Knowing NoFap

Knowing NoFap: The endless fight, all my efforts to quit.

Below I will share a series of habits, methods and tricks that I have tried to kick the habit, please keep them in mind. Just because they haven't worked for me doesn't mean they won't work for you.

The first time I thought about not masturbating and experienced positive results from practicing abstinence was when I was still in highschool.

I remember watching a video by Álvaro Reyes, in which he explained methods to increase testosterone and thus attract more women and be more attractive, it was a bit of a dark time when I wanted to practice methods of seduction to finally be able to be with a girl and leave shyness behind. The intention was correct but the means I had found were not the right ones, at least not for me.

But I decided to put the “don't masturbate so much” advice to the test and it really worked for me, placebo or not.

The girls were more attracted to me, they interacted with me more. There were a couple of girls in my class who were very naughty, they loved rubbing against me. One time, one of them gave me a huge erection and when she realized it, she started laughing and joked about giving me away. That was very normal back then, my erections were so easy to achieve.

Athletically I was also strengthened. I made fewer mistakes playing volleyball, I had more energy, more power, I concentrated better.

The results were remarkable despite only practicing abstinence during the week, sometimes I didn't masturbate on the days I did sports and that was enough, but I tried to masturbate only on Fridays, although of course that was very complicated sometimes.

Anyway, that strategy changed when I started college, I forgot a bit about that technique because I had stopped playing sports and concentrated on studying. I think that first year of college I must have masturbated a lot, especially to porn comics. I remember that I had to masturbate between study sessions to release stress, sometimes it was very difficult to concentrate and I “gave up” up to twice a day. I didn't go out on the weekends and spent them locked up or with friends, smoking marijuana.

When I started the gym I also thought about not masturbating because I must have realized that I had more strength and energy, unfortunately I never managed to build the habit of going to the gym because I regularly fell ill or went on vacation with my parents to the coast or to my town.

I also remember that I made the effort not to masturbate to look good in college, I felt that girls looked at me more when I didn't masturbate and that I almost didn't exist when I did.

I don't remember the exact moment I was introduced to the NoFap movement; I think it was when I was already in the apartment. The first videos I saw were of a boy who did live meditations, very long videos talking about the benefits of not masturbating, thanks to him I joined a Facebook group and met a lot of people who had the same problem as me. From there I began to write my blogs. I have three notebooks written about my attempts and reflections on vice and other issues in my life, they are not only about NoFap, but it covers everything I have experienced in these last three years. Writing has always been one of my favorite tools to find solutions to problems or simply express myself and let off steam. Thanks to my notebook I have documented all my streaks, my attempts and also all the ideas that occurred to me to be able to quit.

I have resorted to a lot of different strategies, I have made daily drawings, unique designs whose complexity increases as the days go by, I have made oaths, for my life and for the lives of those I love the most, oaths that They were useful to me at the time but, like all the strategies I have applied, I abandon the moment they fail me, sometimes I have no choice but to try again, but I rarely give my strategies a second chance.

I'm less likely to resort to a strategy again when it's impractical and affects other issues in my life, like the time I designed some "anti-masturbation rings." Two hard-to-pick silver rings that I attached sharp plastic spikes to. They worked pretty well, I think they got me to two weeks, but the plastic spikes kept coming off and were really uncomfortable.

Once I participated in a WhatsApp group in which we tried to reach 90 days and every time one relapsed they had to leave the group. I only lasted nine days, I felt very bad.

Several times I have put blockers on my phone to avoid using Instagram or Google again, but they are very easy to remove and I always went back to masturbating. Although the first time I used them they were very useful and from time to time I go back to them, but they are also very impractical.

I have placed bets with friends, but when I relapsed I was confident that by then they would have forgotten about the bet, since we did not keep track of the situation.

This is how my word began to lose power, later I will try to explain the magical power of the word and how the betrayal of oneself and the constant doubt of our own affirmations can take away the power to achieve what we set out to do.

I have put up almanacs to help me keep a visual track of my progress, also beaded bracelets, NoFap movement apps. But in the end they were just that, simple visual aids, tangible signs that time passes and doesn't come back and that effort must accumulate.

I've put rubber bands on my wrist to whip myself with whenever I have an intrusive thought or look away in the street. As Soaring Eagle explains, thoughts can be the spark that ignites the gunpowder that we have in our heads and looking at girls on the street makes us miss out on a lot of opportunities that if it weren't for vice we might be able to take advantage of, or simply get inspired with what is seen, to be able to write and enhance creativity.

Meditation was a recurring resource, I have tried to meditate every day, it has helped me a lot, but in crises I put it aside because I just wanted to lie down and sleep and meditating was a great effort for me, but it helps me calm my mind and my body, is a healthy habit that relaxes and allows energy to circulate in a healthy way. It is also true that it can lead us to discover things that we were completely unaware of, abilities that we thought were impossible, or that are just the delusions of crazy monks. Today I have no doubt that I can see the totality of existence just by closing my eyes and quieting my mind. I even created meditations exclusively for myself, but they were not focused on the vice of masturbation and were too demanding.

I have taken my fight to the religious, I have prayed some nights, to ask the angels and God for help, I tried to connect with the inner Christ, to always keep the divinity present in my life to avoid falling into temptation. But it didn't work for me.

Subliminal audios and binaural frequencies have also been quite helpful in my attempts and have been around for a long time. I have listened to audios that were precisely to give up masturbation and pornography and then I listened to audios that were to recover sexual energy after a relapse. I have also tried hypnosis and affirmations and it all seemed to work very well at first, but then it would relapse again and I didn't care anymore, they lost their meaning for me. That is why I am faced not only with how hard it is to overcome this but also with the constant fear of relapsing again and that fear is usually reflected in my dreams, dreams in which I am trying to escape or I am desperate to get to some place that I never get to, dreams where I face creatures and situations that scare me, well, I have to go through all that until I reach clarity. Today I have created an audio that I have called "Supreme Seal of Progress". It's audio similar to one I found on YouTube, which works pretty well, but this one works even better because it's specifically aimed at me.

Stopping eating meat was also very helpful, for some reason that I don't understand, meat inhibited my willpower, made me stupid and led me to relapse.

Marijuana did not help me either, everything feels much better when you are high and unfortunately masturbating while you are high only makes the vice stronger and therefore more difficult to quit, if you can quit marijuana, it will be the best.

A dopamine fast is key to overcoming this addiction as it is directly related to our technology consumption, once you can re-engage with technology without the temptation of going to porn sites then you will be safe, or at least protected. Technology must be at our service, not the other way around, don't let your computer or your cell phone steal your energy, put the devices to work for you.

But without a doubt what has helped me the most are Pablo Zamit's videos, both his readings of

Soaring Eagle and the testimonies that people share with him. I have listened to those videos every day and they have helped remind me of the harms of masturbation and the benefits of abstinence. I have discovered a lot of factors that i did not take into account, damages that I did not relate and that began to disappear when I had good streaks.

If you are not a Spanish speaker, I am sure that you can find the texts of Soaring Eagle in English very easily.

As I write this I am on an eight-day streak where I am applying pretty much all the strategies and all the resources that I have implemented previously but now together and I feel pretty good and confident that it will work. But I don't trust myself either, because as Soaring Eagle says, the demon of temptation waits for you to trust you before hitting you again.