The 100 Days Without Orgasm Challenge

Amen to that!! Our rational brains really have so little understanding of the power and function of our limbic brain that they often act terribly "irrational" in setting attainable goals for us.

I like Marnia's analogy of a frightened animal, but I would add that for addicts, the limbic brain is a frightened and abused animal. Above all else, it is important to be gentle with it. Recovery is a process of learning to re-parent ourselves, of learning to recognize our needs and learning to meet those needs in healthy ways. For many it is a long slow process, typically three to five years!

You obviously have great determination and just recognizing the goal is a HUGE HUGE step. Your determination will be a valuable asset to you. We are pulling for you and look forward to hearing about your progress.

Incidentally, I know that for some the term "recovery" carries a bit of a charge. It's really nothing more than the process of "growing up" and becoming a more functional adult. Almost everyone stands to gain from the process, even if they aren't a "hard core" addict. Best wishes!

very empowering. Did you read The Brain that Changes Itself? There are lots of excerpts here: http://www.reuniting.info/node/1808

Only one chapter is about sex, but the whole book is good reading.

I'll add this link to the wiki. Looking forward to your further thoughts.

I never had any long term success avoiding porn until I made it a separate goal from abstaining from masturbation. I am not saying you should try that. It is just what my experience has been. Abstinence from both porn and masturbation I have not been able to do longer than 3.5 weeks. Besides going 3.5 weeks one time I have done many one week and two week periods.

I have tried so many things. I don’t know if I could do what you are doing as a single person. There are definitely things which make abstinence more difficult I have seen. Isolation and overeating or eating stimulating foods both make it much more difficult. Lack of exercise also makes it more difficult, although exercise can also make you horny too and therefore become an issue. Unresolved emotional conflicts I think are the pivotal factor in the whole issue to begin with.

I have been watching people here for a long time. I haven’t seen many single guys go as long as a hundred days. In fact, it seems that the norm is to have trouble going even a week or two, and certainly beyond two weeks. In that sense, I guess I am normal. I am not saying this to set you or any one back. It is just an observation. Single guys particularly seem challenged in going more than a week or two. When it is longer it is usually a rare experience, not had frequently. Again, I am not saying this to set you or anyone back. I know there are people who can do this. But the people I have seen do it are usually in relationship in some way. I do not see many single guys though abstaining from masturbation for long periods beyond two weeks. Not for very long. And the one’s who do I think are usually somewhat older. (Again, I want to emphasize that I am not saying this to set you or any one else back. I say it perhaps more for my own reassurance that I am not that unusual. If you can be unusual then more power to you. I do not wish to advocate or preach a limitation, but it is my realistic observation.)

Recently I went seven days again without masturbation, and then another three. Now I recently masturbated twice again. I have been trying to break my experience into parts, seeing as how focusing on porn as an issue by itself has helped me maintain long-term abstinence from it. It is hard to say what even the benefits are from that. Addiction to fantasy and masturbation continues so in a way it is not that much different. I used to have though lingering experiences of porn, like it was sitting with me and it did not feel good. Like I had absorbed someone else’s negative energy or something like that. Not sure that is what it is, but that is how it felt. So I don’t have that anymore. There isn’t the compulsion to look at porn anymore. There is still the desire, and temptation at times, but not the compulsion.

I agree with what you are saying about maintaining a positive attitude about the whole thing. It does help. What you said though about fantasizing I still have issues with. I have tried making fantasy, orgasm, and masturbation each the second part in a gradual elimination process, but I have failed in every single case. I am still trying that strategy to some extent. For example, I masturbated last night without fantasy. In some ways the hangover can seem less from masturbation w/o fantasy but I still found it depleting, probably (or especially) because I had already had an orgasm recently. But I have not succeeded at all with masturbation w/o ejaculation. That seems like a no win situation, especially with fantasy. Fantasy amps up the desire for orgasm like with porn.

Now I am back to trying to abstain from masturbation. There is the need for some self-regulation. But I am giving myself more permission to allow my mind to fantasize, as I have had no luck curbing that for long periods (and again, wanting to just focus on one thing at a time). (The 3.5 weeks was the longest and that was very difficult, and it took a lot of support). I’ve never had an orgasm with just fantasy and no masturbation, so I don’t know this will lead to orgasm. Even if it did, I imagine it would happen quite less. Without the physical stimulation, an orgasm from fantasy alone would not seem to happen very often. So in this I find a freedom to let my mind do what it does, and to not worry about it. Just by being conscious of it, it changes in a way. It is less of a problem. In the past when I have tried this though I eventually gave in and masturbated, just like with watching porn without masturbation (lead to masturbation), masturbating without orgasm (lead to orgasm), masturbating without fantasy (lead to fantasy). So I may not succeed in the long run. But I have to try. It may be that the only way is to go off all at the same time. That did work, but again, it was very difficult, and I could not sustain it. I was also on a vegan diet and changing that seemed to effect things. I am not on that diet any more. Stimulants of any kind seem to make abstinence very difficult. Anything. Cacao, sugar, caffeine, salt, spices, animal foods. The only things that don’t seem to cause stimulation are unsalted, un-spiced fresh fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. But I don’t know if that is really the best diet for me or not.

But I do not want to give any advice or say I know anything about what I am doing until I have more progress. Until I have some new experience of long term abstinence I can’t speak. I don’t know what I am talking about. I don’t even know abstinence is the solution or is relevant altogether, as the relationship issues and emotional conflicts seem more primary. Not saying anything against changing behaviors, but I seem to focus on this thing and make it more important than it perhaps is. It seems to be just another form of mental masturbation at times. And like a Rubix Cube that I just can’t bust. To try to figure this thing out.

Good luck with your mission though. I know that for some people abstinence can be great, especially when in relationship. Hasn’t been my experience though long term. At times it has helped me experience some real spiritual connectedness and peace. And that has been the best motivation. But as a single person I have not been able to sustain it long-term. If you can pull this off, I will commend you. At the very least, it is always a learning experience. To make the effort and learn what you learn.

I liked what you said about needing to go longer than a month and also saying you always have next month. I relate to that. It might be true for me as well. One month has been the big goal I have not been able to achieve, other than with porn. I know that I am happier though when I am connecting with others, exercising, doing fun things, engaging in meaningful work, eating healthy, being creative, etc. This is true whether I am masturbating or not so sometimes it is better to just focus on the positive things in that sense, and not focus on masturbation as much. The whole question of to or not to. You seem to be doing well so far.

Another exercise that is helpful is to breath and allow your body to do whatever it is going to do. Allow for erections, but without self-stimulation/touching. It helps to have a positive attitude about spontaneous erections in that sense. Allow for the fantasies to come up without holding onto them or pushing them away. It does mean risking spontaneous orgasm. That has never happened though to me. It often just feels like that might happen. But hey, if it just happens spontaneously, then it is not likely to happen again for awhile is my guess, and you still maintained abstinence, strictly speaking (like with a wet dream for example).

Greetings Underdog. Not that I question your resolve but I hope this gets to before you may break .

Im your age and I recently went 50 days without masturbation. I definately found that the end of the second and entire third week were very difficult. Every night before going to sleep my mind was polluted to the extreme. Even as an early teenager, Id never had an experience like this. Weeks of this and it was only getting worse. To be honest a part of the problem is how hard it is not to indulge this new found (in some ways recovered) imagination. After several weeks of this losing more sleep every night I was becoming more tired and more dissociated to the point of near rage and frustration. Its difficult to lay in bed exhausted and still have it take up to five hours to fall asleep, then when I'd get there it would be very low quality sleep and about 2/3 my normal sleeping time.

It did get somewhat easier (tolerable) to sleep after the third week even though my mind was still very chaotic and filled with thoughts of sex at night. I'm not sure how much of that is just a lack of discipline and a half willingness to indulge these thoughts. Ive studied the science behind male memory and the female body. Ive forgotten so many things living a poor lifestyle, but all of the sudden I had access to detailed sexual memories of someone I cared about very much 8 years ago... As I said before my "visual" imagination had increased at least ten fold. Sometime towards the end of the third week I started to experience a number of sensations in my chest and throat that were near similar (but weaker, i assume they would grow) to the feeling I had as teen when I thought about or interacted with that person I cared about. This was worth noting because that feeling hasnt existed in even a minor form for years, no matter what the situation, with a woman or not. One of those things I thought died with that level of youth

In the fifth and sixth week I became much more responsive to womens presence. It very much didnt feel like something conscious. Their eyes were almost... highlighted to my perception. Imperfections in their faces were dissapearing to my sight. Smiles were becoming more intoxicating, and not just from the young. A handful of times, when I thought of where my porn tastes had gone over time, I experienced some form of guilt.

That ties into something else that never made sense to me until now. When you masturbate to the image of women it dehumanizes them in your own mind. Their image is a means to an end. Your neither giving pleasure to someone else nor sharing an experience with them. I'm sad to admit that it seems to seep over to our perception of flesh and blood. I thought this would somehow keep me more objective with women and less under their thumb. (bitter? ) But you cant just masturbate your sex drive away. For me at least, it blunted empathy for them. My particular fetish was rape porn. The pinnacle of a lack of empathy... Its caused all sorts of internal conflicts. In the past Ive asked myself how I would feel if someone did that too someone I loved. I thought of times in my childhood where I felt powerless and betrayed... terrified of someone much more physically imposing then me. The selective empathy is disturbing... And I did notice an internal cringe I hadnt felt once in 7 plus years at the thought of causing such pain.

Sometime after the 40th day I started watching porn again. (gasp!) no masturbation, and no fetish porn. All it took was a giggle or look to set that feeling off. I started hijacking that feeling. Over a few days it just made sleeping difficult, me wanting to indulge those thoughts any time of the day. Towards the end they werent even completely sexual anymore. Thinking about the woman I drifted from and didnt look after, how she let me in, how I hurt her, how shes gone, how alone I am now, how I'll never be able to apologize, dominated by that protective feeling, at the mercy of vulnerable women, cant sleep *SNAP

I always felt that masturbation, besides being a sleep aid and producing feelings of pleasure, kept me under control. Not feeling so... dominated and under that thumb. On some level I dont want to be a puppy again... but I also realise Ill grow past that if I push through...

I'm quite confident that my particular level insomnia also ties to an already existing sleep and anxiety/dissociation problems, and the level at which I isolate and spend nearly nothing but time alone with very little to distract me. Marnia said this would much likely be more difficult alone. If it hasnt been on that absurd level for you yet, it probably wont be quite like that

I just want to say something that you most likely already knew. Watching porn even without orgasm is a very poor idea... and that I believe this process will be very worth it in the end. A large understatement. Returning to the non addictive state... confronting some inner ugliness, growth. Get ready for some Righteous turbulence It wasnt all horrible you know? The only reason I went 50 days is because watching those internal changes in myself and watching my attraction/empathy to/for women skyrocket.... was so... SO rewarding.

Stick with it Brother

edit : yes, the sleep I had the 2 nights in a row I masturbated was better then in many weeks and returned me to a level of sanity the next morning. Yet I also feel that female awareness and hope slipping away a little more everytime I do it. I already regret it even though I felt the level of suffering was too high. My heads back in the sand for now

You've only just begun. Reading your story I'm reminded that I looked at porn yesterday for the first time in three months. It's because I'm regularly orgasming with my new girlfriend.

I have fantasized about visiting prostitutes in the past after a period of time visiting strip clubs. I even devised a plan to go find a brothel but didn't execute it and instead just stayed alone and single with porn for two years. I'm glad I didn't go to the prostitutes because I have moral/ethical/legal concerns about doing it. I understand it can be risky and I'm not into taking those kinds of risks.

I respect all your insights on quitting porn and masturbation. Good luck in your continued experiments.

Thanks for sharing it.

Keep us posted. It seems that to go from "binge to balance" often requires a period of "time-out." 100 days sounds very ambitious. See how you feel after 15 days.

*big hug*

daring side of you. It'll be fun to hear what you create in your life when you get those horses reined in a bit.