In life, it helps to have role models you can look up to. People who have been where you want to go and can speak from a place of experience and empathy. People who can help you visualize success, but at the same time are open and honest about their shortcomings. Enter Seth Alexander. He’s one of the thousands of people who’ve embarked on a NoFap journey (NoFap = no porn and no masturbation). And he has a message that he wants you to hear.
Today, I’ve transcribed a vlog in which Seth talks about the key shift in his thinking that empowered him to break both his pornography addiction and his addiction to masturbation. Seth realized that his inability to completely separate himself from pornography meant that he stilled carried a seed of addiction within him. His goal in his own words is “to help dudes get as far away from pornography as humanly possible. And then I want people to understand what ejaculation, what constantly releasing your semen is doing to you mentally, physically, spiritually, physiologically, [and] neurologically.”
When I finally told myself, ‘Hey, dude, you got a problem,” I didn’t go back. Because it stopped becoming about NoFap. It stopped becoming about no porn. It became sobriety. Dude, I need to be sober. I need this out of my system entirely. I don’t want to go back to it every month or every year. And so because I had the goal of sobriety in mind, it was able to keep me on track and do the things that sober people do.
Seth Alexander
For more, see the complete archive of articles on integrity.
Transcript:
This is a video that I told myself time and time again, I would never make. I wrestled with myself, had several thousand discussions–I’m not even joking. For the past few years, I’ve had this discussion with myself, do I open up–do I be more transparent? And I always came to the conclusion, “No, I don’t have to put anything out there that I don’t want to put out there. Period.” And here I am doing exactly that–putting out stuff that I originally did not want to put out.
This video is greatly inspired by my friend GoldJacketLuke. If you’re not subscribed to him, please stop this video. Go to the description, click the link that leads to his channel, and subscribe. That dude is the most open, honest, transparent No-Fapper–and just human being in general–that I know on this platform. He has gone the longest, in my opinion, out of any No-Fapper on YouTube, with a streak of 808 days. But he’s also relapsed, and he’s had the courage and the openness and the honesty to just say, “Hey, I relapsed.” Like, he’s a human being. And that gave me courage. Let’s just leave it there. He gave me courage to make this type of video–the video I said I would never do.
First, let it be known that today is day 365 for me. Meaning, I have not masturbated to pornography in 365 days. Wooh, congratulations [sarcastic voice]. But I don’t deserve an applause. Because what happened prior to 365 days? Well, a lot of you guys know that I’ve been on the NoFap journey for a few years now. Some of you probably saw my 90-day report that I did 4, maybe 5 years ago–I don’t even remember at this point. After that, I ended up falling back into a cycle of masturbation to pornography.
Now why is that? It’s because I was addicted. I don’t want to say I didn’t know I was addicted, but I definitely did not want to accept that I was addicted because I believed that because I wasn’t masturbating to porn as much as I used to–which, for those of you who don’t know, that was 3 times a day, morning, noon, and night, every single day. That was my routine. So I believed that because I wasn’t doing it to that extent, I must be cured. I’m only masturbating to porn now once or twice every 1-2 weeks–that’s great. But that’s not the case. The fact of the matter is I couldn’t let it go. I could not separate myself from pornography. I kept going back to it, especially if I felt emotional. If I felt like I needed to relieve some stress.
Addiction is defined as the continued use or continued practice of something despite the negative consequences. Let’s say smoking cocaine–do you do cocaine or smoke it? I don’t know. Let’s just say you smoke cocaine. OK, that sounds stupid. Do heroine. Let’s say you do heroine once a month. That means you’re addicted. If you know that heroine messes with you and it causes all these disruptions neurologically speaking yet you continue to do it, that is an addiction. If you do it once every 2 months, you’re addicted. Addiction means you can keep doing something even if it’s just once every once in a while, despite the harmful consequences. That was a really long explanation of addiction. I’m sorry, but you get my point.
I couldn’t let it go, and by that very definition that made me addicted. I, I guess, was in denial all these years. I didn’t want to accept it. I don’t think anyone wants to openly say that they’re addicted to something, but it wasn’t until I made, not the realization, but it wasn’t until I accepted that I was addicted, that I was able to make the necessary changes to get to where I’m at today. So I made that realization one day, and then I did not relapse since that one day if that means anything to you. When I finally told myself, ‘Hey, dude, you got a problem,” I didn’t go back. Because it stopped becoming about NoFap. It stopped becoming about no porn. It became sobriety. Dude, I need to be sober. I need this out of my system entirely. I don’t want to go back to it every month or every year. And so because I had the goal of sobriety in mind, it was able to keep me on track and do the things that sober people do.
It’s a very fine but powerful distinction there. And once I made that, a switch flipped in my head, and I never went back to it. Some of you might be wondering, “Oh, that’s great, Seth. No porn, but what about NoFap?” Good question, random person that I’ll never see-well, hopefully I’ll see some of you guys. Here’s what happened. I told myself you can fap as much as you want, just not to pornography–that’s how you’re going to get over your pornography addiction. And it worked–don’t get me wrong–but then I created a new set of bad habits. so my fapping just went way up there. I started fapping more than normal, let’s just put it that way. And I was telling myself that it’s OK because porn is really the big issue here. It’s not fapping. Ejaculation is not that big of a deal–it’s pornography. Wrong. That was wrong. And I found that out 35 days ago. So today is day 30 of my NoFap journey again that I’m starting on.
I have been doing some digging, and I came across a book called Cupid’s Poisoned Arrow. Actually, I’ve owned that book for close to 2 years now. I didn’t pick it up until 35 days ago. And I realized that the source of my issues isn’t pornography, it’s the excessive, incessant ejaculation that I’ve been doing, whether through fapping or through sex. And so now I’ve kind of gotten my mind back on track. Pornography is a non-factor in my life anymore. Now it’s a matter of semen retention and sexual continence, and that’s what I’m working towards right now.
I don’t have more to really expand on in that realm, but I guess just letting you guys know that today’s day 30 of NoFap. I guess to wrap all this up, I got to a point on my YouTube or life career where I believed that being a leader means that you have no flaws. Being a leader means that you can show no weakness. And so, in terms of showing no weakness, I definitely did that. But I do want you guys to know that I am equally human. I make mistakes. I bleed blood just like the rest of us. And I’m just excited I guess to have made all these realizations in this past year, and now I can move forward in this new direction.
There are a couple things I want to do on this channel. I want to help dudes get as far away from pornography as humanly possible. And then I want people to understand what ejaculation, what constantly releasing your semen is doing to you mentally, physically, spiritually, physiologically, neurologically–I want you to understand that. And I’m going to do my best to, I guess, help you along the way, while maintaining transparency.
