How did you beat the addiction? I want to but it seems impossible.
I believe Jesus Christ healed the addiction but I still had to put effort into it and I know not everyone believes in a higher power like a God or Jesus Christ so I'll try and explain but it's hard to explain it without getting spiritual because I do believe I was spiritually healed. Here's a summary of my story. It's long, I have cliff notes at the bottom. I think this is worth reading. I know it's long, but just read a few paragraphs here and there. I was a total addict and recovered. It's worth reading
I feel like when I used my raw will power I could go a few weeks without doing it but at night (or sometimes if I had nothing going on during the day and was just by myself) I would feel an urge to do it. That was the addiction. The impulse to do it. I feel like if I tried with my own strength I could just grit my teeth and ignore the urge and I used to ask myself how can I deal fighting this urge 24/7 for the rest of my life?
This is where it gets spiritual;
I had it wrong. It was NOT going to be that way all the time. Eventually, I could just go about my days not feeling this gnawing urge in my mind and body asking me to masturbate. I used to wake up from sleep, my heart pounding, because I would get the addictive urges to look at porn and/or fap, but that ended.
So my path to recovery:
Like I said,
I had this addiction for around 12 years. The teenage years (14-18), I never really cared about quitting but I wanted to quit. I don't count those years as years where I put in serious work to quit. I started seriously trying to quit from 20-25. I'm turning 28 this month.
20-24 it was just a bunch of 3-5 week spans of not doing it then relapsing and being depressed and binging for a while and then hitting another bright moment of maybe a month of not doing it and then relapsing
My first extremely solid streak, my first taste of recovery was a 290-something day streak that began when I was 25 and ended when I was 26. What caused that first taste of recovery? I ask myself that a lot. I started dating a girl at that time. We weren't sexually active, besides kissing and making out. She was a really religious girl who was waiting for marriage and I am too. We were best friends and it's hard to explain but she was a good example for me.
She gave me a taste of platonic love and it was amazing. I reached a point where I just loved her too much to look at porn. I couldn't talk to her all day everyday, understanding what I meant to her and what she meant to me and sit and look at porn when we weren't talking. So porn exited my life. I felt similar about masturbation. I felt guilty doing it and not only that but I felt less tempted to do it. After about 40ish days, the addiction withdrawals didn't seem to be reaching me much and on top of that, I feel so amazing because of the relationship. Remember, we aren't having sex. The platonic love was so sincere, and sweet. It just affected me positively.
So was love or this girl the key to breaking the addiction? No, but both were positive influences that helped immensely.
So eventually we break up. This is around day 100 of that 290-something day streak. I start getting sexual (no fapping or porn, just making out with girls) between days 100 and 290. I start hitting up girls on tinder to make out with them because I miss making out with that girl (we kissed but that was it, no sex, no oral, fingering, etc).
I get lazy about acknowledging God's hand in helping me no longer feel the addiction withdrawals. I don't want a relationship because I'm miserable over my ex breaking up with me, but I really miss kissing and
I start getting really lustful desires. One night I meet up with a drunk girl and she's begging to have sex. Of course I don't sleep with her but I got super close to fingering her and
this was a turning point. I felt so different after that night. Those urges I often would get at night to masturbate and look at porn? They started coming right back. I drove the spirit of God away from me from my lustful actions. I can't be praying, asking God to give me the strength i lack on my own to say no to masturbation and then an hour later think it's all good to make out with a girl, get her hot and wet, nearly finger her, and think I'm going to have God helping me with my addiction.
I got lazy and unappreciative of the 270+ day streak I was on. Not long after that night where I nearly fingered the girl, I couldn't sleep one night. I had an insane urge to masturbate. Just like the old days. And you know what I did? I was weak. I felt so different. I was back to my old self. I masturbated and looked at porn.
I ended my 290+ day streak and relapsed. And it took me about 7 or 8 months to get another streak going (here is the happy part, that streak is still going, I'm getting close to 400 days, it's been over a year since I last fapped or looked at porn). During the first 3 months of that relapse, I binged hardcore on masturbation, porn, and fingering girls. I was a wreck.
I met with my religious leader (I had been meeting with religious leaders over this addiction for years) and explained what had been going on. I told him everything. He encouraged me to look at an addiction recovery program.
One of the steps of the program is being honest with yourself about how addicted you are, being honest about what you miss out on because of the addition, etc.
I started trying to be brutally honest with myself about what my addiction does to me; it robs me of confidence, it hurts me spiritually, it kills my chances with the sort of women I'm interested in (women in my religion), other things.
During that 7 months in between the relapse and the beginning of my recovery, I prayed sincerely, trying to explain I was sorry for taking for granted all the help I had received from God during that 290+ streak. I tried really hard to not meet up with women. Making out just turns me on and drives the Spirit of God away, and when I don't have that, it seems I'm tempted more to masturbate. I tried to find comfort that I had gone 290 days without doing it and
I had literally seen how once you start recovering, the temptation to masturbate can feel like it isn't even there anymore. I met a girl during this time who was a positive influence in my life, but again, it's not this girl, or the last girl that freed me from the addiction. They were both positive influences, but they were just one of many.
So I'm currently on day 380 or 390-something. I feel great. I don't ever wake up from sleep with raging desires to masturbate or look at porn BUT I've seen how quickly I can go back to my old ways if I'm not appreciative for what God has done for me, and that includes meeting up with women for lustful reasons. I need to keep my desires righteous, be honest with myself that I'm addicted, be honest with myself about how the addiction robs me of happiness, and be honest about the role God has played in helping me heal from this addiction
I really feel I was spiritually healed from the addiction. Like I'm typing this all up right now in my bed at night. A few years ago I'd be in the mood to fap, or I would have done it earlier. Right now, and nearly all the time every single day, I never feel scary urges tempting me to fap.
So cliff notes on what I did
- Spent years going through cycles of small no-fap streaks and relapses but I didn't quit or give up on myself
- Prayed for years about this addiction. Asked God for help. Wasn't always easy. Often I wasn't in the mood to pray
- I'm part of a Religion, over the years I would meet with my church leader every few months to confess my sins, they gave me guidance, like encouraging me to admit that I am addicted. They also recommended a 12-step program that opened my eyes a bit
- I did fall in love with a girl and was loved in return by her. This relationship taught me a lot and helped me not feel tempted to masturbate
- I met another girl later on who treated me like she saw me for the ideal I could be (don't get me wrong, she's also treated me like garbage). Her friendship motivated me to keep on trying and to not quit
It's hard to write out a formula of what I did because, like I've said a million times, I feel like I was spiritually healed.
What did I do? I had small streaks of no-fap followed by a billion relapses but I always tried to reach out to God in prayer and eventually, here I am. Nearly 400 days of no-fap, reached my 1-year mark recently.
I feel like the question is what did God do, not what did I do? Because essentially, I just didn't quit on my goal to give up this addiction. I prayed a lot. I was brutally honest with myself about my addiction. I was brutally honest about the sins I've committed to my religious leaders. I cried out to God for help. I met some women who were positive influences in my life, and after battling this for years I reached points in my streaks where I just stopped feeling the urge to masturbate. And here I am in recovery
I hope this is helpful. I'll answer more questions and elaborate on anything that isn't particularly clear or anything you want more info on
#HOH
and kept his power and continued fukking all of them up
[/sarcasm]
@the fact that this was the first reply!