ED Recovery Stories: Page 2

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ED Recovery Stories 2 is part of an 8 page series containing shorter accounts.

For longer, more detailed ED accounts see Rebooting Accounts and External Rebooting Blogs & Threads

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Do it. The thing in my pants won’t go down from holding hands with my girlfriend. Link to his blog

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The link between porn and ED couldn’t me be clearer for me. I’d follow this cycle: Stop enjoying sex and even masturbating to porn (but do it anyway) -> give up porn -> get better erections and more pleasure out of masturbation and sex -> think I’m cured -> go back to porn -> go to step 1During the bad times, even when I did manage to get it up for a real woman, that sensation just wasn’t there. I wasn’t enjoying it, just doing it because I though it it would help to get me back on track. Now I can see that the opposite is needed: give up all orgasm for a while, re-balance, and take the psychological pressure off myself.

Re: Wondering about the severity from others experiences of PIED

I think that it’s not that serious. I suggest a hard mode reboot but it’s up to you. Before I started I couldn’t get hard to real life stuff but now I’m two months in and I get pretty hard pretty fast.

Good luck!

Day 17: PIED Cured

I seem to be a fully functioning human who is able to have intercourse with other humans.

Thank you, NoFap.

I’m thankful for my erections

I’m thankful that I get erections so often now. I remember a year ago when I masturbated every day, I would almost never have morning wood and many days it was hard to get an erection even when I saw a hot girl.

Nowadays, I get morning wood damn near every day. I get erections when I see a hot girl. It’s not the erections that are the problem. It’s the thoughts that come into your mind. The thoughts are what lead you down the wrong path.

I personally am having the same issues of “rewiring” my brain to “real woman” circumstances. If I knew I was desensitizing my brain I would have not started this porn/masturbation behavior. When I attempted to have sex with a real woman, I had ED. No response, just frustration. The most embarrassing thing was she was aggressive and attractive, which I seek out in porn images. I have started the “reboot” process with success. First, terminate the porn even situational sexual programs on TV. Next, exercise vigorously to pump blood throughout your system. If you have to masturbate, use a real woman to arouse yourself, not porn. Slowly, erections will come back. This has been working with me.

Successful intercourse with a new girlfriend

OK, so this is awesome. My girlfriend slept over and… we had successful intercourse. Although my erection wasn’t as solid as it should/could be, it was enjoyable. Strangely I didn’t last that long, but did manage a second time. She enjoyed it too, although I can still do a lot better.

The feeling of relief is immense. The past year I’ve had so many difficult moments and depressed feelings. But I’ve found so much encouragement here. And once I started improving and kicking the habit, I felt more optimistic. So this is it. Everything I’ve been fighting for. The thought of PMO’ing now just seems like a big joke. I’m curious to see how watching no P at all, for an extended period of time, will further affect my sex life.

You might see fast improvements in ED but DE may linger

Hi guys,

I am really excited about my journey so far. Now I have seen real improvement in my ability to get it up and keep it up since quitting porn.

I realized that giving up “false” sex (porn) is so worth it when I could really satisfy my gf. Keep that in mind, guys, when you are tempted.

However, DE hasn’t gone away and I know that she feels insecure at her perceived inadequacy of not getting me to orgasm. I feel bad that she feels insecure/bad about that. So I reassured her that it’s not her and told her I feel insecure about it as well and that “we’ll get there”. tough call….

I really think this is a much bigger problem than people think. More and more young men are going to their doctors about ED, and I’m almost positive porn addiction is the reason. I have never seen so many different ads and commercials for male enhancement products as I see now, so obviously there is something going on and no one wants to talk about it because it is an embarrassing problem, especially for young men. This definitely needs to be studied more by science. I hate pornography and what it has done to me!

Thank god I’m in my early 30s and porn to me is a fairly recent thing. I didn’t have an addiction problem growing up and in high school in the early 90s because I didn’t have regular access to the Internet.

I don’t know how kids today can cope. They are getting hit so early. Poor overstimulated young guys! I would say my little problem is maybe a year and a half old. Before then it was only occasional porn viewing mixed sporadically with real sex. I never got too extreme in porn viewing either—just the normal hard core stuff but never weird crap. It was more of a habbit/something to do after a hard break-up with an ex g/f. Had I known the consequences (ED) of such frequent porn viewing I never would have done it in the first place. After all what’s more important to a man than his ego/manhood? I will not allow anything to put that in jeopardy. Now that I know the consequences, I have completely stopped without hesitation of going back.

You don’t even realize it’s a problem until the temporary ED hits you literally out of nowhere. That’s why the word needs to get out. I’m well on the road to recovery now—already feeling better after a few short weeks. I plan to return back to my studly ways very soon. Diet, excercize and will power win the day.

It took me about 3 weeks to return to full power. What a relief! Actually I think I’m much better now than I was before. I last longer and am much more interested in foreplay and other things. Maybe that comes with age who knows. I consider myself lucky. However I am curious to see if there is a difference between someone in their early-mid 30s like me who only viewed porn heavily for a year or so versus someone who started much younger.

That’s certainly one of the major reasons why I started. As I’ve gone on, I’ve found the mental and emotional aspects to be just as important.

Also, even though it’s only been twenty days, I’m delighted with the ED recovery I’ve made so far. My erections are significantly stronger at this point. Not quite ‘fully healed’, but much better. Link

I was somewhat surprised to recently read a forum thread (actually quite a few), where guys were discussing their struggles with this (porn/ED), simply from a practical perspective. Mostly young guys, 20s or so, can’t get it up anymore with a real girl, and they all relate having a serious porn/masturbation habit. Guys will never openly discuss this with friends, co-workers, for fear of getting laughed out of town. But when someone tells their story on a health forum and there are 50, 100 replies from other guys who struggle with the same thing….This is for real.

 The other night I was watching a program about prostitutes; I recognized some of the girls from porn movies. But anyway, they were speaking at one point that they could tell who the chronic porn masturbators were, because nothing they could do could “inspire” the man to get it up. Think about it, even girls professionally trained in fulfilling male sex fantasy are unable to match the stimulation of pornography, including some girls who are actually in pornography. “Normal” women who just want our affections don’t stand a chance.

I haven’t really written as much as I used to write here in my time of desperation. I’m just writing to give a brief update, to cheer people up and to say that I haven’t really forgotten about this warm community.Things have been great and my girl and I have been feeling happy. Sex has been regular, good and lots, so I feel happy. I am very sexual, which is why dealing with this issue was enormously important to me. I just wanted to say that everyone here should stick with the [rebooting] plan because it is totally worth it and it is absolutely possible to recover.

Sex is in our genes and, if we take care of ourselves well, I believe it should work out well. Taking care of ourselves starts with quitting pornography, reducing masturbation, and focusing on the meaningful things in life – like finding someone to make happy and be happy with. I’m sure it also involves eating well, exercising, being focused on something we find worthy, and generally being very positive about our lives.

Some time ago I had started thinking that sex was a thing that had been taken away from me for some reason – that’s how desperate I felt. Today it seems so natural and normal.Everyone here should have no doubts in the ability to have an erection. The real focus should be on giving our best to make someone happy; the erections will come.

I haven’t seen any porn in more than 6 months now and I have no desire whatsoever to look at it. At this point, the idea of me watching other people copulating on a screen while stroking my penis just seems laughable. There is a real woman there for me – as I am sure there is a partner for everyone – wanting attention. Don’t look at porn, but give the attention to someone who wants to love you. When you don’t look at porn you penis will feel more alive, natural and excitable – so you’ll be able to give that attention.

I know many out there are concerned whether their penises work. At least for me things didn’t start from the penis. Spontaneous erections might be a sign, but I’m not sure if they are a real sign. You don’t have to walk around with a boner in order to feel things will work out. Last week, for example, I hadn’t seen my girlfriend for a couple of days. I had no spontaneous erections during that time. Given my old troubles, I even worried a bit… Was I losing it again? But when I saw her everything was just fine.

Her touch and smell totally turned me on and the penis worked. So things will work out, when the right time comes, even if you don’t have a constant boner (spontaneous erections). But for things to work out, the mind needs to be clear and the brain chemistry needs to be balanced. Which is why stopping porn and self-induced stimulation is key, I believe.Good luck to everyone, and stay strong! Longer rebooting account, predating this post

[10 days after quitting porn] I got hard during foreplay, just hugging and kissing, which felt very natural. That was never happening before I quit looking at porn. Score. I also had no trouble maintaining an erection during oral sex, which was a problem with this partner before I cut out the porn. In short, no erection issues to speak of. I did get a little softer at times, but it was fairly easy to get the erection back.

25 days – My ED got so bad from porn when I was with girls the only way I could really get it up was thinking about porn movies. Now, I have noticed that my morning wood is extremely hard for a long time which is nice, and there are times when my libido surges. I am planning on never watching porn again.

32 days – Age 22. Currently I have the best night time erections I have ever had, though if I wake up and need to go the bathroom I’m like waiting 15 minutes to wait for it to go down. I hope my story helps other people out there.

Week 12 – I’m actually totally impressed how HUGE I get. It’s been kinda hard to ignore. I mean, my erections are ROCK HARD and ENORMOUS. I remember asking other guys here who went before me about when they noticed the return of their full erections – well, I think I got mine back.

Things began when I found YourBrainonPorn around 6-7 weeks ago. I read many things that sounded familiar and finally came to the conclusion that I had a problem. I started viewing porn when I was 11. I’m 26 now. It started off innocently, but I became hooked and advanced to extreme fetishes (trans porn causing me the most distress since I identify as straight). For over a decade, porn was my sole source of sexual satisfaction. I had no desire to meet women or have actual sex.

When I did begin having sex in my early 20s, driven to do so out of self-embarrassment more than anything, it was disappointing. I had to fantasize about porn to become aroused. In fact I was so accustomed to masturbating with a stiff grip that my penis was numb to the feel of a vagina. I was unable to reach orgasm and I lost my erection easily. Over the next few years, I began to realize that I may need to cut back on masturbation and porn if I wanted to enjoy sex, but I was still in doubt over whether or not it was a problem and never stayed away from it consistently.

When I found YourBrainonPorn, I decided to stop viewing porn. I continued to masturbate until I realized that I could not keep the fetish porn fantasies out of my head during masturbation. I realized that this was impeding recovery, so I stopped masturbating as well after nearly 3 weeks of no porn. A week later, I had sex with a girl and felt more aroused than ever before. My erection was extremely firm and I came very quickly. I felt great.

I lasted for another 5 days until I dropped my guard down and figured that masturbating without fantasies shouldn’t be a problem. So I went through with it and didn’t feel too guilty. The next day, I stumbled across a few pictures of women in lingerie. I searched for more and ended up falling into a 5 day porn binge. During those 5 days I probably spent 40 hours viewing porn. I felt horrible throughout, but I could not stop. I even tried putting the modem outside. But I ended up retrieving it and reconnecting it to view more porn. I was completely shocked.

Prior to the relapse, I truly thought I was done with porn. It seemed too easy. I even doubted that I had any sort of addiction. Eventually, I broke out of this binge. The 1st day was incredibly difficult, but it has once again become easier and easier. I’m at two weeks today. I did have sex a few days ago with a girl I never had sex with before. I masturbated beforehand because I was paranoid about premature ejaculation. Then I had sex with her hours afterwards and still ended up reaching orgasm within 5-6 minutes.

While I would like to be able to last longer, it still feels great to be aroused, erect, and able to perform normally in the bedroom. And, I also noticed that my refractory period was shorter than I ever remember it being. I was erect again in less than 10 minutes compared to hours when I masturbated to porn once or twice per day.

I think all of these effects clearly show the benefits for those of you with serious ED problems. Following the sexual encounter, I stayed on my toes to avoid a relapse due to the chaser effect after orgasm.

[After a reboot of about 4 months] I just spent another night of great fun and intensity. Guys, it’s all worth it. All that waiting and self-restraint, the learning of new positive habits. It’s all worth it. A couple of months ago I was going crazy and I was super scared. No more. Erections all the time now. You don’t even have to think sex thoughts! When your brain has recovered, it will just command your penis in the right direction: upwards. Guys, once you have sex, you’ll forget that you ever had this issue. To have sex try to stop the porn and the masturbation. This is the right way to recovery.

[Age 53] So today I was ready to post and tell you that I am 30 days without PMO. But I failed. I’m 30 days no PM. Are you ready for this? Are you sitting down? Because last night I had sex with my wife for the first time since starting this program of no PMO. It was not planned. She initiated it. And get this … drum roll please … no ED problems!!!

If this were Christmas time I would say that it was a “Christmas miracle!” At first I did not get an erection. But after reading all that I had read about karezza, I thought to myself, “If it happens, it happens. If it doesn’t it doesn’t.” I decided to take my time, enjoy my wife’s embrace, kisses, etc. I tried to remember as much as I could about Karezza and I think it helped. But I did orgasm. So did she. And my erection did not go limp at all. It stayed firm and hard. Over the last year, this never happened.

The good news too: Instead of 10 minutes of “Wham and Bam” … our session of love last about 45-50 minutes. This was by far the best sex I have had in the last 12 months. At the end, my wife asked me, “What got into you?” That is when I told her about karezza sex. She wants to read about now herself. Yeah!!

For me personally, I can clearly see how Internet porn has warped my view of real, god-given, genuine sex and love between a man and a woman. Even before last nights great sex with my spouse, even if we had not had sex, I was really starting to feel so much better about myself as a person. I got more work done. I spent more time with my wife, doing things with her around the house – not wanting or looking forward to when can I go to the computer and watch porn. Dropping porn from your life is so freeing!!! These past 30 days have been challenging, but also very educational and very freeing.

[After a reboot of two months] History: I’ve never liked using condoms – frequently never got around to sex because I’d lose erection even thinking about having to get one out and use it. Frequently lost erection putting the condom on. Frequently lost erection once inside.Last night: Stiff  Stayed as stiff while getting condom out, putting condom on, while starting sex and finding we needed lubrication, through getting the lubrication, putting the lubrication on, having sex. All with exemplary stiffness

My erection was just so natural, and correlated with being turned on, and felt so right, that somehow I just knew that it would stay with me through the condom shenanigans.And the sex felt as great as sex used to without a condom. … Orgasm itself very strong and pleasurable. None of the things I worried about happened: I was able to keep from coming for a perfectly acceptable length of time – in fact, I didn’t even really think about it, it just seemed like a normal, healthy sexual interaction. When I did come, my head didn’t explode and I didn’t rupture any blood vessels anywhere, and I didn’t bellow ‘8 FUCKING WEEKS!!’ in her ear like I thought I might. In fact, it was just beautiful, intimate, very pleasurable sex

Today is the fourth week mark of no PM and two O’s. Yesterday I had sex with my girlfriend for the second time during this process. The improvements were marked. No manual stimulation was needed and I had my old staying power back too. Good hour of intimacy. Felt pretty turned on and was decently firm down below, but could be better. Still progressing. Anyone out there with doubts just stay the path.

[Day 90+ no PM: This man hadn’t had sex in ages and thought he was “broken.” After a long reboot, he and his wife went on vacation.] I had no issues obtaining an erection with my wife for 4 nights in a row. Every time as soon as I felt her, it was lift-off time. I will say on the the 2nd night (day 93), I was at quarter mast, but that quickly changed, and I actually only lasted 30 seconds, which was a surprise. This morning’s encounter was after coming home from vacation. I drank quite a bit last night and couldn’t believe I was able, but no problems.So since I’ve had 4 straight nights of success, I believe I’m cured. I think my problem was a mixture of performance anxiety and masturbation addiction or masturbation patterns.

Basically focusing on my wife is a turn-on [instead of thinking about fantasy]. She actually reports she didn’t have any discomfort during these 4 nights which is an improvement. Since this was something on my mind during recovery, and a lot of people have concern about it let me report the following about libido: I actually felt zero life down there on the night before I had intercourse first. It wasn’t until I started cuddling with my wife, that life emerged. So if you feel like there is no libido or life down there, it really can spring up out of nowhere.

[Day 65] Yes my erections are great. I have full erections during morning wood or if I have a fantasy. Before quitting porn, I never was this hard or full, definitely not. So there definitely was a positive increase in erection size, and fullness. (age 24)

 [Day 34] Like every man whose story I have read here, I have grave doubts that I will ever heal or be able to function sexually. I do have to say that recently morning erections have been strong quite often, harder than I can ever remember them, erect in a 45 degree angle up relative to my body, rock solid. So that is good news.

My friend has a girlfriend, and has struggled to gain the confidence to engage sexually with her, so I thought I’d give him a few tips. A few of my friends are aware of my abstinence from porn and masturbation as I’m an open guy and I have no issues telling them about personal issues. I obviously haven’t gone into detail about the reasoning behind it, but they are aware I have a bit of knowledge on the subject.

Anyway, this friend of mine obviously wasn’t as intertwined with porn and masturbation as I was, however he was a regular user and was experiencing erection difficulties with his girlfriend. I told him to lay off the porn and masturbation for a week, and directed him to Gary’s video showing the effects of porn and masturbation on the brain. I think this gave him a real wake up call. He abstained for 9 days and had sex with his girlfriend after this period. Now, he has no erection issues with his girlfriend, and has told me that he feels much more confident regarding sexual contact. I just though I’d share this story as it showed a positive recovery. Although it was on a much smaller scale to many of us on here, it is a recovery nonetheless.

[May, or may not, be porn related, but this woman’s post is inspiring nevertheless.] Our sexual relationship has changed from the very beginning to now. When we first met (he was 51 and I was 49), it had been about 11 months since he had been with someone sexually. As he told me, he had gotten to know himself really well over those months, lol.

Our first experiences together were a little unnerving for him, I’m sure, because his erection was not always to be counted upon. He even went so far as to have his testosterone levels checked, just to be sure. When all that checked out just fine, he would just say, “Remember, I’m old” ha! And I assumed this was what sex in your later years was like and I would just have to deal with it, not take it personally, etc.

But we very quickly started learning about karezza and tantra and now the man is like a teenager (but much better, because he has staying power–I’m sitting here typing this after having spent 5 out of the last 20 hours engaged in karezza lovemaking–who knew it could ever be this good??). It’s hard to imagine back to those early days because they seem so foreign to me now