Dear Friends,
If you are new to our community, please read the previous episodes of the Rebooting Guide first, so that you can get a complete background on NoFap Recovery Guide and essential information.
NoFap Recovery Guide and Effects of Porn Addiction
For your convenience, we are briefly informing you that nofap is a global platform that assists people in quitting harmful habits such as pornography and masturbation and provides guidance. Those who start the nofap Challenge (to stay away from pornography and masturbation) are called Rebooters. If the challenge is broken, it’s termed as a “relapse.” In today’s episode, we are going to discuss what to do if a relapse occurs so that you can prevent future relapses. Since most relapses occur in the first stage (the first seven days), those in the first stage should read this post more attentively.
Imagine it’s your seventh day of nofap, and you’re very excited to complete ninety days. But suddenly, a thought crosses your mind, and you start checking feeds on Instagram. Suddenly, you come across a hot model’s picture, you zoom in to see it better, and now you want to see more such images. Your brain wants more stimulation. Then you open a website you shouldn’t have, and finally, you end up relapsing. Now you’re surprised because everything was going fine until now, what suddenly happened? Then when you realize that the challenge will start again, you feel regretful, you become worried. With repeated occurrences, you start experiencing a lack of confidence, your confusion and embarrassment increase, and you eventually give up trying the nofap challenge…
Friends! If this is happening to you, read this post carefully. Surely, it will help you.
Often, rebooters think that relapse is another name for failure and consider success in the challenge as the opposite. However, the reality is quite the opposite. Relapse is such an essential part of the nofap journey that it tells you what was missing in your strike planning. For example, what did you know before relapsing? Did you know what your triggers were? Did you know that watching YouTube videos or using Facebook could also be triggers? Did you know that stress could also be a trigger? Likewise, a relapse tells you about your other triggers.
If you analyze the causes of the relapse and address them, it becomes helpful for you. Relapse becomes dangerous when instead of learning from it, you start getting upset. Let’s take an assessment of how you can learn from relapse.
If you’re repeatedly initiating the challenge and breaking it, and you’re troubled by relapses, let’s do a small exercise.
Think about your last relapse, and when it happened, try to recall the events of the previous week and answer the following questions honestly (to yourself):
Did you have a recovery plan before this relapse?
Did you set any limits to avoid triggers?
Did you establish a routine of waking up early for prayer?
How many times did you indulge in impulsive activities?
Did you share your strike in the group?
Did you share a post about relapse in the group?
Did you tell a senior rebuilder about your problem?
Were you genuinely enthusiastic about the strike?
Did you maintain your meditation and use powerful affirmations?
Did you get enough sleep at night?
If most of the answers to these questions are in the negative, just understand that you’ve arranged for the next relapse. Similarly, turn this event of the relapse backwards and see where the urges started coming from. What was the reason? Where did you make a mistake? Where did you slip?
By understanding the foundation of your triggers, remove them temporarily from your lifestyle.
Feeling after relapse
Now let’s move towards another extremely important and powerful exercise…
When you relapse, there is a natural feeling of regret and sorrow for a while. It’s a big gift of nature that gives you the message that relapse is a bad thing. If you want to become a genius person, then take advantage of this time and do the following tasks.
Importance of Writing
Your conscious brain relaxes during sleep, and only the mid-brain remains active. The mid-brain only works for the survival of your life. It doesn’t know what is good or bad. It considers PMO as a good thing and necessity for you. Similarly, the conscious brain distinguishes between your sensory decisions and good and bad. Only this part of the brain knows that PMO is a bad thing for you. By relaxing the conscious brain during sleep, you become free from bitter experiences of the past day, stress, and other negative thoughts, which is definitely necessary for you. But along with this, you also slowly forget the motivation of NoFap and the lessons learned from relapse. The mid-brain plays an important role in pushing you towards PMO. So it is very important that immediately after relapse, write down the following things and look at them daily so that you remember the pain of your experiences and keep your target in front of you, so that you don’t relapse in the trap of the mid-brain.
Write the Following:
Note: Consider it as your question paper and write down all the answers honestly immediately after relapse. You can write it on mobile or paper as well.
1) Write down your feelings and experiences after relapse. How do you feel immediately after relapse?
Write down your NoFap goals. Why do you want to quit porn and masturbation?
Write down why you couldn’t realize before relapse that the thing (which caused your relapse) would trigger you.
Do you want to regain the feeling of regret, sorrow, and shame associated with relapse? If not, then explain why not.
If you relapse five minutes ago, what would you do?
At the end of this note, write a commitment letter to yourself that you will never relapse in the future. And if it happens, then also prescribe a heavier punishment and penalty.
Note: Keep this note in a place where you keep looking at it frequently. If it’s written on mobile, still keep looking at it daily.
2) As a penalty, donate a hundred rupees or as much as you find easy and definitely give it to a stranger. And while giving, never be happy that you are helping someone, but tell yourself that this was your punishment.
(Note: If you are happy with this act, next time your ego can make you relapse to give you this happiness.)
3) Apart from money, impose some other minor penalties on yourself. Any such penalty that causes you physical or mental discomfort. For example, fasting, reading twenty extra prayers, sitting down for at least half an hour to repent, or sitting down a hundred times, cleaning the room, etc…
4) As a penalty for the next three days, refrain from eating anything from outside the hotel. If you have money, donate it. After relapse, keep yourself away from any entertainment, otherwise, your brain will perceive good food as a reward and try to relapse again. Another reason is that junk food has no nutritional value. Instead, it becomes a cause of deterioration in your health. Similarly, instead of other entertainment, try to rest your brain for the next three days and keep obtaining benefits related to NoFap.
5) Share your relapse, its causes, and measures to avoid it in the future with the reporters in the group, and never hide it. Remember that your relapse will not stop until you tell someone else about it. The main purpose of forming this group is that whatever you can’t share with your parents or friends, share it with us. To the extent that if you feel ashamed of your identity, inform us about the relapse with some fake ID, but do inform. If you feel embarrassed to post, then just comment on a post but stop hiding. Inform even if relapse occurs a hundred times.
6) After doing all these tasks, be satisfied and forget about relapse. Don’t even think about PMO. Don’t let the feeling of shame, regret, and remorse come near you. Because you have already suffered the punishment after relapse, so what regret now!
Finally, some more important instructions and quotes.
Your efforts will definitely bear fruit one day. Keep moving forward with determination and perseverance, the universe is watching your efforts, and it surely rewards those who work hard. (Quran 53:39)
You should know that during NoFap, your brain goes through a process of rebooting. Mental and physical changes are common during a NoFap streak. Don’t panic and relapse due to them. (In the next episode, we will tell you about these changes)
Don’t worry excessively, regret, or feel ashamed, and remember that the biggest thing after relapse is how you handle it. Your wisdom in action determines your fate.
Those who don’t understand the psychology of relapse and don’t act wisely afterwards, keep relapsing for weeks and ultimately lose courage to try again.
Remember, you are better than millions of people who are ruining their lives in ignorance by relapsing daily.
You should be proud of yourself because you are one in a million for taking action against PMO and spending a day without it (even if it’s just three or four days). Next time, God willing, you will go much further.
Remember, whatever happened is a story of the past. You have nothing to do with it now except for a few lessons we have told you about.
Stop at ten o’clock at night. As soon as it’s ten, start preparing for sleep so that you can perform morning prayers, recitation, meditation, exercise, study, without getting tired.
Drink as much water as possible immediately after relapse so that you don’t suffer from dehydration and stay fresh.
The three days after relapse tend to be very troublesome. This is called the chaser effect in NoFap. If you spend these three days without PMO, moving forward becomes easier.
Friends, in this episode, we talked about practical wisdom after relapse. In the next episode, we will talk about the second stage and flight line of NoFap.
