If you're having a hard time fully letting go of online porn, as in fully accepting not watching it ever again, this is the post for you.

Today I'm going to share a story from my own journey with quitting porn.

A story where I share my struggle with fully letting go.

How I had a hard time fully letting go of online porn...

It was a long time ago, back when I was rebooting, and I was riding on a pretty good NoFap streak.

Well, for me it was actually more than a good streak because this time I had managed to go far above and beyond what I was normally capable of doing at that time.

It was summertime, I was feeling great and on that I was on day 86. 

The last few weeks I had really noticed how my confidence and energy levels had stepped up not just one, but even several notches. 

Now, granted, the fact that I had gone on vacation from my day job that I had at that time didn’t make things worse. 

I had been staying away from porn for 86 days...

So there I was, free from work sitting at my kitchen table thinking, life sure is good at times. 

I was feeling so strong and so good and…confident. Above all, confidence. That confidence was crazy.

My plan was to give up adult sites forever, but I had still set a goal of reaching 90 days, you know, just as a milestone. 

Since my vacation was here, and I had no work tomorrow, I started thinking, “Hey, you’ve been so good, you’re already at day 86 and within just 4 days you will hit the big 90, don’t you think it’s time for a little reward?”

I got trapped in feeding my brain with dopamine from instant gratification...

And I jumped on my bike and visited the nearest pub, just 1 mile away. I sat at an outside table, the weather was warm and I was really enjoying life. 

After a couple of hours I decided to go back home, best not drink too much here and so I did. 

But even though I hadn't had that much to drink my sleep quality was horrible that night. Which, by the way, is very common even after just one or two drinks. And to be honest I might have had a bit more than just one or two.

More like 3 or 4. 

I still wasn’t drunk, but man my sleep was bad and when I woke up the following morning on day 87 I didn’t feel like exercising. So I gave myself permission to take a day off.

I started skipping physical exercise...

A few hours later that day my friend called asking if I was down for grabbing some food. And hey, I needed to eat something anyway and I was on vacation and had no work so of course I said yes. 

Well, we grabbed some burgers and fries and after that we had coffee and a few donuts. 

So there I was, having been out drinking yesterday, skipped exercise and now I was stuffing my face with all this unhealthy food here. 

I mentioned it to my friend and he just immediately brushed it off by saying, “Are you crazy, it’s summer, your vacation just started, and here you are feeling guilty already. Relax, my man”.

I went out for a few beers...

And I knew he was right in the way that I've always had a tendency to be too self critical. Damn it, I had to let loose a bit, I thought to myself.After all, I only have a couple of weeks of vacation in a whole year. 

“Let’s go out and grab a few drinks,” he said. 

Okay, I said. Now,  I was well aware of the slippery slope there so I figured I’ll just have  two to three beers before calling it a night. 

Aaaand….hey, I actually did manage to stop after 3 and so after that I vent back home.

The mindset of milestone vs. lifestyle when it comes to letting go of porn

The next morning I skipped my exercises again and started thinking, "I can give myself a couple of days off. Perhaps my body might need the rest anyway and then I can start again on day 91 after I’ve reached my big NoFap milestone."

Sure enough I didn’t do any exercise at all that day, I had nothing planned for the day and since I now didn’t have any work I just spent my whole day playing some stupid online games and was basically just aimlessly drifting on a digital dopamine stream.

I felt pretty strong urges that day.

But I didn’t relapse.  

Only one more day to go until I reach 90 days porn free...

So the next morning I woke up to day 89. “Only one more day to go before I reach the big 90”, I thought with excitement. 

Once again I skipped the daily exercise and once again I spent my day by sitting at that damn computer. 

And for some reason I was having urges again. I had not really had any trouble with them during my third month in general, but now they were back. Even more intense than yesterday. 

And so then, in a weak moment later that day the addiction voice started whispering. “Hey, you’re basically already on day 90, what difference does 1 day make anyway…just take a short reward and then we’ll continue like nothing happened after that.”

I relapsed back to porn on day 89...

And all these years later, I’m even a bit embarrassed sharing this with you today, because yes, I actually fell for that addiction lie right then and there. 

Yes, I actually relapsed on day 89 when trying to reach a 90 day goal. 

That’s both sad and funny and ironic at the same time.

Now, there were a series of events that led up to it as well. Yes, my plan was to quit using adult sites forever, but in my mind I don’t think I had fully come to terms with the idea that I would actually never watch it again. 

If you're having problems fully letting go of the porn, relapses will happen...

And since I hadn’t fully come to terms with that, the upcoming big 90 made my mind start to play tricks on me and I  just gave myself permission to act out somehow forgetting that 90 was actually not the end goal, but just a milestone.

And the addiction voice managed to fool me with, “Hey, it might be day 89 now, or maybe it’s day 90. It’s so little difference, anyway. you might perhaps be just a couple of hours away from 90 days anyway, so what's the difference?”

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Now, the thing is, in terms of rebooting that is actually true because it’s not like it’s an on off thing in that for the first 90 days you are “off” and then suddenly on day 90 everything gets switched “On”. 

No, that’s just crazy thinking. Not in that way, but in another way, still “yes”

And so what do I mean,,,

Well, let’s say I had to have a relapse right around there, which I obviously didn’t have to, but just to be philosophical here for a moment. Let’s say I had to log in a relapse either on day 89 or day 90. Is there such a big difference really?

Well not in terms of dopamine and from a neurological standpoint, hardly any difference at all. 

And it’s not like one single relapse has to be that bad either, but since I had 90 days as a milestone I really wanted to reach, I shouldn’t have let myself down like that. 

Don't feed an identity of that of a person who breaks his own promises...

Because whenever you break a promise to yourself, you are forming an identity of that of a person who can’t commit to what he sets out to do. And if you keep doing that it becomes easier and easier to just let yourself down in the future as well.

Now, there were a series of events that happened here as well. The first one, me getting a vacation and I got a taste of instant dopamine, and that spilled over in wanting to do some instant gratification stuff which spilled over in wanting to do more instant gratification stuff.

Instant gratification stuff tends to make us want go for more cheap dopamine...

And so that is probably also why I got more cravings that usual the last two days before I was about to reach my 90 day goal. Simply because I had woken up the sleeping dopamine bear and now he was on the hunt for more. 

Anyway, there’s much more I could say about what happened, for example my biggest issue was that I had not fully let go of the porn.

A part of me still thought I would go back to it and that my streak was just a temporary thing, but I’m not going to talk more about that right now as I just wanted to share this story so that you guys get to see, oh man, I have indeed had all kinds of streaks in my days. 

And speaking of not fully letting go of the porn, I have made a video about that as well that you can see right here ==> 

So if that’s something you think you're dealing with, make sure to check it out, by clicking on the video you can see on the screen right now. 

 Thanks for reading!

-Scandinavian Bob-

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• Feeling sad about giving up porn (hard to let go and accept)
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