I am 51 years old. I started having fantasies with boys from school when I was 11, I understand now that this was because I was bullied at school and was not “popular”: I was shorter, fatter, used glasses, and did not know how to play soccer (very important to be popular if you are a boy in Argentina). I started fapping fantasizing with these boys.
I changed completely when I was a teenager: I grew up, got a girlfriend and became very popular in my social environment. Nevertheless, I “kept” my secret gay fantasies inside my brain.
When I was 18 I got the guts to buy my first gay porn magazine, later I started renting porn VHS, later buying DVD’s.
My “underground” desires were always gay, while in my real life I was straight. This gave me a lot of stress and felt confused.
When I was 21 I spoke up to my girlfriend, telling her about my fantasies with guys. She was supportive, and we continue our relationship and got married three years later.
Very soon I had my first sex encounter with a guy in some sordid xxx movie theatre, quite disgusting environment for a “first time”.
A couple of year later, the creation of Internet made things easier for closeted gays. I started meeting guys in chat rooms first, later with meeting sites like Manhunt or Gaydar. It was always like a “parallel” life: I just wanted to have fast sex, not a relationship with men. Eventually I discovered that hiring escorts in Rentboy was easier:
I could pay for half an hour of sex, no strings attached.
High Speed Internet made my life “easier”. I could start watching gay porn all the time, without risking being discovered buying xxx movies, without needs of hiding them in some corner of a closet (specially during the VHS age, because they were bulky and hard to hide). I could also switch from one scene to the other, jumping from one movie to the other just with a click. I started browsing the names of my favorite porn actors, watching and downloading their movies. I built a library of more than 500 of my “favorite movies”, classified by actor, story, type, etc.
I started dedicating more and more of my time to this. I used to stay one or two hours at home when my wife left to the office (we worked together), watching porn and fapping. I stayed also at the office late, until 7.30 or 8 PM, so I had the opportunity to PMO once more before going back home.
I started taking more and more risks: PMO in my office when my partner or some employees were still in next door offices, PMO in my bed while my wife was sleeping next to me; pretending that I have meetings outside the office to have the chance to meet escorts, etc.
Sooner than later I started having ED. First I could not get hard with my wife anymore, so I was recreating porn movies inside my head while having sex with her, trying to stay aroused. Later it started happening also when I was with guys: instead of thinking about what was going on, I decided to become passive, while I have been active until that day (you do not need an erection if you are passive).
I started feeling more and more sad and depressed. I was all the time feeling like a hand pressing on my chest, I could not focus in my job if I did not fap 3-4 times a day.
During the last months before starting my reboot, I realized that watching porn was not making me horny anymore. It was ridiculous: I was not getting aroused but I could not stop doing it.
That was not the only contradiction: I never enjoyed my encounters with those escorts: all the excitement disappeared as soon as I met them, I did not enjoy the sex (specially since I became passive, because it was very painful), and I got even more depressed when the “session’ was over. But what I was doing when the escort left the hotel room?
I connected to the Internet to watch more porn and fap! I even filmed a couple of my encounters with escorts (with a hidden Ipad), so I could watch my own custom-made porn videos and fap later. By doing this, I became a porn actor on my own videos.
I realized I was in some state of delusion, but could not stop.
This started changing in April. I hired a famous porn star from BelAmi, a very popular European gay porn studio. For some reason, instead of the typical fast encounter, this guy was in no rush. We sat down and talk for 40 minutes, and he told me his story. He came from a very poor family in Hungary, he was straight and started working in the porn industry to feed his family. He had a girlfriend, and was not even gay. He told me things that made me feel pity for him: the owner of the studio has “the right” to sleep with any of the actors whenever he wants, most of the actors (that you see so self-confident and happy in the movies) are drug junkies, they have some pimp who takes the biggest share of their money, etc.
He told me that they are being forced lately to have sex without condoms, and that they get AIDS tests that are usually fake. This is when he decided to leave the studio.
But do you know what was worst? Instead of saying goodbye and leaving, I still had sex with him, and I was active this time. I know he was suffering and in pain, but I could not stop.
When I left his apartment I felt like a monster. I sat down inside the car for two hours with my mind in blank. This triggered something inside. I knew I needed help, but did not know how to get it.
One week later, my subconscious “asked for help”. I paid a porn website with my credit card, knowing that I could be discovered: my sons usually check the credit card App to see how much they are spending, and we share that card. I knew I could be discovered, but I did it anyway. And of course my son discovered me. He called me and said: “Your computer has been hacked…unless you are paying to watch gay porn. Be more careful, we do not want to hurt Mom”. I think he knew the truth, but he was a gentleman and pretend he did not.
I was overwhelmed by this situation, I started crying and praying God for some help…and this help came.
I do not remember what I was browsing in the Internet, when I found by chance Gary Wilson’s Ted Talk Glasgow. I started listening to him and I was shocked. It was like he was talking to ME! I felt like crushing against a wall at 200 miles per hour. Suddenly I realized that I WAS A PORN ADDICT. Ten minutes earlier I did not even know that there was such an addiction. I understood that all my sadness and depression was due to my porn addiction, while I was always thinking that it was because of my bisexual feelings. I read testimonials of straight porn addicts and they all sounded like me.
I started googling and found a test to “know if you are a porn addict”. In the middle of the test I already knew what the result would be: I was in the highest grades of porn addiction.
I entered in a state of panic:
- I started deleting all the porn movies I have been saving with so much love during years.
- I threw out all my all DVD’s to the trash (they were still hidden in my closet).
- I deleted and blocked all the escort contacts from my cell phone (I had A LOT).
- I deleted every e-mail that could lead me to more sex encounters with guys.
- I installed K-9 to block all the escorts’ sites, and the porn movies.
- I had a paid subscription to BelAmi (that porn studio were this escort worked), I wrote to ask them to cancel my subscription although I had still 7 months left.
- And in the Sixth Day…I found NoFap. (No religious pun intended, lol).
I cannot emphasize enough how this site changed my life. I could have never gone though the pains of withdrawal without Alexander and this great Fapstronauts community.
The first weeks were hell. I had a terrible blue ball ache, I felt like crying out of the blue, and I started shouting during a business meeting in front of 12 people, without being able to stop. I know that it was wrong (although I was right in the reason to be upset), so I ended up leaving the room and going to the bathroom to cry).
I could not have done this without the help of the NoFap community, I was asking for advice all the time to other fellow Fapstronauts. When I read some of my posts now I laugh. On my second week I had a trip to Boston, where I usually visited one of my “favorite” escorts. For some stupid reason, when I started the reboot I was still planning on visiting him during that trip. Fortunately I asked the opinion in the Forum and everybody told me it was a crazy idea, so I did not do it.
That first trip was a big challenge: I always took advantage of my trips, far away from my wife, to have a great binge of porn. I was afraid of relapsing, but the good advice of some Fapstronauts gave me the tools to cope with it.
- I did not pay the Internet of the hotel, so I would not be tempted to watch porn in my room;
- I made a busy agenda, especially when I was not working, so I stayed outside of the room all the time;
- I went to my favorite coffee stores in town to read a book and sip a cappuccino: a fulfilling activity that helped me feel better;
- I rode bicycle like crazy all over town, I visited so many of my favorite places in town, and steamed away all the stress and dopamine.
- One night that I had no plans, I booked a table in a cool restaurant I’ve seen in TV, and I “rewarded” myself with great food in lieu of PMO.
- I even accepted an invitation to a Red Sox baseball game, to stay away from being alone in my hotel (I am Argentinean, we find baseball very boring, lol).
There were many other challenges the following weeks. My favorite escort in Miami (where I live) texted me during the second week, and I was almost tempted to accept his invitation. Fortunately, I used some of the tools I was starting to develop thanks to
NoFap: I waited 5 minutes, did some meditation, and started an “inner dialogue” between my rational part of the brain and the porn addicted one, the first one giving the other the reasons why it was a very bad idea to see him. I remembered some advice from the forum:” having sex with an escort is watching porn in steroids.” With my heart pounding, I wrote him that I was not living in town any longer, that I would never come back, and said goodbye forever. It sounds stupid, but it was like letting a boat to go away. I was half happy and half sad; it was such a strange feeling.
But the big step was talking to my wife about my addiction: I asked the question to the +40 forum if I should tell her or not and there was a big debate about it.
Finally, I spoke out to her during my fourth week. I had practiced a lot my “speech”, but when I wanted to start speaking, nothing came out from my throat. I started crying, and she hugged me. I could start talking then, and she was very supportive.
This took away a big pressure from my chest, and a new stage in my reboot started.
The last push was registering in NoFap Academy. This site gave me the tools to fight my addiction in a more structured way. I have not missed one Monday videoconference since I started 3 months ago. It helps me to stay with my feet in the ground, never forgetting that this is a battle I need to fight every day.
During the next months, I started feeling better and better. The sadness and depression disappeared around the 60th Day.
I created an “Emergency Toolbox” that helped me a lot during my recovery. They were some things I wrote and some things I copied from other posts, and I saved them in my cellphone to have them handy to read when I got an urge. You can read and use them if you want:
One of the most powerful sentences which helped me cope with the urges is:
“To figure out if something is good for you, you have to ask two simple questions: where does it lead me? And how will it leave me?”
It helped me put the foot in the break when the fogginess started invading my brain (we porn addicts know that feeling too well).
I also put in another post several videos that gave me inspiration for the tough moments of the recovery:
And lately I did a post for those guys who are starting and ask for tips about how to start:
Today is my 126th Day. I still cannot believe it. I would have never dreamt about being clean for so long. I have not been without fapping or watching porn for more than 4 days since I was 11.
I can say that I was born again on May 8th. 2015.
I will always be grateful to Alexander Rhodes and Mark Queppet to help me change my life. These guys are changing the world one person at a time, and there work should not go unrecognized.
Keep fighting
LINK – 51 Years Old When I Discovered NoFap
by Fercho
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