What do you get out of NoFap: My response to this question

#1

[In reply to …]
What do I get out of NoPMO? (I change the name because I dislike the term “NoFap” because I still think masturbation is healthy and it’s porn that’s the problem).

The main thing I get out of NoPMO is Discipline and an Inner Fire that I can harness to GET SHIT DONE. Being an incredibly sexual person, having no release and not being able to enjoy that easy dopamine fix means I have to be hard. I have to be brutal. So I light that fire inside of me, I strategize, and I fight.

I 100% turn this into a metephorical War. That’s the only way for me to succeed in this. So I turn myself into a metephorical Soldier. I wake up when most people my age are going to sleep, I take a shivering cold shower, I meditate, and I go and conquer my weakness in the Temple of Iron. Every day I prove to myself that I am stronger than my weak and perverse instincts. And I do this with Mindfulness and Suffering.

I almost never skip these things because I know from experience if I skip one day, I’ll skip the next. And if I skip 3 days, I’ll skip a week. And if I skip a week, my Inner Fire will burn out and I’ll slide back into the cold but enveloping embrace of my destructive habits.

The Inner Fire metephor works well for me. The big trick about it is keeping the flame alive, but also keeping it under control. Too much fuel and it will run rampage and my body will not be able to keep up, then the whole system breaks down. Too little fuel and it will burn out, and it is not easy to light it sometimes. Fuel for the Inner Flame is anything that is Good for you to do. It can be going on a nice long walk, reading a healthy book, working on a project, socializing with good people, taking cold showers, meditating, physical training. etc.

But fuel for the Inner Flame is also about suffering. Doing things that SUCK, but are beneficial for you, and doing them mostly because they suck. Cold showers are one example. Fasting, going for a long brutal run… Doing things that the Weak side of your mind hates, because you know you have to burn that shit to the ground in order to succeed.

The only reason I can keep this stuff up for extended periods of time, is because I have Goals. Life Goals, that I’m very serious about achieving. They’re not really that specific. One would be having a meaningful, satisfying career. I know I can’t do that if I’m spending my days surrounded by videos of fake people having fake sex.

Another goal is to have a loving and successful family. How in the name of all that is holy could I raise my sons to be strong, sensitive, and conscientious, if I am not all of those things first? How can I raise my daughters to be independent, tough, and kind, if I do not truly embody those traits within myself? How can I help my children and wife through their struggles and problems, if I drown all my own in a disgusting and deceiving vice? I can’t. And so I know I WILL eradicate pornography from my life completely, eventually. I shall not stop fighting.

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#2

Hi AgentGhost ! It’s been a long time, I truly hope you’re doing well.

Well, I agree with this post. Even more so that I have experienced an up then a down in both my happiness and my discipline, which are the two things I get out of NoFap. Trying to explain the why of these ups and downs may be beneficial for me, for you and anyone seeing the post.

Discipline, for me, is pain, pain you experience because you don’t have a choice and you must do what you told yourself to. I was slowly becoming my own disciple with various repeated actions as I started the NoFap fight. And some of them were also increasing my self-confidence as well, so it was two birds, one stone.

For example, I had the habit for at least five years to eat chocolate everyday at lunch, and I stopped. I participated more in class, and got myself out of my comfort zone. I spoke much more to people, I was leading some group of friends and still am because of the confidence and boldness I acquired.
What I was trying to get is the power to do exactly what I told myself to, and stop f*cking around with excuses. When I told myself “go read a book”, I read the book - “do the homework for the week”, I did my weekly homework - “go talk to this person”, I went to talk to the person - “stop playing video games”, and I stopped.
It explains the up part. I became my own disciple, and felt good and profoundly happy about it when I followed my own instructions because they were right.

Now, for the down part.
The saying is “feed the wolf you want to win”, talking about the good wolf and the bad wolf. Well, I became happy and it seems that I lowered my guard. My worst enemies, rationalization, excuses, slowly took over. I rationalized the fact that I needed to reward myself sometimes, like “wow, you’ve never been that high and powerful, you can reward yourself, no harm, you deserve it” and only from this rationalization - I binge played videogames - forgot gym sometimes - ate more cheatmeals - got back into bad eating habits such as chocolate - and so much more, but slowly, increasingly. I was feeding the bad wolf.
Therefore, the good wolf was becoming weaker: the fight, ConqueredSelf, NoFap, started to loss its meaning. While I made real, honest and “selective” participation in the first two wars (when I didn’t have something great to say, I just shut up), I became a shadow of my former self in my posts, and the “/r/NoFap syndrome” (loosing content quality because of an increased total number composed of younger people: from helpful and meaningful posts to motivational posts, memes and motivational memes - from a five star restaurant to fast food, you get it) didn’t help at all. Some veterans relapsed, some made a boyish rivality between two barracks in a war, and I slowly found myself with only a few people to look up to, including you, AgentGhost, and SolidStance, but unfortunately you weren’t participating to these lasts wars.
The bad wolf started to grow more powerful and it tried to take over and make me relapse - well, it didn’t succeed since I’m writing this post, but it first tried to rationalize sex, then some old fantaisies, then peeking and relapsing. I peeked, then abruptly stopped, as if I had some emergency procedure in my subconscious, and it took a few days to feel better.

Now I feel better but I clearly need to recover from this, as my discipline, happiness and self-confidence took a hit.

Well, that’s a big post, but it helped me, and I hope it will help you. I’m going to my gym. See you, AgentGhost.

-50 Blessings operator

#3

You are a true warrior, my friend. That is an epic story and I want you to know I’m proud of you. I have a few things to say back to you.

Rewarding yourself for improving and kicking ass at life is good. You do deserve rewards after doing things you said you would, following through, and dominating. And everyone needs breaks from being unstoppable. The trick is to not let it go too far, and taking breaks when you are safe to do so. They have to be planned properly. I’ll use my own relapse after my longest streak as an example. That was last March, I went to stay at my sister’s house with my friend while she was traveling, to watch her dogs. Mostly what we did while we were there is drink, eat food, watch Netflix, and soak in her hot tub. It was a great time, and I knew I deserved that week of rest and recovery.
The problem was, I wasn’t doing enough satisfying activities, I was just indulging in unhealthy things too much. So when I become hornier than I could ever imagine being, I didn’t have my routines to save me, and I didn’t have anything wholesome to distract me.
What I should have done when I took a week of recovery and reward like that, is do so on some sort of adventure in a place where I was too busy or stimulated to want to relapse.

I love your feeding wolf analogy, and it’s completely true. We have to keep feeding the good wolf with suffering and pain for the sake of growth and improvement, more than we feed the bad wolf with pleasure and reward. But we actually do need both wolves to be balanced and successful, we just need to make sure our balance is in order.

And lastly, I’m glad someone else noticed the lamentable path Conquered Self has turned toward since 2018. I can’t pinpoint exactly what led to the start of this, but that’s the main reason why I left the army. They always say a lonely soldier is a dead soldier, but I also think a careless and foolish army of soldiers, is an army of mostly dead soldiers. Yes, I took a lot of hits and had many defeats while I was away on my missions of stealth and diplomacy, but I found other wandering nomads who rejected the massive army of boys. I have one Telegram group I’ve stayed active in, it’s quite effective if you are serious about it. It’s a small group, so it’s not ruined by too much traffic of those who simply want attention.

If you want to join this Telegram group, just PM me on Telegram at @agentghost111 and I’ll hook you up.

Even so, You have inspired me. I am enlisted in this coming war, and even though I am not certain that this green army of boys can be saved from the spiraling path I see it taking, I’m making it a goal to post something of meaning at least weekly, and try to be active most of the time to call bullshit when I see it and be merciless and ruthless. And hopefully to help some of these boys start becoming men.

I’ll see you on the battlefield, my brother.

#4

I just want to say this is a great post, as I’ve come to expect from you. I hope more soldiers come and read it and I know I will return here when I feel weak to relight my fire.

#5

@AgentGhost
Hey brother, are you still active on CS? I just read your: “Conquering PMO: The Agent Ghost Method“. I am very impressed and grateful for it and will begin implementing it! I am now on day 21 of the current war… Would love to connect if you are still here…

#6

Having high sexual urges means more discipline training (i think) , but its also harder to do because well… stronger sexual urges and perhaps even a higher frequency

#7

Reading this again inspires me to be better. Keep on keeping on. It is very true that an easy comfortable life that includes waking up late and having PMO to soothe the external pressures is nice. But that “nice” is a lie. It will not stand up to the test of time and karma.

I have been a sufferer of my own doings, past life and current. I have created enemies, both internal and external. Now I vow to rid the world or even the universe of PMO addiction. Contradictory, I view masturbation for enjoyment is unhealthy, I am on the middle ground that you do it intentionally to keep your bed sheets clean from sexual dreams.

I learnt from Buddhist teachings that both suffering and enjoyment are of the same coin. Lose enjoyment, the mind will suffer. Any kind of love, will bring you suffering, unless you can take what is coming. So brothers in this war, take note, train yourself to better than yesterday. You may take baby steps if you are weak, but don’t wallow in it. You have to level up to harder confrontations.

What we post here are similar. It is a daily grind that we must do.