EPTI have been stoppign and relasping for some time now.
These were before i found the reddit subforum and i had no desire to stop.
I had some other shit in life to take care of so i couldn't really PMO as often actually....
fuck it. i was gonna write a diary/ keep logs of my progress but here is my story.
it's a story about dopamine abuse and addiction.
I'm a progamer for SC2. I'm 20 years old and i've been struggling with addiction for 2+ years, but i didn't even know it until recently.
I have also been a college drop out for about 2 years now. I occasionally muster up enough willpower to take a few classes each term,
I've dropped them all a couple of times and when i ran out of drops, i would just straight up stop going to class, and fail the course.
i always convinced myself that everything was okay , and that i would just "do better next term"
Im not even sure of how far my gpa has fallen, probably 2.5 or less ?
This is a stark constant to how i started my college career, at 17 years old.
I was a 3.5 GPA Chemical engineering student, hobbies included regular gym , socializing and guitar.
I was at the top of my class and was approached with many scholarships and possible internship programs from my academic advisors.
I was also extremely EXTREMELY cocky and sure of myself.
I had/have a wonderful GF and relationship. Seriously our relationship was fucking perfect back then. We fought probably one time. The fight went something like
"Awww, i guess this is our first fight~~! <3" after a couple of minutes and then we made out for an hour or something.
Also my drive to accomplish things and willpower were VERY high.
However, as for most kids my age i was also INCREDIBLY stupid.
it started out with me taking 18 hours my 2nd semester.
my advisor suggested this to me as well, so i felt okay about it
naturally being in my dorm room studying all the damn time, i started to PMO, a LOT. Now for those of u who don't know
PMO is Porn, masturbation and orgasm. Heres a short article on it if u are interested
http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/comments/v2lnz/the_reasons_why_porn_makes_us_feel_so_bad_and_the/
Yes i know it sounds really fucking stupid, but let me assure u the addiction and side effects were very real.
Basically, I abused my bodys natural dopamines to temporarily deal with school , at great cost.
This alone started my eventual decline downwards , i saw my grades falling and my motivation fading. My interest numbing and my mind weak.
I become VERY socially anxious and had very very few friends because of it. I was at a great university with a TON of excellent social media but
I just did not give a fuck about any of it.
I struggled for a long time before i finally dropped out. i still tried hard and adapted to getting A's with very little motivation/willpower due to my dopamine abuse but eventually failed
Eventually i had to resort to cheating, out of necessity. I would scout out not only a really smart person, but also a very trusting one. Most asian guys(not females at all) are actually completely fine with cheating, so long as they got their precious A, and they felt i was helping them. Also they’re smart
I would bluff and pretend i knew so much that the other person would be inclined to "check"
their answers with mine on a test, but in actuality i would just copy everything they had, while pretending to agree with everything. I would probably help them with only a couple, and copy / pretend to agree with the rest.
I would know a few things usually, and at first i would still study but eventually i figured out that i didn't need to study at all.
It got to the point where if i wasn't able to cheat, i would have failed.
Another example is that, I figured out pretty easily that there are multiple sections with with tests at varying times.
If i was lucky, i could obtain the test from the previous section and therefore write my essay and short answers beforehand.
Once i was so lazy i just straight up plagiarized an entire wikipedia article, just formatting it to the questions and got an A.
I think one of the worst things ive ever done was fake a death of my family. I had overslept and missed the final, although i had a B in the course.
Naturally i was just offered a replacement exam BUT i couldn't do it because i hadn't studied at all, and there was NO ONE to cheat off of like i usually do
So, if i went and took the test solo i would have definitely failed.
So i manipulated my teacher, giving him a sob story and several reasons why i couldn't take the test.
he refused at first, but i bluffed and said that i would have to drop out of school anyways(ain't karma a bitch), and that i didn't even care about my grade anymore.
He didn't reply , and kept his stance on me coming in to take the final, so i figured at that point i would just fail the course.
Acceptable loss, i thought in my mind already that i would just tell my parents that i overslept( which was true) and missed the final. They would understand
However, unbeknownst to me, he had a very kind heart, and decided to exempt me from the final, and i was pleased to see i had a B in the course when grades were posted.
Im not proud of any of this by any means, but it is what it is
It goes without saying I would skip classes and cheat on every assignment in any way I could think of.
around this time i dropped out of school and took up a progaming lifestyle.
It's an interesting feeling, to let yourself down. I think the way i coped with it was that it was okay if it was just me that i affected , but i refused to let anyone
else down. developing this mentality was one of the few ways that i managed to get back on the right track. But this part of the story is where it got really, really bad.
As it is common with people who abuse PMO and dopamine, i escalated it because i was so heavily addicted , i need MORE. The stronger the orgasm , the more dopamine is released.
To quote an article
when you masturbate to porn often, once a day minimum or spend long times a day watching porn and stimulating yourself, think about hours a day, you'll have a very constant high amount of dopamine rushing through your brain. because your brain always tries to normalize, it will counter this by lowering the amount of dopamine receivers, thus making you need more stimulation to reach the same effect. this is the same as and drug junky using a dopamine based drug like heroine, cocaine, speed ect ect ect.
Yes I spent hours every day looking for my fix(seemed normal enough ). Slowly i discovered better sites, fetishes i never knew i had, was even bi for a while( i am actually completely straight...i think)
I even got into some really REALLY fucked up shit,
and it brings me great pain and a whole lot of embarrassment to say this but, stuff such as rape, torture, snuff, and pedophilia.
it started out as just reading stories about it, mind you extremely erotic stories but yes, just text.
i would read purely for normal fetishes but slowly i became desensitized to the more vulgar and abusive shit in the stories.
this site was called asstr.org and it is the biggest pile of shit i've ever laid my eyes upon, but back then I would read for hours upon hours. And hell I wasn’t going to school at that point , I had all the time in the world.
I joined a site called motherless shortly after being desensitized to reality, and found a bunch of people who were very similar to me at the time.
So naturally i began to think Oh this is just a fucked up fetish, that LOTS of people have. It's okay.
man how i wish i could go back in time and slap my silly ass but you can see clearly where how im a fucking retard kicks in.
I hate myself for all of this but what can u do but try to improve yourself.
However, i found Starcraft II. I had dabbled a bit in LoL for a year before that, i was EzPzLmnSqz for those who might remember me, but eventually the game bored me.
Now starcraft was such an interesting and challenging game that it actually slowly weaned me off of PMO,
because of the sheer amount of time and dedication you are REQUIRED to spend to even be competitively relevant.
Also interestingly enough, being successful as a progamer is a LOT about personality , willpower, mindset , everything. and i slowly improved myself every day, without realizing it.
I eventually got good enough to where i was sponsored to go to events, such as MLG and IPL . They paid for my flights, hotel , gave me the sickest keyboards and gear on the market
But when i was at these lans. I COULD NOT PMO . jesus christ i was literally fiending for it and the first chance i had alone in the hotel room , i would go for it.
The rooms had 6+ people for 2 beds usually, so I literally had to duck out during the event or something.
This lead me on a upward spiral of self improvement and everything was probably gonna get better
And then i found weed.
Oh my lordy did that shit got me horny as fuck and made me even worse. The terrible thing is that i knew it made me worse but i researched it extensively and
literally found that weed was the most harmless shit on the planet, so i felt okay about it , eventually i would start picking up weed by the fucking ounce I’ve probably dropped over a thousand on bud, financed by my prize money from progaming of course.
Also, remember that perfect relationship of sunshine and kisses ? It went straight down the gutter.
This was all delayed because we had a long distance relationship, but eventually when i dropped out of engineering, and came back home and switched majors
we fought constantly and eventually i broke her will and she become very paranoid and insecure.
I even considered cheating on her after all that, and came really close to it but luckily i never have and she found it somewhere in her kind heart to give me another chance.
This is where I started trying to slowly improve myself, I took up going to the gym and trying to improve socially, mind you im still completely clueless about PMO and its effects on me, so im still doing that and progaming.
But finally, i found this subforum on reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/NoFap/
and became educated on PMO, and the dopamine abuse that goes with it, and everything suddenly clicked.
Anyways, Im glad to say this is Day 3 for me and heres a small log of the changes i've noted since completely stopping PMO.
-Noted depression, ie withdrawal, but quickly overcome
-Still lazy, but my willpower seems to be growing drastically.
-Worked out, noted improvement on cardio machine
-upper back is randomly sore as fuck. probably due to my new developments with guitar
actually without my overload of dopamine i am also more capable of emotions and my senses in general.
Like said above, i can feel pain more , i've also noticed that my eyesight has improved, like I can see better in the dark.
Also, more time spent playing guitar, and things ive been putting off for months
spent like 2 hours cleaning my car, took it for repairs at the shop, rotated tires etc , something i've literally been putting off for months, my brakes were squeaking so loud that u could hear them over my engine.
And of course, Im writing this article
randomly hugged my gf. feelings have grown stronger for her, and i express that i love her more often
i also linked her many articles on how PMO affects relationships negatively
http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/node/79
this enabled her to say she felt often that the only reason we were together was for sex
i apologized profusely, and redoubled my already strong efforts to stop PMO altogether
If you read the article above, you will see that PMO in extreme cases such as my own will actually almost render u incapable of love.
I have to say this is entirely true and i suppose love ( and the chemical it produces- oxytocin, which counteracts the effects of dopamine or w.e, I don’t understand it completely) is literally why i have conquered my dopamine abuse.
I would like to add that I’ve stopped smoking weed as of today, but I don’t bear any ill will against it, but its obviously not for me.
Thanks for reading.
update:
On June 17 2012 07:09 HeavOnEarth wrote:
Just told my dad about everything i've been going through(he didnt know about my school hiatus, or cheating, But he did know about weed)
+ Show Spoiler [storyaboutbeingdisowned] +
JK, he was really supportive and happy that i was improving myself.
i also told him in the end i was able to figure everything out and improve myself was because of how i was raised by him and you shouldve seen his face haha . his face lit up like a christmas tree and started fiddling his hands in happiness
needless to say quitting is gonna be a breeze for me now
Just told my dad about everything i've been going through(he didnt know about my school hiatus, or cheating, But he did know about weed)
+ Show Spoiler [storyaboutbeingdisowned] +
JK, he was really supportive and happy that i was improving myself.
i also told him in the end i was able to figure everything out and improve myself was because of how i was raised by him and you shouldve seen his face haha . his face lit up like a christmas tree and started fiddling his hands in happiness
needless to say quitting is gonna be a breeze for me now
http://www.yourbrainonporn.com/
Watch this , if you are interested.
+ Show Spoiler [False, upon further experimentation. P…] +
On June 19 2012 20:15 HeavOnEarth wrote:
I will like to revise , everything in the blog is still true, but it wasnt completely because of dopamine abuse.
It was depression- actually still not entirely sure what brought it on but this definitely contributed
Anyways, as i slowly as i got good at guitar(was able to play songs ive dreamed of playing for ages), came back home and was around my family( i missed them a lot, and i was distant from them since my teenage years of rebelZZ), enjoyed IPLs and MLGs because of progaming, so on so forth.
this is entirely true. i was a little depressed progamer, until it brought me lots of friends , even money, and people actually gave me respect and adoration when i said i was a progamer? Shit definitely lifted me up. But not for the reasons i said in my blog
Of course im no fool, i had 100% had a problem with PMO and weed and i'll avoid them at all costs, and honestly who needs it. I'll drink every now n then at partys and mlgs so forth, but life is better without it.
I will like to revise , everything in the blog is still true, but it wasnt completely because of dopamine abuse.
It was depression- actually still not entirely sure what brought it on but this definitely contributed
Anyways, as i slowly as i got good at guitar(was able to play songs ive dreamed of playing for ages), came back home and was around my family( i missed them a lot, and i was distant from them since my teenage years of rebelZZ), enjoyed IPLs and MLGs because of progaming, so on so forth.
this is entirely true. i was a little depressed progamer, until it brought me lots of friends , even money, and people actually gave me respect and adoration when i said i was a progamer? Shit definitely lifted me up. But not for the reasons i said in my blog
Of course im no fool, i had 100% had a problem with PMO and weed and i'll avoid them at all costs, and honestly who needs it. I'll drink every now n then at partys and mlgs so forth, but life is better without it.
On June 19 2012 21:08 HeavOnEarth wrote:
I've figured out the reason i suffered depression. When i was in my academy in high school, one of my best friends was involved in a hacking scandal. He changed grades, etc, and eventually the school was required to bring in private detectives to investigate. Being one of his closest friends, naturally i knew everything, and he had even changed some of my grades without me knowing, or at least i just thought he was kidding when he asked me. Nonetheless, i was sent to CAEP(not expelled like he was) for withholding information, and since i was already on academic probation for all the fights i used to get into(my school was like 95% niggers, aside from the academy and they pissed me the fuck off from time to time, id like to add i have a lot of respect for black people, and the ones i've met in university are some of the most hard working and intelligent, book AND street smart individuals i've come across)
Anyways, my academy kicked me out because of the violation i made while already on probation, and i was forced to attend my other high school.
I lost contact with very important friends to me, self esteem, not to mention to reason i got fucked was because OF ME, i TRUSTED the private detective who MANIPULATED me and then tossed me aside like a cheap rag doll. Being a little happy trusting asian that i was, this SHATTERED not only my self esteem , because i handled the situation so poorly, but also my faith and trust in humans.
Letting go of the past was more important to me then i realized. I asked my mom what she thought and she explained, that they just had to make an example out of me, so that NO ONE would try something that this again. I was extremely unfortunate but of course i made the right move in trusting and being honest, because i had done nothing wrong.
Im still extremely skeptical , and i feel its GOOD to be, but at least i don't despise the human race or something like that, haha.
I've figured out the reason i suffered depression. When i was in my academy in high school, one of my best friends was involved in a hacking scandal. He changed grades, etc, and eventually the school was required to bring in private detectives to investigate. Being one of his closest friends, naturally i knew everything, and he had even changed some of my grades without me knowing, or at least i just thought he was kidding when he asked me. Nonetheless, i was sent to CAEP(not expelled like he was) for withholding information, and since i was already on academic probation for all the fights i used to get into(my school was like 95% niggers, aside from the academy and they pissed me the fuck off from time to time, id like to add i have a lot of respect for black people, and the ones i've met in university are some of the most hard working and intelligent, book AND street smart individuals i've come across)
Anyways, my academy kicked me out because of the violation i made while already on probation, and i was forced to attend my other high school.
I lost contact with very important friends to me, self esteem, not to mention to reason i got fucked was because OF ME, i TRUSTED the private detective who MANIPULATED me and then tossed me aside like a cheap rag doll. Being a little happy trusting asian that i was, this SHATTERED not only my self esteem , because i handled the situation so poorly, but also my faith and trust in humans.
Letting go of the past was more important to me then i realized. I asked my mom what she thought and she explained, that they just had to make an example out of me, so that NO ONE would try something that this again. I was extremely unfortunate but of course i made the right move in trusting and being honest, because i had done nothing wrong.
Im still extremely skeptical , and i feel its GOOD to be, but at least i don't despise the human race or something like that, haha.
;edit 7-10-12
Actually the above spoiler is Completely TRUE. Chef <3!
Heres my pm i sent to him so u can understand wTF is going on lol
Thanks again.
It's funny because i relapsed with your advice in mind, and tried to moderate myself( ended terribly) , and thus scorned everything you told me. but after a while everything became very very clear.
It was damn hard realizing that porn wasn't the problem, i only deferred to it much like how people suffering from poverty in third world countries do with alcohol, or drugs, ETC. I just hid away from my problems.
But it(quitting porn) did give me a nice boost in terms of mental stability and cured my ED blah blah . Basically quitting porn was a catalyst for change, and i took full advantage of it.
You were the only one who gave me the reality check out of countless , and i really do mean countless hours, days even, of reading comments, blogs on reddit, so forth.
Obviously i still need to quit porn, weed and whatever else , because i fucked myself up over the years. But hell, its about damn time i fixed my life
But this ends my blog updates i believe i've learned all i can from this. Went 2 weeks, relapsed and then day 16 ATM.
I might post a before/after pic and revise this blog and re submit later on in a few months. Thanks for all the support to those who've read all of this mess.
;editover9000;
oh god i lied. i just kicked my gaming addiction*(yea no shit im a pro gamer i have ea gaming addiction LOL ) **
one thing i got from gaming addiction was intense paranoia http://common-phobias.com/Scelero/treatment.htm
but turns out i just funneled that into gym and guitar addiction
http://www.healthguidance.org/entry/15805/1/Addictive-Personality-Disorder.html
ok fuck it MR webMD im gonna go see a therapist or something lol
ah wait. addiction seems to be linked to lower dopamine receptors due to overuse and abuse of dopamine!
"So far the only things that have been reported to increase dopamine receptors are exercise, abstinence from ejaculation, stopping addictions like pornography and fasting.
"
Ah i started porn and obsessive gaming, compulsive lying such things when i was 8. this was the same time i left behind my childhood friends and memories. still remember their faces to this day, the things we did together. so forth
Best of luck! Hwaiting ~
