Some questions for the veterans

Hey Marnia,

thanks to you for your work and giving the information for free on your blog. Otherwise, I woudn't have started at all.
Actually, I'm experiencing withdrawal symptoms. It's just, that the cravings are kept in check. I'm sleeping for only short amounts of time since two days and I am dreaming more vivid. I haven't noticed any dreams for a long time. Now, have already been three in the last 10 nights. And I am more easily irritated in an aggressive way. Since a lot of frustration is related (or projected?) to my failures with women in the past I tend to get insulting towards them now. Too bad, I'm attending a workshop right now, with 2 other men and 5 women. I so have to keep my mouth shut today.

Hi there, just a quick update on my progress.

It's day 12 today and I feel pretty good today. I woke up and had a morning erection. I can't remember exactly the last time this happened to me. I was just happy. I often remembered this "state" from my earlier teenage years. On Sunday, when I usually slept in, I would wake up and just be happy. This wasn't the case for a very long time until today.

Maybe it relates to the recovery maybe to something that happened yesterday. I wrote about the seminar I was attending yesterday. Well since I'm in training for counseling, I have to attend counseling sessions myself. Friday and yesterday was a group counseling session. We did some "chairwork" and I opened up and shared my actual issues with the group. Not the Porn recovery, but the frustrations I'm having with women, the pick up stuff I'm attending to get better.
Surprisingly the women were very understanding even with my trying to get better with flirting. The chair work stirred some things up and cleared them too. It ended with me throwing the chair representing my grandmother from one end of the room to the other and out of my system. That felt good.

And now, things just start to settle and I'm thinking about the unconscious expectations I had towards / about women and romantic relations all my life.
-women are not interested in me and I have to work for their approval by being supplicating
-women want to oppress me
-women try to control me by making me responsible for their feelings
-I am responsible for their feelings (this is a biggie and was the main topic of my work yesterday, because everytime I saw a woman that was not in a good mood, I would instantly feel as if it was my fault and as if I did something wrong)
-women won't allow me any free time and I have to fight for freedom in a relationship
-when a woman notices my sexual interest, she will leave me (only with new contacts, not established romantic relationships)
-being manly is bad / unwanted by women

These are my unconsious expectations that would often just show up as feelings, behavioral tendencies and projections. Oh my god, they are so hostile.

Now, as they come to mind, I seriously start to doubt them.
What if...
-women would like me to be a man when encountering them.
-women would like me to be strong and just enjoy my time with them instead of trying to work for their approval.
-women would love to give me the freedom I want.
-women would love if I would take the lead and not supplicate because I think they would want to oppress me.
-woman would love me to express my manly sexuality to them by taking initiative.
-women can and want to take care of their emotions themselves.
-women would love to be around me.

Please, I need some honest opinions. Could it be that most women are more like the second statements? Was I just unlucky to have my earliest female experiences with women that fall under the first statements and these women are actually really rare?

So, it has been almost a week since my last post and I thought I'd give you an update on my situation. It's just good to have a place to talk about it. I've also talked to some friends about my voluntary experiment but while they listen, they don't take it that seriously.

So, last Sunday and Monday have been over the roof. I felt a strong solid feeling in my chest which made me so much more confident than I experienced in years (or ever?). I really enjoyed going out and connect. This is also something new. While I really haven't been a loner, I always wondered why I didn't really enjoy social gatherings. I also got more touchy. I had a severe urge to cuddle with someone. And this is also new, not the need to "get cuddled" coming from the needy state I had for years. I also had far less social anxiety and my mouth wasn't as glued towards strangers anymore. I also got more looks from women outside. I felt like I was oozing something they could somehow see (or smell?). I thought: "Wow, this is only day 12, what will it be like after eight weeks?".

But the feeling didn't stay. It has been going downhill steadily since Tuesday. I'm having more anxiety again, I'm acting far more shy and the craving for porn is intense too (not for orgasm strangely). Today is certainly the low point since I started my new journey. I also had a bad and interesting dream last night, that I didn't have for a long time. I quit smoking 12 years ago and several years afterwards I would occasionally have this dream where I would start smoking again. It would just be me asking someone for a cigarette and after smoking two or three, I would buy my own package and then painfully realise that I would have fallen into cigarette addiction again. I haven't had this dream for years until last night.

So, this is where I'm standing at right now. It's tough, but I'm not on dangerous ground, I still have my brain together. But I really hope, that I will return to the state from last weekend again. Socializing seemed so easy and pleasurable. If that's what I get from staying away from porn, it's so worth it.

P.S. reading through my last posts, I noticed the aggressive tendencies between the lines. I apologize for that. It seems my frustration found a way to get through. Interestingly I haven't felt the frustration anymore since last weekend too.

Hey Clarke here are my thoughts on that.

I think, there would be a pickup community even without pornography. Sexual addiction is not reduced to porn. Based on our evolutionary drives men always wanted to spread their semen and women wanted to keep the guy for survival. At the end it has always been the female need for pickiness that lead to evolutionary changes. Men developed the drive for competition and women the skills to seduce the leading males by perfecting their optical appearance. (Think about women using Belladonna drops to widen their pupils and therefore appear more attractive hundreds of years ago). Therefore women can be described the first pickup artists.

Later, male promiscuity was on top by keeping women down by social rights. The emancipation movement changed that and male promiscuity was doomed immoral. I was raised in the eighties and had a lot of bad believes concerning my male sexuality planted in my mind too. (See above post). Make men feel guilty about their sexuality and they will stick with whoever they end up with because they don't have the skills or balls to live out their sexuality anymore. They learned that drive for promiscuity is evil.
So, it was only a question of time that the pendulum would switch to the other side again. I think men are trying to conquer their sexuality back now by using pickup.

So pickup could be seen as a regular step in the evolution of the fight for the reigning sexual gender.

I know, it sounds sad. Can't men and women just get along without having to trick or oppress?
Though I find pick up to be very interesting from a psychological point of view, I'm not very happy about having to use it. Can't I just be successful being me? Well, obviously not, because then I wouldn't have been single for such a long time. But then, that has been the old "masturbating to porn me". Judging from how I felt last weekend on Days 11 and 12 it could be (and I hope so), that I will be naturally successful when my brain has returned to it's natural state again.

Assuming that almost every guy is hooked to internet porn and therefore has a messed up brain, being more inhibited and so on, it could be, that us men here, that start to refuse from porn to get their natural drives back will be more successful than the porn using men. And not only because of the healed brain. I really believe that almost every guy is using internet porn today. (There is an anti porn documentary. I tried to get it on the common filesharing networks: No chance. It's not there and you can get everything on filesharing, especially porn.) And I think that most women are very hurt when their guy watches porn. And women know, that men watch a lot of porn nowadays. And now imagine: Your new date asks you if you watch porn or you address the topic yourself and you can honestly say that you don't watch porn out of conviction. That alone will make you VERY interesting for her.

Let me point out what success means for me. I'm not trying to bed 100 women like the guys that play asshole game. But I want to be able to chose the woman I spend time with. I don't want to have to stick with the woman I end up by chance or fate with, even if the relationship is not fulfilling anymore or she's not beautiful enough. And pick up is a great way of getting to know yourself and deal with yourself better. You learn to deal and cope with fear and shame (from rejection). You learn to stick with your goals and not give up under highly frustrating circumstances. And you learn how to communicate better with women which will prove to be a successful skill in a real relationship too.

I don't think that guys would put so much effort into working on themselves if they wouldn't be driven by their sexuality. And that's what pick up is behind all the techniques after all: A huge pile of work in so many areas of your life. It often seems impossible if you don't take step by step.

Hey there,

I just thought I'd give you a quick update on my progress.

Well, today is day 27 and I'm still sober ( No P, no M)
Last week I've been quite tired. I slept a lot. And was quickly tired again after I've been up for just a few hours.
My mood seems to be balanced since the last days. Unfortunately.
Because I'm not that happy with the level it has settled. I'm not feeling bad or needy, but not happy either.
I was hoping that when the mood has settled it would be at the level I had at day 12 when I felt really happy and secure from the core and more outgoing and enjoying connecting. Right now, connecting isn't rewarding at all. I hope it will get better again.

I also recognize it's getting dangerous sometimes now. My mind / addiction tries to trick me, so it seems. The level I have settled seems so mediocre (not dark, not grey, but not colorful either) that I sometimes get the urge to watch just to get a little arousal. But I won't fall for that.

At the same time, other issues crop up. It's for my best, but I have a lot of work to do with myself. I recognized that I have always reacted to people (especially women) in conversations to get approval / avoid rejection. I recognized I don't even now how to enjoy myself in social situations.

Whew, its Sunday again.

Today is day 34 and I'm still at it.
The sexual cravings only pop up occasionaly and are easy to handle. Overall I'm more centered and in my body most of the time. But besides that P+m recovery I'm also working on some other personal issues, so I can't make any cause and effect assumptions. I can honestly say that I'm making good progress with myself.

I notice that I'm looking at women from another angle. Of course my head turns when a hot woman walks by but I'm more focused on behavioral cues now instead of the overt sexual stuff like short skirt, big bs and so forth. I find that I'm attracted to a different kind of woman now. Not the hot and cold, intimidating ones as before, but those that look like they could be nice to be around. You know, the friendly ones.

Most of the time it's much easier for me to hold eye contact. It might also be, that I'm unconsciously actually seeking more eye contact but I'm not sure about it. I have to observe. On friday, I was talking to a girl friend (just a friend) I know for several years and while she was talking and I was looking at her, I suddenly noticed a subtle tickling feeling in my lips. When I felt into it, it was like my body signaled me to kiss her. This is so weird in a way.

Overall I'm more happy with myself and less needy.

Interesting stuff going on.

Something unwanted happened today. I masturbated.
Unbelievable, what I wrote on Sunday, because since monday it was like hell.
I had serious bouts of depression mostly related to being so frustrated with myself.

I wrote somewhere up there, that I noticed that I don't even know how to enjoy myself with other people. I'm always too much in my head trying to control myself to control the interaction. Even if I try to refuse doing so I don't know what to do instead. An alternative would be to try to enjoy myself and to make the interaction fun for me. But I don't know how. It's that bad. I realize how deep my self-centeredness-issues are. I felt so helpless and bad that I had one of these "who cares" moments.

At least I didn't watch porn and while doing it I only focused on the physical sensations and refused any visualizations. Overall the whole thing wasn't that good. Maybe that's a good lesson I can take from it. I try to tell myself that it wasn't a failure, but a part of me feels ashamed too and even more frustrated.

Well, I will just go on.

...for your positive perspective.

Surely, my inner work and my brain progress go hand in hand.
I almost forgot that it's just day 38. Still a long way to go until I will have reached two months.

What I can do to raise my spirits (what does that mean by the way?)?
Maybe stoping to overthink my problems could be a good start. I'm obsessing too much.
I try to go out and just be open and in my body to regain a natural sense of curiosity about the world and the people around me. You know, not objectifying anybody. I came to the conclusion that a healthy way to enjoy social contacts is to be naturally curious about others. But then, this has to come from the body and not from the mind that tries to objectify everybody. But right now, this is more like work than enjoyment. When I read this, I feel like I'm in Kindergarten again.

Well, it's Sunday again. Time for my weekly recap.

Today is day 41 without Porn and day 3 without masturbation *duuh*. Well, I can laugh about it by now. It's not a big deal.

And what a week it was. I already wrote up there about the dark days I had this week. I don't think the depression I got into was related mainly to the ups and downs from the rewiring. I think it was more of a psychological issue. I realised my self-centeredness and how I don't know how to enjoy interactions, because since I can remember I have been trying to control them. After realising this some days ago I asked myself why I was doing this. The answer I got was to get approval. What nonsense. How can you want to get approval from something as alternating as humans. I decided to stop it and there was some kind of shift inside me where a part of me was actually turning to itself. It's hard to explain. Then I asked myself what a better reason to engage interactions could be -> Enjoyment. Then I realised I didn't know how to do it. I thought that maybe being interested in the other person could provide enjoyment. That lead to me realising I wasn't being courious about others because I was so centered around myself in my mind all the time. This realisation dropped me into the dark hole I was in during the week. I was too hard on myself.

When I got better on Friday I decided to give it a shot. Natural curiosity is a part of living beings. Seeking out new stuff is rewarding for the brain. So it has got to be somewhere in me. Children have it. I had it when I was child (when did I lose it?). Children aren't in their heads all the time. So, I went out, focused all my attention in my body and on other people I was watching. I asked myself: "how is he / she doing right now?" Then I listened to my body. It wasn't that easy but I got something out of it. Yesterday I was feeling pretty lonely at home so I decided to just go into the city. There were a lot of people around. I was just walking, being in my body and I felt really good just to be amongst them. I was walking into some people I know and engaged them in the same state. It was no big deal to hold eye contact. But it felt so good. And the conversation was even better than if I had tried to control it. Today I met a friend for breakfast and engaged the conversation in the same way. It was so joyful and the conversation wasn't even going that deep.

What I realised: It's not only about engaging eye contact but two other things at the same time: Being in your body instead of your head and having the sincere motivation to connect with the other person by wanting to feel him / her. That's interesting and important. Engaging eye contact while still being in my head didn't change anything for me.

I'm just starting, but engaging contacts that way is already so rewarding. How will I become if I dig even deeper and meet women in that state.

This goes far beyond porn recovery. These are very old issues.
Stay tuned for next sunday.

P.S. for those who are also into pick up. I found a program that focuses on these sincere interactions and beyond the manipulation of the other "gurus" and got me onto the path I am right now. It's called "Authentic Man Program" and there is a version for women too "Authentic Woman Experience".

P.S. 2 Thanks Marnia and everybody else.

Hi there, time for my weekly recap,

I had an awesome week.
Today is day 49 / 11. Overall I was feeling good, the blissful feelings from connecting diminished though. Maybe I tried too hard to maintain them. The main focus of my week was to find a way to establish constant groundedness because it helps me to maintain eyecontact and therefore deeper connections. It worked most of the time but since Saturday it's pretty much gone. I hope it will return.

Besides work, I met a nice women on tuesday. A friend of mine tries to get us to hook up. We'll see how it develops. Keep your fingers crossed please, I like her.

On friday I had my first session of Rolfing which is a from of bodily psychotherapy derived from Gestalttherapy. It was a very good experience. He worked on loosening my shoulders and I have a much better posture already and felt more open in my chest area.

On friday evening I attended a speed-dating event and there it was so on. I was heavily grounded and maintained deep eye contact without saying too much, just asking deep questions and connecting. It was so good to get to know so many different people in such a short amount of time, I liked all of them. And the girl I picked for my first spot picked me on her first spot too, meaning, we were the winning couple of the evening. At the end there wasn't that much sparkle, but it was a nice experience. Later, when some of us went to another bar (my "mate" had left already) the girl who organized the whole speed-dating was hitting on me. I just didn't get her signs right away. I still have to learn to notice women's indirect communication properly. But when I analyzed our interaction afterwards, I noticed so many clues... I actually was a bit angry with myself. This could have led to much more that night.

This leads me to another thing I noticed in myself. Though my head turns automatically when I see a nice women, I actually don't get turned on that much physically meaning I still have a low sex drive. This scares me a bit, because I'm also not craving porn, so I'm somewhat in a grey zone. I'm trying to just feel my body when I'm around women to see if I can catch arousal but there isn't much right now. Maybe if I would be more horny, I would have interpreted the signs friday night more accurately.

Any experiences or advice from the veterans on low sex drive during recovery?

Hey Marnia, hey guys

whew...more than 7 months since my last post.
Thanks Marnia for your p.m. asking how I'm doing. I read it maybe 5 weeks ago. I haven't been on this site for quite some time.
I was happy to see how the site has developed and that there is a "partner-site" now.

A lot has happened. Some of it for the better, some not. I hesitated for some time to write here again. I don't want to confront myself yet with what I've written back then and I will just let it rest up there. To another part my hesitation is due to a nagging feeling of shame. But let's start at the beginning.

Shortly after my last post I went on a date and it turned out good. We got together and are still a couple today. We meet almost every day and it's already "everyday life" and routine. She's a great person but we also differ a lot so we bump into our edges quite regularly. Luckily she has a very good sense of social and emotional competence, so arguing is always quite constructive. But shortly after we got together I fell back into watching porn. Maybe my brain wasn't reset completely, maybe it was just my addiction memory kicking in but the moment we had sex, I got the most intense cravings for porn. Remember that I had no cravings when I stopped watching last summer? Those days are gone. I couldn't think of anything else anymore and just a few days later I started downloading and watching again. Since then, I have often tried to stop again, the longest would be one and a half weeks. Judging my own behavior makes it clear that there is addiciton going on. After abstaining for some days, the craving kicks in and when I'm alone one evening, I can guarantee that I end up in front of my computer downloading and searching for hours before finally masturbating. I'm always rebuilding my old collection. When my mind is clear again after masturbating, I delete everything again. I have gotten quite effective at finding "my stuff" again. It goes on like this since october. At the beginning the phases where I wouldn't delete have been longer. Now, I delete almost every time I'm finished (I don't use streaming and I also don't have subscriptions). But with every new attempt I'm learning something more about the processes going on. Most of the time it starts with thoughts about those "delicious" women in the movies, during the day when I'm outside. It doesn't take long then. Since my consummation varies now, I can also observe the implications on my sexuality. After a porn binge where I jack-off maybe three times in 24 hours, I have a hard time to orgasm with my girl friend. I don't have erection problems, but I can go on for an hour and a half without problems. I guess she likes it. But when I want to orgasm with her, I have to help myself with visualisations of porn. Then, when I have been without porn and just regular sex for some days, I can barely last 15 minutes and have to control myself not to come too early. This sometimes motivates me (or is it just an excuse I give myself?) to grab some porn again.

I guess my sensitized reward system hadn't completely rewired and after the first intense bout of "real"-orgasm dopamine the memory of the old "rewards" where reactivated. I come to this conclusion because porn fall-back wasn't the only thing that took place after I had real sex again. I also got extreme cravings for highly pallatable food and gained about 6 kilos last October and November. I haven't got rid of them since then. And I got heavily into video games. I always gamed since my childhood, but there have always been times when I was interested in some other things and haven't played at all for weeks. Since last fall it's different: I got really hooked on gaming too, having a hard time controlling it.

Hmm, when reading through all of this, you could get the impression that my life is miserable right now, but it isn't. I'm feeling good, I got a new job which is an improvement and of course the good relationship is there. So, no reason to panic. I'm observing and learning.

But at this point, judging from my own experiences, I have to give a serious warning to everybody trying this out: Watch out for fall-back or addictive processes in other behavior after going back to orgasm / real sex again. Maybe two and a half months of abstaining haven't been enough for my reward system to get back to normal. It didn't feel like it when I was abstaining but kicked in heavily when I had real sex again. So everybody should know about this risk when trying this out. You could develop behavioral dysregulations in other rewarding activities if your brain get's a big dopamine kick too early.

Has somebody observed this too?

Greetings to all of you guys. It feels good to write again.

I just found this neat collection of statistics:

http://blog.gilly.ws/2011/03/01/infografik-porno-sucht-in-den-usa