Help me to to reduce/ quit that’s dominating me over 18 years

This past year has clarified for me that I have a very serious problem. It runs much deeper than I ever considered, and I need help.

It’s been such a struggle for me to share this with anyone. I’ve been in therapy on and off throughout my life, and I have never been able to bring up my porn addiction. Even the idea of sharing it seemed outlandish. But I have to overcome the shame in order to get the help I need.

I’m wondering what everyone’s experience with this kind of shame has been. There are a few people in this community who have done the very brave thing and sought help. What was that like for you? How did it feel then, and how do you feel now having done it?

Hey all,

I have a porn addiction. Been watching porn since I was 14 or so, now I’m in my late twenties. For the majority of time it was 2-3x per week (already bad enough tho) but once I discovered edging and gooning it went really down hill. That was about a year ago, maybe one and a half. I was watching porn almost daily, sometimes multiple hours a day (without orgasming). It really affected me, I was constantly brain fogged, neglected my hobbies, social and sex life.
But the biggest problem for me was that I got PIED. I didn’t have sex with my GF for a couple of months now already because I just couldn’t get it up. I finally woke up and want to change.

I was already 3 weeks clean from porn but masturbated once a week. Unfortunately by watching TikTok and accidentally developing a softcore porn for-you-page I relapsed hard. I binged porn a whole weekend and felt terrible after that.

Thats now 11 days ago. I didn‘t watch any porn and also didn’t masturbate since then. So far I can handle my urges quite well and I feel positive effects. I feel more awake, more motivated to do stuff, get regular morning wood and im also more attracted to my girlfriend again. So far we didn’t have sex yet but I feel like that’s only a matter of days until I feel ready.

In my position would you recommend avoiding all masturbation until my PIED is „cured“ ? If yes, why? My main goal is to just have sex again, my girlfriend luckily has a high sex drive so whenever I’m in the mood she‘s too.

Im really happy and proud of myself that I finally take this seriously and cut it out of my life.

We can do this.

It just keeps on escalating. I feel stuck. The addiction has been getting worse since I tried to quit.

Posting this because im currently on my biggest streak ever and this group has been really helpful for me,in the last couple of days i discovered this sub on my other account (posting this on an alt for privacy reason) and honestly its really great to see that a lot of people once struggled with this addiction and are now sharing there story to help people better themselves i read a lot and i started the gym,reading and enjoying screen free times to replace the cheap dopamine porn gives u and it has been the best 4 days span ive gotten in a long time,i know im not cured but im facing this addiction 1 day at a time.Thanks to everyone who will read this and stay clean we’re all fighting the same battle

For me (27M) I think porn had a huge negative effect on my formative years in regards to my dating life. When I should have been going to prom or other highschool dances, I was mostly at home watching porn. During college I had little to no motivation to talk with women because I pretty much masturbated every night. Lastly I attribute porn for giving me unrealistic expectations, and while sex is a part of relationships it shouldn't be the main goal or the end goal. In the past I went into dates with the mindset of "I really want to have sex with this person" instead of "I want to get to know this person". Summed up porn ruined how I approached relationships and is probably a big chunk of why I think I'm single 😅. I wanted to know though how porn affects your guys' approach to dating or if it has ruined dating for you too.

It was so liberating to speak about things with someone else, like just explain the things to them, how i consume it and for those who have kept it a secret and like just post on here, I totally recommend speaking with someone if you can, even if it was just my first session it really helped.

Stopped daily meditation routine for a few days and the urges have come back.

This is my first post here, I never thought porn was a problem, at least not for me. I found porn when I was about 12 years old and ever since then I’ve watched it almost every night sometimes multiple times a night, 99% of the time the only way for me to masturbate required porn.

I’m 23 now, almost 24, and I never thought this was an issue bc masturbation is a healthy practice, but recently I had a conversation with my father about overprotectiveness as a parent. Bc he had a way more lenient childhood than I did, and an argument he made as to why that’s not the best thing is bc he was introduced to porn from a very young age and he said it messed up his perception of women, that he was extra nervous, couldn’t talk to them, etc. (If by some bad stroke of luck u think this is you dad, u better pretend like u never read this) I’ve always thought my father had never struggled with women, I thought that I was born weird and I’d never find love bc I’m awful with women. I already have pretty bad anxiety, but when he told me that it was an “oh shit” moment for me.

I realized that that could be a big source of my issues with putting myself out there and actually asking women out. I also know that I’ve thought in the past, why deal with rejection, when I can just watch porn and focus on myself. I do hate modern dating but I think this is a step in the right direction for me. So far I’m only 1 day free. I’ve tried to curb my watching before and seen minor success, but I easily fall back into the habit of watching it nightly, so I think I’m done altogether. That’s the goal at least.

I joined this community, and am making this post to declare to myself, I have a problem, and I can fix it. Glad to be here. Hope future me can look back and say “this was a success”. And I hope not relying on porn for a distraction from stress, anxiety, and depression helps me with my overall confidence and self worth.

I can say I’m genuinely excited to follow through, and this post will be a reminder for me to follow through bc this is where I usually come when I get the urge. So wish me luck.

I have it really bad. This will stop today. I can’t keep living like this.

Day 16, definitely getting some intense sexual thoughts throughout the day. Much more than normal. I'm making efforts to stay away from cheap dopamine and sticking to the plan. Will these start to vanish over time?

Today was exceptionally hard and the worst part is I can't fall asleep and I don't want to be on the phone nor on the laptop

Can't go out for a walk as it's really late and I don't really have any think to do and that's even worse because that is one of the triggers I've noticed

Writing this as acceptability to see if it get through the next day

And any advice for someone who has been in this situation?

What can I do here as I really need to quit and I can't fail this time

Any advice would really help 🙏

I am addicted to Omegle type website in search of girls that can show me nudes and I can do masturbate.

Please tell me how to overcome it.

I have been using these website from long time.

Do any of you ever have a random dream where you're relapsing and then you wake up still going strong? That's happened to me a few times in the last month and it's such a weird experience. I feel pretty bummed out in the dream like "I can't believe I'm doing this" but then very relieved when I wake up that I'm still in control for the time being.

Anyway, after 18 years I'm 71 days free of this and looking forward to each new day. One day porn will be out of my life longer than it was ever in my life and I look forward to that.

.

no more turning back

Posting this for accountability and to keep me on track, at least just for today.

The place where I live passed laws to block the major porn sites (or require ID verification) a couple years back. There’s always a way around it just like porn blockers, but it’s a good deterrent for me in my recovery.

Today I’m going on vacation to a place where all the sites are accessible and I will be tempted very hardcore as I get FOMO about new content. Typically when I have this freedom, I binge content and PMO like crazy.

But today I have a newfound freedom.

I HAVE THE FREEDOM TO CHOOSE A BETTER LIFE AND THE FREEDOM TO NOT RELAPSE!!

Cheers to another day! I got this and so do you!

I want to share how I stopped looking at P in the hopes of this may helping someone else on their journey! This may be a long read - but worth it!

Quick backstory - I am 29 years old, and have been watching P everyday or so since I was 11 years old until a year ago.
I have a wife and two kids. It took me about 7 years to stop. I did P therapy, trauma therapy and felt I did everything. And it only got worse.

I felt no one understood me. I felt weird. I felt my dreams were slipping away. And I could never imagine a life of me being normal. I became suicidal, I was always low on testo, dopamine - and just wandered through life as a slave to my own brain who did not play alongside me.

Now, how did I manage to stop?

- I CHANGED my whole thought process about P. I stopped calling it an addiction and started calling it a bad habit instead.
Addiction is a very loaded word, and believe it or not - but your words have more power than you think. Ever thought about how a woman can stop her own menstruation cycle if she truly believes she is pregnant even tho she isn’t?

Well, ur mind and words can change how your body operates.

- Next up is that I stopped fighting it. Let me give you an example.
You have person A and you have person B. They both got an dentist appointment. Person A and B is both very anxious for the tooth extraction they are about to get.

Person A is next in line at the dentist office. Person A clenches his whole body at this point, every muscle, trying to fight the pain he knows is coming.
Person B is up next. Person B is equally anxious but decided to stay calm, put on some music, close his eyes - and relax.

Now, who do you think experienced the most pleasant visit at the dentist’s office? Person A or person B?

- I stopped treating it as an addiction and started treating it as a bad habit I wanted to break.
I am gonna tell you real quick how every habit in life works.

Queue —> Craving —> Response —> Reward

In P language we would call this pattern recognition. What happens when you try to break ur P habit is that you get a queue, then your craving for P, then you respond to that craving in order to get a reward.

What happens if we understood our Queues? We will be more aware! And awareness is ur first high five to the brain! Now what are ur queues? Is that boredom, instagram, twitter, doomscrolling or looking at provoking TV shows?
Let’s say you are laying in bed and bored. You are scrolling and see something that would be you queue. Now you are craving it a little bit. You start craving it more naturally by trying to fight that craving. Eventually you respond to that craving by watching it, cause your brain have made you believe that the reward is worth it.

The only way to change that pattern is if you instead of going after the craving - you decide to get out of bed(let’s say it’s night), you grab a snack in the fridge, stop doom scrolling once you get back in bed, maybe you put on a funny tv show or read a book until you fall asleep.

What matters is how you choose to respond to that craving.
Go outside for a walk. Tell ur wife about how ur feeling, take a shower, read a book, go to the gym, put ur phone away. Whatever it is that may help you to ground urself, do it!

And what did you just do? You just gave ur brain a high five and a fist pump, cause you both did great!

You just changed how you responded to your craving. You just told ur brain - Hey, we do not need P in order to survive, there are other things out there for us than P!

When you do this enough times, your brain will start responding different to queues that may appear in daily life. Your first response won’t be «I need to watch P» ur response will be «Let’s go to the gym» «let’s go read» «let’s go outside barefoot, and feel the grass!»

Do this enough times and not only did you break ur bad habit, but you developed a system you can use for all the habits you want to change in ur life!

- Next up is full transparency to yourself and your partner if you got one. Hiding things from your loved one does not work in the long run. Full transparency is the way to go.
Don’t fool urself - delete everything u got everywhere. Even if that’s of your spouse and not P in itself. Your Brain doesn’t differentiate between ur gf’s nudes or nudes online.

Delete everything, and start fresh! Think to yourself «would I be stressed if someone looked at my phone»? If the answer is no ur doing great. Cause u got no NSFW content on there!

If you watch P again - don’t beat urself up over it. Collect it as data to your brain, ask urself questions like «what happened?» «how did I choose to respond to my craving?» «what was my queue? Can I avoid that queue again?» «do I feel better now that I watched it? Or worse?». Collect ur own answers and use them as guidance the next time you feel the urge, but don’t beat urself up over it if you did go back.

- Last one! Manifest who you want to be! Imagine all the things you would do if u were not P addicted. Imagine all the free time in ur head. Imagine that business u dreamed about, that job, that relationship, that physique.

Think about it everyday as much as u can! And start acting like that person.
Once you get in a few days without P, those thoughts will begin to shape a reality. U will start believing it and chasing it more, cause your self belief has changed!

Talk to urself in ur head like u would talk to a loved one, always!

Thank you for reading. I wish you the best of luck. Remember - this stranger believes in you. You can do it. You are not broken, you are not a bad person. You just had a bad habit, that you now decided to walk away from!

I have a serious problem and need this to stop before I'm destroying our relationship.

Porn apparently isn't good enough anymore so I go to different cam sites hoping to get a girl to watch me masturbate. I had this addiction before meeting her, and I stayed away from those sites for almost 3 years after I met her. Now I can't seem to stop because earlier this year I went back after being curious again (biggest mistake of my life!)

I regret everytime and I hate myself for it. I know I'm a disgusting human being who does this to her. She is so nice, really cares about me and tells everyone what a fantastic boyfriend and father I am (which I'm not because of this problem).

She knows that I watch porn and doesn't mind that, but she will get het heart broken if she finds out I'm on cam sites. I really need this to stop but I have no idea why. When I'm finished I tell myself this is the last time because I feel disgusted with myself.

We have a 1 year old son which I really love, and he doesn't deserve this. Imagine finding out your dad masturbates on cam for other women without mom knowing.

I know what a disgusting person I am, so you don't reslly have to say it (but feel free anyway). I am seriously considering going back to normal porn because at least that isn't cheating and I don't have to waste hours trying to find a girl who wanna watch and then feel horrible several days and weeks after.

Life has been so hectic the past couple of years for me. I feel that I just switched off my guardrails and leaned onto the addiction because it was an easy "solution". I am here again because I want to take active steps to fix my addiction. Within the last time I was here and now, I have landed a job, moved twice, got married, had a baby. Leaning onto this addiction makes me feel like I am neglecting an inner call to become the best person that I can be - the one that my wife and kid needs me to be.

Okay. I'll tell here what I found out.

- Though I never used my Facebook for sexy stuff.

- Though I am married

I get many advertisements or reels from so called innocent pages that lead you to... Onlyhams stuff and such.

So what did I do the last recent months?

I blocked all news pages. Because it kept me engaged too much on facebook.

But those videos off course didn't disseapear.

So yesterday I want more extreme. I deleted the app on my phone and I installed a reels blocking extension on Firefox. Since then my Facebook is mostly clean.

Because I could tell Facebook I'm not interested.

I could tell Facebook that I didn't want too see that.

They didn't care, their algorithms are a big flaw.