Step 4 - Down time - Anniversary

One week into this first phase of Step 4.

Thought I would sum up a few thoughts, observations.

I've been a little drained this week. True, it could be because of returning to masturbation. But there are also some other things it could be as well, so it is hard to discern how much, if any, is due to masturbation.

Last week was intense with church services, and that certainly tired me out. And I wished I could have Monday off to recuperate! But no, I had to return to work. So some of that tiredness could be recovering from that week.

I also haven't got as much sleep as I should, hovering around five hours a night. Looks like tonight will be just as bad. So I'm sure that isn't helping any.

And on top of that, I forgot my vitamins Monday and Tuesday. So while some of this tiredness this week and fuzziness is due returning to masturbation (twice a day on Sunday and Monday, once a day since), it could be more so from the other things just as easily.

But if we assume for a moment that it is predominately from masturbation, it made me think of something I had wondered about before. It's a theory, and I'm not sure exactly how it plays out since I seem to be a little weird, one of the outlier guys perhaps, when it comes to the dopamine crash thing.

The theory goes like this. Since I've been having an orgasm most of my life averaging once per day, my body has adjusted to the level of dopamine. Probably due to the receptors leveling off at the right amount, or whatever. The body adjust to the continual flow of dopamine everyday and so I feel "normal." And because I'm getting that hit nearly everyday, the drop isn't as drastic, thus keeping it from staying very low for very long. Add in the oxytocin I'm getting, and that means perhaps I've been somewhat stable on the dopamine crash.

Then I abstain for certain days and end that by abstaining for a week. Then I go back to it. The high is as high as it has been in a long time, and not having done it for a while, the contrast is stark. And while my receptors probably hadn't totally recovered within one week, no doubt they had made some progress and so could enjoy that too. In effect, I'm experiencing the same thing that I always felt with porn. I would realize I had become desensitized by watching it, so I would quit for a few weeks or months. Then at some point I realized it would feel new not having watched it in a while, and even the light porn now gets my great feelings flying off the handle when before it wouldn't have even registered as a blip.

My point is that when I go on this month-long abstinence to experience the benefits, and then return to orgasm to see what the result would be, I'm thinking it can't be anything but horrible results because I've been off of it for so long. My body will have relaxed on the dopamine regulation front. So when I come back to it, it will get unexpectedly flooded, whereas before it was a daily occurance so it had prepared for it.

I hope that makes some sense. But I do wonder if that might not be will happen.

That said, I did notice some less contact with my wife. Part of it is we seem to be so busy and have little time to make contact. Despite that, I did rub her back tonight.

But I can sense the "I'm not hungry now" so I turn away from the "plate" to go do other things. Not that we don't talk, or make contact, but there isn't that drive there. It's to be expected, but does point back to the lower dopamine resulting from the unusual highs I was having. And it is part of the natural cycle. But I think due to the starker contrast, I can see it more clearly reflected than I did before, covered as it was in the body's adjustments to my regular dopamine flood.

It's an interesting interaction. And like I said, it is hard to know what is from the return to orgasm and what is from other things, but I have felt some yuk to some degree this week.

And unfortunately I will be facing my taxes this weekend. Now, that is most certainly yuk!

about my goal to not masturbate during June. She said, "Not even with me?" .

I asked her more about her own masturbation patterns. Sounds like she does it more at certain times simply to relieve a feeling. She says usually she will use a vibrator and climax within a minute. Occasionally she'll just use her hands, but it takes longer.

I think to her, she tends to think of all the things she needs to be doing, and getting an orgasm is way at the bottom of her list. She mentioned it had been last night more than two weeks since she'd had an orgasm from masturbating, though we did have sex a couple of Sunday's ago, so it had been a little over a week since she'd had an orgasm. But when she's feeling a need to, I get the impression it is more something to get done so she can go on with what she really wants to do, thus the appeal of the one minute shot and you're done, compared to the 20-30 minutes or more she'll spend with me, first me bringing her to climax, and then we have sex for however long I might go. A lot more work and time for her.

But she does enjoy our times together, she says, because it is something we do together as a couple, and she feels close to me at those times. And she said orgasms do feel best when I give them to her.

All that to give you a sense of where she is at. I explained what I had been thinking about after my experiment, and I might just go into it from there. And it is this:

Once my experiment of abstaining for all of June is done, I told her I would like to run another experiment for July. I wanted for both of us to avoid masturbation that month, and the only orgasms either of us would have would be from sex with each other. I assured her that it wouldn't mean I'd be pressuring her to have sex more than we currently have. We'd do it when we both wanted to. And if I were a guessing man, I'd guesstimate that would mean three times in July, maybe four.

My goal there is to one, see if I can have self-control after having gone without for a month (assuming I'm successful). It will be a test to only get one orgasm, that will undoubtedly feel out of this world if I do abstain all of June, and then force myself to wait until our next encounter, and do my best not to act needy in the process. I might be asking too much of myself, but I'll never find out until I try.

Two, to find out how this might affect our relationship. Both positive and negative. Will it cause us to spend more time together as I seek to spend that energy in more oxytocin ways? What will be the fall out after an orgasm with her, given that I'll be having them so infrequent compared to what I'm used to for most of my life?

I might be kicking myself in the rear for deciding to do that then, having gone a whole month without, and then do the "Chinese water torture" of one orgasm a week or less with no masturbation to relieve the resulting cravings for more. I'll either come out of that experience with such a craving that I'll wear myself out in August, or so strongly in control of myself that nothing can faze me.

Of course, once I've done the month-long abstinence in June, I may feel differently about that and have a new plan by then. But as crazy as it sounds, I think I would like to try that.

And my wife's response, as casually as discussing whether the trash had been taken out yet, said, "Yeah, I can do that." Easy for her to say. No. Easy for her to do. Will be a real challenge to me.

Why do I do this to myself!

With taxes out of the way, I can relax a bit more. I hate doing them, and yesterday it dawned on me that one other factor that could be playing into my dragginess and yuckiness is the building reverse-dopamine effect of dreading April 15th. Probably not the whole reason, but could be a factor. I mean, as I was nearing the end of doing my taxes, I felt aches over my body, shortness of breath, like my limbs weighed a hundred pounds. and I had to force myself to move and think. It's like the hours of doing it had totally sucked the life out of me.

But, how much that played into it or not, I still have felt like I'm sloshing through the days. Some days not as drastic as others. I mean, today I had to write a press release, and everyone loved it. So I can still think straight when I have to. . But it still feels like I have to push myself. I don't feel full of energy. And this is the case since stopping the abstaining. First I thought it might be mostly the intense and heavy service schedule of Easter, and that I needed to recover from that, but that was almost two weeks ago. I should have recovered by now, I would think, if that's all it was.

So, we'll continue to test this out, and see if I stay in this draggy state. But it is a bit surprising that I feel it this much. Prior to abstaining, masturbating every day, I don't really recall feeling this so noticeably. I always felt pretty "normal" on energy levels and such. Well, I have two more weeks of this phase of the plan. I'm begging to thank myself for shortening this time of it. It's like, I masturbated this morning, and it was okay, but not all that great. I haven't had a really great one since about day three of returning to orgasms. So I'm glad I'm going to take a week off before our anniversary. I think it will make a big difference in how I respond and enjoy the time together, sexually or otherwise.

In dieting, there is the tendency for the body to regulate your weight to keep it about the same. If you start eating less calories and such, it will tend to start conserving energy, go into "famine" mode. Likewise, within limits, if you eat more, it will burn off more calories in energy before it resorts to storing it as fat. So usually dieting has to be accompanied by exercise to force the body to use up energy at the same time you are reducing intake, resulting in it using up energy stored as fat.

And I'm thinking to some degree this is what I'm experiencing. I thought I would explore this a bit longer. Because before starting to abstain, I masturbated to orgasm nearly everyday, and frequently I watched porn when I did so. And yet, while I had my cycles, I didn't feel the lack of energy, or the yuckiness after orgasm, and while having a really, really great orgasm happened only occasionally, I often had pretty good ones, very enjoyable, on a regular basis. And I had even got to the point where I would sometimes have great orgasms without porn, even in the midst of occasionally using porn.

That later was a recent development. Prior times, I'd do the cycle where I realized my porn use had desensitized me to sexual feelings, and the only way I could get to orgasm was to watch porn to do it. I rarely could get there without it. So I knew I had to quit, and in a few days the feeling would return. Then I would be off porn for some length of time, until I had a hankering to watch it, usually when I'd had a little trouble reaching orgasm, and I would get sucked back into it again.

Well, this last time before quiting in February, I'd been watching porn for some time with few breaks. Usually when did take a break, it wouldn't be longer than one week when I'd be back to it. I was truly becoming fully addicted to it. But there were lines I didn't cross. I didn't like any kind of bondage, torture, anything that seemed like one party was being overly controlled. I only wanted to see two people enjoying and loving every minute of it (even though I know for many it was just acting). So when I hit a certain level, instead of searching for harder core stuff, I'd simply cycle through the vids that I had. If I hadn't used a vid for a while, then it felt fresher and would usually have a bigger impact in getting me to orgasm.

What I had noticed in the last few months before quiting in February, was that I was having orgasms without porn, some of them pretty good, even though I hadn't quit watching it. It was like some times I would get to orgasm just fine, other times I needed a little more "help." And my normal routine was I would start out masturbating but if I went for so long and it didn't seem like I was getting there, or I was running out of time, I would watch some porn which would usually do the trick.

The point being, despite daily masturbation and frequent porn usage, it felt like my body had reached some type of equilibrium. Maybe in part due that I wasn't progressing further down the porn road to even harder types (which totally turn me off). I'm sure the dopamine cycle was what it was, and the receptors depleted on a regular basis. And yet, whether through my system finding just the right balance of receptors to match the regular flood of dopamine to gain some equilibrium and feel "normal," or some other explanation, I don't know. Point was, I wasn't depressed. I was active at my job. I wrote creative stories in my writing so much so that people seemed amazed at where all these ideas I come up with are coming from. My energy level felt normal enough, I could focus and get things done. IOW, I couldn't identify with all the negative consequences of regular dopamine spikes and depletion cycles that this site talked about. I seemed to be an exception to the rule in that regard, even if there could be some more subtler shifts I was unaware of.

So I started on this abstinence road. And after first abstaining in the mornings, and then on certain days, and finally for a full solid week, I've noticed some significant changes in the past couple of weeks since going back to regular orgasms.

One, I've been totally drained of energy it feels like. I feel like I'm slogging through the day, having to force myself to focus on getting work done, feeling more like I should be in bed, sleeping.

Two, related to that, I've had little energy after coming home for much in the way of my writing. I've gotten very little done on that front over the last two weeks. This past week, I've actually came up with a story idea and wrote about half the short story on it, but haven't had the energy to get back to it, even over this weekend. Though Saturday night I did finally, should have done this last year, start working on a synopsis for a novel so I could send it out to find a publisher. But I've done little writing on that front.

Three, I wouldn't say I've been depressed, but I've been foggy, perhaps is a good way to put it. I don't feel like doing much, little motivation to get stuff done. I would rather veg out with the TV or mindlessly play a vid game than actually do anything productive. Just hard to focus and get the motivation up to get started on anything.

Now, I didn't have these problems before as a result of constant orgasms, but now I do. My theory is that once I started abstaining, my body was reset to a degree, even though a full two weeks hadn't gone by. So when I had that first orgasm, it was super great feeling. Sharp and high dopamine spike, through the roof! But what goes up, must come down, and it seems in proportion to the rise. So these spikes at first were big, but within three days had dimmed to minor good feelings, but nothing like a big WOW moment. And so far they have stayed that way. Feeling decent, but nothing body-shaking.

So I'm thinking if I were to continue down this road, assuming my theory is correct, my body would work to regain some equilibrium again and at some point the feelings would return, the energy level would rise back to normal, etc. What would have been an interesting experiment if I'd thought of it, would be to see what having just one orgasms would do on the energy and feeling levels, instead of one or two a day.

But I'm running a new test this coming week. One way to test and see if this lack of energy is due to low dopamine is to use some L-Dopa to raise the dopamine levels up and see how it affects me, see if my energy and focus returns. If it does, it may very well mean that my last couple of weeks of yuckiness is due to frequent orgasms. Maybe my body would eventually adjust to that level and bring me back to "normal."

And the test coming up in June will be to allow me to test if what I've always felt is "normal" is really normal, by getting beyond the two week cycle and find out what life is like on the other side of the orgasm fence. Meanwhile this test should tell me for sure if my downishness is due to low dopamine.

I'll report back on what I experience this coming week. Until then, have fun.

Well, it certain did feel like the taxes were sapping my strength. But I don't think I can lay all of it at the feet of the taxes.

I knew the receptors would still be low, but they had to be low before before I abstained, when I felt "normal." Somehow, though, my body had adjusted. I don't know if the receptors I did have had grown used to and thus a bit resistant (not even sure such could happen), or that my body somehow churned out more dopamine to offset the low receptor count, somehow normalizing that, or if I was so used to that level of energy and feeling, low as it was, that it felt normal because I'd lived all my life that way since age 11 or 12, or what the explanation is. But I figured getting the dopamine level to rise up, even if the receptors were depleted to some extent, would tell me something.

Today, I did feel better, focused easier at work, got more done (though that may be because the boss is on vacation so I wasn't distracted by her as much), and only started to feel a little depleted around 6:30 tonight. We'll see if that trend continues. Also, orgasms felt a little better, and I could tell I was more "wanting" of them. But I could also tell that while the feeling itself might have been better than the last couple of weeks, my mind seemed more desirous and "hungry" so that there never felt a struggle to keep it going. I think the addictive "love of the feeling" was stronger.

I would think that pretty much says what I was experiencing the last two weeks was low dopamine. I can sort of understand why I became more sensitive while abstaining and so reacted more drastically than I had before to orgasms. What I don't understand is if I was not so sensitive to it before, why did it feel so good at various times, even outstanding many times. That would make me think my body had adjusted somehow, and why in the midst of using porn I could still get a good orgasm while not watching it. It's as if somehow the constant stream eventually makes you not sensitive to the effects of that, and your body adjusts over a period of time.

Not drawing any definitive conclusions, mind you, just trying to sort it out in my head.

Well, today was a bit of contradictory data, maybe. One possible explanation, maybe two.

Day started out well enough, but I think the extra dopamine makes me edgier or something. I had a little loss of focus at work in the morning, but still focused well enough to get work done and felt overall fairly "normal" again. However, an event seemed to send me into an interesting series of feelings.

When getting ready to head out to run errands for work before going to get a bite to eat, about 2 pm, I discovered something that got under my skin. Without getting into details, my "boss" took something I wrote that was supposed to be generic, put my name to it, which isn't totally bad since I did write it, but then he added an additional paragraph and one phrase which made me look like I was being political about it, and those were mailed out. After coming back from lunch, I wrote him and others that needed to know an email documenting what was changed and protesting that it was made to appear that I said certain things without my knowledge.

Well, that will get resolved, I'm sure. But the net effect on me today was that I felt really irritated. I don't usually feel that way, I'm a fairly level-headed guy who doesn't get angry easily. But I felt something I hadn't felt in a long time, an "on edge" feeling, like if someone pushed me at the wrong time and in the wrong way, I'd bite back reactively. It's like a pent up feeling that's just looking for an excuse to boil over. I know some of you who deal with rage and such know what I'm talking about. But it's been a while since I felt that, and it really got to me that he did that.

Well, needless to say this really drained me of energy. By the time I came home, I felt useless. I ended up with a headache as well. I'm feeling better now (obviously since I'm online at this late hour typing), but I really felt negative and bad for several hours there after that.

I'm unsure how much dopamine played into that. I know higher levels of dopamine can lead to excitability and such, and emotions can swing more (opposite of depression), so I'm sure it contributed to my underlying sense of anger bubbling inside. The more I thought about what he'd done, the more indignant I got, and the more worked up.

At any rate, I wondered if the elevation, artificially, of my dopamine maybe resulted in a further decrease of receptors, so that the dopamine didn't "work" as well on the focus front, or the energy front. But I think at least today I can attribute my low energy level in late afternoon to my over-stressed emotions bubbling inside, expending it all on that. But we'll see how it goes through the rest of this week on that front.

Hum, I wonder what test I can run next week.

[schock] Well, not literally dope, but L-dopa. [blinzel]

I think I may have figured out one thing, and I really should have known to wait on it. Something I didn't mention was my energy was so low feeling that I decided when I got the L-Dopa stuff to get some energy stuff, something that has to do with chocolate extract. It has the caffeine of about a half-cup of coffee (which doesn't affect me, I drink around two mugs of it a day, so that's nothing new). But there was some other ingredient in there that started with a T.

Anyway, today despite not having the triggering event of yesterday, come mid-afternoon, I again felt on edge, joints ached a little, and I became so sleepy, like I really should have stayed in bed. Then as I went home around 7pm, I didn't feel nearly as sleepy or edgy. It dawned on me then that what I experienced yesterday and today was a crash from that energy pill.

So tomorrow I'm dropping that out of the mix and take note of the differences. I should have known to avoid that. Live and learn.

Reminds me of the time I decided to use shampoo for oily hair even though my hair was normal and I usually used normal shampoo. Then when I finished that bottle, a few months later, I noticed how dry my hair was. So when I went to get shampoo, I got shampoo for dry hair. When I finished that bottle another few months down the road, I thought, "My hair is so oily, I need shampoo for oily hair." Well, I don't recall how many months this went on, forgetting that I had used the opposite shampoo the time before. But one day it dawned on me that my hair wasn't naturally oily or dry, it was normal, and I needed normal shampoo. I realized I'd been bouncing between dry and oily shampoo for several months.

[bigsmile]

Most definitely the feelings were from the energy pill. No such crashes and feeling like I need to lay down and take a long, long, nap today. Instead, I feel quite awake and alert. More so than normal, I think, and certainly moreso than the first two weeks.

I think I can safely say the low dopamine was the culprit. Now, as to why it didn't affect me like that before I started abstaining, that's still to be figured out. And I'm not sure I can do anything much more than speculate because there are just too many variables that have yet to be studied fully to know.

And yes, that's one of my favorite stories. I've used it as a sermon illustration before. It was sort of the Edith Bunker "Oooooooh" moment.

Well, I think based on this week's experiment, that I can say the previous two weeks feeling down and out, low energy, unmotivated, must be due primarily to the low dopamine I've experienced after returning to orgasms after a week of no orgasm. Once I figured out that the energy pill was causing my crashed feeling the first couple of days during the week, I felt more "normal" after taking L-Dopa to raise the dopamine levels. Energy levels rose, ability to focus, motivation to get things done returned, etc. While I'm sure my receptors were more depleted, keeping some dopamine flowing still appeared to help.

And that might explain why my experiences before didn't seem to involve all the side effects of constant masturbation and porn to the degree they did after abstaining. My receptor level was probably pretty low, and over time my body compensated by increasing dopamine levels to a higher degree than they would be otherwise, in order to balance out the system. So maybe my normal level of dopamine on a regular basis was higher than many, simply because my body registered that I needed more to feel "normal" or something close to it. So my body did the best it could with what it had to work with, given the constant flow of dopamine. It found the right level of receptors to make me feel "normal," to avoid the big drop that would cause excessive low energy, lack of focus, and lack of motivation.

But, that doesn't mean some of those things weren't there. My personality type is fairly laid back. I'm not easily motivated in many cases. I have a tendency to do nothing rather than something at times. Not that I don't get some things done. At times I'm going like crazy. But, I would rather be spending the day, motivationally speaking, doing nothing, just resting, with no agenda, no goals, just...freedom!

And sometimes despite things I need to get done, I do nothing. And if things get too much, if I get stressed out, my reaction is to shut down, do nothing, get nothing done.

And like any personality trait, those things that are negative have a positive side. I'm not easily angered. I'm considered level headed, rational, easy going, a stabilizing influence in tough situations because I don't get easily flustered.

But I'm beginning to wonder, given what I know now...is that the real me? Could it be that those things I've always attributed to just the negative side of my personality that I have to deal with, are really due to my body's attempts to keep me from experiencing the extremes of those things by leveling them out, but they are still there, just not excessive? And so "normal" for me is really normal as I've experienced my life up till now, generally masturbating daily.

I'm praying that I can get past three weeks in June, because I want to find out the answers to this. I want to discover what a naturally balanced dopamine and receptor levels feel like, to find out what I'm really like on the other side of the dopamine fence. I may discover that my "normal" isn't what I've always thought it was.

One more week of "free time" and then I head into phase 2 of this step. This coming week, I think I'll stop taking the L-Dopa and allow my levels to level themselves out on their own. It will be interesting to see if my energy levels fall back down like they did the first two weeks, or if they are more leveled out now. I'll keep the L-Dopa on hand, for times when I seem to be exceptionally down, which can happen after a slip up after several days of abstinence. Or, once I make it into July and have sex with my wife, I might need it to help offset the negative effects. Don't know if that is recommended, but seemed to help me this week after two weeks of struggling to move. My body might need a "jump start" to get back on track. Or, will that do more harm than good, fostering another crash once I stop taking them, delaying the inevitable? This coming week might tell which way that would go. We'll see.

Once I get though June successfully, and go into July, and get a good sense of where all this leads me, who knows? I may write my own book about this experience and what I've learned.

Sorry to have been away for so long. I'm barely here in time to finish up this first phase of this stage.

I stopped taking the L-dopa last Sunday in April (2 Sundays ago). I had an interesting week, to say the least.

I should add that I speak bluntly in this post about my sexual activities. No tantalizing details, but...you know the drill.

One, I've had a lot going on, which is one reason why I've been absent. Even now, I'm typing and it's almost 2 in the morning, and I'm sleepy. I should be in bed, but wanted to catch up and post. Which, by the way, I've not read all the post I've missed. I had to be selective because I'd be up all night reading if I read them all.

The other reason I've not been on much this past week has to do with porn. I slipped up and it's taken me nearly a full week get get back on the horse. I ended up watching porn several times this past week. Which is a bummer. But here's what I think happened.

One, for some reason we have a Victoria Secrets bathing suit catalog on our dining room table. Not a big thing, usually. That kind of thing wouldn't generally interest me because for whatever reason, just pictures, even of naked women, aren't all that interesting to me. Oh, I don't mind looking, but it isn't anything I could "get off on." And for me, that's all porn is good for.

But this time it sparked my interest. I didn't look right away. But it was enough, I think, to plant the seed, so when the next trigger hit, it would be there waiting for me. And for me, my main trigger to watch porn has always been if I'm masturbating and can't seem to reach orgasm, I'm tempted to turn to porn to get the job done. And this particular time, I was out of the house. Actually at work after everyone had left, and I went into the bathroom to masturbate.

In part, the interesting thing is this past week, the orgasms and feelings leading up to them have been great. However, even though it feels great, it has been tough to reach orgasm. Which is the worst situation because it feels so good, it makes you want to get there all the more. Well, this was how it was then. I went for some time, feeling good but getting nowhere. I had my IPod Touch, and I wondered if one could find porn using that. Well, the short answer is, yes you can. And I did. Next thing I know, I'm watching a full-length vid that I won't describe here.

I couldn't believe how easily I gave over to the desire. All this knowing it wasn't good for me, knowing all that I know, having gone weeks without watching it, and I give into it with hardly any struggle at all. But I was fighting intense feelings crying for release, and I wasn't getting it. And I kept returning to it, almost as if I had little to no choice but to obey.

But the interesting thing is what happened after that. I watched the vid, and it was feeling good. I actually came close to full orgasm, but I didn't want to stop right then, because the video wasn't even half way over. I figured I could keep this good feeling going for a while longer. But instead, at a point shortly after that, the feeling went away and I could no longer maintain the hard erection I had. Then I entered a stage where I could stimulate and watch porn all I wanted, it wasn't going to happen. I didn't take it when it came.

Now, this not reaching orgasm while watching porn happened a couple more times last week. Which was odd. Used to be, that would trigger an orgasm 8 times out of 10. But while there was a time or two last week where watching porn did get me there, it seemed there were more times where it didn't, or I did get there without it. Don't know if that first viewing where I didn't end up getting an orgasm from it caused that to repeat itself through the week or what.

I'm not sure how many times I used porn, let's say several over the course of last week. I used it last on Sunday. I didn't get to orgasm then either. So I decided I would make a definite break from the porn, and am currently going into day 2 without it.

In one way this relapse bothers me, only because of how easily I slipped back into it. It makes me fear that it will bleed over into not masturbating when I get to that point.

But as far as the porn goes, I feel once I start abstaining completely, porn isn't likely to be an issue. Primarily because the only time I really look at porn is to have an orgasm I'm having trouble getting to. It usually happens after I've been masturbating for a while. So, if I'm not masturbating, I'm not likely to look at porn either.

I'm also wondering, in that I took L-dopa the week before, that the drop in dopamine, even though I did feel much more "normal" than I did those first two weeks after returning to orgasm. So, either there's still some lingering affects of the dopamine in my system, or my body has compensated now so I'm not experiencing those draggy times I had those first two weeks.

Now I'm headed into phase 2 of this step. Phase 1 was a free for all, no restrictions on having orgasms. Just do it as much as I want. And I've missed very few days, and several of the says I've had more than one orgasm as well.

Phase 2 is a two purposed phase. One part is to build up toward the month of June where I'll be going cold turkey, to abstain for the month of June in the attempt to get beyond two weeks, preferably up to the four weeks, so I can discover for myself what life is like on the balanced side. That's going to be tough, because I've only gone longer than two weeks once in my life, back in the 80s. That was a long time ago.

But this phase will also be helping me to prepare for my wedding anniversary (28 years coming up on 5/15). Here's the abstinence schedule. This coming week (the one I'm in now), I will be abstaining on Wednesday and Friday. The next week, I'll be abstaining for several days, from Monday until we celebrate our anniversary. Her monthly cycle threatens to wreak our fun (we're praying not), but the hope is I'll be plenty sensitive by that point that we'll have no problems. At least from my end. And if her monthly cycle prevents us from enjoying sex, I'm sure we'll still be able to enjoy some good bonding pleasures as well. We're going to a bed and breakfast for the weekend. So you certainly won't be hearing anything from them then.

The next two weeks of May will be like this one, abstaining on Wed and Fri. Once June hits, I'll be going into the complete abstaining.

I'm just hoping this slip up with porn will: One, I'll have no more relapses with going into this week. Two, will not become a pattern of not resisting, of my mind's defenses being lowered.

Anyway, this past week had a few slip ups. I hope I'm back on track now. Time will tell, but I know just getting on here and posting about it will help.

I was wondering myself how much the L-dopa drop off might have affected it. What I was experiencing was some fairly strong desire for orgasm. I've noticed, even though I've been off L-dopa for almost a week and a half, that at some point stimulation triggers a change in my mind. I think the desire of my limbic brain kicks in and then is like I'm on drugs. Rational decision making goes away, and all I crave and care about is more, more, more. That's all that matters, just like some druggie on crack or something.

Well, I've been able to not go there today, so been off it for two days now. Maybe the worse of the storm has passed. Tomorrow will be a test, as it is my first scheduled day of abstinence since Easter started. Well see how the beast roars and how much trouble and success I have at ignoring it. And to think, next week I'm going total again. I need to get myself in the right frame of mind. Coming off of last week isn't a good start.

One of the disappointments of last week is that I broke down the wall. It's a wall that had remained up the entire time I started this abstinence back on Feb. 13th. The one other time I watched porn, it was the CD I remembered I had somewhere and found, but I never went back on the web for porn. I cut it off and stopped after watching the CD three times.

Now I've broken through the wall, and it will be easier to do that again. So I may have to get the blockers. We'll see how it goes. But for the moment, I'm going to see how the abstinence does because I think as long as I'm not masturbating, the temptation to go watch porn isn't there. It's the masturbation not reaching orgasm that tends to trigger wanting to watch it.

But still lament that the wall is no longer up.

I'm not in a pessimistic mood so much. Just lamenting the loss more than anything. It is what it is, and I move on.

The analogy to gambling is interesting, Marnia. I can see why they say that. When you're close, your driven to get there. For the gambler (though I'm not a gambling man myself) when you almost made it, you were "this close," it makes you want to try again because you're thinking the next time could be "it."

A little different with the orgasm. Same in that being close drives you. It's feeling good, you want more of that, and the hunger to reach it increases with all the waves of pleasure egging you on. What I noticed in particular through this time was the drive itself felt stronger than I had even before I started abstaining. It "feels" more addictive to me. But using the porn isn't so much a near miss causing me to take another run at it as much as I'm hungry and can only think of wanting more until its done. When I get into that frame of mind, it seems a relief to think, "Just watch some porn and this will be over."

There have been times, however, where I started with porn to masturbate, usually because my time was limited and I figured that was the fastest way to make it happen. But that wasn't the usual mode of operation. Anyway, what happened last week clearly shows how the limbic brain can take off, how it isn't at all rational or logical. It simply says, "You really, really, really, need this." And if it says it strong enough, your rational brain says, "Yes. You're right. I do need this." If my brain allows that thought to enter in, and it grabs ahold of it, even slightly, it gives it a footing to drag the rest of the desire on in, and move you step by step to the point where the though comes to watch some porn, and your rational brain doesn't even put up much of a struggle to say no. I remember thinking to myself, "I shouldn't do this, I want to stay away from this." But by that point, the limbic brain had full control, and that only amounted to a measly protest against the flood of desire that had already convinced most of my rational brain that I had to have this.

And then, hoping to hold it to once, I seemed near helpless to stop it from happening again, and again. I finally decided I'd just have to ride out the storm. But in the midst of it, it seemed my limbic brain was learning that the porn didn't really get me what I wanted, as a majority of the time I didn't get there anyway.

By the weekend, I could tell I was coming out of it, and gaining more control again. But this is what all that training was preparing me for. It was good in a sense to see how it did in the storm. In previous times, I'd be doing porn for the next several weeks, maybe months. To keep it to one week is progress on that front. I'll know I've made good progress when if it happens again, I can keep it down to once or twice.

At any rate, today, my first day of abstinence since Easter, went well. I felt some desire today, lurking under the surface, and there were several times I could have indulged myself. But I kept my mind on other things and didn't let it get me going in the wrong directions. So with less than 20 minutes left on the day, I think I can say I successfully abstained. That feels good, as it makes me feel like I'm getting back on track. Next week I have a lot of incentive to hold off, looking forward to my anniversary time.

Life is good.

My second week to go without, though this one isn't a full week. Sometime Friday night I expect to break the "no orgasm" rule when my wife and I celebrate our 28th.

We'll see if I'm as successful this week as I was with the first. I'm hoping it will help provide some steam as I head toward June.

All's well. I may be posting more often as I do Phase 3 of the Step 4.

Our anniversary is this coming Saturday, but I'm taking a day off work on Friday so we can go visit a regional bed and breakfast. We did that last year and enjoyed it.

Anyway, first day went by without much incident or much temptation. There were times I could have done it, in the house by myself for a period of time that would have been ideal. And normally I'd been all over it. But I kept my mind distracted with other things and did my best not to think about it too much.

I think I'm in the zone. I'm looking forward to this weekend, though.

has passed, and still on track. There was some desire there. My body's getting the idea that I'm not diving back in. That realization comes on day 2, especially if I had opportunity, and I did today as well, and I don't take advantage of it. It knows something is up.

But no serious temptation. I worked late, and I'm up late. I need to get to bed though, because last couple of days I've felt drained of energy. Been hard to wake up in the mornings.

Well, not much to report. No big problems or temptations. I found it easier to wake up this morning, but I still felt tired out. Part of that is I didn't get but around 2 hours of sleep Saturday night. Every night after that, I'm getting around 5. So I may be still trying to catch up on missed sleep, as mostly I've had a hard time waking up and feel sleepy a good hunk of the day.

Maybe I'll try to get to bed earlier tonight.

Still rolling as planned. I worried that I might have more trouble than this given what has happened in recent weeks, but so far, so good.

Checking in again. Though I'm sounding like a broken record, not much in the way of temptation today. I was able to successfully ignore it, without much pull. I had a busy day, for one. And even now, I'm tired.

So I'm going to get to bed. Tomorrow when my wife finishes her work, we're heading off for a bed and breakfast overnight. That means I probably won't be checking in tomorrow. But I can't imagine giving in tomorrow before my wife gets her way with me that evening. But I have the day off, and the morning to get things together for our little trip. So, I'm expecting to be good, even though I'll have more opportunity than normal.

But again, I'm surprised by how easily I've done this abstain for several days. I'm sure when I go for the long haul in June, that will be the real test when I get into week 2 and beyond. But at least I seem to be able to get into the right frame of mind for this, even after some extended period of masturbating everyday for several weeks since the last abstaining period.

The odd thing is, I've been so sleepy and draggy this week, that when I start with orgasms again Friday evening and beyond, it may be hard to tell if my energy level goes down. Who knows, I might feel much better. .

But to go through day 5 without MO, twice in as much as two months time, is amazing to me. Just a few months ago I would have said you were crazy if you'd told me I'd be doing this. Or even thinking of going a whole month without. Wow. Even writing it makes me think I must be nuts.

In a good way, of course.

Well, the events transpiring over the last three days, dealing with orgasm, didn't go as planned. But an interesting learning experience. Note: I'm describing some sexual activity here, nothing in detail, but you are warned.

Friday was day five of my abstaining, and I expected we'd have sex that evening once settled into the B&B. And eventually we did. But we ate a really big supper (all you can eat food, makes you obligated to eat all you can). That may have played a part in what happened. But also I'm wondering if on day five, the testosterone hasn't kicked in yet and it is like the calm before the storm. But in this case, not a good thing.

I had an erection and we had sex for a while, but in switching to a new position, it was like all the energy dropped off. I was beginning to feel it was dropping off already, but the break in stimulation gave it the chance to totally head to the soft side. After some attempts to get it back to the hard side, we gave up and chalked it up to at least getting in some good bonding time.

So, I figured the next morning might be good. Testosterone is supposed to be at its highest level when you wake up anyway, right? Maybe not. Day six, and I could hardly get it hard to save my life. Nothing doing. So after some hugs, kisses, and attempts at stimulation, we decided to go eat breakfast and maybe give it another try then. But when we came back from breakfast, I simply didn't feel that I would do any better, so I didn't even want to attempt it. Instead, we agreed we'd give it another shot Sunday. So strangely enough, we had an anniversary but didn't have sex on it, even really attempt to since I couldn't even get stiff enough to put it in.

So Saturday goes along, we do some of our planned activities, have a good time, take the trip back home, and we arrive back around 6 in the evening. Later that evening I start messing with it to see if there's been any change. Wow! Was there ever. I could feel the dopamine flooding my brain with each wave. It was powerful.

Now, you think a guy who hasn't had an orgasm in almost a week would just letter rip at this point. Especially feeling that good. But I really wanted my wife to bring me there first. The plan was I would have already had an orgasm by then, but I hadn't, and I wanted to wait for my wife. That said, it felt really, really good. So I edged it. Quite successfully, I might add. I simply enjoyed the feelings, in two different sessions, for probably a total of almost two hours. But I didn't have an orgasm.

So, came home from church Sunday, we had sex, and I had no problem maintaining an erection and had an orgasm within a decent amount of time.

And so far, I feel pretty good today. Not only because I finally got there, but simply because I did another successful week of abstaining, ended up being just as long as last time, despite plans to end it earlier than that. I think my mind is about ready for this next step.

So that ends Phase 3, and now I'm into Phase 4. Not much to it. I'm simply going to go through the next couple of weeks, abstaining on Wed and Fri again. Once that ends, I'll be entering Step 5--abstaining for a month! Wow, sounds like a long time. But I'll take it one day at a time. My goal there is to get beyond two weeks with no orgasm so I can finally take note of what positive changes I can note about myself at that time. I'm about as ready for it as ever, and though I approach it with some sense of "fear of the unknown," I also feel excited about finally getting to this point, and discovering what is out there about me that I don't know yet.

But phase 3 was a complete success, and even went longer than planned without an orgasm. One of the things that's built my confidence up that I can do this extended abstinence time is that so far since starting this journey back in February, I have successfully abstained from masturbation/orgasm on every day or time period I said I would. While I've fallen off the no-porn wagon a couple of times since then, I've only allowed myself to have an orgasm on the days I've specified I could, and stuck to it. I think I've built up a solid string of successes, and I am hoping that this training allows me to go for the long haul successfully, come June.

We will know soon enough.

Probably won't be posting a lot of updates here over the next couple of weeks unless I just have something to say/add. Thanks everyone for the support and following along.

that was the primary place porn played in my sex life, when I needed a jump-start to get going again.

I've known for a long time, even masturbating regularly, that there are cycles. Some times are more sensitive than others. There are times it is simply down. But the last time I abstained for a week, I recall it was the sixth day that it really started to feel exceptionally good and powerful. This second time confirmed that.

It will be interesting to note the cycles when I go for longer periods of abstaining.

One note, since going back to masturbation (today being my first day to abstain) it has continually felt really good. I think the last time it felt good for the first couple of days, but each day it diminished in intensity significantly. I would say this time, as of Tuesday, it had diminished some, but still very good.

I would add that my energy level has been real low. I think that happened last time when I came back to orgasm after abstaining. It was so obvious that Tuesday my boss didn't want to leave me in the building alone (I tend to work later than everyone else) and made me go home. I think she was afraid I was going to have a heart attack or something. My eyes were really droopy and my energy level is low, making me look and feel sleepy.

I'm tempted to take some dopamine again, but I think I'll wait and see how long this lasts. Find out when I naturally come out of it.

Today I felt I had more energy. Not doing anything really different. Masturbated this morning, and again later in the day. But I noticed this last time, the feelings weren't as good. So obviously the receptors are getting deadened a bit. Hum, makes me wonder. It could be the lower receptor count affects the chemicals that make you feel tired and drained. IOW, when the receptors are in higher numbers, and the orgasm feels intense, it creates more of the adverse "low energy" affect. But as you go on, the receptors get lower, so the chemicals that follow a high burst of dopamine don't activate as much, since the brain isn't registering that there is that much there, even though there is. So less reaction from the body.

Whatever the reason, my energy level is up today. We'll see if that continues into tomorrow.

Been busy lately. Not much to report. I know I've said that before and then spew out some stuff, but right now, not really much to report.

Only thing I can say is currently energy levels are at moderate. Been getting more done. But I could be better. Still, today at work, accomplished a few things. That could be due to the boss not being in the office as much as anything, though.

Will check in again when I get the chance and have something more to report about. Most certainly will attempt to put in a summary of this step toward the end of the week, perhaps on Monday since I have the day off, being Memorial Day and all.

Then June heads into first serious attempt at abstaining for an extended length of time.

Oh, guess I do have something more to say. (Wouldn't you know it.)

I've been talking with my wife about what I'm doing, and she is pretty much on board with it. As a matter of fact, I said, "Do you think you can abstain all through June?" She said, "No problem." And I believe her. Sometimes she'll masturbate up to two times a week, but frequently goes weeks without as well. But I keep telling her, "Well see who last longest." I've got my work cut out for me.