60 day reflections

Today or tomorrow will be 60 days since I last looked at porn, masturbated, or orgasmed (not counting dreams). I've experienced many positive changes and have achieved an important goal. Now that I've re sensitized my brain, I'll reflect on the last 60 days.

The biggest positive change has been an increase in my energy levels in general. I used to crash hard in the afternoon every day. Now I slow down in the afternoon but can still function and don't feel like complete crap, which I used to cope with by drinking alcohol, smoking dope, taking caffeine pills, jerking off to porn, or a combination of all of these. Now I just accept a little tiredness and wait for my energy levels to come back in the late afternoon. Occasionally I have some green tea.

Neurons that fire together wire together. Since quitting porn, I've found my desire to use caffeine, alcohol, and marijuana to manage my mood decrease a lot. For the last several weeks, I haven't had any alcohol, marijuana, junk food, or caffeine Monday-Saturday. Then on Sunday afternoon-evening I allow myself to have whatever I want guilt free.

I may further curb the alcohol and especially the marijuana on Sundays. No commitment on that yet. I have noticed that the last 2 Sunday nights I have dreamed about porn and masturbating in my dreams. On the other days I don't remember any porn in my dreams (at least the last month). As matter of fact on Thursday I had a dream where I sat right next to a beautiful woman, put my arm around her and engaged in conversation. Then on Sunday after drinking and smoking I masturbated to porn in my dream.

I'll keep experimenting on Sundays to get a good balance between enjoying some substances and limiting the down cycle. Since I've limited my use to Sundays I'm not overly concerned but am open to limiting my use further in the future.

A little on my masturbation habits from 5+ years to beginning of this year. There is one website that I found addicting and frankly turns me on more than any other website. They know the fantasies that get me off the most and have me coming back for more and more. I'm not going to name the website.

For years I would sign up, download most or all the videos, jerk off to them, then get disgusted with myself and delete everything I downloaded. I'd try to get off on softer porn or just women in swimsuits and stuff. None of this would arouse me like the website, which I would eventually subscribe to again.

Some of the ways I tried to minimize the damage were to get aroused by the website videos, then switching my attention to sensations, shoot my sexual energy up my spine, fantasize about real women, or stopping before ejaculating. None of this worked very well. Once in a while I'd be able to orgasm without ejaculating, but then I wouldn't stop masturbating. I'd just keep going until I ejaculated and was satiated. Eventually, I just said 'Fuck it' and downloaded everything I could onto my hard drive and just accepted that this is what gets me off and nothing I would do would change that one iota.

Then I followed a twitter link to an article in Psychology Today written by Marnia (I forgot which one). Abstinence! I never tried abstinence before. I never even thought of it. I always that abstinence was sexual repression. But after reading the article and with the information that 60 days abstinence would basically cure porn addiction I stopped masturbating. A week into the abstinence I deleted all my porn. However, one article was not enough information. After 20 days, I started masturbating a little just to make sure I wasn't losing it by not using it. Then the next day I made sure again. Two days later I masturbated to fantasy (the website) and was back to square one. I didn't resubscribe to the web site, but I did continue my masturbation habits (~5 or 6 times a week, maybe more) to the preview page and some other free stuff.

Eventually, I ordered Cupid's Poisoned Arrow and read the whole book, except some of the Exchanges at the end. Now I knew that you wouldn't lose it by not using it. The semen gets reabsorbed in the body. I also learned a lot more about the passion cycle, the benefits of karezza, and the physiology of our reward circuitry. I also visit this site a lot.

Now that I've made it to 60 days, I'll share some tips and steps I took to get this far.

1) I educated myself by reading Cupid's Poisoned Arrow. This book prepared me for what was in store. At first the mammalian brain signals were strong and I dreamed about porn a lot. These signals have decreased in frequency and intensity.

2) I got rid of 2 computers in my room. My room is where I always masturbated and not having a computer there has helped. I use other peoples computers or library computers to do whatever I need to do. I also have an iPhone, but this isn't necessary to have.

3) I've been eating very healthy Monday-Saturday. I eat lots of vegetables. I eat 5 or 6 meals a day, never stuffing myself. Lean protein and vegetables are the main parts of a meal. Some raw nuts 1-2 times a day are good too. I also recommend Full Strength shakes if you can afford them. Delicious and nutritious. On Sundays I have allowed myself to eat junk food, drink, and smoke. As I said, I'm strongly considering lowering these activities. I'm going to have a dessert every Sunday regardless. I may cut out or moderate the drinking and smoking. I've noticed the impulse to look at porn rise after drinking, smoking, eating junk. No surprise there.

4) I've avoided women for the most part. Didn't want to deal with approach anxiety or get tempted to ditch my 60 day goal. I'm ready to go look for dates on plentyoffish.com sometime this week. Tango is something I've been thinking about but haven't taken any action on yet.

5) Lots of playing and cuddling with my awesome dog. He's very soothing to my nervous system.

6) Taking satisfaction in reaching this goal and enjoying the positive changes I've been experiencing.

I appreciate all of your support and am grateful to be part of this online community.