So this is my first post, I just found out about this group today.
It’s been:
128 days with no weed, tabacco & alcohol
38 days with no PMO
28 Days with no YouTube.
So I’m a 28 year old man. Been doing all the things listed since I was 15, some like PMO, YouTube, smoking ciggies and drinking I started even earlier.
I’ve done other drugs in my life but never got addicted to other drugs, but my life constantly revolved around these dopamine releasing activities.
About 8 months ago I was spiraling towards depression and I realized that I really want to change who I am. Didn’t really know how to do that, but the first thing I did was stopped talking with all my friends. Told myself that I’m not allowed to talk to any friends until I find a job. Well that job search took longer than the projected 1-2 month period so after a while my friends were like “Yo, wtf?” I just told them that I’m going through some personal struggles and need space. I knew that to start changing I needed my own place and could not live with my parents anymore so one of the first things I did was find a small apartment and move out. In my own place I started to really enjoy the freedom and basically just smoked a bunch of weed and cycled between youtube, PMO and videogames. I would still do some ‘productive’ stuff but honestly 90% of my time was occupied doing the aforementioned activities.
2 months after living alone I got a rejection for a job that I already passed the second interview for and thought I would get. That night I basically just drank myself to sleep. The next day I came up with a brilliant idea of quitting Weed, tabacco and alcohol for a while. 1 month passed, new years passed, then two months, three months passed. I really felt like I conquered these addictions and it wasn’t even too hard. I still didn’t really hang out with my old friends because our friendship was pretty much based on smoking weed and chilling or drinking on the weekends, just didn’t want to do that anymore so I kind of drifted away.
What I didn’t realized at the time was that I basically just swapped the physical addictions for more PMO and YouTube. I even bought a 200 euro Lovense masturbation machine. So 38 days ago I realized that PMO was taking all my time and energy and I need to stop, so I did. Then 10 days later I realized that I’m just spending like 40+ hours per week on YouTube so I need to stop that too to live the life that I want to live.
That’s when the real challenge started. Holy shit did my brain throw out some serious bombs to get me to either PMO or watch some YouTube. From extremely strong urges, to vivid pictures, to dreams of masturbating or scrolling youtube reels, sleepless nights, weeks long headaches. Pretty much most of what it could do it did. It really wasn’t easy resisting all that, but I just told myself just do it today, don’t worry about tomorrow, just don’t do PMO or YouTube for today.
So yeah the last 10 days or so my mind has been super clear, when I tell myself to do something I do it even if I don’t feel like it. I don’t really have any more timewasting activities (Don’t have social media like Instagram or tiktok either), when I’m tired and just want to rest I either put on an audiobook, read, just lay on my bed/couch and look outside or at the ceiling or watch Netflix or other TV series. I want to decrease the amount of TV series I watch but I’ll do that a bit later once at least 90 days has passed for both PMO and YouTube.
Anyway I just want to share that it is possible, that my emotions are a lot more manageable, I enjoy life a lot more, my connections with people feel a lot deeper, I can do more stuff in a day and stuff.
Recently hit a new record while running, got some project work to get money and also sending out a lot more job applications each day (the rejections don’t even feel that bad anymore), started writing a book(only 38 pages in so far, but it’s something), I’m doing other creative stuff that I find really fun and engaging.
I should also mention that I did also go to a psychotherapist for 6 sessions who told me about ACT and ‘Choice Point’ which really helped indirectly. I didn’t talk to my therapist about quitting weed, tobacco and alcohol until the last session which was 2 months ago. And I quit the other two after the last session. But he gave me tools that are really helpful so I would really recommended paying the expensive psychotherapist and getting help, the cheaper therapists that “analyze you” and that you just talk about your problems to aren’t really that helpful in my opinion.
Anyway that’s it. I hope to continue this and I don’t ever want to go back to my old life of constant brain fog, anxiety and generally not going anywhere in life, while avoiding to think about about those facts by drowning myself in the easiest dopamine I can get.
Wish me luck! And I also wish luck upon anyone who is also on this journey of self-improvement. I know it’s not easy at all and I know that your brain and body constantly try to sabotage your efforts. I don’t really have any advice other than just focus on today, if you don’t masturbate today that is a huge win. Tomorrow will be tomorrow. The only fight you have to win is right now, and you CAN win it!
Good luck everybody
It’s been:
128 days with no weed, tabacco & alcohol
38 days with no PMO
28 Days with no YouTube.
So I’m a 28 year old man. Been doing all the things listed since I was 15, some like PMO, YouTube, smoking ciggies and drinking I started even earlier.
I’ve done other drugs in my life but never got addicted to other drugs, but my life constantly revolved around these dopamine releasing activities.
About 8 months ago I was spiraling towards depression and I realized that I really want to change who I am. Didn’t really know how to do that, but the first thing I did was stopped talking with all my friends. Told myself that I’m not allowed to talk to any friends until I find a job. Well that job search took longer than the projected 1-2 month period so after a while my friends were like “Yo, wtf?” I just told them that I’m going through some personal struggles and need space. I knew that to start changing I needed my own place and could not live with my parents anymore so one of the first things I did was find a small apartment and move out. In my own place I started to really enjoy the freedom and basically just smoked a bunch of weed and cycled between youtube, PMO and videogames. I would still do some ‘productive’ stuff but honestly 90% of my time was occupied doing the aforementioned activities.
2 months after living alone I got a rejection for a job that I already passed the second interview for and thought I would get. That night I basically just drank myself to sleep. The next day I came up with a brilliant idea of quitting Weed, tabacco and alcohol for a while. 1 month passed, new years passed, then two months, three months passed. I really felt like I conquered these addictions and it wasn’t even too hard. I still didn’t really hang out with my old friends because our friendship was pretty much based on smoking weed and chilling or drinking on the weekends, just didn’t want to do that anymore so I kind of drifted away.
What I didn’t realized at the time was that I basically just swapped the physical addictions for more PMO and YouTube. I even bought a 200 euro Lovense masturbation machine. So 38 days ago I realized that PMO was taking all my time and energy and I need to stop, so I did. Then 10 days later I realized that I’m just spending like 40+ hours per week on YouTube so I need to stop that too to live the life that I want to live.
That’s when the real challenge started. Holy shit did my brain throw out some serious bombs to get me to either PMO or watch some YouTube. From extremely strong urges, to vivid pictures, to dreams of masturbating or scrolling youtube reels, sleepless nights, weeks long headaches. Pretty much most of what it could do it did. It really wasn’t easy resisting all that, but I just told myself just do it today, don’t worry about tomorrow, just don’t do PMO or YouTube for today.
So yeah the last 10 days or so my mind has been super clear, when I tell myself to do something I do it even if I don’t feel like it. I don’t really have any more timewasting activities (Don’t have social media like Instagram or tiktok either), when I’m tired and just want to rest I either put on an audiobook, read, just lay on my bed/couch and look outside or at the ceiling or watch Netflix or other TV series. I want to decrease the amount of TV series I watch but I’ll do that a bit later once at least 90 days has passed for both PMO and YouTube.
Anyway I just want to share that it is possible, that my emotions are a lot more manageable, I enjoy life a lot more, my connections with people feel a lot deeper, I can do more stuff in a day and stuff.
Recently hit a new record while running, got some project work to get money and also sending out a lot more job applications each day (the rejections don’t even feel that bad anymore), started writing a book(only 38 pages in so far, but it’s something), I’m doing other creative stuff that I find really fun and engaging.
I should also mention that I did also go to a psychotherapist for 6 sessions who told me about ACT and ‘Choice Point’ which really helped indirectly. I didn’t talk to my therapist about quitting weed, tobacco and alcohol until the last session which was 2 months ago. And I quit the other two after the last session. But he gave me tools that are really helpful so I would really recommended paying the expensive psychotherapist and getting help, the cheaper therapists that “analyze you” and that you just talk about your problems to aren’t really that helpful in my opinion.
Anyway that’s it. I hope to continue this and I don’t ever want to go back to my old life of constant brain fog, anxiety and generally not going anywhere in life, while avoiding to think about about those facts by drowning myself in the easiest dopamine I can get.
Wish me luck! And I also wish luck upon anyone who is also on this journey of self-improvement. I know it’s not easy at all and I know that your brain and body constantly try to sabotage your efforts. I don’t really have any advice other than just focus on today, if you don’t masturbate today that is a huge win. Tomorrow will be tomorrow. The only fight you have to win is right now, and you CAN win it!
Good luck everybody