I have been addicted since my late teens and I am now approaching 29 years. I have spent the whole of my adult life, the best part of my youth, addicted to porn, experiencing all the ruination that comes with it. I’ve written a list of 50 ways porn has ruined my life so far to share with others in the hopes that it will help motivate them in recovery. So…
1) p robs me of my time – hours pass by in a flicker, for absolutely nothing, when I could have been doing something more
2) p makes my mood worse, making me feel low
3) p worsens my anxiety
4) p makes me lazy, slovenly, leaving things undone that I should have done
5) p warps the way I interact with and experience the world, making me concentrate more on sight than other senses
6) p makes me emotionally flat, unable to fully experience deep emotions much of the time
7) p weakens my memory, and leaves days I would like to recall fondly in a haze
8) p makes me lust endlessly for things I can never have, and for experiences that are ultimately hollow
9) p forces me to be dishonest and secretive
10) p makes me live in imagination and not the real world
11) p pulls me away from life, stops me enjoying life richly and fully
12) p makes me sacrifice everything – time, love, wellbeing, money – for nothing more than imagined images
13) p makes me undervalue what I have right in front of me
14) p detaches me mentally, emotionally, and sometimes spatially, from those I love
15) p makes me incapable of thinking clearly
16) p makes my attention span shorter
17) p makes me forget how lucky I am
18) p makes me forget the amazing beauty of my SO
19) p makes me neglect people
20) p makes me take risks
21) p makes me unreliable
22) p makes me a poor worker
23) p makes me mentally slow and clumsy
24) p makes me worse at socialising, at having conversation and making jokes with others
25) p makes me slide into triviality
26) p makes me concoct justifications and explanations for itself that I would not ordinarily accept
27) p makes me someone who I am not, and someone who I would not want to be
28) p makes me lose sight of personal values
29) p makes me reduce everything else’s meaning
30) p stops me from being happy
31) p has changed the course of my life for the worse
32) p has stopped me from reaching my potential to this time
33) p makes me lose sight of my real values
34) p has caused harm to those I love
35) p has caused me to fail at school and made my university grades suffer
36) p has hampered my ability to learn
37) p has made it impossible for me to commit long-term to an action plan for my life
38) p has made it impossible for me to sustain long term personal development
39) p has made it impossible for me to work on my passions and hobbies consistently
40) p has led to me having an unsatisfactory work life
41) p has tainted virtually all of my memories from the time I became addicted, over 10 years ago
42) p has made me act shamefully, even acting out on the eve and morn of close family funerals
43) p has made me neglect my health
44) p has made been a factor that led to a breakdown at the age of 25, which I still haven’t fully recovered from
45) p has made me cause myself physical injury through posture and other things
46) p has made me waste, now, well in excess of £1000 – which should be in my bank and is as much my partner’s as mine
47) p has made me neglect my preparations for my wedding
48) p has made me more impulsive
49) p has made me neglect my spiritual life
50) p has kept me back from everything I love in life, from everything I want in life and everything that has meaning for me
by healing16