I stumbled across porn as a young teenager, and quickly became enthralled with it. But I never understood why something that my body seemed to drive me to with every fiber of my being.
[Or how] something that felt so good, could make me feel disgusted and ashamed of myself. As a Catholic, I had plenty of people telling me about why masturbation was “bad,” but I couldn’t figure out how to unchain my sexuality from what I had become accustomed to, addicted to, with pornography. I told myself I could stop if I really wanted to.
I told myself I could stop when I had a girlfriend. Of course, I couldn’t. After a relationship, and 3 subsequent years wallowing in my own stagnant self, trying and failing to quit, I was close to giving up. I convinced myself that those 90 day, 150 day, 1 year reports on here were written by guys who had found some secret, some way to eliminate the urges that I couldn’t defeat.
Then one day, I was talking to a priest about everything, how I had tried and failed countless times to quit, and he just stopped me and said that he has watched this problem destroy countless men, marriages, and families, and that I owe it to myself and my future family to stop screwing around feeling sorry for myself, and nip this thing in the bud. That was 90 days ago, and I think the reason that day was different is because it was the first time I stopped believing I was a victim of pornography, and took responsibility for the life I was living. And dammit I wanted my life back.
Gents, as you all probably know as well as or better than I do, the urges never go away. They don’t get weaker, or shorter. But every time you fight through an urge, you become stronger. And after a while, when an urge rears up, you have the peace inside you to laugh at it and go read, talk to a friend, play guitar, meditate, or pray. You laugh because you are happy, because the thought of trading the peace you have inside, the reconciliation with yourself that comes from enduring this struggle, is just ridiculous. I can look my friends and family in the eyes again, because mine are clean.
I can be with a girl and appreciate all that she is, because my sexuality is no longer chained to my own self-pleasure. And most importantly for me, I have learned to respond to the hard times in life by looking outward to the people and beauty of the world around me, rather than turning inward and rotting in a prison of my own mind. Thank you all, for every post, every 90 day report, every encouraging word or picture, and for fighting the good fight. See you at 365.
TL;DR – “We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” – Plato
LINK – 90 day report: living one day at a time
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