Friday, December 28, 2007

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.

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