Porn addiction is quite a phenomenon isn’t it? At age 10, catching glimpses of pornography photographs every once in a while seemed to be quite a treat. Skimming through late night broadcasts of erotica on premium movie channels seemed just as taboo as Internet porn now has become today.
At 12, the Internet really opened up some doors, and closed some behind it. I guess that this can be compared to me moving onto a harder “drug” by using the Internet exclusively for porn. This harder drug is easy to access, fast inducing, superstimulating, and most importantly FREE. The meth of stimulants.
Now, imagine a meth addict that can get their hands on this drug at no cost and only has to walk next door to get it. This person obviously is not going to live much longer.
What makes a porn addiction different from the case of this meth addict? For starters, you’ll have a much, much higher chance of survival. Porn and masturbation is not going to kill you, but it may significantly slow you down from something important in life. Realizing that your porn addiction has gone far enough to present certain issues in life is a good indicator that you need to begin making changes in your behavior.
To compare, a person who loves to eat all the time may have an addiction to food. The problem is that this person eats when they’re happy, sad, angry, or nervous, and usually eats to excess. This person also does not exercise, is known to be a couch potato, and is classified, based on their BMI (Body Mass Index), as obese.
Porn addiction steps into a whole different ballpark, where external symptomatic cues may often be overlooked. In contrast to other addictions, getting help for porn addiction can fairly tough, because it is an embarrassing subject to discuss. This is where the Internet, a double-edged sword in porn addiction and recovery, comes in. The internet has got us addicted, but with a website like this, recovery is closer than ever before. I have been on and off this website since June 2010 when I decided I wanted to stop this life-ruining habit. I have succeeded in my own mind by days, weeks, and months, but I have also failed.
I came on here to post about my progress and started writing about what I thought porn addiction was all about. I’m not sure why I wrote all that, but I’m going to post it anyways.
I am 23 years old now. To date, I have been PORN FREE since December 18th, 2010 for 50 DAYS. I also stopped masturbating, but begin slowly easing back into it without porn at DAY 40. (Never had the intention to stop masturbating for good.)
I honestly go in and out of depressed states of mind even up until this day. I am starting to begin to feel the depression in a different way now, though. I try to absorb this energy and use it in a more positive way, reminding myself that I will be much better off by staying outside of the circle I was trapped in not long ago. And I was stuck in that circle for MANY YEARS. It’s nice looking from the outside of that circle.
Porn + Masturbation daily = trapped in circle (vicious)
Stop for a few days = out of circle
Start up again = back in circle (vicious)
There is a force that pulls you back in, and when that force is stronger (by being addicted), it’s much easier to get sucked in. Breaking that force will take some will power, distraction of mind to other healthier, positive, fun forces, and more will power. Your thoughts are what drive your decisions to shape your future. You control the thoughts that make the decision about where you will drive it.
Things that happened the two times I quit for 2 months straight (June 2010, and now 2011):
I don’t know if this is coincidence or not, but within the first 3 weeks of quitting, I had attracted two females and dated them, having sex and having emotional connections with them both, one of which I am now still currently dating. The first one ended, and I blame it on my relapse into porn during the relationship.
Anyway, I watched P+M for over 10 years now, and I know it has done some damage to my social skills and many other things. However, I believe in the plasticity of the brain and have been really, really determined lately. Positive things happen almost instantaneously when you quit. I have been been social, active, involved, focused, etc.
I still have some mad withdrawal symptoms though. It has almost been two months, but I get these feelings in my head that literally say, “Come on, don’t you want to see what’s going on in the porn world?? All those new sexy young girls are ONLY a click away, and then you’ll be so happy when you can see hundreds of us all naked and having sex! Come on!” Just writing that triggers something in my mind. Ha ha. My positive reinforcers are definitely kicking in now, though 50 DAYS into it.
I have to say the articles here on how the mind can rewire itself, and how it needs to detach itself from the many wired connections it has made to porn by not feeding it anymore are definitely right. I can feel the process at work.
by makaveli7
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