Day 5

Checking in. I'm still clean.

Day 1

I caved yesterday.

I intend to try again. My target now is to beat 17 days.

Day 17

Still going strong at the 1/2 month mark.

Day 15 - Tough Love

This blog has become a beacon for men attempting to rid their habits of watching pornography. One post in particular, called "A Very Important Decision," has gotten over 70 comments from people admitting they have an addiction.

One thing I see alongside the admittance of addiction is self-hate.

"I'm addiction to pornography and I'm a person of little or no value."

KNOCK IT OFF.

You have two choices. Stay addicted to pornography and hate yourself or quit pornography and love yourself. Each choices starts with the hate or love. You cannot quit pornography if you hate yourself.

The fact is a lot of you want to keep hating yourself because it gives you a ticket to look at pornography and do all kinds of other things that aren't healthy for you.

Saying "I'm worthless" means that you are not capable of quitting pornography. Saying "I'm worthless" in any of its forms gives you the permission to do WHATEVER THE HELL you want no matter if it hurts you or others because:

- A worthless person can't do anything right.
- How the hell are you expected to stop using pornography when you are worthless and can't do anything right?
- How can anyone hold poor old you accountable when your just a worthless person?

Every one who visits this blog shows that they have the potential to change themselves. It's evident in your willingness to read about quitting pornography. If you are willing to read about quitting pornography, that means a small part of you believes that its possible and something worthwhile.

You have got to grow that part of you. You have to spend time thinking about the reasons why you want to quit porn.

After awhile you have to start visiting with the part of you that desires pornography. You cannot fight yourself. You have to approach yourself as a diplomat would approach a foreign leader. You must understand the reasons why you look at pornography. Look at the benefits that pornography give you. Do this without hate. Do it like you would if you were an explorer observing a previously undiscovered animal.

Once you understand what drives you to pornography you can begin implementing a resolution.

Does stress push you into pornography?
Does the fact that you don't have any fun push you into pornography?
Does the fact that your life has no purpose push you into pornography?
Are you a slave to your boss/family/girlfriend/wife/friends and does that push you into pornography?

The truth is, pornography is a distraction. It shuts down your brain and gives you pleasure so that you don't have to think about what's bothering you.

You cannot quit pornography unless you address the underlying causes that drive you to look at it. Start by choosing to fight back against your self-hate.

Day 13

I wanted to pop in and say that I'm still clean on Day 13.

I also just want to say that this blog has helped me tremendously. I would have never attempted to kick the habit of pornography for this long without this blog.

As I keep adding to it, it becomes a stronger and stronger base for me to return to.

Day 10

Still hanging in there. No strong urges yet.

Day 9

Making progress 1 day at a time.

Its amazing how repeated attempts just last longer and longer. I start out trying to quit porn and can last maybe a day. Then I try 10 more times and I can last a week. 20 more tries and a month goes by without porn.

Repeated attempts definitely helped me achieve over a 100 days without pornography and even though I eventually started looking at pornography again, these repeated attempts to quit pornography, lowered the amount of time I spend watching pornography overall.

If I wasn't repeatedly attempting to quit pornography, I would be watching it daily. Instead, I'm struggling to quit and I may look at pornography once a week and then after awhile, once a month and then a few months at a time.

Maybe the cure is this dogged determination. Just keep trying to make it a day longer than the last try.

Day 8

2 days ago I made a decision to stop using the computer and to stop watching television (including movies).

It's amazing how much more time I have to do things. The computer and television waste so much of our lives.

I get bored but then I realize that there are an infinite number of things I can do that don't involve the computer or television.

I'm on the computer right now (obviously) but just to write in my blog and do some work.

I made a firm decision in my mind to keep the computer off aside from doing work and posting here and I'm sticking to it.

It feels great. I started an architectural drawing, worked out in the gym, cleaned quite a bit more than normal, and have been cycling for 2 hours the last 3 days in a row.

This is an awesome start.

Day 1

Caved on day 7.

This is familiar territory. As I keep making attempts, I make it a little farther each time. Sometimes it takes some learning and self-observation to get farther the next time around, other times it just takes practice in facing your urges and your habits.

This time I caved while at my parents. This is something that I've noticed in the past. I looked at pornography a ton when I was living with my parents and that house just brings it out in me. I remember being able to resist with patience and practice.

It's kind of fun to be trying relentlessly to quit porn again. When you don't beat yourself up, it just becomes a game where you learn about yourself, recognize challenges you've faced before, and use techniques you've created to make it a day farther than before.

I've done 100 days without porn before... Now its time to try a year.

A year is a long long time but I want an ambitious goal.

Day 5

I'm ok. 5 days have gone by without a hitch.

I'm still injured and stressed because I cannot exercise.

Worked 10 hours on Thanksgiving at my new restaurant job.

More later... Very tired.

Day 1

I'm embarrassed to admit that soon after writing about how easy it felt to stay clean, I fell into pornography again that night.

I can tell that I'm not taking this as seriously as I once have.

I want to examine the reasons why I want to quit pornography. If I think about that for awhile that may recharge my batteries.

Nonetheless I'm starting another attempt today.

Day 5

The last 5 days have been easy.

My life is in order. I have a job, I have a girlfriend, I have a nice place to live, and my stress isn't too high. I have a knee injury that is preventing me from cycling.

That said, things have been easy so far.

Have fun, have friends, have a woman, and relax. That's what it takes for me to to feel no urge for pornography. The friends part is missing. I don't feel a strong urge to make and keep friends. This is something I want to sort out.

Day 2

I was about to look at pornography and then I remembered that I'm starting an approach so I stopped.

I may have an edge come January because my girlfriend and I are switching to an appartment and we're cancelling internet.

I'll have internet in the cafe nextdoor but none in my room.

That ought to really cut down on pornography use.

Tomorrow is Day 1

It's time to start trying again. I don't believe I can do it yet. There's always something going on to add stress to my life and make quitting porn challenging but if I just keep using excuses I'll never get anywhere.

This time, I've suffered a knee injury due to overtraining for next racing season (I'm a cyclist). I'm limping around and I've been off the bike for at least a week and it's driving me crazy.

I've looked at pornography today so tomorrow I'll start a new attempt. The comments this blog has gotten are amazing. It's cool how strangers can come together around a cause they care about.

Update

My pornography use is low yet still present. I may look 2 times a week or so. I found a job. I start tomorrow. The anticipation of whether or not I will be able to keep it in these uncertain times has kept me a little on edge. I'm working out what I'd like to do with my life by setting up some goals and I'm getting plenty of support from my girlfriend.

Once things get rolling with my job I may attempt to quit again.

I don't like to procrastinate with quitting pornography by making it conditional and I want to be able to stay clean of pornography no matter what is going on in my life but I simply am not skilled enough at dealing with stress to be able to quit pornography while I'm out of work. It is certainly something that I want to learn though.

3 Weeks of Pornography

The higher stress I've experienced from being out of work has lead to consistent pornography use.

I haven't posted anything in the last two weeks because I haven't even attempted to stay off pornography.

Thankfully after all the time I've spent trying to quit and because of the foundation this blog has given me, quitting pornography is always at the back of my mind.

I have a high chance of getting a job today and this may mean a reduction in my levels of stress.

If that happens, I may take charge and attempt to quit again.

No Job = strong urges for pornography

Not much to add. I'm hoping to find a job soon. Until then, it'll be damn challenging to stay off pornography.

Stress and Pornography

I'm without a job after today, having served my two weeks notice. I'm planning on stepping up the search tomorrow but until I find a job I feel its going to be an extra challenge to keep my stress levels low. When you work minimum wage jobs all it takes is a month without work to be back to ground one after saving money for months and months.

I've been caving the last few days

Stress!

Stress has had me caving the last few days.

I decided to quit my job because I was being lured along by my managers into thinking that if I worked hard enough that I would get promoted. Weeks turned to months and eventually I figured out that they never intended to promote me. Working harder than my better paid co-workers and being passed up on promotion has caused me a lot of stress.

So I'll be job hunting in the next couple of days. I'm also moving in a week or so. All of this has been stressful and I've caved to pornography as a result.

A lot of you guys who read this blog are Christians or what not. I'm not religious but I do believe in some Buddhist ideas.

Being in the present
Loving the universe
Believing that I can create anything
Being detached

These ideas are very powerful and when I take the time to really live them in the present moment, it helps me cope with challenging situations.

My hope is that I'll turn to these ideas in the next few days instead of pornography during this stressful time.

Day 8

Still going strong. I'm staying off the computer and focusing on developing my hobbies and just things I like to do in my spare time. It's amazing how much time things like television and web browsing can take up. Once you free yourself, you'll have all this time for you to figure out what you actually want to be doing.

My stress has been relatively low the last few weeks and I can thank that for being able to go the last 8 days without pornography.

Day 3

I've been clean for a few days. It's not because of any special strategy, I've just lacked any desire for pornography.

I'd like to attempt to stay off the computer again.

Caved in a few days ago

I got lazy with my efforts to stay off the computer. I'm thrilled that I went 20+ days though.

In a stressful moment with the computer on... I just caved so easily however.


I'm going to talk to my roommate about this and think of some ideas on how I can stay off the computer.

Day 21

It has been 3 weeks now and I'm still clean.

Over 20 days without porn! I'm happy about this.

The only times I feel urges are when I'm actually on the computer or when I consider using it for whatever reason.

Even now as I type this, I have a heightened desire for pornography simply because I'm online.

So I'm going to keep this short.

Get off the computer... Find something else to do with your life than browse the internet. Seriously, give away your computer if you have to. You're never going to look back on fond memories of being in front of a monitor.

Have a good day guys.

Day 17

Still clean off porn.

A few things have helped me go this far compared to the few weeks before this attempt where all I could do was a few days.

1. I got a roommate and that cuts down on the amount of time I have to myself in my room.

2. I stopped using the computer for anything other than my work. This is a tough decision and because I've been able to stick to this rule I've been able to avoid a lot of urges. I do want to say that if I wasn't able to stick to this rule, I would give my computer to a friend to hold onto until I felt I could.

Day 10

So far I'm pleased with my progress. 10 days has been the farthest I've gone in quite a while.

My new strategy of just staying off the computer completely is great. I'm not wasting time web browsing either which I like.

At some stages of my addiction, I wouldn't trust myself to just stay away from the computer and I would suggest if thats whats happening to you... to just give your computer to a friend to store for you.

Just prevent yourself from having access to the internet.

I know the internet is great, and email is great, blah blah blah. But deep down you'll find that you don't need this stuff and it's consuming most of your time (the stuff your life is made of). You only have one life, get off the computer.

Restarted (Day 3) - a different approach

I haven't posted in awhile because I looked at porn soon after the previous post and then I decided to take a different approach.

I've been staying off the computer completely. My job requires me to use my laptop but other than that I've just stayed off the computer.

If my job didn't require a computer I would honestly just give my laptop to a friend and go completely without a computer.

For now, the best I can do is use my will power to just stay off the computer completely when I'm not working.

Eventually, I'd like to get an office outside home so that I wouldn't have access to the a computer at all at home.

Thats not going to happen for awhile though. Anyways, still driving forward.

Day 1

I ended up looking at pornography once again last night. Today I'm clean.

I'm gonna keep fighting even if my attempts only last a day. I'm attempting to meditate daily to reduce my stress and gain some clarity and focus. It helped me stay clean today.

Day 1

This is the 300th post of this blog.

What has caused all this stress and pornography lately?

In the past it was these things:

Lack of sex
Lack of friends
Lack of relaxation
Lack of fun

For some reason I felt like it was different this time but now that I think about it... it's no different.

Lack of relaxation... I've been expecting a lot from myself these lack few weeks... and because I haven't been able to do as much as I wanted, I've felt stress and a desire to escape...

Escape in the form of pornography and the internet.

If I want to quit I've got to remember why I want to quit to boost my desire and then I have to work on what is causing my urges: stress.

broke down already

... I'm floored with how strong my urges have been the last few weeks. I'm floored by how little resistance I've been able to put up.

Regardless, I'd like to get back into the ring. I'm going to try to do some NLP exercises that I've used in the past.

Day 1

The only way to get better at this is to keep trying.

I've got my feet on the ground and I'm ready to try again.

Still Struggling

I'm feeling a lot of stress. It's interesting how I went from going 20 days without porn and feeling strong to just feeling like I don't even want to quit.

Right now, at this moment, I don't want to quit porn. I mean I want to quit but not today... I'm telling myself that as soon as the stress dies down I'll attempt to quit again.

This is ridiculous. I can't quit porn if I'm this stressed out. I've got to figure this crap out. I've talked to multiple people and everyone is telling me I have to relax more.

Struggling

The last week has been tough regarding pornography.

I said I would try to reduce my stress but my techniques aren't cutting it. Everyone keeps telling me that I push myself really hard...

Maybe thats the key issue? I'm not sure how to resolve that. It's as easy as just not pushing myself hard. I like working hard...

Day 2

Checking in.

This attempt is an experiment. I want to see if I can reconfigure my lifestyle and my mentality in such a way that I'm way under my threshold for stress.

I think between living a life with a low level of stress combined with some relaxation techniques (like taking a hot bath) could mean a life without pornography.

I caved

I overworked myself and had a few bad days at work and my streak came to an end.

One good thing is that I didn't just overwork myself to the point of caving to pornography. I worked hard to a certain point where I felt some stress but not so much that I caved... It was the combination of having high expectations and then having a few things outside my control (like two aggravating days at work) to send me over the edge.

I think what this tells me is that its not enough to work really hard and relax just enough not to look at pornography because sometimes its not me and my own work ethic that causes stress. Sometimes things happen TO me that are really stressful and if I am already close to the threshold then I am gonna fall back into porn.

From this experience, I'd like to try an experiment. I want to find a way to do the things that I want to do without being anywhere near my stress threshold.

I want to narrow down exactly what I want and then find a way to put in action towards those desires without all the stress and forcing myself to do things that I don't want to do.

Day 20

Okay, I got some comments and now I have a few things to say.

First, let me say that the last couple of days have been rough. I exchanged numbers with a few girls 3 weeks ago and nothing happened. I got angry and resentful, I treated every women I ran into as if they didn't exist and then I let the hatred subside and got back to just being myself... then I heard back from both those girls and it sent me back into a confused state of fear and anger. Why? Because I feared being hurt again and because I didn't like being ignored for 3 weeks.

The point is I came close to caving because of this incident. I looked at sexual forums for the last few days and though I don't count that as looking at pornography, its definitely something I don't want to do.

I'm aware of my vulnerable state and I'm refocusing my attention on the areas of my life that are going well (like the fact that I'm training hard to be a amateur cyclist racer) and on relaxing (taking a hot bath/shower with the lights low - my preferred method of relaxation).

One of the reasons I look at porn is to relieve stress... however, because I've learned this I can do something different instead: acknowledge when I'm stressed out (awareness) and then relieve the stress by relaxing (there's a million techniques, look some up and find what works best for you.)

Someone else mentioned loneliness as a cause of urges for pornography and that couldn't be more true for me. I used to be way more isolated and that caused me a great deal of pain which I solved through daily use of pornography. For the most part that has been solved by my job, oddly enough. I work in a cafe now and the daily interaction with my co-workers and customers has allowed me to socialize in a structured way (which is my preference).

Because I work at a cafe, I've also met people who share interests with me (like cycling and day trading - which is similar to investing) and I've made friends this way which has solved a second issue that used to cause me to look at pornography: lack of friends.

Back in January of this year I met a girl and we've been "friends with benefits" without being exclusive since then. This has allowed me to feel okay with meeting other women and explore dating (which is important to me) while at the same time meeting my need for sex (this being another issue that used to cause me to look at pornography: lack of sex or the perception that sex wasn't going to occur anytime soon).

These four things that cause me to look at porn (I discovered them with much effort a long time ago) are pretty well resolved at the moment. Acknowledging my need to have these bases covered and being proactive about keeping these needs met has allowed me to go these 20 days pretty easily. This blog is also a great tool in maintaining my awareness of urges and desire to quit.

So to sum up what has helped me go 100 days in the past is:

1. Find out what causes you to feel urges. The best way is to notice when you are looking at porn or feeling a strong desire to look and to take note of what problems or issues have come up recently. Once you do that, think about how these problems made you feel. Lonely? Stressed out?

2. Find alternative solutions to the feelings that propel you towards pornography. Porn is a tool to make you feel better when your down, find a different tool (and don't force it, find one that you actually like because otherwise you'll eventually go back to porn - you're not superman).

3. Keep a journal or blog or something so that you can focus your effort and gain awareness of yourself.

4. Remember that none of these things are quick fixes. If you think you can run through these 3 steps in a day, forget about it. This is why you want to start a journal; it'll allow you to slowly day by day figure this stuff out at your own pace. Hopefully you can gain something from what I've learned but you're not me so your recovery is going to be different than mine.

5. Lastly develop a balanced life. I'm not going to go into the specifics, there's plenty of information on the web about this. Find out what it means to live a balanced life and then do it. It allows you to have stability when your having a bad day regarding one area of your life because you'll have 2-5 other areas that are doing just fine. I've never come up with any kind of strategy (visualizations, NLP, mental exercises, exercise, affirmations, I've tried a lot of stuff) that can keep me feeling as stable as having a balanced life.

I'm surprised how logical and structured this post came out to be. Sorry it wasn't more lively and interesting.

I love you guys, keep your chins up.

Day 16

Still going strong.

I had some strong urges a few days ago but I stayed away from pornography.

I'd like to write some more in depth posts but I just haven't had the time.

Nonetheless, I'm happy to be at day 16 already. I'm happy with my progress so far.

Day 11

Wow, day 11 already?

I've had a close call recently in which I was searching the internet and came across some sexy pictures (not nude but still of a sexual nature) and it was hard to tame my desire to keep searching for more.

I don't feel any urges right now but the one thing I've learned about pornography addiction is that the urges hit very hard and very fast out of nowhere.

I'm doing my best to be aware of my level of frustration and I'm working on strategies for relaxing. One simple thing I've been doing is taking baths and I've found that they really lower my stress.

Anyways more later.

Day 6

Still going strong.

Motivation to succeed is high.

Learning how to relax is challenging. I'm just a beginner at the game of relaxing.

I want to write some longer posts but I've been busy.

I plan on taking it easy tomorrow, I hope I'll take the time to write more.

Day 5

Okay, so we're almost done with week 1. I spent the last two days vacationing in a small town up the coast and I feel well rested and relaxed.

It's amazing how stressed out I can be and not realize it. I literally slept 12 hours on my day off. I got so relaxed that the contrast between how I felt relaxing on the beach and how I felt back home, being so stressed out that I had to look at pornography, was striking.

How do learn how to take the time to relax. Furthmor, once I decide to relax, how do I go about doing that?

This is something I'm going to think about.

Day 1 - Starting Over

Wow, I thought I would last a lot longer than 2 days this time around. I caved last night. I share my room with my roommate and he's gone for four days on vacation. I feel like my urges skyrocketed because of having the room to myself.

Right now I want to boost my motivation to quit.

Here are the reasons I want to quit pornography.

1. Pornography is a band-aid fix for things in my life that bother me. Instead of moving through the pain and discomfort of resolving conflicts and issues in my life, I often "zone out" with pornography in order to hide from the pain. Quitting pornography would allow me to tackle the issues in my life and come out a better man.

2. Pornography wastes time. My schedule is busy because being busy is the kind of lifestyle I enjoy. I enjoy accomplishing things. Pornography saps my ability to do that because I spend 1-2 hours or more sometimes a day looking at it. Worse yet, sometimes I do it late at night and end up not getting enough sleep for the next day. Pornography puts me into this daze in which time flies by. Quitting pornography would free up time for me to do the things I really want to do.

3. Pornography lowers my motivation. It lowers my drive for real women, to make friends, to accomplish things, to take care of myself, and to do anything other than take a nap afterwards. If I quit pornography, I would have a stronger drive towards the things that bring lasting happiness: relationships, accomplishment, and a healthier lifestyle.

4. Pornography lowers my self-respect. I want to be careful about this one. I DO NOT encourage anyone to beat themselves up over pornography use. Viewing pornography is a behavior and behavior is simply a tool for getting something that we want. When you break things down, most behavior that isn't tied to attaining the essentials of life (food, water, etc.) are meant to fulfill some sort of emotional need (attention, love, relaxation, calmness, etc.). So pornography is not some evil, perverted act, its merely a tool we have learned to use in order to meet some sort of emotion need. There is no reason to believe that you are lesser of a human being just because you use the best tool that you know of to meet your needs. That's just common sense. However, there are other tools out there aside from pornography that we can learn. On top of that when I imagine the person I want to be in the future: my ideal self, it is not someone who views pornography.

So I'm on day one again. Gaining awareness of my urges and where they are coming from is my goal for today.

Day 2

So I'm clean for two days. Just the fact that I'm here, keeping track of whether or not I look at porn is helping lower my urges. Really a great deal of quitting has to do with keeping urges low.

What it takes...

I'm going to start posting again because I've been looking at pornography. Since my last post, however long ago it was, I've looked at porn countless times. I left off making it sound like I was cured but I'm not.

Quitting porn may require consistent attention. I've learned a lot about what drives me towards pornography through this blog and how to prevent urges.

I've read a ton of comments that have showed up on this blog and they are great. However, I want to reinforce how important it is to be aware of the guilt and shame that can come with having an addiction to pornography.

***************
WARNING: The following paragraphs will likely cause you to experience "resistance." Resistance is a sudden feeling of tiredness, a sudden desire to do something else (even as simply as switch to a different website), an impulse to masturbate, or even intense fear. Resistance is your brains last ditch effort to stop you from making a change. We are all resistant to change and your level of resistance will vary depending on how ready and willing you are for change. Try to be aware of this. If you make it through your resistance, your likely to see a change.
***************

I'll tell you up front, shame and guilt are not to be tolerated. Shame and guilt exist in you purely for the purpose to make you look at pornography. They are promoters of pornography disguised as an apology.

We think guilt and shame are "good" because they show people and ourselves that we understand how pornography hurts us and others and they "motivate" us to quit. HOWEVER, really all shame and guilt do is cause us further pain.... Pain that drives us back to hiding from our problems by distracting ourselves with pornography.

Guilt and shame are sneaky means of getting ourselves to look at pornography when we really don't want to and when we know that doing so will hurt other people or ourselves.

I'll tell you something. You can show people that you understand how pornography hurts them by simply saying "I know this addiction hurts you and me" "I understand the pain its causing us and I'm going to do whatever I can to stop."

Secondly, you can motivate yourself to quit pornography by finding the positive outcomes from living a life without pornography. Positive outcomes like:

"I'll have more energy"
"I'll have more motivation"
"I'll have more desire for women (my wife/girlfriend)"
"I'll feel stronger"
"I'll be able to focus on the things I really want"
"I'll finally be able to be the man I really want to be"
"I'll finally prove to myself that I can conquer hurtful habits"

Next time you experience guilt or shame... Tell yourself as strongly as you can: "This shame and guilt hurts me and its trying to get me to look at pornography." No matter what counter-argument you experience (and you will get a counter-argument) just keep telling yourself (training yourself) that shame and guilt simply and directly causes you to look at pornography.

Some of you may find that you really lack any sort of motivation to quit pornography without shame and guilt and in that cause your next course of action is to find reasons to quit aside from relieving yourself of the pain of guilt and shame (AKA those positive outcomes of quitting listed above).

So anyways, I'm back and I look forward to being clean of pornography again.

Endings and Beginnings

Day 104

I tried writing a summary of this blog and I gave up. It’s too long and unorganized. If someone else wants to – go for it. I can’t even read the whole thing.

From my experience, there’s one thing you must do to quit pornography. Find out why you look at porn and solve whatever it is. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. Figuring out what drives you to look at pornography might take months or years and even then you have to go about finding a solution and then successfully apply it.

This is what caused my desire for pornography:

• Potential for having sex relatively soon (if I didn’t think I was going to get laid soon, my desire for porn sky rocketed)
• Loneliness
• Lack of relaxation (letting stress get too high = pornography)
• Lack of fun (take your life too seriously = pornography)

I don’t think I could have done it without creating a journal. And another thing, most people don’t have enough desire to actually quit. Do some research on what drives you to complete goals and try to apply it to this because it’s not easy.

I don’t think I’ve won. I don’t think there really is any such thing as ‘winning’ when it comes to addiction. I think I’ve learned the tools to stop self-medicating through pornography but that doesn’t mean I won’t ever drop the ball. I believe that if I do look at pornography again, I’ll be able to come back and start my attempts at quitting again. I think that’s what’s important.

I’ll probably check in again once and awhile. I’ll definitely be back if I end up looking at pornography again.

Day 100

Well I've made it... I started this blog on August 29th 2006 and here I am, over 2 years later... finally at 100 days without pornography.

My internet is out and I'm sitting in front of a school near by my apartment using their wireless because I felt it was important to post today.

I hope to write a summary of this blog soon.

Thanks to everyone following my blog and posting supportive comments. I remember feeling so helpless and its such a relief to have been able to go this far and to have a general reduction in my temptation.

I'll post again soon with some reflection.

Day 99

Nothings gonna stop me. Tomorrows the day.

Day 98

Wow 2 days to go, this feels like Christmas. It's actually pretty funny that day 100 ended up being on Thanksgiving.

I'm continuing to get fleeting desire for pornography. One issue I'm concerned about is what I'm going to do after day 100.

I feel the need to keep posting or I know I'll lose some of my desire to stay clean.

I may have to set a new goal or just check in once every week or so.

I guess I hoped that going 100 days meant that I was done and that pornography would no longer exist but thats not the case.

The gruesome reality is that I may have to just keep posting for the rest of my life... even if I never look at pornography again...

I mean I would do that if I had to but I guess I'm hoping that I can become a better person and no longer have any desire for pornography or a strong enough aversion that I never go near it again.

hmm

Day 97

This has to be a quick post because I have to go to work but I just wanted to thank everyone for the comments.

I feel great about being so close to 100 days and even better that its inspiring others to better themselves. It's funny how good can inspire good.

The fact that people are following this blog and taking an interest in whether or not I make it these last 3 days is adding to the reasons why I can't cave in and that's great.

I have to say that going this long without pornography has pushed me to put effort into the areas of my life that were floundering and I haven't completely succeeded but I do feel I've made progress.

I don't know if thats why... or if its some other reason... but I feel like this is getting easier.

I can't say for sure that I won't face some strong urges again but for right now it seems like after going 3 months without pornography that the urges come down significantly.

Okay I've really got to go. Thanks again.

Day 94

I've felt a little bit of urges for pornography tonight.

None of the girls I've met lately seem to be panning out so I feel kind of crappy.

At the same time I don't even take urges for pornography serious anymore. There's just no way that I'm going to break down and look after making it this far.

I really want to find a girl I get along with and have some sex for a change... its been way too long.

Blah blah blah...

Day 90

Wow a nice solid number.... Day 90...

I've had very small urges in the last 2 days. My desire for pornography is small and fleeting.

Wow I haven't realized it until now but I've had a lot more time on my hands since quitting. Sometimes I used to look at pornography for like 2-3 hours in a single day. Having that time freed up is great.

Whats better is that I have a lot more desire for real women. When I see a beautiful woman on the street, she's beautiful, sexy, interesting... before when I looked at pornography, I didn't care so much. It was like, yeah she's cute but so what.

I've actually asked girls out a lot more during this attempt to quit pornography than I ever have before.

I feel like I have some kind of issue with connecting on a deep level with women because I'm having trouble getting myself to take the time to build a relationship with a lot of these women I'm meeting.

This is something to begin exploring.

I feel good. I feel like a big step in my development as a man has been made.

Day 88

My urges for pornography seem to be declining.

What I've noticed is that I'll having fleeting moments where I think "man it would be fun to look at pornography right now" but then that thought is squashed by a wave of thoughts like "no way, I've come way too far to go back now" "I don't want to start over" "I'm tired of that phase of my life, I'm happy without porn" and many others.

It's become really clear to me that the only time I even get these fleeting urges for pornography are when something is bothering me... I'm lonely, bored, tired, or sad about something and then those thoughts about pornography pop up almost as if to just distract me from whatever bad feelings I'm having.


I hope this is the ultimate decline of my urges for pornography instead of just another phase of low desire before it gets strong again.

I hope it is... When I tell people that I'm clean off pornography, a lot of people say "wow that sucks, why?" or other discouraging stuff but I've gotten to the point where it doesn't even phase me. I know for me, pornography sucks, and that's all that matters.

I went on a date a couple of days ago and it went alright. I did most of the talking cause she was shy which kind of sucked because I ran out of things to say a few times. We didn't kiss which was disappointing.

Day 100 is less than 2 weeks away. I still haven't decided how I will celebrate.

Day 85

I'M HERE and I'M FREE from pornography.

It's been easy lately because the internet has been down at my place and that's why I haven't posted in awhile.

Can't tell ya how nice it is to get concerned comments while I was away.

Yeah... I've been trying for years to quit pornography... and this has now become my best attempt yet.

The amount of time I've put into quitting, the amount of attempts I've made, all the people rooting for me to succeed, and the fact that this is DAY 85 has given me a lot of hope.

I feel like I'm going to make it to day 100.

It's only about 2 weeks away.

I've got to come up with a reward for myself and I've got to come up with a new goal...

The last 2 weeks have been up and down. No luck with dating and thats hurt and created some lonely feelings but I've also hung out with friends quite a bit and thats made up for it.

I want to write more but I have to get back to work. Hopefully the internet will be back up soon so I can write more often.

Day 76

AHHHHh

Urges still strong.

This is a storm of desire...


I've gotten some comments lately about how I'm chasing girls and sex.

One of the interesting things about this blog is that we are dealing with a concept (quitting pornography) that is popular among many religions and this blog is by someone who is not religious.

What I enjoy about this is that people who are religious and people who are not religious often argue and fight and this is one of the few places in the world where both sides can come together and agree on something and fight together towards bettering themselves.

I have no beliefs against sex before marriage. I have no beliefs against sex in general so long as its between two consenting adults and its safe.

But that being said, lets get back on topic. This blog is about quitting pornography.

BLAH and its been rough recently...

I'm a week away from this being my best attempt and I'm going to be so proud of myself. In the meantime I'm starting to feel similar effects to the times I've tried to quit masturbation.

I'm very irritable. I'm very emotional. I'm very frustrated.

Day 75

UUUUUGHHHH

I'm so tempted to look at pornography.

I've met some girls recently and the ups and downs of dating is dragging me down.

One girl I met seemed really into me and tonight I was supposed to chat with her on the phone but I was too tired and she sounded angry when I told her. Nothing I can do about that.... I'm too tired too bad... but its frustrating that it seems like she's now going to flake on me because of that.

I met another girl who I like but I haven't heard back from her.

I'm desperate... I think thats what the problem is... I don't have any girls in my life and I don't have pornography so I just feel crap....

This transition is not going to fun.

I feel so frustrated not having my pacifier.... pornography would soothe me in times like these...

Not having that sucks....


I'm going to get some sleep. I'm tired...

Day 71

So if you have been keeping up on my blog, you'll know I've met some girls in the last couple of months. One of the girls I went on a date with was celibate and we've been friends since that first 'date'. I told her about how I'm quitting pornography and she's been really supportive.

We celebrated day 70 without porn together.

Today I'm feeling a little anxious but at the same time I'm feeling a little laid back because I accomplish all the little things I've been putting off for the last week.

I wanted to write an entry tonight about the nature of my urges recently.

The best analogy I can think of to describe my urges for pornography during the beginning of this attempt is that of big swells in an ocean. It seemed like I would be okay for a few days and then something would happen that would make me feel angry or sad or lonely and my urges would slowly build up and then slowly come back down again over the course of a few days.

HERES WHATS CHANGED though...

Now my urges show up as if out of no where and they escalate extremely quickly and deteriorate just as fast. It's as if they are spiking instead of rolling in and out. I still think they are basically caused by the same four causes that I found out much earlier in my attempts to quit porn:

Lack of friends
Lack of sex
Lack of relaxation
Lack of fun


This is a challenge because spikes in emotion are harder to deal with than a gradual steady increase in emotion. Think about how much easier it is to stop your anger when your in a fight that is escalating slowly verses how much more challenging it is to stop your anger when something happens suddenly, out of the blue, to cause you to go into a rage.

DESPITE all the complaining about how challenging this is I believe I'll make it to 100 days without pornography.

What should I do to celebrate?

Day 70

Hurray for day 70!

I've had huge urges for pornography.

I read some graphic, adult forums yesterday. In my weak moments I'm looking for anything resembling pornography.

If I look at pornographic text again, I'll give away $20.

The only way I managed to allow myself to look at those forums was by convincing myself that it didn't count as pornography because there was no images or videos.

So I'm simply going to make the rule: No pornographic pictures, videos, or text.

And to make things clear... no text is allowed that has sexual words in it or which turns me on... If I do look at text with sexual words or that turns me on I give up $20...

I've got one month til I reach 100... I feel very challenged.

Tonight I'm eating pizza and ice cream and watching a movie with a friend to celebrate 70 days without pornography.

As I move towards 100 days, the urges seem to just keep piling on. This is mostly uncharted territory so all I can do is hope that my urges calm down after awhile.

Day 69

I had a dream last night that I looked at pornography and felt terrible. I woke up kind of upset, thinking it was real. I was relieved when I realized it was just a dream but I have to take note of how some of my last attempts came to an end soon after dreaming that they would.

I'm relaxing this week as much as possible. I'm learning how to slow down and do what I want to just to enjoy myself.

I talked to a girl while I was at work and gave her my number. We talked about how when she meditates, she gets all nervous because she has all these intruding thoughts about how she should be doing this or that.

I've been having the same problem this week as I've been trying to just lay back and relax. I feel compelled to do productive stuff.

Then I remind myself that I'm sick and I just have to focus on recovering right now so that later when I'm back to 100% I can be productive.

But the stress of fighting this compulsion to get back to work is making my urges for pornography pretty strong at times.

I haven't been without pornography this long many times since I was like 15. I'm 22 now...

One thing that I've noticed is that in most of my other attempts... when I've gone quite awhile without pornography I start getting ambitious and try to quit masturbation as well. That, I believe, caused my downfall or at least played a part in my giving in to pornography.

I don't have any intention of quitting masturbation right now. Maybe once I've clearly broken the urges for pornography after maybe 500 or so days without pornography I'll attempt to lay back on masturbation for the increased energy and desire it brings.

OR possibly if I meet a girl and I'm having sex often enough.

Tomorrow is day 70 without pornography. I know I'm going to make it til tomorrow.... one day at a time...

Day 67

Well today is a big day. My best attempt was 81 days without pornography and I've had two attempts come to an end at exactly 67 days. So if I make it through today then this will officially become my second best attempt.

I'm raising the stakes a little bit. If I open a pornography page, I'll give away $20.

My urges are strong. It's difficult to stay away from pornography. My main motivation is just avoiding the accountability I've set up. I don't want to get professional help and I don't want to give away any of the little money that I have.

I'm proud of myself for making it this far. I'm starting to feel like I'm moving forward and towards the life I want to live.

Again though... this is becoming a struggle.

The fact that I've been suffering from fatigue for the last few weeks hasn't helped.

Despite these challenges I'm thinking I'm going to make it to 100.


I haven't been pursuing girls lately. I don't have the energy for it.

Day 65

STRONG urges for pornography.

I'm suffering from fatigue for whatever reason and it's been like two weeks and I'm still not better.

I've decided to take a break from my second job in order to recover a bit.

I'm aggravated as hell. I don't really have any girls that I'm seeing and I feel like my odds of getting laid are next to zero...


sigh...

I feel like just caving and looking at porn to make myself feel better.... I know that in the long run that looking at pornography won't make me feel better though... I might feel good for like a half hour and then I'll feel miserable...


NO, I'm going to push on and do things that will REALLY help with my problems. I'm lonely right now so I'm going to go call people and try to connect with actual people instead of feeling sorry for myself.

Day 63

I'm starting to face strong urges. This one girl I met and went on two dates with isn't interested in going out anymore... That hurt.

This is about the same time that my 2nd and 3rd best attempts to quit fell apart.

One thing thats really helping is that I've put money on the line.... If I open a pornography page, regardless of whether I actually look at it or whatever, I have to give up $10.

That doesn't seem like a lot of money but when you're working for minimum wage... well.... its a lot of money..

Another thing is that if this attempt fails, I'm forcing myself to get professional help in quitting.

And... I really don't want to go down in flames at this point. It takes a lot of time and effort to go this long without pornography. I mean jesus, its hard to be consistent with ANYTHING for 2 months.

I invited a girl over tonight who I met a long time ago. We'll see how that goes.

I've done relatively well with meeting women lately. I get just as scared as ever when a cute girl is around but I embrace my fear and go talk to her and I just let whatever happens happen... I just let it be. If she likes me, she likes me... If she doesn't like me... she doesn't like me.

I'm not forcing anything. I'm just accepting...


One more thing... In the last 2 weeks I've hit a massive amount of fatigue. I've been working 12 hour days for a few months now and I've been consistently riding my bike and working out on top of stressing my brain over quitting pornography... figuring out my issues with women... and just getting on with life... so it doesn't surprise me that this has happened but nonetheless I'm trying to learn how to relax and let go so I can recover fast.

Day 60

So I went on a second date with this one girl I met. On both dates we ended up at her place, making out and feeling eachother up and both times we didn't go any farther than that.

I have a problem escalating sexually... When I escalate and a girl says no, I tend to stop and lose interest... instead of slowing down and going back to what I was doing before and then trying again later when she's more comfortable.

So I escalated and she said no and I tried to slow down and escalate again but I kept losing more and more interest.

I may not see her again. I feel crappy. Another thing is that I'm overworked right now, I haven't gotten enough sleep in the last few weeks, and I haven't had much time to just relax.

Making the decision to give away money for opening porn pages is definitely keeping my urges at bay.

Despite that incidence, I feel good about reaching day 60. It's been 2 months. I'm proud of myself.

Day 58

Almost to day 60. I've made a deal with myself that I would give away $10 if I open a porn page (regardless of whether I actually look at the images or not).

I'll gradually raise that amount as I feel stronger urges moving on towards 100 days without pornography.

Jesus its taken a long time to get this far.

Day 55

So I'm feeling kind of sick today but wednesday I have a date... I'm feeling good about that.

I've been hit with the desire to look at porn a few times recently to the point that I brang up a page without looking at it.

Frustration is driving my desire for porn right now. I'm working 12 hour days and getting few days off.

I feel like I'm going to succeed though just because my desire to not screw up this attempt is so strong.

Day 50

Day 50....

wow... 50 days without porn...

hmm

I'm half way to 100..

I flirted with a cute girl at work but I didn't ask for her number.

I feel mellow tonight. No urge for pornogaphy.

You know I really feel proud of myself.

Day 49

BLAHHH

So I went on a date today and everything was cool and I was thinking "okay I'm finally going to get some sex and be a little less tempted to look at porn" then she tells me shes celibate.

LAME

I really thought things were gonna happen... specially since she approached me... but thats not what was in the cards so screw it.

sigh

I did something good tonight... after the date, my roommate came by with this new girl he's been seeing and I just got struck by this intense feeling of ENVY after my date with miss celibate...

And then I was left just feeling lonely... and this is when I'm most tempted to look at pornography but I didn't...

instead I called up friends and family until I found someone who would listen to me complain and just let it out and now I feel better.

Day 45

Still going strong....

I haven't had much urges for pornography.

I'm starting to view women as my only option for sex besides fantasy and masturbation (which isn't really all that entertaining).

I have a date for tuesday and I might meet up with another girl tomorrow night.


Man... I can't believe its only been 45 days... it feels like its been forever.

Day 41

I've made it another 10 days.... so here we are at day 41.

I haven't talked much about this but I'm training to be a day trader and tomorrow is the first day in a long time that I'm going to be trading with real money (up til now I've been trading fake money as practice).

It should add some stress and it'll be up to me to find ways to reduce that extra stress.

It'll definitely add to the challenge of this...

I feel confident of success though.

I felt some loneliness earlier and that turned into desire for pornography but I just let it fade.

Day 38

Man urges hit strong....

Last night I went to a porn site with images turned off on my browser and I ended up listening to a pornography video..

It's amazing how hard and fast urges can hit.... I'm impressed with myself for not actually looking at any videos but I don't want to even visit porn sites.

I found myself wondering whether or not I should just fantasize or go "just listen" to some porn... and it was laziness that lead me to choose the latter.

No more.... I'm not going to even visit porn sites... even if I don't see anything because images are turned off.. The definition of not looking at porn means no visiting porn sites all together...

Despite this set back, I'm starting to feel like I can do this... we're getting close to 40 days without viewing any pornography and I think I'm getting to the point where I can start to change my beliefs about my sex drive and how to deal with it.

Day 35

So I've made it past the 1 month barrier. For whatever reason 30 days is difficult to break and then it gets easier for awhile.

2-3 of my attempts ended at about 30 days so it feels good to go past it.

I've been stressed as hell lately too. I've had a couple of days off to relax though and I'm feeling better.

Not much urge for pornography but I am horny as hell.

Day 32

My stress is high tonight but besides that I've been doing okay the last few days.

I'm working hard.... Still pulling 12 hour days.

Monday I'm going to meet up with a guy I met and go approach girls.

I need to take some time off and just cool down pretty soon.

I don't feel much desire for porn tonight.

Day 29

I've almost gone another 10 days so I will reward myself with something tomorrow.

I'm going strong.

I feel better today. I feel like I'm on top of things.

No urge for pornography.

Day 27

This last week was rough. Between working my two jobs I had to work 12 hour days all week. The stress of that and not having a chance to meet any new girls has made staying away from porn challenging.

The fact that I'm giving myself a consequence for not succeeding is very motivating. I don't want to have to get outside help... I want to beat this now.

I really want to push myself to get out there and chase down some girls.

Day 24

It's getting near 30 days and this is a really tough barrier to get through.

My sex drive is high and my doubts around dating are high and I'm stressed out.

This is rough.

I'm doing my best to hang in there.

Day 21

I bought myself some ice cream to celebrate 20 days without porn. I think I'll continue to do that for every 10 days I go without porn...

I'm getting along good with my roommate which is cool.

I haven't really met any girls but I have plans to go out with some guys and hit on girls this coming weekend.

Not much of any desire for porn tonight.

Day 20

I had this negative thought last night that I can't get sex... That bothers me because one of the reasons I look at porn is this idea that I can't get women and therefor I'm left with just pornography to satisfy my sex drive.



I'm going to do some meditation or something today on this. I definitely want to address it.

Day 17

Still going strong.

I've noticed that I get really angry when I hear about other guys getting laid.

I think "why am I not getting laid, why is it so hard for me."

And then I get this urge to answer the question by beating myself up but I halt the whole thing.

I'm supposed to meet up with some guys this next week... So I'm being somewhat social right now.

I'm still listening to affirmations at night.

I'm not going without masturbation 5 days a week cause I've been feeling too much stress.

Overall I feel good and I don't have any urges for pornography today.

Day 15

I'm getting back on top of things.

I made some audio affirmations of my goals that I listen to while sleeping. I did this about 6 months ago with self-esteem tapes and it worked after a few months...

I'm feeling less stressed out so I'm going to attempt 5 days without masturbating.

I've noticed that I feel healthier when I don't masturbate for awhile. Like when its cold outside, it doesn't bother me as much... or when I'm tired, I still feel like I can continue whatever I'm doing... It's like I'm just more full of life.

Day 13

Blah

I went out to approach girls today because I only have today and Thursday off work and I didn't do it.

I felt crappy and tired and I couldn't muster up the courage to go for it.

I feel way disappointed.

I really want to pick myself up... So much of this socializing crap is about momentum... It's like once you have a few successes, you start feeling good and that feeling just attracts people to you... and if you have a few crappy occurances like I have lately, you start feeling down and people move away from you.

BLEH

The whole no masturbation thing is out the window this last week too. I don't think I went without masturbation for more than 2 days...

Right now I'm not sure if I want to even try for this week cause I just feel stressed out.

Day 12

So my idea of going without masturbation this week didn't happen. Too much stress from having that date go down the drain... I feel like I haven' beaten myself up as much as I would have in the past and it was good practice keeping myself positive but I definitely felt stressed out this week.

Not much urge for porn today.

I meditated yesterday for 2 and a half hours at a park. It felt good.

Blah blah blah... I just want to go out there and find another girl and try dating again... it was exciting having a new person in my life and now that she flaked I feel bored in comparison.

Day 9

So I texted that girl I went on a date with and I haven't heard back from her. I'm disapointed. No, worse than that. I feel rejected and hurt and angry.

I saw my ex today, we hung out together and had fun... whenever I hang with her, I miss having a girlfriend because its so fun to just hang out with a girl you like.

I was very tempted to look at porn tonight. Loneliness and frustration from not hearing back from that girl...


I feel utterly alone. it's times like this that my urges for pornography and escape are highest.

I tried going for a walk but the street was empty and cold so I turned around. I sent a text to a co-worker of mine just saying some random thing....

Blah

I'm upset because my ex is like my best friend and she's leaving for 3 months... on top of that, its looking like that girl i went on the date with is flaking.

I've got to be strong but I wish I had some support... this is why I need guy friends.


hard night.... I'm choosing to stay off porn tonight and to not masturbate.


It's amazing how I can swing from feeling on top of the world to just utter crap 2 days later. sigh

Day 8

It's day 8... I'm feeling pretty good.

I went on a date last night with that girl I talked about. She is so wicked hot, it's ridiculous. So we walked around and talked. She's ambitious, she's not into drugs/alcohol, she's not a crazy party girl or a club girl, she's pretty open and honest and funny.... these are all things I like about her on top of the fact that shes ridiculously hot and flexible (she's a dancer)... wow

Things I don't like about her: she's judgmental (she even said it herself) and she seems a little up tight sometimes.

I felt nervous as hell before the date. Normally I wouldn't put myself through this but the meditation I've been doing around my desires really pushed me to just go with it.

We made out which was way fun but the night ended kinda weird because she said she wasn't sure when we could see each other again cause she had a friend coming into town or something like that. It sounded like she wasn't sure about seeing me again but we kissed at the end of the night so I might just be full of it.

If we do start dating, I'm hoping that when we connect on a deeper level, we'll move past some of her up-tight/judgmental type behavior... but it does seem to be a strong part of her personality.

See this is so great though... I'm learning what I like in women by pushing myself to just go out there and date regardless of whether or not it works out.... This is so important. And I'm not saying I'm immune to being hurt by rejection or to rejecting others but its worth it to find someone you really connect with.

No urges for porn. Today is Wednesday so I'll be going without masturbation for 5 days starting now.

Day 6

Going strong on day 6.

I met a girl at the cafe I work at. I got her number and we're having dinner after I get off work tomorrow.

I tell you... It's amazing how this meditation stuff works. It's like anything you want in the universe is right there... ready for you and you just have to convince yourself that you want it bad enough to take it.

I met this girl while sweeping up the front of the store. I felt nervous to hell to start talking to her but this inner drive compelled me to talk to her and try to connect with her and I did... If I hadn't done the meditation stuff, I would have just gone along with my fear and ran from the situation.

Instead I have a date with a gorgeous girl and I can boast about it to all my co-workers. haha

Naw, I'm really happy about this. The thing is, I've noticed that its very temporary. I can spend half an hour or an hour doing some serious hardcore meditation and affirmations and get results the next day but then I usually revert back into old behaviors the day after that.

Maybe if I do this strong meditation over the course of 6 months or something, it'll snowball into something that lasts a little longer than a day.

I'm feeling good on day 6.

Day 4

I wrote emails to some friends about how I'm attempting to go 100 days without porn.

I'm also going 5 days a week without masturbation.

You know.... I can do this... I can definitely do this.

I feel like the biggest thing is that I need a reason... and that reason to quit porn is to realign my sexual desire towards women... The fact that I've been meditating and releasing my desire to pursue women is a very powerful thing. It makes it feel like I'm progressing and accomplishing something more than just quitting a bad habit.

I'm motivating myself to move towards something that creates more joy in my life than anything else... Real connections with women.

I've also been meditating and releasing my desire to connect with all people and I've noticed that I've accepted offers to hang out with guys from work recently so I've been more social than usual.

False Start / Day 2

I looked at porn at the beginning of this week.

I've decided to take the advice of someone who commented a few weeks ago. He suggested that I taper down off porn.

Thats what I was doing for masturbation for 3 weeks, where I was going without Wednesday through Sunday and then allowing it Monday and Tuesday.

I think I'll do the same thing for pornography.

As of now, I'm trying to do both of these. So I'll avoid masturbation and pornography Wednesday - Sunday.

I feel like I could quit porn if I allowed myself to masturbate whenever I wanted but then I don't really get the benefit of having a heightened sex drive and more desire to pursue my goals.

I'm clean since yesterday

I don't have time just at the moment but later today I'm going to post some stuff on meditation and motivation.



Edit:

When I think about the hardest things I've accomplished in my life it seems that the primary motivating force behind them was always one of 2 things:

1. The Pursuit of Freedom

and

2. Attempting to Prove Something to Myself

To a lesser extent other factors were involved too like the pursuit of reputation or fear or avoidance of something but nothing drives me like these 2 things.

The pursuit of freedom is this craving for opportunity and choice and open spaces and action and... the desire to be involved in whats happening in the world. To feel confined, like the times I've been seriously injured and forced to stay in bed for long periods of time, I would get this feeling that I had to take action and get out into the world or I would just go crazy.

Attemping to prove something to myself is often fueled by this angry/energy-packed desire to break down limiting beliefs about myself or the world. When I used to live next to some hiking trails on a big mountain, I went out everyday, trying to mountain bike up this big hill and I kept trying and failing everyday until I eventually had the strength to make it without pushing my bike. The need to prove to myself that I could do it, drove me to push myself and innovate ideas on how I could do it. Eventually when the day came that I was finally able to make it, it was because I had learned to chant "I can do it, I can do it, I can do it" as I pedaled towards the top and that was all I needed to make it.

Another thing thats helped me is meditation.

Napolean Hill and Deepak Chopra have suggested something similar when it comes to motivating yourself. They both suggest clearing your mind or meditating, and then releasing your desires.

The way it was described is that your mind is like an ocean and your thoughts are the waves... When your mind is running, your ocean is full of big waves and no thought can really be significant relative to all the other things going on. It's like dropping a refrigerator into a stormy ocean, not much happens.

But if you calm your mind and allow the waves to subside into stillness and then drop a thought (your desire) into the ocean, it becomes the sole focus of your entire brain and your subconscious is able to receive the message without interference.

Ideally you want to communicate what you want with your subconscious mind so that you automatically find yourself pursuing your goals. It's like wearing your clothes. You've communicated with your subconscious mind that you want to wear clothes when your in public and you find yourself wearing clothes when your out and about without even thinking about it.

This is really important because whenever you are doing something that you don't want (like looking at porn), its because you have 2 competing forces within you.

One wants to look at porn, the other doesn't. If your looking at porn on a regular basis, the part that wants to look at porn is winning. That part of you wants to look at porn more than the other part of you wants to avoid porn.

So the idea is to increase your desire to avoid porn until its stronger than the part of you that wants to look at it.

The way you do this is to release your desire while your mind is calm like I already described.

Now I want to try something different.

I want to fuse my desire for freedom and my desire to prove something to myself with my desire to quit porn.

The way I'm going to do this is I'm going to come up with a reason for how quitting porn will create more freedom in my life and I'm going to stir up that part of me that wants to prove something to myself by taking note of the fact that I haven't been able to quit yet. More specifically, I'm going to call myself out on this and give myself a deadline.

I haven't looked at porn in 2 days. If I'm not able to go 100 days this attempt, then I'm going to have to admit that I can't quit. Forget tapering off porn. I'm going to have to publicly admit on this blog that I cannot succeed and that I need help. At that point, I must get professional help because I obviously am not capable of beating this.

I'm going to tell my friends about this attempt.

THERE, I challenged myself.

As for tying freedom to quitting porn.... The one thing about porn that ties it to freedom is how much time it consumes. When I masturbate, it doesn't take me that long to finish... When I look at porn though, it literally can last for hours because I'm just unwilling to re-enter the real world and kill my rush.

At my worst, porn consumes a few hours 3-4 times a week. Thats like 8 hours out of my week... With that extra time I could dedicate more of my energy towards meditating, working out, socializing... or pursuing my other goals... On top of that, it often kills my desire to go out and hang with people. I tend to just not care about anything after watching porn.

So what I'm going to do is strengthen this belief through NLP... and then I already feel the effects of challenging myself to make this the attempt that I make it to 100 so I feel I've done enough in terms of tying that need to prove things to myself desire with the desire to quit porn.

Lastly I still have some homework to do...

1. Release my desire to quit porn while meditating.
2. Come up with a reason that porn sucks that will weaken the part of me that wants to look at it.
3. NLP that reason so that it becomes a stronger belief.

I'll leave that for tomorrow.

Day 1

I'm starting another attempt.

I'm doing something different with my life or at least something that I've wanted to do for a long time but have put off until now.

I read a book by Deepak Chopra called the Seven Spiritual Laws of Success and I'm going to try to apply them to my life.

One of the coolest ideas in the book is the idea of releasing your intentions to your subconscious mind and then just letting go of controlling the outcome.

If you think about it, your subconscious mind makes you do stuff all day long without you even thinking about it. You breathe, walk around, dress a certain way, talk a certain way, and do all kinds of things on "autopilot." If you consciously communicate with your subconscious mind, you can train it to do what you want so that autopilot means doing your homework or exercising regularly instead of eating Doritos and watching TV.

So today is day one and I'm going to be releasing my desire to quit pornography to my subconscious mind. I'm also going to use some NLP to heighten my desire to quit. After all, desire is all you really have when it comes to accomplishing something.

Here's what I think

I did something very different this attempt. I didn't masturbate 5 days a week during the entire attempt. I'm proud of that.

I think that made quitting porn more difficult.

However, the whole reason why I'm doing this is to push myself to go out and date more and it definitely helped with that.

One thing I want to do possibly tomorrow is meditate and think about why I want to quit because my motivation is a bit low after going 67 days without pornography and then only being able to do 20.

I did this last week for approaching girls and then the next day I found myself giving my number to a girl I just happened to run into.

This attempt is over.

I caved.

I'm proud of myself for a few things that happened this time around though. I'm gonna talk about them but it's too late at night right now. I'll post tomorrow.

Day 21

I caved on the masturbation thing today. I felt really stressed out from work and I felt like I wasn't going to do anything else today unless I caved...

I plan on going without til Monday though as if it didn't happen.

If I'm hit with extra stress, I don't mind caving on this whole masturbation thing as long as I'm clean from pornography.

Day 20

I'm having a hard time with motivating myself to go out and meet girls when I'm by myself. When I joined up with the guys on the weekend it was a lot easier but I want to get over that and be able to do it on my own.

I had major urges for pornography today. This is the beginning of the 3rd week of no masturbation wednesday-through-sunday and I think the idea of going 5 days without sexual release prompted the urges. I came close to caving.

I came up with the idea of saying hi to 50 strangers this week, to get me out and more social and to make a baby step towards getting back into the habit of approaching girls.

Next week I'll start 10 conversations with strangers...
The week after, 10 conversations with hot girls...
The week after, more conversations with girls, and asking for phone numbers 10 times.

I also want to start facing my fears everyday. If I'm afraid to do something and I know it won't physically harm me... GO FOR IT.

Day 18

BLeh

So I managed to approach girls when I was hanging out with friends during the weekend but today I went out twice by myself and I couldn't get up the nerve.

Disappointing but I'm going to work at it.

I didn't feel much desire for porn today. Of course today was the first day in 5 days that I allowed myself to masturbate so that might be why my desire was lower.

I'm such an introvert... talking to people and to girls is way out of my comfort zone but I feel great once I get past all my bull and just do it... Of course you get people who act rude and mean but thats nothing compared to what I do to myself when I'm in the wrong mindset.

Anyways I got to get up early tomorrow for work...

Good stuff, I feel like I'm on the right path...

Day 17

This is day 5 without masturbating... This is the second week I've been doing this no masturbation 5 days a week thing and I'm so sexually charged that I'm having a hard time sleeping.

I'm supposed to go out and approach girls again today with some guys I met. I did it yesterday too. I approached 5 girls with the intent of getting rejected... just as practice... going up and saying, "hey I think your cute, can i have your number?"

Then I actually approached 3-4 girls just regularly and it felt good.

Day 16

It's day 4 without masturbation... I've had MAJOR urges to look at porn.

Going without masturbation is definitely the cause of my prior attempts coming to an end.

It's like going without masturbation allows sexual energy to slowly build and by only allowing 2 days a week to release it, it's slowly getting higher and higher, week by week. Last week, I didn't feel this strong of urges to look at porn.

The upside is that I definitely have the desire to go after women. I had a text conversation with that girl I was heavily flirting with and it got pretty sexual... it seems like we could hook up soon but I haven't heard back recently.. I dunno but it doesn't matter.

I'm also going to hang out with some other guys I met this weekend to go approach girls... It'll really help overcome my fear of meeting women.

Day 12

DAY 12...

Man the days fly by at first. Feels like it was yesterday that I killed that 67 day streak.

So far I've been sticking to the... only masturbate Mon/Tues and then go 5 days without...

This last weekend was crazy difficult but now things are mellowing out and I have some time off work coming up.

Thursday, I'd like to go out and do my exercise of experiencing sexual desire towards attractive women. I really want to explore the negative feelings I have when I feel attraction towards women. This is essential in understanding why I choose to look at pornography in place of having sex with women. Hopefully then I can build a habit of being okay with feeling desire towards women and then learning how to express it in a way that works for everyone.

DAY 12 feels good...

Day 10

It's day 5 without masturbation and I'm really horny. I had some heavy flirting going on with a girl whose training at my job to work at another store. I don't know if that's gonna go anywhere but we were definitely hinting at hooking up. I guess I should make the move to hang with her sometime this week.

I don't think I would have taken the flirting that far if I hadn't stopped masturbating. I think it gave me the extra desire to go past my fears of flirting and expressing sexual desire in girls.

I totally dropped the ball with imaging sex with the women I meet. I've done it maybe 8 times in the last whatever amount of days its been... but only haphazardly. I never set up a set time to just intensely focus on retraining my mind.

I didn't have time to go out and approach girls this weekend either but I'm gonna have some time this week.

This weekend was busy as hell. Saturday I woke up at 7:30, rode my bike across city to my friends house and we cycled 40 miles roundtrip to a beach and back. Then I rode my bike across city again to get to work, worked 8 and a half hours, rode across city back home at 10pm and finally managed to fall asleep around 11:30. Then I got up at 4:30 this morning, went to work for 7 hours and then collapsed asleep in my bed til just awhile ago... I have dinner plans with my family tonight. MAN.... you call that a weekend? And tomorrow I have to get up at 4:30 again.

At least I'm gonna have 4 days off this week... Tuesday/thursday/sat/sun

I want time off bad...

Not much urges for porn. Tomorrow and Tuesday are my days to ... relieve my stress... and then its no masturbation again for another 5 days. So far this seems like a good system. Feels like a good balance.

Day 8

I got the following comment on my last post:


"I was just wondering whether you had considered that you are addicted to sex rather than to pornography.

It seems you want to quit pornography so that you can have sex with lots of girls rather than to connect and fall in love.

It seems you are merely substituting one type of sexual simulation for another.

Maybe be you should be trying to quit a sexual addiction rather than simply a pornography addiction"




According to Wikipedia:
"The Mayo Clinic uses [the term] compulsive sexual behavior for sexual addiction, and identifies characteristics of the sex addict as "an overwhelming need for sex and are so intensely preoccupied with this need that it interferes with your job and your relationships."


I don't find this is the case for me. I've heard of other men struggling with pornography to the extend that its affected their relationships and jobs and what have you but not me. I more of a workaholic according to that definition because I spend way more time working when I should be out playing and having fun with people.

I think I triggered this comment by talking about that assignment of going out and imagining sex with the random women I run into during the day.

To some people, that's absurd and they'd never think to do such a thing. And that's fine, I'm not recommending it, I'm just explaining what I'm doing in case anyone else is interested.

I think religious people, in particular, are going to disagree with that exercise and the idea of transitioning sexual desire towards women. A lot of religious people visit this blog because it involves quitting pornography and masturbation to some extent and those are two things that are really important to some religions.

I'm gonna point out that I'm not religious and I'm not quitting porn or masturbation for religious reasons. I believe that it's healthy for a man to have sexual desire towards women he's attracted to. I believe that I feel shame and anxiety about having and expressing feelings of sexual desire towards women and that this has had a negative impact on my life. I think pornography has substituted women for me and that this is unfulfilling and unhealthy.

With regards to having sexual desire for more than one woman... I believe that's natural too and it's up to every man to choose for himself what he wants with his life in the moment.

My perspective is that I'm young and that so long as I'm safe, theres no harm in dating lots of women and getting a feel for what personality I click best with before looking for something more serious.

I'm not interested in one night stands or prostitution or lying or cheating or all the other drama of relationships. I want to have a good time and I want whoever I'm with to have a good time. What's the point of dating if it makes you or other people miserable.




Anyways its been 3 days without masturbation and I don't feel all that horny. I haven't had any desire for pornography today but then again I was busy all day.

I've got work tomorrow and a long bike ride planned for the morning with a friend. I've got to get some sleep in.

Day 7

I'm already facing some urges for porn. I can definitely say that it's related to trying to go without masturbation. That's the reason why my last attempt came to end after 67 clean days and I can tell that my increased sex drive from not masturbating for the last 2 days is whats causing me urges for porn right now.

My plan from the beginning was to realign my sex drive towards women instead of fantasy and pornography and now is the time to do that....

I have an idea for how to change the direction of my sex drive towards women instead of towards pornography and fantasy and masturbation but first I want to talk about some issues I've realized about my perception of women.

There are 3 things that I know of so far that have created my resistance towards connecting with women in a sexual relationship.

1. In the past I haven't always practiced safe sex. I've had sex with 3 women in my life and I only ever used a condom with the first one and that was only for the first few times we had sex. Now all of these women were on birth control but we didn't get tested before having sex without a condom. I felt confident that I wasn't going to get them pregnant but I didn't know if I was contracting an STD or not.

I've been tested and I know I'm clean but I'd like to create a rule about this for the future. For now on, when I'm with a new woman I use a condom when we have sex no matter what. The only exception is if we are exclusive, we've been tested, and she's on birth control. I'm stating this rule here publicly and I take full responsibility for carrying it out.

2. Another challenge I'm facing right now is that I don't have a lot of time. I work 30-35 hours a week at a coffee shop, I day trade 10-20 hours a week and I have other responsibilities I try to keep up like exercise, working out, and meditating regularly on top of household chores like laundry, buying food etc. Having a woman in my life right now would be hard to balance on top of those things and I don't want a woman distracting me from following through on this stuff because some of it is really important to me.

The solution may be to simply communicate this to whoever I'm dating. Be honest and upfront about it. I think part of me is afraid that my loneliness will take over the reigns and I'll end up spending more and more time with whoever I'm dating and forget about the other things I care about. A possible solution to this is to build a network of friends to socialize with and I'm gradually doing this. I met a guy recently who I cycle with and I'm planning on hanging with some other guys I met this weekend. Having friends (something I've struggled with) would prevent me from getting all wrapped up in the women I date.

3. One of the most mysterious problems I'm facing is that of shame. My earliest experiences with women and dating were full of shame. I hit puberty late and wasn't interested in girls until most of my friends already were and I remember feeling really guilty about it. I felt very uncool and immature. That theme ran strong throughout my teens. To this day I still feel ashamed of my feelings towards women. I feel like is a dangerous game with a high probably of failure and embarrassment and humiliation. Occasionally I escape that feeling and go nuts and approach girls like crazy and feel free and strong but mostly I feel scared and ashamed.

The solution to this one is tough but it ties in with the assignment I mentioned earlier. For the next couple of days I'm going to imagine having sex with the attractive women I run into during the day. The idea is to take this pent up sexual energy and desire and unleash it on women. The first baby step towards doing this is just to imagine having sex with women when I come across them during the day. Once I build a habit of this I can learn to express that desire in a safe way (flirting/approaching/etc).

My habit right now is to see women and to get this gut reaction of shame and fear. It only happens if they're attractive and I feel I might want them. Then the fear and shame kick in to prevent me from risking the humiliation and embarrassment that I felt when I was younger.

So 15 minutes of walking around with the sole intent of imaging having sex with the attractive women I meet is very doable. I'm gonna do that for the next 3 days. Sunday I'm going out to approach girls again.

That's it for today... Can't believe how long this turned out.

Day 5

Not much desire for pornography. Tomorrow will be my first of 5 days without masturbating.

I just got home from work and I'm exhausted. I want to talk about some realizations I've had about my perspective on women but I'm too tired tonight.

Day 3

I went out to approach girls... but I couldn't get up the nerve so I settled for asking hot girls what time it was just to practice approaching.

One problem was that I lacked sexual desire because I've been wacking off too much. I'm gonna cut it down to just 2 days a week. Monday and Tuesday... that way by the time the weekend comes, I'm crazy with desire. I've noticed that after 5 days of not masturbating, I just lose my cool and become a frustrated, angry, emotional mess so I won't go beyond 5 days for now.

Oh yeah I've also started a healthy diet of fruits, vegetables, beans, and wheats... I'm cutting out meat from my diet and hopefully sugar and dairy for the most part (aside from milk for healthy cereal). At least I'll stick to this diet at home by only having this stuff available to eat... It may take me awhile to get used to eating healthy when I go out to eat.

Day 2

Well I'm starting my 11th attempt.

I'm going to try to find someone to motivate me... I might know a few guys who would be willing to cheer me on.

I think having more support would help.

I choose not to be ashamed

I broke down and looked at porn.

I don't know quite yet what caused the strong urges I felt but I went from not caring about porn at all to being compelled so strongly that not even the fact that I would be breaking a 67 day streak stopped me from looking.

I tied my second best attempt exactly.

All I can say is that I've been stressed lately cause of work and excessive exercise due to commuting by bike. I also went a week without masturbating which may have played a part... On top of that I've felt like a complete wuss lately. I've had opportunities to talk to girls and flirt and I've been experiencing a lot of fear around it for what reason I don't know.

I'm disappointed but the fight must go on.

Day 66 (34 days to go)

I've hit serious urges to look at porn.

Now is a good time to go over the reasons why I want to quit.

1. I WANT to build relationships with women. I have a hard time doing this and pornography is like the easy way out. It's the bandaide fix for loneliness and I'm tired of it.

2. Because it takes up a lot of time and doesn't add anything of value to my life.

3. It drains my energy... Sitting around masturbating to pornography leaves me feeling hollow and unmotivated to do just about anything.

I just had a frustrating trading session (I'm training to be a day trader) and I'm just so angry I came really close to looking at porn the last 2 nights and I'm just so fed up with pornography... I don't want it in my life and yet I'm so drawn to it sometimes.

Screw pornography.

Day 64 (36 days to go)

Damn man... it's day 7 without masturbations. GOOD GOD...

Here's what I have noticed about going 7 days without masturbation.

I'm horny as hell. I have WAY more desire to have sex with women.

I'm frustrated as hell. There was a point at work today where I had to go in the bathroom, sit down on the 5 gallon bucket they have in there, and just hold my head in my hands.... It's so easy to get sexually frustrated and also just angry in general.

I feel like I have enough aggression to just power through awkward moments like a customer being rude or a girl acting snobbish or screwing up a drink order instead of sitting there getting upset like I usually do.

The downside though is that all this aggression and sexual desire has not freed me from feeling fear in approaching girls. In fact it feels like my fear is magnified.

Not masturbating seems to magnify all my emotions, not just the ones I want (aggression and sexual desire).

Another downside is that I've not cared about some of my other goals like working out and other little odds and ends... All I care about is how I feel because its so powerful.

So maybe 7 days is too long to go without masturbation. I really noticed a lot of these side affects after 5 days. So tomorrow I'm going to jerk off like a mad man and then I'll go 5 days.

Day 61 (39 days to go)

Damn I'm close to my second best record at 67.

I've gone... 4 days without masturbation. I'm getting pretty damn horny. I so need to do this though. I'm completely out of practice when it comes to approaching girls. I need the extra desire to get me going.

Day 59 (41 days to go)

What a day...

First I got up at 5:40 am... fell asleep again by accident... woke up at 6:05, rushed out of bed, into clothes and on my bike. Hit the road for 30 minutes and got to my friends house to day trade. At 8:00am I realized I was supposed to be at work at 7am so I called in and my boss told me he was going to write me up but that I didn't have to come in.

So that sucked...

But I did my best to salvage the day. I went shopping and got food and some fly paper for these damn house flies that keep showing up in my room.


Then I decided to hit the mall to practice approaching girls and as soon as I get there after riding my bike for half an hour, I realize my wallet is gone. I call my mom to ask how to cancel the credit cards in it and she tells me they got a message from somebody who found it. Long story short I get my wallet back but have to turn around and go all the way back from the mall before I have the chance to do anything.

So another lesson learned: Don't put stuff you care about in your pockets while riding your bike.

No strong urges for porn today and my sex drive isn't quite strong yet. It's getting there but it's only been 2 days without masturbating. I'm thinking by day 5 I'm gonna be ready to start humping girls on the street.

Day 58 (42 days to go)

This week is going to be tough. I love how much more energy and motivation I have when I don't masturbate. It's like having a fire inside you that pushes you to take action. I'm a lot more aggressive and assertive...

The downside is I'm frustrated, angered, and tense more often.

This is a great time to be doing this though... I just have to watch myself. Sometimes I push myself too hard, so I'm going to take time to relax everyday this week.

I don't have much of an urge for porn. I feel like I'm managing my life somewhat well right now.

I haven't met any new girls in awhile but what the hell it'll happen.

58 days is a long time. I want to point out a few things that's helped me get this far.

1. Desire - I would bet that most men trying to quit porn are motivated by desire to escape some negative consequence of looking at porn. This is avoidance motivation such as trying to quit because you don't want your girlfriend to leave you. Developing positive desire or motivation towards a positive end has made a huge difference for me. Believing that quitting pornography is going to help me achieve goals I want like having beautiful women in my life, doing better at work and being more motivation to work out, exercise, and take care of my body is way better motivation to quit than "oh I hate myself cause I look at pornography, why can't I quit?"

2. Know how to create desire - This is huge. I've learned through a variety of sources that a great way to increase desire is to clear your mind and to then tell yourself in your head what you want in the present tense. If you haven't meditated before you might want to look it up because clearing your mind and gaining awareness is a challenge and it's going to take practice. Once you manage that, if you say something along the lines of "I choose to stop looking at pornography right now" while your mind is calm, it creates motivation on an almost subconscious level to stop looking at pornography.

3. Figure out why your looking at porn - For me it's a loneliness thing primarily. If I feel alone I use pornography to escape my feelings. I've summed up the 4 reasons why I looked for porn in previous posts but I'll mention them again: lack of friends, lack of sex, lack of relaxation, and lack of fun.

4. Slowly work on the reasons why you look at porn - Your reasons might be different than mine, so figure it out for yourself and once you do, take action. Ask people for help.

5. Keep a journal - If I didn't have this blog, I would probably end up looking at pornography for the rest of my life and never gain the motivation to tackle the issues behind it.

Day 57 (43 days to go)

I met this older woman today who knew me through a friend and she was flirting with me. I had no motivation to pursue her cause I had masturbated this morning a few times. The result: nothing happened.

I gotta lay off the masturbation. I'm gonna go 7 days starting tomorrow.

No strong urges for porn today.

Day 56 (44 days to go)

Man it feels like the days are dragging on. I've definitely felt urges to look at porn. I guess cause I've felt lonely a few times lately. Whenever i get too lazy to go out and do stuff, I end up sitting at home feeling lonely and bored. Then I get down on myself and feel urges to look at pornography to make myself feel better.

I'm still going strong though.

Day 54 (46 days to go)

I'm moved into my new place. I like it. This is the first time living on my own aside from spending a quarter in a dorm room.

I'm in the big city now... Everybody is busy, distant, uncaring, and jaded. haha

First lesson learned: Stick up for yourself. People take advantage of you in the city... even small stuff like co-workers putting pressure on you to give them some of your shifts.

You know its not just the big cities that have people like that but I guess theres so many people the odds are good you'll encounter them more often.

I've had some urges for pornography because of the stress in moving.

For the most part I'm doing good though.

One thing that kind of sucks is that I'm not taking the bus anymore. That was like the main way that I was meeting girls so now I've got to get used to hitting on girls elseware... Where I don't know yet.

Day 51 (49 days to go)

I'm passed the half way point now.

I've had a few thoughts about porn recently but my urges seem pretty low.

I'm moving tomorrow and it's going to be stressful so I gotta watch out for myself and try to take it easy.

At this point I've come too far now to back down.

This is my third best attempt. 67 and 81 are my two best attempts. I'll be thrilled when I pass 81 but beating 50 is great....

yeah for day 51.

Day 47 (53 days to go)

It's hard to believe it's only been 47 days since I last looked at porn. It seems like it was forever ago.

I finally found a room in the city, so I'm moving out July 1st.

It's stressful because my job has been giving me the shaft over scheduling. They aren't scheduling me enough hours to pay my rent so I'm having to ask co-workers if they want to give hours to me and I'm having to resort to working for the other branches when they need extra help.

Lots of change happening. I'm gonna try to take it easy these next few weeks. I don't want to stress over these changes.

My urges for porn are a little higher because of my stress being higher but the fact that I've gone so many days now, I'd absolutely hate to start over.

Day 46 (54 days to go)

I had a dream last night. I dreamed that I was up really late looking at crap online and that I eventually, sort of haphazardly, ended up looking at pornography and feeling really guilty about it afterwards.

This has happened before. I dreamed about looking at porn right before ending my third attempt to quit.

This on top of the fact that I've been stressed out lately over losing that girl and fighting with my parents means its a good time to go over the reasons why I'm quitting.

1. To increase my drive to pursue women so that I will risk rejection to connect and have sex with women.
2. To gain back the time lost to looking at pictures and videos of pornography.
3. To motivate myself to establish relationships instead of seek comfort for my loneliness through pornography.


So I might as well look at the reasons why I look at porn too while we're at it: lack of fun, lack of friends, lack of sex, lack of relaxation...

Lack of fun: this week I have some time off work to look for an apartment to move out from my parents but I haven't used much of this time off to have any fun. I did go on some dates last week with that girl that were fun but this week has sucked pretty bad.

Lack of friends: I haven't moved to the city yet and that's kept me from looking into clubs and hobbies and stuff. As soon as I move, I imagine this area of my life being a lot better.

Lack of sex: I got a bj last week from that girl but now shes gone so I'm feeling like sex is unlikely. Specially because I've been in a bad mood about her going off and thats not very attractive.

Lack of relaxation: I've relaxed a lot lately so this one isn't a problem.


So what am I going to do?

I'm going to find a place to live, I'm going to do something fun today, and I'm going to try to lighten up and start flirting with girls again. Last night when I was at work a girl came in and acted flirty with me and I kind of just shut down. I felt kind of hurt when she flirted with me because maybe she reminded me of the other girl and the eventual rejection from that girl. So I'm going to try not to take things so seriously and have a little fun today and tomorrow when I'm at work.

Day 46... I'm close to the halfway mark to 100.

Day 44 (56 days to go)

Day 44 is a bad day.

That girl I've been seeing... who I went on 3 dates with... who I liked a lot... has lost interest in me. God that sucks.

On top of that my parents got into a huge fight that I, once again, had to break up.

It's just a bad day. Tomorrow is a whole new day though.

Surprisingly porn isn't even on my mind.

Day 43 (57 days to go)

Well things with that girl just got complicated. We got pretty intimate yesterday and afterwards she said she wasn't over her ex and she was upset that shes only going to be here for 3 more weeks before moving.

She wanted some space so I'm going to give it to her.

Girls can be so difficult.

I haven't been exercising or working out lately cause I'm getting over a mild cold.

I'm still looking for a place to move out to from my parents. It's a challenge.



My urges remain low. I've gone 43 days without porn and I'm pretty much just coasting along.
At this pace I'm thinking I should stop looking at sex forums on day 50 instead of day 100 just because I think I can handle it. Then again I'm going to be moving soon (hopefully) and trading with real money instead of just practicing. That could add some stress.

Day 40 (60 days to go)

40 days without pornography.

I'm proud of myself.

I think I'm hitting it off with this girl I've seen a few times. I hope it works out cause I like her.

I'm really not experiencing many urges for porn.

Day 38 (62 days to go)

Not much urges for porn still. I'm surprised really. Normally around 30 days I hit strong urges but I'm just coasting.

I'm going to see that girl I met tomorrow and we made plans for saturday too.

I'm excited cause we seem to like each other and its working out so far.

Life is good.

I'm getting a bit sick so I haven't worked out or exercised recently. I'm just taking it easy so it shouldn't last too long. I'm too busy to be sick.

Day 37 (63 days to go)

Damn, we're almost to 40 days without porn.

I feel good about this.

I met another girl and we walked around last night after work. We kissed and it seemed to click. I feel good about that.

That's definitely knocking my urges for porn down.

Day 34 (66 days to go)

My urges are still tiny.

I made out with a girl I met 2 nights ago. I also met a girl yesterday at work whose really cool. I got her number and I'm going to ask her out.

I think all of that is helping keep my urges down.

Day 31 (69 days to go)

Okay one MONTH without porn! That is awesome. I can tell that I'm doing well...

I've only begun to feel the effects of not looking at porn but nonetheless I do notice some change.

I'm checking out chicks more often.

I definitely feel the desire to approach girls and I am when I'm in the mood for it.

I'm putting effort into being more social. Tonight I'm gonna call a girl I met last week to set something up for friday.

I'm proud of myself.

There is one thing I haven't talked about on the blog recently. I've looked at sex forums in the last 31 days. Forums that talk about sex but don't have any images or videos aside from non-nude avatars. Some of the avatars had sexy images though like cleavage or what have you. I don't see this as looking at porn in the same sense as looking at videos and images but I do want to stop this behavior as well.



I'm still pretty lonely, I haven't put my life together socially the way I want it yet. By sometimes looking at sex forums I'm able to calm some of this loneliness that usually shows up at night. I would say its helping me avoid pornography images and videos so you could call it a step down from that stuff and one step away from being completely porn free.

After 100 days without pornography images/videos, I'll make it a rule to call the streak off if I look at sex forums as well. Until then, I'm going to allow myself to look when I have to in order to avoid having a full blown retreat back into pornography when I'm hit with some strong negative feelings.

It's like I'm scaling back on the self-medication instead of going cold turkey.

I've done a great job going 31 days though and I'm happy that I'm doing this. I feel like I'm doing the right thing.

Day 29 (71 days to go)

This is cool. When the days start stacking up from the time I quit I feel excited about reaching my goal of going 100 days.

I've gone 29 days without pornography. That's really great.

I met a hot older women the other day. I did my best to flirt with her because any time I wasn't at my best she lost some interest. Older women are a challenge sometimes. I asked for her number and she said that she'd take mine.

So she ended up calling twice that night (the first time she left a message but didn't leave a number).

I told her I'm too busy to meet until Friday and she seemed disappointed. Looking back on it I wondered at first if I just made that up to seem hard to get but it's actually true. I work so much and my only other day off (monday) I'm seeing my ex-gf.

Maybe I'll set something up after work with her but it can't be for too long cause I have to get up at 6:30 in the morning.


My urges for pornography are probably a 2/5 right now. I don't think anything other than a lot of drama (like a girlfriend breaking up with me or losing my job) would propel me any higher than a 2/5. But then again who knows, I've found that in my last attempts often times I wouldn't feel any urges at all for weeks and then one day they would skyrocket.

So I'm gonna keep on my toes.

Day 27 (73 days to go)

Damn, I'm almost to one month. I started on may 11. I've felt some urges recently to look at porn.

So today would be a good tday to go back and look at the 4 things that cause my urges for porn and summarize why I'm doing this.

4 reasons I look at porn.

1. Lack of friends - Recently I've become pretty close friends with an ex-girlfriend and that's been working out. I want to make some guy friends though and when I move in a few weeks I plan on joining a cycling/racing club.
2. Lack of fun - I'm working 2 jobs right now and that doesn't leave much time for fun.
3. Lack of relaxation -I'm not getting enough sleep, getting up at 6:30 and going to bed at 11:30. I'm used to 9 hours of sleep.
4. Lack of sex - I haven't had sex in a long time. I'm pushing myself to meet girls right now I've met quite a few this past month but I haven't gotten very far with them.

It's easy to see why I would be feeing urges. All of these areas of my life are being neglected right now.

Reasons why I'm quitting porn.

1. To realign my sex drive towards real women instead of the computer.
2. To motivate myself to seek out relationships (family/friends/girlfriends) instead of using pornography to soothe loneliness.
3. Because it takes up a lot of time and doesn't add anything of value to my life.

At about one month of no pornography, urges start to get a little stronger.

3 of my 9 previous attempts came to an end around 1 month. So It's really important that I monitor myself, reward myself, and remind myself why I'm doing this.

Day 25 (75 days to go)

Well I'm a quarter of the way to my first goal of going 100 days without porn.

My urges for porn are still pretty subtle.

My sex drive is high though. I want to get laid. All of these issues I have are frustrating... But I'm doing a good job of moving through them and I'm really glad that I'm even doing this. It's really easy just to take the easy way out and let issues control me.

Day 24 (76 days to go)

My urges for porn are still a 2 out of 5.

I emailed a girl I met on the bus to hang out later this week.


Oh yeah, something important happened. Yesterday I had the chance to invite a girl I met last week to come with me to check out apartments in the city. She seemed like she liked me last time we talked so I figured it would have been easy to take her out. Instead of doing that though, I ended up just fantasizing about her and masturbating and not calling her.

This is significant.

I avoided the chance to go out with a girl who liked me and instead just masturbated and went on with my day.

So I've done some thinking and I realized why I did this.

There's this whole big thing about how women are attracted to jerks and how nice guys don't get any. When I was younger I was a nice guy and I got it from my dad who has always been a nice guy. I didn't do well with girls because I acted nice and agreeable instead of being myself. But I got mad because I figured that I was being really nice and not getting anything in return.

So I changed and I'm not a nice guy (someone who hides their feelings in order to be nice and agreeable) anymore but I have a fear of dating a girl and ending up a nice guy again once I get comfortable in the relationship. I'm scared I'll end up like my dad... in a relationship where he gives and gives and gives and gets little to nothing in return.

I don't know what to make of this yet.

So the question is... how do I enter into a relationship and ensure that I be myself and get my needs met consistently?

Day 22 (78 days to go)

Here we are 3 weeks.

Man it feels like it's been forever since I last looked at porn.

When I think about porn, I get an urge to see it but it's not that strong.

So here's a check in on the 4 things that cause urges for pornography.

Lack of friends - This is an issue right now. I'm not really hanging out with any new people and I'd really like to. I'm going to move out to the city as soon as I can find a place and then I'll have roommates and stuff so everything will change but for now and the next couple of weeks... this is an issue for me.
Lack of fun - I've had some fun recently so I'm not too bothered with this one. This week is going to be crazy though because I'm working more hours then any time before.
Lack of relaxation - So far so good on this.
Lack of sex - I got a girls number a few nights ago and I got a girls email today. We'll see what happens with that.

Again to summarize why I'm putting myself through this. I want to redirect my sex drive towards women instead of pornography. I want to push myself to approach girls and get a sex/love life and pornography and excessive masturbation screw that up.

I also want to develop a better social life instead of looking at pornography when I'm lonely. So now when I'm lonely, I push myself to call people and set things up to do.

I came up with a 5 point rating system representing my urges for pornography. This does seem kind of dorky but it helps...

1) Porn doesn't even cross my mind.
2) Having occasional thoughts about pornography and slight urges to look.
3) Thinking about pornography a lot.
4) Feeling the necessity to distract myself as a last resort to avoid pornography
5) On the very verge of looking at pornography


Right now I'm a 2.

Day 20 (80 days to go)

This is my 200th post on this blog. My first post was almost 2 years ago.

I believe this is my last attempt. I believe I'll never look at pornography again.

That's not to say that this will be easy or that I won't feel temptation. I definitely will.

Right now my urges are slightly stronger than before but weak overall.

I'm looking at apartments tomorrow in preparation for moving out. I'm exercising and working out. My day trading is going well. My part time job at the cafe is going well. Life is going okay right now. My social life still needs work and I want to date more but for now everything is alright.

Tomorrow marks 3 weeks without pornography and I'd like to summarize my reasons for quitting again just to refresh my motivation.

That's all for tonight.

Day 18 (82 days to go)

No strong urges for pornography yet.

Occasionally I remember what its like to look at porn and that causes an urge but it quickly fades.

I've been really busy lately with working 2 jobs and preparing to move out of my parents and that might be keeping me out of trouble but it also helps that I've been pushing myself to be social and hang out with people and talk to people and just generally take a stronger interest in things other than myself...

yeah! for 18 days without pornography.

Day 17 (83 days to go)

I've now gone more days without pornography than my last two attempts. The next obstacle is getting past the 1 month barrier. 3 of my attempts came to an end at around the one month mark. Then one of my attempts ended at the 2 month mark and another after 3 months.

My urges for porn were strong last night because of getting rejected by that girl through email but it wasn't that bad.

I didn't have the energy to work out last night so I'm going to get that work out in today.

I'm starting to notice changes as a result of not looking at pornography for 2 weeks. When I fantasize, I fantasize about real women I've met instead of stuff I've seen in pornography. I definitely have more attraction towards women. I feel like I have more energy too despite being sleep deprived right now.

Day 16 (84 days to go)

I've started working out and exercising again.

Man this schedule is brutal. It's 10:00 pm and I have to go out and run and do some push ups, crunches, and pull ups cause I didn't have time earlier.

I can't wait til I move so that my commute to the city isn't an hour and a half.

I emailed one of the girls I met on the bus and she replied saying she wasn't interested.

It's not a huge loss, she seemed kind of cynical. That's 4 girls I've approached on the bus and I've gone on 2 dates with one of them... She didn't work out but that's still 1 in 4 girls that I've met on the bus turning into a date. That's pretty awesome.

Day 15 (85 days to go)

I've made a big list of goals that I want to accomplish. I'm not sure how to break it down into something manageable yet.

I saw my ex-gf recently. As I was leaving she said something that made me angry and I just swallowed my anger and left while sulking. Normally I would just steam over it for days and pretend like everything is okay. NOT THIS TIME. I screamed my ass off on the car ride home, swearing and calling her names. It seems like the only place where I can scream as loud as I want and no one will hear me. Then I called her once I got it all out and we talked it out and I felt better.

Expressing anger in the moment is a challenge for me but this is a sign of progress.

My desire for pornography is pretty weak right now.

Day 13 (87 days to go)

I went 2-3 days without masturbating. Today I did and my desire for pornography is nada.

I got a girls e-mail while on the bus. I'm seeing my ex-gf today... Things are good.

This coming week, I have to maintain my crazy schedule of getting up at 6:30 and going to bed at 11-11:30. It's definitely stressful and it's going to cause some urges for pornography.

The best I can do is remember why I am quitting pornography and remember to post on this blog as often as necessary.

Day 12 (88 days to go)

Almost to 2 weeks.

My sex drive is strong. I talked to a girl on the bus ride to work. She hesitated when I asked her out at her stop so I gave her my number. So I'm not expecting much to happen with that but I'm happy that I had the balls to talk to her.

I haven't masturbated in 3 days... I'm not getting much sleep, going to bed at 11 and waking up at 6:30. That's 7 and a half hours of sleep when I'm used to getting 9. Having a stronger sex drive keeps me going though.

My urges for porn are weak right now but I've definitely felt them this last week particularly when I'm frustrated about not socializing enough.

I feel good about that right now though cause I approached a girl last night and I'm going to work in a few hours.

I have plans to hang with my ex-gf tomorrow and that day-trader guy.

Things are going pretty well. I work this weekend but next week I'm going to begin my search for an apartment.

I'm also reading a book on how to stay in the present and its pretty good.

What would it be like if there was no before or after this moment?

Day 11 (89 days to go)

I felt really lonely last night. I had 2 days off work, yesterday and monday, and I didn't do anything with friends. So I felt really bad and I had a lot of urges to look at pornography.

Eventually I was able to go to sleep and here I am this morning feel better having gotten some sleep but I recognize that I really don't want to have nights like that.


When I move in a few weeks, I plan on joining cycling racing team and some other clubs for fun and to find some guy friends. I'll also have roommates, so I find it unlikely that i'll be spending nights like that once I move.

Day 10 (90 days to go)

My urges are low right now but I've felt some stronger urges when I'm bored.

One thing thats bugging me is that I don't have plans to hang out with anybody until Friday. And it makes me feel like I'm not moving forward to be going so long without hanging out with friends.

I feel a bit lonely because of that and that gives me the urge to look at pornography.

However, I really want this to be the last attempt to quit. I'm tired of going around in circles. I'm bored of pornography. I'm bored of jacking off in front of my computer instead of being brave and going out to meet chicks.

It's really important for me to be aware of when I'm down and bored and lonely. That's the time that I want to call somebody or find something else to do so that I can carve a new habit into place aside from looking at porn.

Day 9 (91 days to go)

Almost 10 days already.

I've had some urges recently. I get this feeling that it would be really fun to see something specifically in porn and then I get the urge to go find it.

Then I tend to think of this blog and how I would have to write a post on how I caved in and I grudgingly go find something else to do.

So here's whats goin on.

Things that cause me to look at porn:

Lack of friendship - I've been talking to/hanging out with one of ex-girlfriends and a guy with whom I'm learning how to daytrade the stock market. I might hang out with some of co-workers next week.
Lack of fun - I've been doing okay with this.
Lack of relaxation - this has been a problem for me because my schedule is so full but I'm getting by.
Lack of sex - This is bugging me big time. Not only do I have a problem with hating/fearing women. I think I'm also sabotaging my own efforts to get laid.

I met this woman on the bus and we were having a good conversion about the regular stuff (what do you do for a living, what do you do for fun) blah blah blah. And we're having fun laughing about stuff and we talk about movies. At this point I should ask her to see something out in the theaters but instead I ask her if she wants to see a movie that we would have to rent and watch at one of our places which pretty much translates to sex.

In this case, I acted too aggressively. Other times I don't act aggressively enough. And it all depends on the girl. If she likes me, I don't act aggressively enough cause I know she might go along with it. If a girl isn't in to me that much, I act too aggressively because I know she'll reject me.

Why am I doing this? Well I keep going after girls because I do want to get laid but I think the part of me thats angry at women is the part of me that is sabotaging it all.

I'm going to see my therapist today and hopefully figure this out.

Day 8 (92 days to go)

So I'm at the one week point already. Time flies when your busy.

I wasn't able to go a week without masturbating. I think I did 2-3 days and then I've done it a lot less than I normally do the rest of the week. I'd like to go another 2-3 days this week.

My urges for pornography are weak.

I haven't talked to that guy friend I met awhile ago recently. He's not getting back to me, I might have made him mad by being busy. I don't know what to make of that.

But seeing people at work, hanging out with my ex, and seeing this guy whose also a day trader (what I'm working on becoming) has kept me feeling social and not lonely.

I'd really like to make some more guy friends though.

Day 7 (93 days to go)

So my urges for pornography are gradually increasing but they are still under control.

I can tell that I'm pretty desperate. Last I got laid was December, which is way too long.

I've noticed that I have an issue with being angry at women. I have this fear/hate feeling when a woman shows interest in me. It's very strange.

On the one side, I really want to connect with people and I really want to have sex but then when a woman shows interest in me, I start feeling really fearful and angry towards her and I withdraw.

What the?

I'm going to bring this up and therapy and I try to get an idea of whats going on with that.

I'm going to be moving hopefully within the next 3 weeks out of my parents and into a rented room in the city.

That's all for now.

Day 6 (94 days to go)

I didn't have much of an urge to look at porn today. I've been really busy which helps.

I approached a chick at work but she was cold and her boyfriend came in 5 minutes later. At least I had the balls to do it.

Day 5 (95 days to go)

I'm starting to get urges to look at porn.

When I'm horny and I think about looking at porn, I get these glorified images in my head of how sexy it would be see some pornography.

I have to remember why I'm doing this. I want real relationships with women. I want to move away from using the computer as a band aide for loneliness. At the end of my life, I want to look back on all the relationships and interactions I've had with people, not a mixed up slump of memories of sitting in front of a computer screen.

I spent 47 hours online in this last 31 days. Thats 2 days of my month, looking at crap online. 7 hours of that was on pornography. Ideally, I'd like to spend 5 hours a month online and no time at all looking at pornography.

Day 4 (96 days to go)

No strong urges for pornography.

My sex drive is pretty strong. I'm starting to notice myself getting frustrated easier but I definitely have more drive to approach girls.

I haven't met any new girls recently though. Today and tomorrow I have work, so theres a chance I'll meet a girl on the bus or at work (I work in a coffee shop).

Day 3 (97 days to go)

I've been holding back on masturbating and it's amazing how strongly it affects my sex drive. I start looking at every even slightly attractive woman I see and I want to smack them on the ass.

It's ridiculous.

My plan is to go a week without masturbating.

My sex drive is pretty strong this morning and my desire to look at porn is pretty small. That's good but I know I'll be hitting some urges at some point.

Day 2 (98 days to go)

The number one factor in successfully quitting pornography is desire. Do I really want to quit?

I think it's important to continually summarize what I'm doing and why to keep my motivation to quit fresh.

I am choosing to re-direct my sexual energy towards women in place of media. I have to make it clear that although I'm doing this to have my sexual needs met in a different way, more importantly I'm trying to increase my desire to create relationships with women.

Why?

Relationships bring a kind of lasting happiness that pornography and masturbation can't touch. Relationships also have the potential to hurt a great deal more than pornography but if it wasn't worth it, human beings would never have built cities, governments, and communities (all things that require people to form all sorts of relationships). Relationships wouldn't exist if they were not worth it.

Masturbation and pornography are not evil. In fact, I don't believe anything is inherently evil.

However, masturbation and pornography can be used as an unsatisfying substitute for relationships. So can books, television, movies or just about anything that's distracting.

In this case, I believe it's best to remove this distraction in order to look at the issues that lie beneath. Once aware of them, you can attempt change.


The following is what's true for me and probably not entirely relatable to you.

I have issues with women and I have issues with friendship. It would benefit me enormously to be able to move through these issues and find a more satisfying set of thoughts and beliefs around these issues and that's what I'm in the process of doing.

I know I have a problem with self-esteem. I don't feel like anybody would like the real me. So I put on a different face for people.

I know I have a problem with seeking approval. This is related to self-esteem. Because I don't feel like I have any worth, I seek approval from women in order to feel like I have worth. However, by not being myself, the sense of worse feels empty, I feel like an imposter, and often times when I'm not feeling down I get anxiety. I get worried that I won't be able to pretend to be cool, smart, strong or whatever and in turn the real me will come out and people will lose interest in me.

I know I have a problem with being a caretaker. Someone who feels responsible for how everyone else feels. If someone is bored, tired, or feeling bad in anyway, I feel like it's because I did something wrong. This has a lot to do with growing up with a depressed mother. Taking care of mom became an important task when I realized that every time she got upset and depressed my life was at stake. She would start fights with my dad and threaten to leave. Divorce, having my dad lose his job because of the drama at home, or having my mom leave would threaten my friendships and the general stability of my life because we would have to move or I would lose one of my parents and the support they offered.

I moved a lot when I was younger and drifting from place to place scared me enormously. Now, I realize that it has become an unconscious habit. Moving started out as a destabilizing tragedy, a loss of friendships and relationships and in the end it has become an escape from the same friendships and relationships that it once threatened.

Day 1 (99 to go)

I've decided that its not a good idea to wait until I get laid to try to quit. That's an excuse. I'm going to try again right now.


My first goal is to go 100 days. After that a year and so on. But my focus is to just take one day at a time.

I'm starting this attempt to quit porn at a time where I feel pretty down.

I just saw my ex-girlfriend who I've been seeing as a friend last night. I'm still sexually attracted to her and she told me she wasn't attracted to me and it hurt really bad to hear that. I ended up feeling so angry and sad that I was just screaming at the top of my longs all kinds of crap as I drove home at 90 mph. A cop pulled me over. I told him my girlfriend just broke up with me and I looked pretty miserable so he gave me a warning and let me go.

The one upside is that she pointed out that I was hurting myself. I was causing my own pain. I agree with her. It's my own ego and self-pity that brings me down.

So I'm really trying to understand the deepest issues I have going on right now with seeking approval, feeling responsible for other people's feelings, and my self-esteem.


So why am I trying to quit porn right now?
Seeking approval motivates me to pursue women. I try to get approval from women to make myself feel better about myself. If I stop seeking approval, I stop seeking women.

The other motivators are sex and connection. I can increase my sexual desire by not looking at porn and masturbating less. I think I can increase my desire for connection by figuring out those deep-seated issues (self-esteem, seeking approval, being responsible for other peoples feelings).

So that's whats going on right now in the part of my world that relates to quitting porn at least.



EDIT: Oh yeah, don't hesitate to post an encouraging comment. It means a lot to me.

Update on the 4 needs to meet

Lack of friends - I have 1 guy friend and I've made attempts to connect with a few more. I have some girl friends. I have a mentor for stock trading. I have co-workers at work that I talk to while I'm at work. This is going okay.

Lack of fun - I have gone out on some of my days off with friends to do random stuff and that feels way better than blowing my time doing just about anything by myself.

Lack of relaxation - this one I'm having trouble with. Between practicing day trading in the morning and my part time job in the evenings, I don't have a lot of time to just sit back and relax.

Lack of sex - I went on a date recently. It didn't go that well but it's a start. I was supposed to see this other girl but I never heard back from her.

What can I do to make things better?

I can write up a schedule to better manage my time so that I can have more time to relax.

I can ask out more chicks whenever like when I'm walking to work.

I can continue to come up with stuff to do and invite friends out on my days off.


Yeah, I dunno that sounds pretty good for now. As soon as I get laid, which may be soon, I'll try another attempt to quit porn.

4 needs to meet

I made a guy friend recently. That's definitely an indication that I'm moving forward. Therapy is working out the issues I have with being spontaneous and just having fun with friends.

My job is picking up and I'll be making enough money to move out soon.

Going back to the things that I think cause me to look at porn:

1. Lack of friends: This has been my biggest issue. I've lacked the desire to make guy friends for a long time and I'm finally working out my issues around that in therapy.
2. Lack of fun: This is related to the friends issue and so therapy is handling it too.
3. Lack of relaxation: I've been pretty good about meditating and practicing the art of acceptance recently.
4. Lack of sex: This one I haven't really put much effort into recently. I've hit on a few girls on the bus and asked for numbers but I haven't really put much effort into this because I feel that the friends issue is more important.

I want to get things rolling on this blog and start another attempt to quit but it's going to take a few more weeks at the minimum. I'm moving through emotional baggage I've had for years so it takes a bit of time but the more work I do on my core issues the better my odds for not only quitting porn but being able to live the life I want to live.

Definitely making progress

Therapy is working out well.

I've been slacking up on working out and exercising and even with taking vitamins so I'm going to do that stuff today for sure.

Working out friendship issues

The Challenge: Find what values I desire behind making friends so that I can explore my motivation for making friends.

The Example: Here's an example. I want to become a day trader (someone who trades stocks on the stock market) and the value that I desire behind that is freedom. The idea is that once I am skilled enough to make money as a day trader, the money I make and the mobility inherent in being a day trader allows me to travel and do anything I want. That desire for freedom drives me to work hard towards becoming a day trader.

The Solution: Here's what I have so far...

Security - Being a loner or close to it means you have little backup. It's hard to take risks or be consistently happy when a slip up can leave you hurt and helpless.

Love - Love is a value usually associated with relationships but I think this is an unspoken truth behind any male friendship. Love is just caring about someone and having compassion and sympathy for them. Real friendship has that quality to it and I think that's the main value behind my desire to make friends.

I want to make friends so that someone's got my back but more importantly I want to share my interests with other guys and have fun. I think that bond can be described by the value of love despite the fact that I'd never call it that in front of a guy.

I feel uneasy admitting that I want a bond with another guy because it's very easy to feel homophobic but at the same time I know that's just fear.



What I can't decide is whether that is all there is to it. Love and security? Am I missing something? And if it is just love and security, where do I go with that to increase my desire to make friends that I may blast through the resistance I have towards making friends?

To be continued...

Reply to some comments

"Pornstudent" posted some comments in response to a post of mine. His comments are shown in black.

1) "Pornography is dissatisfying." If you don't want to look at it, don't. But if you look at it, isn't it satisfying in some way, even if temporarily? We have lots of momentary pleasures that aren't lasting. Wouldn't we think it silly to give up the taste of food, a book, a song, or a TV show because they don't last or because they haven't a "higher meaning."

First off thanks for taking the time to write out your ideas. The way you have pieced this together makes perfect sense. I completely agree with your analogy of pornography being like a "pastime" and I've made comparisons of pornography to television before too.

You make a convincing argument that pornography is not inherently bad or wrong and I believe this is true for a lot of people.

I'm biased and this blog was written often times under the influence of strong emotions so it can come off as a pornography hate site written by a deranged feminist and I admit that. However, if you can see through this bias, you can see that I've already hit on the points you brought up.

This dissatisfaction I have with pornography comes in the form of it's inability to thwart loneliness. Television has the same problem when it's used as a substitute for a social life.

2)"Pornography replaces relationships." If your desire to meet someone is just to have sex with them, then masturbating to porn may take away that desire. But if you really want a relationship, then it doesn't. You still want someone to share your feelings, a joke, a hobby, a passion, and your life with.

This ties in with your latest reply (at the bottom). I'm not looking for just sex and as you pointed out pornography doesn't completely destroy my desire for relationships because it doesn't offer the companionship you outlined. Which brings us to the next point.

3)"Porn destroys my motivation." If porn turned out to be your bliss and satisfied every longing you had, so what? You'd be a happy man.

I think the problem is here. Porn doesn't destroy my motivation because it is my motivation; no, porn is what I do to avoid addressing difficult aspects of my life.

It's like watching television instead of doing homework.

And just as television is not evil just cause people watch it instead of doing homework, pornography is not evil just because I use it instead of addressing deep-seated issues I have with relationships.

People have made the same point about guns forever. Guns aren't evil, people who shoot people with guns are evil.

Thank god we agree on this because I'm not interested at all in debating that argument but I do want to reiterate the fact that just about anything can be used in a negative way.

Smoking, over-eating, gambling, or whatever, everyone has a comfort zone they use to replace a missing element of their life. Some people were raised or at some point in their lives learned to build a support network of friends and family to be their comfort zone and I believe this is one of the healthiest coping strategies out there so I don't feel any of these strategies are a necessary evil.

Look at all the porn and jerk off all you want. After a while you'll get tired of the porn. Go to a bar and meet a woman to have sex with. If you drink, take a taxi (drunk driving is something you really don't want to do). If you don't succeed at one bar, go to another. Do it again. Keep at it. You will meet women who'll want to have all the sex you can imagine. Porn is just another pastime.

Porn gets boring but from my experience, I gain a strong urge for it after about 30 days. Once I look, it gets boring again really fast but getting past urges without looking is a challenge and then even though it's boring it's hard to stop again once I've started.

I just want to say, your outlook on this whole thing is dead on. It's just not dead on for me.

In other words you've described pornography for how it relates to a great many men but I'm of a minority that uses it in a negative way.


As it is right now, I'm using pornography as a comfort zone while I finally try to deal with my issues with friendship and relationships with a therapist and I'm making good progress.

When I get better and I have the types of relationships I want, I'll probably stay clear of porn just because it so strongly represents a substitute for having a satisfying social life. I doubt it will be able to compare to the friendships and relationships I'll have at that time but there's plenty of hobbies out there so who cares about porn...

this turned out long...

Another update

I got a part time job.

Things are slowly moving forward.

I haven't tried to stop watching porn. I've averaged about 30-60 minutes a day.

I'm close to moving past this depression though.

I'm just taking things slow and steady.

EDIT: I realized some of you guys have written comments and I haven't responded. I'm sorry about that. I don't get many so I forget to check.

Some of you have asked for advice. I have written a lot on the process of quitting porn. I've written a lot of advice.

However, when someone asks me for advice directly, I'm hesitant to offer it because I haven't succeeded yet.

When I do succeed, maybe in the form of going a hundred days without porn, I'll summarize this blog because I realize it's dauntingly long.

Until then I'll just offer support.


If you are quitting porn,

1. You have shown that you have gained an incite into yourself.

2. You understand that this behavior (watching pornography) is a sign that something is missing in your life.

3. You may or may not know what that missing part of your life is but you do know something is wrong.

All I'm going to say is this:

Don't beat yourself up. The fact that you look at porn is just a sign. It's just an incite that's telling you to dig down deep and figure yourself out.

That's all for tonight.

Fighting Depression

I'm seeing a therapist. I'm on 7 or so vitamin supplements. One of which is known to help depression.

I'm gonna go to a support group for young men.

I'm getting exercise everyday.

I'm going to see a psychiatrist who specializes in natural methods of helping depression.

Depression onsets

I'm dealing with a bout of depression. Perhaps this is why I've been struggling more than usual to quit.

I'm seeing a therapist and I'm looking into alternative, natural methods of dealing with it (like lots of exercise).

I'm hoping to make some progress this month and if I'm feeling better within the next couple of weeks I'll try another attempt to quit porn.

What I'm doing...

Right now I'm doing 1 small thing a day towards making friends, dating, and having fun. Once I have 5 friends and I'm dating, I plan on making another attempt to quit pornography. I've been hanging out with one of my ex girlfriends and an older guy whose helping me learn the stock market. That makes 2. I plan on joining a cycling club to make more friends in the coming days. There's a ride tomorrow that I'm going to join in on.

I'm not looking at much porn right now. Whenever I feel frustrated or lonely I tend to use it to make myself feel better. I have full faith that I'll be able to quit once I make some progress with friendship, girls, and having some more fun instead of busying myself all the time.

Update

Damn, my 9th attempt came to an end suddenly last night. I got struck by urges and I found that I didn't put up much of a fight against them.


I'm seeing an NLP therapist today.

I'm not beating myself up. I think that's the most important thing.

Hopefully this NLP therapist can help.

Day 5 [95 days to go]

So NLP is going to be my main weapon in my fight against porn for the next 95 days.

The plan is to use it anytime I feel the urges for porn are too strong to resist.

I'm also attempting to masturbate one day a week.

So far so good.

Day 3 [97 Days to Go]

I've been feeling down the last few days. Part of it is because my trading isn't going so well. Part of it is that I don't have a lot of experience getting jobs (resumes, interviews, etc.).

I've gone 3 days without masturbating on top of not looking at any kind of porn (including forums).

Going without masturbation has kept me fired up to keep pursuing my goals despite disappointments.

I really like putting the number of days left til 100 in the title of each post. 97 days doesn't seem all that long.

Like I said yesterday, I did some NLP and that is definitely helping me avoid temptation.

Day 2, Ninth Attempt [98 days to go]

I just finished writing the last post 20 minutes ago but after reviewing some of my posts I've found the courage to push on for another attempt.

It's 12am and I got up early so I'm not at my brightest but I want to do something. I realized that this blog is on the front page of google for key words like quitting internet pornography. This blog isn't popular by any means. There's been a little more than 500 hits since the beginning of 2008. About 5 people a day with spikes on some days. Even so, it's exciting to know that a few people are actually searching for stuff like this whether if its just for fun or whatever.

I want to get brutally honest about whats going. I don't want a long drawn out life story so I'll keep it list format.

1. I'm a 22 year old guy.

2. I dropped out of high school, spent 2 years in community college, got accepted to a University of California, spent 1 quarter there and got the hell out.

3. I'm living with my parents.

4. I'm passionate about being my own boss and I want to invest in the stock market for a living. I have a little bit of money and so far I've lost some of it (some would say a lot of it) while learning how to trade.

5. I'm currently looking for a job so that I can move out.

6. I have very few friends. None that I see on a regular basis. I'm not dumb, ugly, disfigured, or even all that weird. I've got issues with friendship probably due to childhood experiences related to moving a lot.

7. I've had very few girlfriends. Three since I started dating at 19. Some will say that's a lot, others think its normal, others think its low, others think the number is irreverent. I don't care. I feel that its low. I feel that its important to meet a lot of different people in your youth in order to get a better understanding of yourself and of the opposite sex.

8. My family is small. I have my dad, my mom, and my brother and he's away at college (or if not he's out with his friends on break). My extended family fought and broke apart before I was born.

9. I had really bad depression on and off through my teens. Exercise pulled me out of it.

10. I've got a lot going for me. There's a lot of people out there who are way worse off than I am. My one complaint is that I'm not happy. The reason for this is that my life lacks 4 things.

A. Friends
B. Women
C. Fun
D. Relaxation

Like I said, making friends has been an issue for me since I was a teenager probably because of experiencing I had when I was a kid.

I've had a lot of trouble with women because of low self-esteem. This has changed in recent years due to a lot of hard work and a lot of learning by book (I didn't have anyone to teach me - my dad is shy as hell).

I can be a really funny guy and I can have a lot of fun. Ever since becoming a teenager, a majority of the time I've been way to serious and way too critical and cynical. Life is about having fun. Being serious has its moments but it should be saved for when loved ones die, otherwise your just wasting time. You're only going to look back fondly on the memories where you had fun. Achievements are nothing in comparison to fun moments spent with loved ones.

Being serious runs right alongside being wound up and stressed out. Some people are motivated by moving away from things in life and some people are motivated by moving towards things. For the longest time, I was in the first category. I got good grades because I was scared of being scolded. I played the good kid in order to avoid punishment. I never learned what I actually liked or disliked, it was all about pleasing and escaping. I've taken action to change that and it's hard to make that transition. It involves becoming a complete lazy bastard. You lose all your motivation because once your no longer afraid, theres nothing to propel you to do the things you normally do.

You end up sitting around not knowing what the hell to do. Then it dawns on you that you have likes and dislikes. That is enlightenment. When you realize that a lot of the things in your life are there because other people liked it, thought it was a good idea, or just plain wanted it themselves, you can free yourself to explore what really matters to you.

What was the happiest day of your life? If you don't know, you're not trying hard enough or you're trying to hide it from yourself. Think hard. I know what mine was. It involved going on a simple adventure with someone I really cared about. And that is the key to my happiness.

Adventure and people I care about (friends, family, lovers).

By now I'm the only one whose ever going to read these words because this post is way damned too long.

Here is my decision. I am making a firm decision to go 100 days without pornography right now. It's day 2 and that makes 100 days June 11th 2008.

I'm going to do some NLP and then hit the sack. I'm also making the decision to post everyday.

Update

My eighth attempt came to an end at 14 days. I'd hate to come across as a bad example and I want to make something clear.

Quitting pornography is a great thing to do and I would fully support anyone trying to do it. However, it is not priority above all else.

It seems that it's often our 'little' habits (read insignificant) that recur time and time again. Pornography is one of those little habits of mine. It isn't even comparable to smoking (because that literally kills you) and some people think smoking is a little habit.

What this is really about is leading the life you want. It means doing things to ensure that you can live a life worth living. Pornography is a band aide. It's a quick fix for numbing the pain of a life unsatisfying.

It's dangerous in its effectiveness for reducing my desire to create real relationships, friendships, and a bond with my family.

Anything that does that, whether its drugs, alcohol or whatever is dangerous.

Desire is all you really have when your life sucks. It doesn't matter how smart, capable, or whatever you are... if you don't have desire, nothing happens. Without emotions, you're dead.

I'm in a tough spot right now. My insides are split between a desire to change, to grow, to make friends, to spend time with people, and a part of me thats in a lot of pain, that wants to hide, that wants to seek comfort to dose the pain of loneliness.

Anything in your head can change in a matter of seconds. You can spend decades as a miserable, hateful, angry person and suddenly experience love, joy, and happiness like it's been there the whole time. It's just a matter of desire. How bad do you want it?

Day 12

God am I horny.

So I finally did it. I approached 3 girls yesterday. 2 of them were just attempts to get rejected so that I could get used to that again and one of them was a genuine try. It's amazing how great I feel after an approach even if I've been rejected.

For me it requires a strong positive/playful attitude, a lot of energy, and motivation to do this and it feels great to induce all of these things and then succeed at what I'm trying to do.

It is definitely my dick that is getting me out there to risk rejection. I'm so sex starved and I know I'm not going to just masturbate or look at porn because I'm genuinely interested in improving my life and it's helping tremendously not to jerk off. As a result I know my only source of sexual gratification is to go out there and approach enough girls until one says yes.

Day 11

Okay so here's what's going on. I've made the decision to just masturbate once a week and to not look at porn at all. Today is day 11 and I've followed these rules so far. With so little masturbation, my emotions are going a bit crazy but I'm more driven and I have more energy. I'm extremely horny. Little sexual comments made by female friends or sexy women on advertisements are actually interesting to me whereas normally I wouldn't care. Basically my sensitivity to sex has risen.

The upside to this is that I'm willing to take more risks to pursue women. Risks like rejection and humiliation (both of which are actually pretty funny once you go through with it).

The downside is that it is frustrating and you can feel a bit like losing your head and just going crazy.

I'm going to stick to this masturbation just once a week and no porn thing for 1 month. If I'm better off at the end of this month then I'll keep doing it. If not then I'll figure something else. So far not masturbating has given me the courage to seek out an ex-girlfriend and be friends with her which is really great. The downside is I want to bang her and that kind of screws with the friendship idea but as I start approaching girls that temptation will come down.

I've only approached 1 girl so far but today I want to go out and approach more. The hardest part is making the decision to do it. It's easy to make the mistake of making the decision to try but the truth is you have to make the decision to actually do it or it won't happen.

Day 3, Eighth Attempt

So here we are on day 3. I'm proud to say that I've gone the last 3 days without masturbation on top of no porn whatsoever. No porn forums, no porn pictures, no porn anything.

For the last couple of days I've gone out with the intention of approaching girls. I really want to get laid and not just that, I want a girlfriend.

I've approached one girl so far. I want to be approaching up to 10 a week until I find a girl I like.

I haven't had any real urges to look at porn or masturbate yet. I mean I'm really horny but using the passion from not masturbating to pursue women and friends is more important to me than jerking off.

Eight Attempt

Tomorrow is day 1. I've decided that now is a good time to start my eight attempt. I'm feeling pretty good and I feel that masturbating and looking at porn is not a requirement for keeping me relaxed. It's actually working against me in terms of having the motivation to go out and approach girls. So here we go.

Update

I haven't started my 8th attempt yet. In other words I haven't been trying to quit porn for the last couple of weeks. The four challenges I'm facing right now: lack of friends, lack of sex, lack of relaxation, and lack of play aren't fulfilled yet.

I'm doing what I can to put these areas of my life together and I'll resume quitting porn once those things are in place or are close to coming into place.

This is a matter of a couple of weeks and I'm going to continue to update my progress on getting these things together.

Day 2, Eighth Attempt

So I had a few false starts after my seventh attempt was over. That wasn't surprising considering I didn't really do anything to ensure success on my eighth attempt. So Yesterday i did a bunch of NLP and tonight I'm doing it again.

It comes back to those 4 causes I came up with earlier.

Friends - I don't have them. When I was at school a few weeks ago, I did, but now that I'm back home I have to find new ones. I'm looking to join a cycling club and a meditation club
Possibility of sex - Not happening... yet. I've made plans to start approaching chicks with the purpose of getting rejected so that I can stop being so afraid to approach.
Lack of relaxation - This one is a tough one but meditation, baths, exercise, and just doing everything I can to lower the importance of stuff that's stressing me out helps.
Lack of fun - This is another tough one for me. I tend to work too hard and not take enough time for myself. joining a cycling club and a meditation club will help. Also approaching girls and setting up some dates will help.

I'm doing NLP every night until I'm confident that I can go without it. I'm making a committment to go right back to NLP if I start feeling urges as well.

Seventh Attempt is Over

Yesterday stress got to me and my seventh attempt was ended. 32 days. That's the longest I've gone since my second attempt.

I knew I was being hit by urges but I put off doing some NLP to help fight my urges. That turned out to be a mistake.

I'm trying out a new job right now and its stressful. It's a great opportunity to learn how to deal with stress without using distractions and escapist tactics.

Even while I was looking at porn I was thinking about how unsatisfying it was. The first minute of looking at porn after taking a long break feels like a really strong high, kinda like gambling. But then it wears off fast and its just the same crap over and over again.

Despite this set back I'm making progress. When my other attempts ended I looked at porn multiple times but now I just looked at it during one session and I didn't go back.

Also I've averaged about a month between viewings and thats a huge reduction in the amount of porn viewed compared to years past.

This new job is going to teach me a lot about dealing with stress and I feel like my goal of going 1 year is completely feasible despite this mistake.

This time around, when I notice strong urges, I'll do NLP that same day to increase my drive towards going without porn.

Day 28

I've been hit with some serious urges for porn. I've fended them off. The idea of giving up 2008 to as another year of looking at porn is motivating me to stay clear.

I'm tired but I'll write more later. This is not a sign that the end is near. This is merely my awareness kicking in and telling me that I have to do some NLP.

Day 25

25 days. Hows that for progress? And you know what? It hasn't been just any 25 days.

I dropped out of college for the quarter. I wrote an article about how I was thinking about doing this earlier and you can search for the reasons there because they're already stated.

I've been home for exactly a week. I signed up to a temp agency and I have a job interview tomorrow.

I haven't looked at porn in 25 days and I feel absolutely proud of myself. I feel that I owe most of my success to meditating and stating my intention to quit when my mind is clear. This is a technique I learned from the book "think and grow rich" by Napolean Hill. I recommend it.

To have gone through these last few weeks of change and stress without looking at porn is a sign of strength. You can't take the weekend off or go on vacation from quitting porn. Every day and every hour and every minute is an experience in quitting.

Someone commented on my last post about why I want to quit. I've already said it but its always a benefit to say it again.

Off the top of my head the reasons I want to quit:

1. Pornography is dissatisfying. I look at it when I'm down, when I'm lonely, when I'm scared, and when I'm hurt. It takes those feelings away but only temporarily. After I look at pornography, the feelings come back, and often times I feel even emptier than before.

2. Pornography replaces relationships. I'm not making the argument that pornography destroys relationships; although that does happen. I'm making the argument that pornography reduces my desire to take the risks and put the effort into establishing new relationships. Approaching women is difficult for a lot of men (me included). Looking at pornography reduces my desire to approach women and risk rejection because it destroys my sex drive. Without the desire to satisfy my sex drive, I lose one of my motivations to seek out women. You could argue that masturbation does this too and it does to a degree. From my experience, masturbation should be done in moderation. Do it enough that you don't lose your head but don't do it so much that you lack the sex drive to push yourself to take risks.

Why not just have my needs satisfied by pornography? Because although porn satisfies my need as a man for sex, it doesn't satisfy my needs as a man for affection, attention, and love. No matter how tough you are, you need these things because deep down your a social animal. Social animals need companionship of some form or another in order to survive.

3. Porn destroys my motivation. What do you want to do with your life? What did you dream about when you were a kid? Movie star, fireman, billionaire, or what? I bet it wasn't to be a guy who hunches over a laptop beating off everyday in his tiny, dirty apartment all alone after working some dead-end, meaningless job. I'm exaggerating the circumstances or maybe I'm not in your case but the point is a lot of men aren't doing what they really want to do. They're too scared, they don't believe in themselves, they no longer "care," and if they are looking at pornography every day I don't blame them. Without the strongest compelling force within you, your sex drive, you are nothing more than a guy (not MAN) without intention. You're like a mouse that scrounges for scraps and runs away from everything. Nobody envies this guy. In order to overcome, in order to move forward, in order to face the world, you have to have a burning desire above all else. A man doesn't need to be the smartest, the strongest, or the most confident to succeed. It just needs the right amount of desire.

4. Let's wrap this up. Pornography is instant gratification. Like television, video games and consumerism, pornography doesn't deliver long-lasting satisfaction. It's a distraction. It's a band aid fix for something inside you that hurts or burns. Either you are unsatisfied with your life or your emotionally hurt or both and there is freedom from these challenges but there are no quick fixes. You have to take a rocky path out of this valley with slips and falls and I think this blog is proof of that.

There are more reasons and I could probably write a book on the ones I've already mentioned. The truth is everyone has their own reasons for wanting to quit or not. It's best that you find out what your reasons are and state them. I know that if I were to go with someone elses reasons, like religion, I wouldn't last a day.

That's it for this post, I'll try to post within the next week and talk about any challenges that come up.

Day 12

All is well. I'm busy with the new quarter at college starting and I have been releasing my intention to quit porn most mornings and at night.

I think there are two components that are helping me quit right now. One is that we're in a new year and I made a commitment to make this a year without pornography. The other is that I have been building my desire to quit through meditation almost every night. These two things are the foundation of what I am doing.

I've had a few temptations to look at porn. This stemmed from my attempts recently to not masturbate as much. I want a stronger sex drive because it gives me more energy and desire for my other goals like school but when I don't masturbate my desire for pornography increases as well. So I am trying to moderate.

Day 9

Normally I would say that I'm going strong right now but I will reframe from using that phraising because it implies that quitting porn has some sort of momentum to it. Like if you feel good for a week, you're gonna feel pretty good the next day no matter what but that is just not the case. I've gone a month before without an urge and then one day I'll get hit by a really strong urge that puts an end to that stretch of consecutive days without porn.

That said, it's been 9 days and I feel good today. I'm back at college and it's good to be back. I'm getting a lot done and I feel healthy and productive. I said this before and I'll say it again, being home with my parents brought back a lot of bad habits and feelings and it feels good to be away from all of that.

So... thats all I have to say... onwards to day 365!

EDIT: oh yeah I just wanted to admit that I didn't do those NLP exercises I was talking about in the last post but I will definitely do them once I start feeling some stronger urges.

Day 2, Seventh Attempt

I just wanted to say that I plan on doing a bunch of NLP exercises tomorrow to help me quit porn. I've also been meditating a lot and telling my subconscious mind that I want to have a stronger desire to quit porn. I'm going to do NLP exercises once a week to help me stay clean of porn this year. I think that will help. Happy new years. Hopefully the things I do now will have a positive impact on my future and I'll look back on this and smile.

Sixth Attempt is Over

Honesty.... being honest on this blog is a challenge. I really wanted to believe that this last attempt was the last one I would need but I looked at pornography last night. I went 5 days.
Tomorrow is my birthday. I'll be 22. My family has been arguing since Christmas evening when a fight broke out between my brother and my mom. Since turning 18, I've had some really bad birthdays due to not having many friends and having family feuds erupt soon after Christmas. All of this has put stress on me right now because it is that time of the year again and part of me wants to change this trend of crappy birthdays and another part of me wants to punish my family with guilt for arguing by allowing another crappy birthday to pass by. Even as I type this, another argument has broken out.... Ugh.


My first attempt: 67 days
The cause of giving in: "Feelings of loneliness due to having my family away and being stressed out over UC applications. I used porn thinking it would make me feel less stressed out and perhaps alleve my feeling of being overwhelmed."

In other words: Loneliness and stress.










My second attempt: 81 Days
The cause of giving in: "I started school this week and it has added stress.

I've felt lonely going to campus and not knowing anybody. The loneliness worked against my confidence to approach women and as a result ive had thoughts that the odds of meeting women are deteriating. None of that is true but that's what was going on in my head.

Stress and loneliness make me want to get high to forget.... and thats where porn comes in and its where alcohol and drugs come in for other people. I suppose porn is better than alcohol and drugs but its not good enough for me.

My life is missing some healthy components.

Friends - I'm lonely cause I don't have a group of friends whom I relate to.
Play - Other than cycling, I don't have a hobby. I tend to think of anything that is fun as being a waste of time and that's just not true. A life spent being serious and working hard is not really a life at all.
Relaxation - Meditation, masturbation are the only things that are relieving stress for me. I think ultimately, when I make the big transition from having the perspective I have now to the perspective proposed by the book "the seven spiritual laws of success," I will vastly improve my ability to relax.
Sex - I live with my parents and I just don't like bringing chicks over here."

In other words: Stress, loneliness, and limiting beliefs involving solutions to stress and loneliness (friends, having fun, relaxing, and sex.)





For 8 months I did not post [February 3rd to October 17th]
This was a direct result of going 81 days and caving in. I did attempt to stay away from porn during this period but in October I saw that I needed extra help and reopened the blog.



My third attempt: 30 days
The cause of giving in: "The cause was obviously stress. I had just got back some grades for some papers and tests and they are discouraging. I've been facing some motivation issues this quarter and to get negative feedback from classes is really stressful.

I feel deep down that I don't want to be at college. Not because I don't like it... I love it here, except for the classwork. The classes I'm taking don't interest me and I feel I'm wasting time that I could be spending building a career. I want to go into investing and I don't need a degree to do it so I feel I'm fulfilling an obligation in place of pursuing my dream."

In other words: stress.




My fourth attempt: 3 days
The cause of giving in: "Okay, so we had Thanksgiving break and being back home sucked. I got into a few fights with the family and ended up looking at porn on Saturday which ended my fourth attempt rather quickly."

In other words: stress.



My fifth attempt: 25 days
The cause of giving in: "Stress... Coming home is stressful, it was a 10 hour drive. I miss college life, its exciting and refreshing, being home is stale and boring. The girl I was seeing left for France, gone forever."

"I think the real reason I looked is that my home or more precisely, my room holds an association with pornography. I've looked at porn for years in my room and so I have an established habit of looking at it here. It's an association... the smell, the look, the feel of it makes looking at porn all that much more enticing."

In other words: Stress and habit.



My sixth attempt: 5 days
The cause of giving in: "Stress."



Here are the exact times I looked at porn as recorded by k9 web protection during the last 2 months.
12-27-07 - 12-28-07
10:30PM - 1:14AM

[Total: 2:44]

12-20-07 - 12-21-07
11:41PM - 2:20AM[Total: 2:39]
9:51AM - 10:50AM[Total: 0:59]
7:33PM - 10:13PM[Total: 2:40]

[Total: 6:18]

11-24-07
9:59PM-10:56PM

[Total: 0:57]

11-22-07 - 11-23-07
10:35PM - 1:07AM[Total: 2:32]
10:10PM - 11:26PM[Total: 1:16]

[Total: 3:48]

11-17-07 - 11-18-07
11:39PM - 2:46AM[Total: 3:07]
11:51AM - 1:57PM[Total: 2:06]

[Total: 5:13]

[Total for the last 2 months: 19:00]

19 hours of porn in the last 2 months, that means an average of 10 hours per month during a period of time where I'm trying to not look at it at all.

My last 4 attempts pale in comparison to my first 2.

I don't have a solution off the top of my head. Wait, I take that back. I think that my recent attempts didn't last as long as my first two because of motivation. I think I have less desire to quit than during my first and second attempts.

There's only one way i know of boosting desire and that's to meditate and ask myself why I'm trying to quit and how I can increase my desire.

Day 1, Sixth Attempt

Here we are. I asked that girl I was dating to be a person I can call or email for support in quitting. I'm just doing my thing. I truly believe that my last look at porn was due to coming home and being exposed to my old habits through an association of my room and looking at porn. I know that when I got the next two weeks at home without watching porn it will help reduce my association and I will be better prepared next time i come home from school.

I'm in good spirits.

End of fifth attempt

I went 25 days. Then I came home for winter break and the first night, the night i got back actually, I looked at porn.

The reason (excuse): Stress... Coming home is stressful, it was a 10 hour drive. I miss college life, its exciting and refreshing, being home is stale and boring. The girl I was seeing left for France, gone forever.

The truth: I wanted to come home... I wanted the quarter to be over and its somewhat less stressful that finals are over. I do miss the girl I was seeing but truth is I want to have my freedom back. I want to be single again... though I'll be saying just the opposite after a few months of no sex (should that be the case).

What have I learned: I think the real reason I looked is that my home or more precisely, my room holds an association with pornography. I've looked at porn for years in my room and so I have an established habit of looking at it here. It's an association... the smell, the look, the feel of it makes looking at porn all that much more enticing.

What am i going to do: I'm going to meditate twice a day (something I slipped up on the last week cause I was in las vegas celebrating my last days with that girl who was leaving) and release my intention to leave porn alone. I'm going to go the next 2 weeks of winter break at home without porn in order to help break that association with my room and watching pornography. I also plan on making my new years resolution to quit porn.

Lastly I want to keep posting on this blog no matter what. I was really hesitant to post here again because I hate making my mistakes public. It makes me feel like I'm not being a good role model but I have no other options. If I stop posting I'll be less likely to quit and what am I going to do? give up? what is that about... what would that mean? looking at porn and hating it and resenting it and feeling crappy about it for the rest of my life.. screw that.

Day 19

This last week has been tough. Finals caused a lot of stress and I experienced some urges to look at porn but I resisted. The coming weeks are going to provide a different challenge. The girl I've been seeing is moving back out of the country and I'm going home again for winter break. Last time I went home, I looked at porn cause I felt lonely.

The next 3 weeks are going to be challenging. I'm fully committed to persevering.

Day 14

2 week mark. I've faced some stress and I haven't even considered looking at porn. That doesn't mean much at the 2 week mark though. On my third attempt I faced basically no urges until the day it ended. I have faith though. I've faced some stress, like I said, and I've avoided pornography. That's a good sign. Another good sign is that I've been playing video games a few times. Let me explain...

I've noticed in the past that when I REALLY don't have pornography as an option, I feel the urge to play video games. I think the idea is the same... I'm stressed out, I want something to entertain me and distract me and that's what video games can do. The fact that I've been playing video games is a sign that I don't see pornography as an option and I attribute this to my meditation. I feel I'm really communicating well with my subconscious mind the idea that I want to quit. I think it's really easy to make half-hearted attempts when trying to quit something just for the feeling of "oh, well at least I tried to quit" or "well I was quitting until this or that happened and prevented me so it's not my fault."

It's so easy to rationalize and excuse yourself when deep down, you're just trying to make yourself feel better instead of really dealing with whatever it is that's bothering you. The only way I know how to tap into my deep down desires is to let my subconscious mind understand what it is that I want to do. NLP helps too so why not run through an exercise right now...

Okay here's a NLP process for belief change. I'm going to change my belief that it is hard to never look at pornography for the rest of my life with the belief that it is easy to never look at pornography for the rest of my life.

First step is to think of a belief I believe in completely, like the existence of gravity and a belief I don't believe in like Santa Claus.

Then I'm going to think of submodalities or components of the picture I have for the belief in gravity.

When I picture gravity, I see a pan falling next the tower of Pisa. I have no idea why but that doesn't matter. The picture is bright, solid, moving, big, and clear

Now I'm going to picture Santa Claus. I see a man dressed up as Santa, dancing around to silly music in front of a Christmas tree. It's black and white, small, and kind of gritty like a really old photo.

Okay now I'm going to picture my belief that never looking at porn is hard and I'm going to change that picture so that it has the same characteristics as my belief (or disbelief) of Santa Claus.

Now I'm going to change the picture of my belief that never looking at porn for the rest of my life is easy so that its like my picture of gravity.

Wow... that's intense... I haven't done this in awhile.

Here's to 2 weeks!

Day 10

All is well. I have had plenty of bad days and I haven't looked at porn. I feel bad but I just don't see porn as an option to relieve my stress. I attribute this almost entirely to my meditation and the fact that I have been saying "I intend to never look at porn again" during meditation when I find my mind clear. I'm also painting quite a bit and I enjoy it. It's pretty cool.

Day 7

So we're at one week. I attribute this to meditation. The fact that I have been releasing my intentions to quit born during meditation has had a big effect on my ability to resist urges. To a lesser degree, painting abstract art has helped as well. There's not much else to say right now. My spirits are a bit low because of failing my 3rd and 4th attempts so quickly but there's nothing else to do but try again.

Day 5

I'm in a fight with the girl I'm seeing. It's rough. Finals are in 2 weeks. I'm in a bad mood and I'm angry and I'm tired.

I've been meditating and for the last few days I've been saying something along the lines of "I desire never to look at porn again" when i find my mind clear. So far it's helping me resist the urges... like right now.

The girl I'm seeing said that everyone has a pacifier... she said hers is cuddling... mine is pornography. Or at least it was and now I'm trying to piece together a new one.

So far the art thing is ... going ... well i guess. I've done one painting and I'm gonna do another one right now before going to bed. my camera is working again so maybe I'll post them.

Day 3, Fifth Attempt

Okay, so we had Thanksgiving break and being back home sucked. I got into a few fights with the family and ended up looking at porn on Saturday which ended my fourth attempt rather quickly. Dealing with stress was the problem once again. I decided to take action and I got some paints which I'll will break out and use the next time I feel the urge to look at porn. The logic is that if I can express myself painting, that will relieve my anger and stress and also entertain me. On top of that I'm trying to meditate everyday and once my mind is clear I give my subconscious mind clear instructions that I intend to quit porn.

That's all for now, things are busy.

Day 2: Fourth Attempt

So I learned two strategies for dealing with stress.

1. Spend time around other people. Specially if I'm working on something stressful, it helps just to be around someone else to express my frustration.

2. Close my eyes and say (in my head) "I command my eyes to blank out all tension."

I got a ton of pressure from the girl I'm seeing, I guess I should just say girlfriend, to look at porn with her since I broke my 30 day streak anyways but I had an essay to write last night so we didn't. And now that it's day 2, I'm just saying no way. I'd rather start counting the days since my last viewing of porn than give in again just to have freaky sex while watching together.

That sounds like a load of bs but it's true. I hate porn. I despise it. I hate looking at it, i hate the feeling I get after I watch it... it's like having all my will-power depleted.

Anyways I'm tired because i didn't sleep well.

I looked at porn, My 3rd attempt is over

On day 31, I looked at porn. The most important thing to talk about is what I learned about this mistake.

The cause was obviously stress. I had just got back some grades for some papers and tests and they are discouraging. I've been facing some motivation issues this quarter and to get negative feedback from classes is really stressful.

I feel deep down that I don't want to be at college. Not because I don't like it... I love it here, except for the classwork. The classes I'm taking don't interest me and I feel I'm wasting time that I could be spending building a career. I want to go into investing and I don't need a degree to do it so I feel I'm fulfilling an obligation in place of pursuing my dream.

Dealing with this issue is important but more important to quitting porn I must find a new way of dealing with stress.

Here's exactly what went down.

1. I became aware of an inner conflict of great importance to me.

2. I felt a great deal of stress. At first I handled things quite well by being aware of it and trying to express my anger and guilt and sadness involved around the issue. However, my methods were inadequate.

3. I slowly, over the course of a few hours of tossing in bed convinced myself that it was okay to look at porn. I did this because I felt a great need to hide from the problem by distracting myself. With no way to relieve the stress, I looked at porn in order to escape the pain.

So I must think of ways to relieve stress. Over the next 3 days, I am going to look up one method of relieving stress each day, think about how to implement it into my life, and then post about it.

Day 30

So there were subtle signs that my urges for porn were increasing and now it's happened. I've felt some strong urges to look at porn. Last night I dreamed I looked at porn and I felt really crappy for doing it. I've fantasized about different porn movies I've seen while masturbating. I'm conflicted about what I should do about this. In a way, fantasizing about porn makes me want to watch it again... trying to stop fantasizing about pornography is a good idea. My fantasies aren't nearly as good as the images I remember from pornography and I think it would be a good thing if I worked on that.

One of the most important reasons for why I am quitting is that I don't see myself in the future as someone who looks at pornography. To remind myself of that is a great motivator to stay strong.

On a different topic, its funny how when you are seeing someone, other girls all of sudden gain a great interest in you. I don't cheat and that's mainly for selfish reasons like the fact that I feel a lot of guilt when I do things perceived as bad and that I'm a really bad liar. However, I've felt some desire for some of these girls and that's lowered my attraction to the girl I'm seeing. As a result I haven't had as much sex with her and I'm hornier. That means I feel the need to masturbate more and when I'm masturbating, I've felt a desire to think about porn movies I've seen, just because they get me off a lot faster and better than fantasizing about real people.

I do like this girl though and the affection we share is great. She's only going to be here til December 15th so I can always move on at that point but nonetheless this problem is a bit of a pain in the ass. I'm just dealing with it at the moment but I would like an answer... so I'll think about it.

Day 29

So Saturday will mark month 1 which I'm looking forward to. No strong urges although I should mention this one thing. That girl I'm seeing wanted me to get some information on a certain type of sex for her and while looking for it I felt a strong temptation to look at sex related forums. If you've read my earlier attempts, sex forums were a big problem for me. I managed to avoid the temptation for the most part and I feel good about it.

Day 27

Ha, so I'm proud of myself. That girl I'm seeing wanted to watch porn with me and I refused. She was pushy about it too haha. I stood my ground though and explained that if I watched porn with her, even just once, it would decrease my chances of quitting. So I'm patting myself on the back... I'm proud of myself.

Day 26

Getting close to 1 month now and going strong.

So right now I'm facing a few obstacles to my progress.

1. I'm fighting a cold that just doesn't want to let up. When I'm sick I'm more likely to spend time in my room than going out and that creates a situation in which I'm more likely to look at the internet and be tempted to look at porn.

2. Occasionally I'll have an hour or so with nothing to do and I feel tempted to look at porn as a means of entertainment.

It's never right to ignore problems, even the smallest ones, because left unchecked they can grow. So I'm taking Nyquil at night to fight the cold and I'm leaving my room to go find people to hang out with or go for a walk or whatever when I'm bored in order to keep a physical distance from my desire to look at porn.

To be honest, I'm extremely confident right now because my urges are few and far between and when they are present they're very weak. I know I've said it before but the I can't stress enough the importance of having my life straightened out compared to my earlier attempts.

There were 4 problems that really tempted me to look at porn. They were: lack of friends, lack of play, lack of relaxation, and lack of sex (or belief that I can get sex).

Those 4 problems are solved right now, they might come back at other times of my life but it's most important that I find solutions for them if they come back because they are tremendously important.

Day 22

So I've had a few urges to look at porn. They were a little stronger than before but nothing tempting enough to get me on the computer. It happened when I was bored and I wanted entertainment. I found other stuff to do though so it was fine.

Day 19

Man I can't believe I looked at porn 19 days ago. It seems like it was a lot longer ago. I had thoughts just now about looking at porn. They weren't that strong.

I'm seeing a girl right down the hall and all I have to do is text her and I can have sex. I think this makes not looking at porn pretty damn easy.

EDIT: I just want to say that I'm so grateful that I restarted this blog and made a commitment to quitting porn.

Day 16

I got laid last night. One of the strongest influences on whether or not I look at porn is if I'm feeling down and I think "Man, I'm never gonna get laid." Negative thinking like that is killer. Despite getting no sleep last night I feel pretty good. It's been like 6 months since I last got laid haha.

Anyways, no strong urges yet. Porn is not even on my mind.

Day 13

I had the thought tonight. "hmm it would be nice to look at some porn right now." I responded by being like "no, forget that, screw porn."

I'm surprised I haven't experienced much desire for porn. Then again when I first made an attempt using this blog, I think I started hitting urges around day 18 so maybe this is normal.