No PMO War XXXIX

Abstaining from PMO loses its meaning if you perceive it as depriving yourself of pleasure, rather than freeing yourself from the shackles of addiction. If there are no other sources of pleasure in life, then of course, depriving oneself of pleasure (even a completely morbid one) will be perceived as self-torture. Breaking free of addiction still can be a fine first step to better life, but only a first. It won't be a life changer.
Successful men this, people we aspire to be that. Many people suffer every day just to survive until the end of the week. Comparing yourself to someone else is a real hassle. If you can't make your life better with your own strength, ask for help. If there's no one to help, go around and ask more.

Well said. At one point, it seemed impossible. But I have been working hard to change myself and do things I know I need to. Write more. Make the Christian adult social group I've wanted to. Make more friends and eventually find a romantic relationship. It's been very slow progress because of my limitations, but progress feels good, even if it's slow

You gonna understand that differently after quitting PMO for good. Your mind gonna play tricks, but life will be 10x better when you're free.

You said that abstaining didn’t make any difference and only made your life more miserable. My question is how long did you abstain for? It takes time to get over this addiction and start turning your life around. Like they say, “if you’re going through hell, keep going…“!
It sounds like you are depressed and losing hope. This is a very common result from long-term PMO, which affects all of us at some point. The key is to somehow become comfortable in your own discomfort and believe that with extended effort, your life will change. Don’t give up brother, we’re all in this together!

@Degenerate_Filth I think this is a great question ‘What is it all for?’ It’s something I’ve considered many times, especially when I’m at my lowest and wondering why I’m putting myself through this. After all, this is meant to help us to feel better right? To help us to start moving our lives in the right direction and achieving the things we want out of life.

I believe in modern times one of the main problems is our ‘inability to feel pain’, even in small amounts. I feel sad, lonely, depressed e.t.c and so I reach for dopamine in some form to make myself feel ‘better’. Of course this doesn’t actually make us feel better, it makes us feel much worse after the initial dopamine spike has worn off. Then this creates behavioural loops where we reinforce the action of reaching for dopamine every time we feel pain.

A couple of questions I like to ask myself during times when I’m feeling low is ‘what’s wrong with feeling bad?’ and ‘why do I need to feel good right now?’. If we can start to become OK with feeling bad and remove the need to feel good in every moment then I believe we can start to remove the power the negative emotions have over us. This increases our tolerance for pain and reduces the risk of giving into negative habits.

So the overall point of Nofap is not for things to automatically become better, it’s about building the tolerance to be able to deal with negative emotions. Then you will have a strong foundation to start taking action towards the things you want in life. Nofap is not the end goal here, it’s simply the beginning. It’s step one in a long process of rewiring the brain to prioritize long term achievement over short-term satisfaction.

We live in a world that has prioritised instant gratification above anything else and so the ability of working towards long term goals has largely been lost. Right now we are replacing the instant gratification with a long term goal and rewiring our brains to support this. We build our tolerance and mental strength to deal with negative emotions in a controlled purposeful way and then start to build the life we want to live.

Brother, I do not want to insult you, or dismiss your experience in any way. I have been there, although not to the same extent as you, but knowingly living with an addiction and doing it anyway for some years leaves a mark on every mans self-esteem. You need to work on your self image big-time.. if not, there is no way that you can abstain from your only pleasure in life my friend. Dopamine is an anticipatory hormone. Right now you only anticipate the next fap. To stop this addiction, this anticipation must transfer to productive habits, that long time build a life, that you are not as sick of as you are right now. And that starts with your limiting beliefs. It took me 3 years of failing nonstop, until I realized, I was unknowingly still using the willpower method. I have only now begun to challenge my belief of the ,,man, who is not able to uphold a healthy relationship".