Striving4more wrote on 11 Jul 2022 18:33:
I've been on the DL since I've joined earlier this year. I made it to 60 days my first go-around before having a fall (went through a bad break-up that spiraled into a weeks-long binge). B"H the last 87 days have flown by, I really can't believe that 90 is around the corner in just three more days. I know myself, and feel that I've been too passive in how I've made it to this point. I happen to have had a very packed schedule recently, which B"H has kept my head focused on positive things and without too much downtime to allow for any p + m. My learning schedule early in the morning also helps aid this as I force myself to go to sleep early at night, again cutting down the "prime time" for falls to occur. Despite all this, I feel like once I breach that 90-day mark, my motivation is going to flatline. After months of ghosting this wonderful website and being inspired by so many of you, I am making a commitment to keep an updated account of what I'm going through starting on Day 90 to ensure I keep this up be"H as long as possible.
Would love to hear any advice from anyone who has made it past the 90-day mark to keep it up.
Thank you all!
First of all gotta wish you congratulations on this! You are incredible!! Keep up the good work and I can’t wait to hear you start posting after day 90! Im sure you will be a big chizuk to the other members of gye!! Secondly, I can’t speak so much from experience post 90 days as im not so far beyond 90 myself but there are a few things that i thought of along the way.
One thing which is always important to remember is that 90 was and never will be the end goal. 90 days (besides for your neuron pathways being redirected for whatever that means etc) shows that you can continue living the rest of life without porn or masturbation. If you did it for three months, you can do it forever. That’s the yisod of 90 in my opinion. I didn’t have some crazy feelings on day 90 that now im going to be free from this struggle…it actually felt pretty similar to every other day. The only difference was that i reached a goal i set for myself.
Secondly, a big motivation of mine from the beginning of joining this site was to hopefully be in a position that one day i will be able to help others get out of their personal hell. If i can show someone else that no matter how hard it gets that i will be able to push through, then they will see that they also have the ability to keep going strong. That’s definitely something i still keep in mind.
Third, my long term goals in life automatically mean that i need to keep up my motivation to keep on going. Im going to be starting to date in the near future and i want my marriage to be on solid ground with my past being the past and the future full of opportunity. I don’t want to be a Moe Steiner (-; (see the new story teller thread if you don’t get this…)
Fourth, I’m quite happy where my life has gone to without being addicted to porn. I have more time on my hands in general, im emotionally healthier, and overall i feel great about myself. All of these feelings are not something i really experienced when i was stuck in the world of pornography. I don’t want these feelings to ever go away. There are still times where the battle gets tough and I remind myself of the guilty feeling that i had right after a fall in order to battle my yetzer hara. The yetzer hara only lets you think of the pleasurable moments of porn and masturbation without you remembering how horribly guilty you felt right after…
All of these and more are things that im
misbonein on to help me want to keep fighting this battle for the rest of my life. I don’t want to stop at 90. I don’t ever want to go back to that horrible world i was living in. Internalize this and hopefully it will give you the proper motivation to keep on trucking. Wishing you luck brother.
-ftc