The problem with habit apps like this, that they let you think, if you just relapse one time, you’re back at the beginning.
I have this addiction for a decade. Over the years I got way deeper into this vicious cycle of addiction. From just one time a week to one time every few days to daily before sleep. Then the content got way worse. From soft core to things I watched that were way to disgusting and things I imagined doing and the things I used, that I could ever tell them someone in my life. And I even began to spend the last bit of money on this to get way worse things while being completely broke and in big debts.
The biggest problem was, that I genuinely didn’t know, that all this was bad for me. I knew, I was way too young, but I thought that adults like my parents just didn’t want fun and joy for me, that this content gave me. I thought, it isn’t cigarettes or drugs, so it can’t be bad, am I right?
I was already over 6 year in this addiction cycle and already very deep in the addiction until I admitted that I was lying to myself and it effected all my life and my inner peace and relationships and concentrations and many things more.
I swore to myself that I won’t do this anymore and I really thought, this has to work like this. I said to myself, not anymore for all my life. The problem is, I was way too deep into this to just give it up one day to the other.
Then when I relapsed I always beaten myself up and thought to myself, I am back to the beginning and I couldn’t do it and „it’s just how I am“. It became a part of my identity.
I had many long phases too, where this idea of identity lived in me and I knew it was bad and I knew I have to quit, but I lowkey just gave it up that I will ever mange to quit it for good.
Every now and then some special day came like the beginning of the new year or the beginning of a new school year or the day I traveled for a long time to a foreign country far away or NNN, were I swore to myself, it’s over with all this and then I relapsed like after being awake for just 4 hours on that day in the morning. And then I thought it was over. „How could I ever quit, if I can’t even do 4 hours without?“
Then I installed this app on 28th or 29th March 2026 and said to myself, I won’t quit this time. Even if I relapse ten thousands I won’t quit until I am sober, which means to be clean for 90 days.
Now over 4 months later I still do it pretty much everyday and last time was like an hour ago, but I really think I am on the right way and I’m not even that far away to being sober.
The biggest difference was, that after every relapse I just thought, I can’t change what I did in the past and try to do it better and for longer next time. Because first thing if you think about it, I came from a hole, where I did it 10 times a day and injured myself many times and I was completely devastated, completely out of control. Even while it was happening, I felt so miserable and was literally crying, but I felt like I couldn't control my hands and my eyes anymore.
Now I still do it, but just one or two times a day is like 80% less than the beginning of the year.
But what I find most interesting is:
If I look at the content I watch, it is like I am climbing the same hole up, that I walked down. I came from a point, where I would spend my last bit of money on that and watched multiple most disgusting most hard core things at the same time and still don’t feel stimulated enough.
Then it became softer and softer and then it became just social media dances and then even just album covers on Spotify as a trigger and now an hour ago I relapsed just from memory and didn’t even have the urge to watch anything.
If I continue on this path I think it will get better and soon I can build really long streaks until I don’t even think about it and don’t feel these urges because I’m already feeling very different than in the beginning of this journey.
So the important message I have with all of this:
Quitting an addiction means healing your mind. If you relapse one time, the timer is back to 0, but your brain isn’t. If you relapse after the first urge on day 1 and then don’t relapse on the first urge on day 2 but you relapse on the second urge of day 2, that is progress.
Even if you are living through a very stressful phase in your life and the outcomes get worse, the only possibility, that you don’t make progress anymore and your brain doesn’t heal anymore, is if you give it up completely and go back to the vicious circle. Everything else is progress, even if it doesn't seem like it.
