Taking Responsibility

It hit me recently that a decade is about to come to an end, and a new decade is about to begin. The year 2000 was exciting for me. It heralded an end to high school and the beginning of adulthood. 10 years of adulthood later, I find myself in an odd position. I've accomplished many of the things I set out to do, but not in the ways I expected. In the past 10 years I completed two degrees, moved to Ohio and then California, and started a great relationship and am trying to start a career. In the past 10 years I haven't died, I've barely made a dent in my athleticism (though my exercise habits and my diet have improved sharply this past year or two). Most importantly though: I have not been able to curb my addiction to porn, hookup sites, and masturbation.

I always assumed that this was a phase I was going through and could not be called an all-out addiction. However, after trying to quit multiple times and failing every single one, I have to admit that this is a real problem that will continue to hold me back if I fail to address it. I'm 27 now, going on 28, and I don't want to enter my 30s with my dick in my hand (I'd rather have it in someone else's). If I don't quit masturbating, looking at porn, and going to hookup sites, it's going to destroy my relationship, and eventually my life and livelihood.

I attempted to quit masturbating years ago by deleting all the porn from my computer and wiping the drives. I stored everything on CD (my whole collection, when compresed, fit on 4 CDs). At some point, I started a new porn collection, and then eventually loaded all 4 CDs back onto my computer.

I just spent today removing all the porn from my computer and attached hard drives. It took up 9 DVDs uncompressed. I've taken off all pictures, movies, e-mails, saved conversations, bookmarks, and internet history, so even auto-completion in Firefox won't lead to porn. I've reblocked all websites I frequent to get off. In the moments that I have lucidity and clarity of thinking, I'm trying to do whatever I can to remove all triggers for this habit.

I've given the DVD set I burned for "backup purposes" to my boyfriend. I've instructed him to hide them, maybe destroy them. I don't know what he's going to do with them and I don't care.

My goal is to go until the end of January without masturbating. I know I've said this time and time again, but I will not give up trying to beat this habit until I succeed, and I am going to try as hard as I can to overcome it. I've beaten addictions before, and I will do it again.

All the best,

j

On Being Human

I seem to forget that I'm human when I make grand plans for myself. I forget that I am fallible. That I will always make mistakes. That nobody is perfect, myself included. So when a setback occurs, or the unexpected happens, I shut down and don't deal with it in stride, with grace.

So my grand plan is posted for all to see. I managed to maintain the P.E. for the whole month, and saw a gain of .25" in length and .125" in girth. Pretty cool, and I'm going to keep it up in some capacity going forward. My erections seem firmer. As far as exercise goes, I haven't stayed with the exact plan I proposed, but I have managed to cement yoga as a principal part of my morning routine. It's not a lot, but it's a start. I haven't made much obvious progress in terms of stats (I haven't bothered measuring again) but at least I haven't lost any ground this month. In terms of work and general drive and motivation (including stopping masturbating) I've made absolutely no headway.

It's clear going forward that it's critical for me to develop a healthy attitude toward sex and masturbation. Whenever I get aroused, my ability to do any work goes completely out the window. My main focus and goal for this month going forward is to stop masturbating. It's not going to happen all at once, there are going to be times when I am weak, but I am going to accomplish this. This is the next step in my development as a person, and I've let my life stagnate for years.

So, starting a life without masturbating, beginning today (again). Wish me luck!

All the best,

j