Turning my life around: OPA 4G - Overcome Pornography Addiction

[RogueTwelve]

Hi all, this is the first of hopefully a few journals as I try Shannon's subs. I posted in my intro and will summarize here: trying to become more social and comfortable around strangers and women as I am currently comfortable in my career, but I feel a bit socially stunted otherwise.

Currently trying to break a major porn addiction which I have tried to break before with not so great results. Probably got exposed to porn around the beginning of high school and got hooked before college, so I've been at this thing for over a decade now. It lead me down a rabbit hole of dark fetishes which really made me question my sexuality and fucked with my head (hypno porn can be very damaging, please take it from me), and basically replaced any real potential for relationships (only encouraged me along with past rejections and lots of fear and misinformation about women from the internet to not really pursue people). I usually masturbate daily (with or without porn stimulation, sometimes just fantasies in my head) and it got bad during the start of the Coronavirus lockdown as I was much more isolated than normal.

I've been using the sub since Sunday now (so currently on day 4) and it helped more than I thought! Just up until today I managed to refrain from masturbating, though I was still looking at images. I have had less of a desire to look though, which is better. I've been cutting off immediate obvious porn sources but still get the urge to look, although I believe the urges are less frequent. I plan on doing a full dopamine detox soon for a day or two since I know other things are stimulating my brain too much, which keeps porn a bit less stimulating than it already is and makes the hole deeper.

Will be posting every couple days since my routine is pretty dull right now, just working and living at home on the computer with my friends, videos, games, programming, reading & writing. I have been keeping up with runs and bodyweight exercises during the quarantine, which helps a lot. After this, I plan on running Absolute Self Confidence to give myself a boost of esteem after getting through this dark spot in life.

Thanks for any support!

[Shannon]

Good luck with your endeavor. How are you using the program right now?

[RogueTwelve]

Good luck with your endeavor.  How are you using the program right now?

Thanks! Currently I'm running it from my laptop using the Ocean Surf track for 12 hours a day, mostly during the day since I'm home and it's calming.

[CatMan]

I struggled with porn for awhile, it was a contributing factor to me becoming a 38 year old virgin. It's evil, I never realised how destructive it was, until I had terrible PIED, self worth issues in regards to feeling not good enough for girls, out of my league, fear surrounding them as a result, and felt unable to bond "normally" with girls like they were different creatures even. All apparently things that can be imprinted with porn watching over time. Insanely self destructive...but I had no idea of the issues behind it. Most people don't, it's terrible what it does to you under the surface...

I've dealt with porn, and DID deal with a much more addictive to me, masturbation addiction. I found the porn much easier to kick than the masturbation, surprisingly. The masturbation addiction came back after a huge 450+ day streak of nofap, while on a program here. I listened to the Stop Masturbating sub a second time, as it got rid of the habit for me the first time around for that streak. And now, it has seemingly rid myself of the addiction this time around, I hope it sticks. Day 55 of nofap hard mode. Starting to see signs of the PIED improving, among some other things. This will take time though, especially since I'm a virgin and porn and masturbation were my only sexual outlets my whole life, unfortunately...so a lot of work to do to repair this and make me "normal".

I've used both programs, the OPA and SM subs. Stick to it, even if you have to use just one at a time. I'd choose the porn one first, as you have. Porn is more destructive of the two, clearly. The quicker you get healing from that, the quicker your life can begin.

Stick with it. Read YourBrainOnPorn.com if you haven't already to keep you motivated. Some fantastic videos Dr. Wilson has there too. You can break this. I believe in you. Your future self depends on you now.

[tolgaocal80]

@RogueTwelve best wishes friend. welcome.

[RogueTwelve]

Thanks tolgaocal, Catman for the encouragement. I've noticed a lot of the same symptoms like lack of self worth, not bonding with girls, etc. I've kept up with friendships and relationships to the point where I'm comfortable around women, but not in a close setting with them beyond just good friends. I'm glad I am taking care of this before I hit 30, otherwise I'd hate to imagine where I'd be.

I don't believe I have PIED, and masturbation is kind of a problem but it seems to just be tied mostly to the stuff that porn triggers in me. I'd like to remove porn first and see where things are before I try to run two subs at once and maybe make one less effective.

Update for day 5 since I'm following up: got an urge to look at porn and did, no masturbating though. That was around noon, no urges since then.

Started reading this book: https://pmohackbook.org/ It has some good information on the trap. Will finish it over the next couple of days while listening.

[tolgaocal80]

Thanks for that site , very appreciated. I don't say it but I think I got some problems about PMO too. I didn't realize that until someone talked about it. I would do Soo many good things with that time rather than wasting on videos.
I will read this book too

[Javier Gerardo]

Hi all, this is the first of hopefully a few journals as I try Shannon's subs. I posted in my intro and will summarize here: trying to become more social and comfortable around strangers and women as I am currently comfortable in my career, but I feel a bit socially stunted otherwise.

Currently trying to break a major porn addiction which I have tried to break before with not so great results. Probably got exposed to porn around the beginning of high school and got hooked before college, so I've been at this thing for over a decade now. It lead me down a rabbit hole of dark fetishes which really made me question my sexuality and ***** with my head (hypno porn can be very damaging, please take it from me), and basically replaced any real potential for relationships (only encouraged me along with past rejections and lots of fear and misinformation about women from the internet to not really pursue people). I usually masturbate daily (with or without porn stimulation, sometimes just fantasies in my head) and it got bad during the start of the Coronavirus lockdown as I was much more isolated than normal.

I've been using the sub since Sunday now (so currently on day 4) and it helped more than I thought! Just up until today I managed to refrain from masturbating, though I was still looking at images. I have had less of a desire to look though, which is better. I've been cutting off immediate obvious porn sources but still get the urge to look, although I believe the urges are less frequent. I plan on doing a full dopamine detox soon for a day or two since I know other things are stimulating my brain too much, which keeps porn a bit less stimulating than it already is and makes the hole deeper.

Will be posting every couple days since my routine is pretty dull right now, just working and living at home on the computer with my friends, videos, games, programming, reading & writing. I have been keeping up with runs and bodyweight exercises during the quarantine, which helps a lot. After this, I plan on running Absolute Self Confidence to give myself a boost of esteem after getting through this dark spot in life.

Thanks for any support!

I can totally relate. A lot of others here as well. I hope I started that before I made multiple runs of AM6 years before. I've been struggling with Internet porn addiction since 2009 when I finally had high speed DSL internet. Before that it's just weekly watching of DVD porn which I thought was not harmful. Still watching straight porn back then. Before that it was just hentai since I feel disgusted by real porn even by hentai from the start. Then I progressed. Now I'm even into tranny porn which is even disgusting to say the least. It's a really hard cycle to break. My longest was 90+ days back in 2016 and after that I had a long term girlfriend. Recently my longest was 30+ days but it was mostly due to being depressed due to my sickness. When I got a bit better the desire to watch peaked and I succumbed yet again.

Hopefully I can get better soon so after MHS 5.75 V2 I will also listen to that sub. Any chances it will get a 5g update? I kind of feel it's a much harder addiction to break than smoking.

I struggled with porn for awhile, it was a contributing factor to me becoming a 38 year old virgin. It's evil, I never realised how destructive it was, until I had terrible PIED, self worth issues in regards to feeling not good enough for girls, out of my league, fear surrounding them as a result, and felt unable to bond "normally" with girls like they were different creatures even. All apparently things that can be imprinted with porn watching over time. Insanely self destructive...but I had no idea of the issues behind it. Most people don't, it's terrible what it does to you under the surface...

I've dealt with porn, and DID deal with a much more addictive to me, masturbation addiction. I found the porn much easier to kick than the masturbation, surprisingly. The masturbation addiction came back after a huge 450+ day streak of nofap, while on a program here. I listened to the Stop Masturbating sub a second time, as it got rid of the habit for me the first time around for that streak. And now, it has seemingly rid myself of the addiction this time around, I hope it sticks. Day 55 of nofap hard mode. Starting to see signs of the PIED improving, among some other things. This will take time though, especially since I'm a virgin and porn and masturbation were my only sexual outlets my whole life, unfortunately...so a lot of work to do to repair this and make me "normal". 

I've used both programs, the OPA and SM subs. Stick to it, even if you have to use just one at a time. I'd choose the porn one first, as you have. Porn is more destructive of the two, clearly. The quicker you get healing from that, the quicker your life can begin.

Stick with it. Read YourBrainOnPorn.com if you haven't already to keep you motivated. Some fantastic videos Dr. Wilson has there too. You can break this. I believe in you. Your future self depends on you now.

I applaud you for reaching 450+ days without porn. I could only dream if I can reach a year without it. I never had any recent PIED. With my first gf back in 2013 yeah I was having ED but when I finally get it up, I immediately released so much so that my gf back then gets pissed off a lot. I'm more of a premature guy. One time I am on No Fap and Porn for many days that I got a release only with my gf at that time humping on me. She really find it cute back then though lol.

Anyhow, did you see any improvement on meeting the opposite sex just by being on a streak? For me, I got really an urge to meet women even just a week. Since you mention the SM sub, didn't you had any action while listening to it? Or are you still a virgin? Anyhow hope you didn't develop any fetishes due to porn like what I experienced.

[Zubrowka]

Thanks tolgaocal, Catman for the encouragement. I've noticed a lot of the same symptoms like lack of self worth, not bonding with girls, etc. I've kept up with friendships and relationships to the point where I'm comfortable around women, but not in a close setting with them beyond just good friends. I'm glad I am taking care of this before I hit 30, otherwise I'd hate to imagine where I'd be.

I don't believe I have PIED, and masturbation is kind of a problem but it seems to just be tied mostly to the stuff that porn triggers in me. I'd like to remove porn first and see where things are before I try to run two subs at once and maybe make one less effective.

Update for day 5 since I'm following up: got an urge to look at porn and did, no masturbating though. That was around noon, no urges since then.

Started reading this book: https://pmohackbook.org/ It has some good information on the trap. Will finish it over the next couple of days while listening.

Awesome book! Thanks for sharing. I actually used Allan Carr to stop smoking successfully.

[RogueTwelve]

Day 9 now. Weekend was not very useful, relapsed a bunch but the pmohackbook encourages it until you finish reading so I didn't feel too guilty. Having some homosexual urges/fantasies which I'm pretty sure are caused by the hypno porn from a while back, I keep sometimes engaging with them to see if I really am attracted to it, and then sometimes I masturbate to women to reassure myself I'm attracted to them. To a degree I think I might enjoy bi stuff but for now while I recover I'm going to try and avoid engaging with those fantasies.
I've noticed after I do masturbate I feel less of a desire to look at porn, so I think the subliminals are still helping, but slowly. Now that I've gone through the trap of these fantasies a few times, and reassuring myself afterwards, I think it's just making me more anxious, so I will be avoiding trying to engage with them all together.

[RogueTwelve]

Day 11. Relapsed yesterday, but also finished reading the hackbook. More importantly, today was a porn free day! I had a couple urges but got over them quickly. Feeling much better today, after getting more porn-free resources. This Youtube series (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J55TZ0JaJXY) and channel has been super useful, engaging with more self talk and journaling now. Knowing I can calm down the little monster inside me that's throwing a fit over not having its porn is helping a bunch, so here's to tomorrow being porn free as well!

[RogueTwelve]

Day 13. Masturbated yesterday, but only to a straight fantasy, no porn. And today was a porn free day again! I still consider these wins. I'm noticing less urges to go back to my normal harems, less urges to use porn or masturbate in a stressful situation. Feeling better about seeing more progress!

[RogueTwelve]

Day 16. I went the entire weekend porn free! But then I relapsed today in a moment of weakness. Will make it a mission to remain porn free for the rest of the week.

[CatMan]

Try to track your routine, especially track the chain of events that lead to your relapse. Usually, you will be able to see some kind of pattern, or set of variables, that can be changed to break the cycle.

You're doing good man. Stick to it. Addictions dealing with a man's sex drive, are imo some of the hardest things to handle, because our sex drive is so potent. I'm so proud of myself for doing it. If I can do it, especially given my lack of sexual experience with women, so really porn and masturbation have been my only "access" to women, you can do it! I believe in you bro.

Track things and figure out the kinks in the armour and adapt. You got this.