to think a few days ago when I reported I felt a change in my attitude about this, that I really wanted it, that it was real. You know, you feel something like that and you think, "Yeah, just wait till the rubber meets the road." Well, I guess my wheels are still floating above the road or something. Day three went by without much incident, and no physical desire to make anything happen, much less mental.

I know that could change tomorrow. I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall, for my body to kick in and start demanding I fulfill its wishes. But so far, nada. Half way through this week, and I feel its been easy. Too easy. What's wrong with me? .

A couple of interesting notes for Day 3, my halfway point. One, I woke up this morning and felt weak in the legs. I think it helped when I ate my breakfast bar, but I just felt weak, and no real reason why I should be. I had enough sleep (and it wasn't sleepiness either), ate decent meals the day before, not sick that I can discern, nothing I could really identify as the cause.

Which made me wonder if this was a result of the abstinence. Hard to say, potentially could be my energy level taking a dip as my dopamine receptors start building back up.

Two, and maybe related to the above, my penis has felt fairly lifeless. An odd data point. This morning as I lay in bed waking up, I laid my hand on it and just left it there. Didn't move it, didn't stimulate it. But it grew hard. Still didn't move. Yet, despite responding in that way, there was absolutely no orgasmic feelings at all to it. Which felt real odd. Usually I feel something as it gets hard, but nothing. Even a slight brush against it did nothing.

Of course I didn't test it any further by starting any aggressive stimulation. I'm sure I could have awakened the sleeping giant if I had wanted to. But like I said above, no cravings physically for sure, and only the barest minimum of mental cravings. I'm sure that will change at some point, but if that point is beyond a week, I won't likely be running into it here.

What is exciting is that I know I'm in the right frame of mind to make it through this week. It can be easy to fall out of it, but it is the frame of mind that simply doesn't entertain the idea of stimulation, much less going for the big O. It's like that is off the table, not even an option, I've build a mental wall around it. As long as I don't tare down that wall to get it, I feel confident I'm going to make it through these six days in good stead.

That said, there are three more days to go and I can't let my guard down. Keep in this frame of mind. It will be the first time in years I've gone this long without masturbation of any kind. Once again, I'm surprised by how well I'm doing. I really feel for me, the previous training has paid off. I moved my mind to where it needed to be to do this, to even want to do this. And to me, getting that down is key to succeeding at the rest. Because most of this is a mental issue, even in how to deal with dopamine rushes and crashes.

Well, a little more feeling today. Not overwhelming, but when it grew today, I could feel something. But otherwise, it hasn't responded much to any squeezes. When I go to the bathroom, it feels especially soft (which actually feels nice in the hand) and doesn't seem to immediately respond to being handled.

I mostly felt something in the shower, cleaning it. It was hard and there was a slight orgasmic feeling to it. But it didn't cause me to go beyond cleaning. Once done, I left it alone.

Most of the day I've been busy. Long service this evening, so I'm worn out right now. Even if I wasn't abstaining, not sure I'd have the energy to do anything tonight.

So, while I felt a little more feeling today, no big struggles to keep from going all the way. While my mind seem to think about it all more, I didn't ever feel seriously tempted on day 4. So, once again, it appears I didn't have any big struggle abstaining.

My energy level did feel better yesterday than Wednesday.

Now heading into day 5, Friday. I have Friday off, but I'll be going to services in the morning and evening. Which means in the morning I'll have a 1.5 hour round trip in the car by myself. When I get home, though, my son and I will go shopping. So while I'm sure I'll have plenty of opportunity today, probably less than I had earlier in the week. While I could always get blindsided by intense cravings, I feel confident that I'll make it. It would be a shame to get this close and not make it. But I'm confident I will because I still feel like my mind is in the right place to make it happen.

Thanks!

Woot! Made it through day 5.

Sensitivity is definitely coming back. It not only became hard as I lay in bed upon waking up, it felt good. I did some gentle caresses. Nothing aggressive, just light touches. Instead of feeling dead as before, now it shoots some nice feelings through the body.

Because of that, the temptation was more there to mess with it. I can hear it calling out to me, "Please?" It's not so overbearing that I'm sweating and clinching my teeth, but I did have to employ more resistance to its call for day 5.

But, without too much trouble, I abstained from orgasm. Didn't even get anywhere close, as I did nothing aggressive in the couple of sessions, and while the feelings called out for more, I firmly told it, "That's all your getting. You'll have to wait for the full thing."

I don't want to get cocky and over confident, but it feels good to feel I can control it like that.

One more day on this test and stage. Should be a really great day.

Well, step 3 has ended, and I consider it a rousing success, much to my surprise. A success on more than one front.

One, the obvious success. I successfully abstained from orgasm for the entire period. Saturday I allowed myself a little more stimulation, and it certainly felt really good. And I did get a little closer to orgasm than I probably should have, but I didn't go there. Refrained from allowing the big O to hit. Not sure, but I think two things gave me permission to do a little more stimulation. One, it felt really sensitive, so it felt really good. Two, it was the last day, and it knew I was going to allow it soon, so I think anticipation may have had something to do with it.

But through most of the week, I didn't allow much more than an occasional brush or really low level of stimulation if any at all. For the most part, I avoided stimulating it even when it would have been easy to do so.

So, I can say that I didn't have an orgasm for the six days, and not until the seventh day, making it almost a full week. I think I had my last orgasm last Sunday afternoon, and I had my next one this Sunday morning. (We had our celebration at midnight and I didn't get into bed until 4am and we woke up around 9:45am, just so you understand why it was in the morning when most Christians would be at church.)

So, now to evaluate what I've noticed about this test period.

Self-control: This is the main thing I was working to build. It was the next level up to work on the self control and would tell me if I needed any further work before heading into the big month long abstinence period in June. It's been years since I've abstained for a week, and the few times I'd tried back in the mid-decade ended up with me masturbating daily within two to three days into it. So I do feel my self-control is in a good place, and built up to a level that it hasn't been in a long time. I didn't ever really have any strong battles to not do it. But I could tell my sensitivity was ramping up on the last couple of days, so week two I'm sure would have been harder.

Sexual intensity/sensitivity: It's been years since I've had this level of sensitivity to stimulation and orgasm. I've had good orgasms by using supplements, but those also tend to make it more difficult to get there at times. As a matter of fact, they usually tout that as a good thing, that it extends your time. But I'm not in as good of shape as I should be, and tire easily, which of course loses all desire and everything goes south. But its been a long time that I've been "quick on the draw." Well, today when we had sex, I had to go slow to avoid ending it any earlier than I did. It simply felt so good that it took no time at all to build up to the orgasm. My wife was surprised at how quickly it happened. She said, "I was just getting going."

While I know that may not be what I would want to always happen, it felt much better than it feeling good, but never getting to orgasm because I grew tired and couldn't keep up the process. So after twenty to thirty minutes, I'd give up on the orgasm, and just consider it quality bonding time. But this was within five minutes. I can't recall the last time I came that quick.

And I also masturbated again later in the day, and while it took a little longer, it also felt very good and intense. The week off certainly brought a renewed sensitivity to stimulation and arousal than I've had in a long time. What I especially liked was ending my week of abstinence through sex with my wife instead of masturbation, which I think is what has happened in times past.

And this has got me to thinking about another test. I'm still mulling it over in my mind, so I'm not set for sure on it. But I'm wondering if I abstained Monday, if that same level of intensity and sensitivity would still be there. While I said this next stage would be a free for all, no planned periods of abstinence, I'm seriously thinking about how I can maintain this sensitivity by not doing it daily, and experimenting with how long I can keep it this way by maybe going to an every other day, or maybe even though the carrot for successfully completing stage 3 was not having Wed and Fri off limits to masturbation until much later, maybe I'll do that anyway if it will keep the great feeling.

It would be a change in plans, yes. But I'm also a little worried how a free for all will affect my self-control training to this point. I don't want to lose that either as I head toward a full month abstinence. But we will see. No specific decisions on all that yet. It is possible I'll allow myself this week, and then put into place something the following weeks. I'll have to think more about it.

But on the sensitivity issue, I noticed about day 4 hints of returning sensitivity. It increased significantly on day 5, and even more on day 6. It was such that I could just brush up against it to send great feelings over my body. That would take some heavy self-control going into a second week, and I'll have to prepare myself mentally for that when I do go that far in June.

But that's pretty much it. I gained some more self-confidence that I can do this, experienced myself having a good amount of self-control, being in the right frame of mind to do this. And once again I've been 100% successfully at avoiding masturbation when I said I would. I've successfully told my body when it could do it and when it couldn't, and so far, it's obeyed. I think my training program has worked better than I ever could have expected.

For now, the big test will be in June. Until then, I'll have to see what further steps, if any, to take or if I go with my original plan to give myself a resting period from this program, both as a reward for doing so good, and to assure it that my goal isn't to totally eliminate its desires from the mix. My only concern is that the step to abstaining on certain days will happen only a couple weeks before going complete abstinence for a month, and I'm not sure if that will be enough after having had a free for all over the past month and a half. And I'm finding myself seriously thinking that the reward of greater sensitivity might be worth some abstaining if I can have that great of an orgasm when I do have one.

Well, onto step 4. Thanks everyone for your support.