I discovered porn at around the age of 12, and it didn’t take long for me to develop certain fetishes (age of 14). I won’t get into details because it doesn’t matter. I would be whacking it up to 3 times a day, but even in my “darkest” times, I managed to tell myself 3 is more than enough per day, although i did pull it up to 5 some days.
Fast forward to my high school years: I have discovered weed and alcohol. I had trouble socializing, so I thought these drugs helped me with it. In some ways they did, but these social experiences weren’t “real” or lasting in my opinion. I started smoking weed every day and being high for as much as it was possible (still living with my parents so I at least had that boundary). Still whacking it daily, having amassed a pretty hefty collection of porn on my hard drive. Didn’t think it was doing much to me, but I wasn’t really getting laid much. Only time i did get laid was when I had a girlfriend (still don’t know how that came to be but oh well). I was around 18-19 then. I could get hard and have sex, but I could rarely climax. Didn’t think much of it and continued with my poor life choices.
Fast forward to a few months ago. I am 25 years old, live in a different country and have a shitty but well-paying job. I live mostly off of junk food, still am high all the time (but never at work), spend most of my waking hours either playing video games, rolling joints or PMO and edging for hours. Not to mention the fleshlight i have bought. My social life is depressing, to say the least. I have recently discovered MDMA, and loved it because it allowed me to communicate with people. Also, when I was on MDMA, people seemed to really enjoy my presence and thought I was awesome. They didn’t necessarily know I was on the drug. So that also became a slight problem, but it was somewhat under control.
2 months ago, after 3 consecutive weekends of partying, I fell into a week+ long MDMA induced depression. during that time, in fear that it will never pass, I started considering all the things I want to change in my life, as a sort of way to redeem myself and start feeling good. But quitting PMO was not among them. Then one night, a (female) friend came over, because I picked up some weed a few nights before and I also took some for her. She showed up completely drunk. It wasn’t long before she told me she wanted to get fucked. Me, being in the low after MDMA, had absolutely no interest in sex, but I tried to do it anyways because, well, it’s sex, the thing I constantly jack off to, only to find out my little soldier was not responding. I apologized to her and blamed it on my party/drug streak. She went home and I went to google to search for porn induced ED, which is what lead me to YourBrainOnPorn and consequently, this subreddit.
It only took me a few articles and threads to make the big decision. At first I only wanted to quit PMO to fix my ED. Those other positive effects i thought were “bullshit”. Boys, let me tell you, they most certainly are NOT bullshit!
It took me a few more days to climb out of the drug induced depression, which also helped me not PMO, smoke or eat shit within the first few days (the redeeming factor mentioned earlier), because I simply had no interest. And during those days I also made a few more commitments; “since i’m quitting PMO for a while, maybe I can try going without weed as well..? and maybe try eating healthier?”.So about a week into my streak I started noticing I am more concentrated at work (I am a chef, and that requires crystal clear concentration to be on time). Healthy foods that tasted “meh” in the past are actually good and if I ate junk food, I felt bad (mentally) after. That’s where I started thinking to myself that there might be more to nofap than just..not fapping.
I felt more motivated to get shit done, so I started exercising daily. Got my heart rate up (fast walk or short run) and did push ups or sit ups. After a few days I already started noticing results. This kept motivating me further.
Within the next few days, I completely cleaned my apartment, (re)arranged my kitchen and decided it was time for another step: quit smoking tobacco! Also, my coworkers noticed something was up and told me I look better, healthier, sharper. MORE MOTIVATION!
Things kept going like that, every day feeling better than the previous one, and every day making a slight improvement, whether it be my diet, my apartment, ACTUALLY READING A BOOK(?!?!) etc.My sleep schedule was also starting to take form. First week falling asleep was hard asf, but it got easier.
2 weeks ago I was invited to a female friend’s (not the same as before) birthday party. I didn’t really want to go because of my social situation (not knowing how to converse etc.), and the fact that she’s the only person I know. But I forced myself out of my comfort zone because, from what I’ve heard, amazing things tend to happen on the other side. They do! I met a girl and she likes me! 🙂 And I found that holding a conversation is the easiest and most satisfying thing there could be if you’re just being yourself and taking the time to listen to the person. And not over-analyzing everything you’re about to say or have said.A few days after the party, this friend, whose birthday it was, also told me that other people who were at the party were asking about me in a positive way. Am I actually popular? I never was, I don’t know myself in that light. Ride the lightning I guess..
Yesterday I also realized that because of my decision to start eating healthy, I haven’t eaten meat in more than 2 weeks without even noticing it. So today, I officially went vegetarian and it feels good!
So to conclude, In the past (almost) 2 months, I have managed to quit PMO, quit smoking weed and tobacco, stopped consuming processed sugar, drasticly lowered my gaming times (almost non-existent), became a vegetarian, started getting in shape, gotten a SHIT-LOAD of confidence, fixed up my previously dirty apartment and gotten an amazing new outlook on life. I don’t necessarily want to say it’s ONLY because of quitting PMO, but It definitely played a big role. All it took was one big decision in a time of desperation.
To those brothers out there who are struggling: It wasn’t easy for me although I didn’t really talk about my battles that much. But now that i’m coming out through the other side I can tell you it’s FUCKING WORTH IT! Quit PMO and other bad habits will soon follow!
Sorry for writing such a long post but I felt like I needed to share as much as possible, and I still left out a lot.. 😀
And thank you for taking the time to read this! Good luck
LINK - My (successful) story so far
By Jan_Frodo
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