This is something I wish someone had told me during my recovery journey: the importance of not running from pain. And by pain, I mean emotional pain—the pain in the soul, those uncomfortable feelings that weigh heavy on you. The kind that makes you want to escape and forget, the situations so unpleasant that all you want to do is avoid everything… and fall back into a habit.

I haven’t posted anything in a long time. I've been suffering a lot over the past few months, especially with my addiction to pornography. In my case, I had to start therapy, and through it, I realized just how many things I keep running from, how many things I avoid in life… how many unpleasant situations I prefer to pretend don't exist. I end up hiding in a parallel reality through this habit, which only masks my problems and solves absolutely nothing: the habit of watching pornography.

Pornography is a way to escape pain, to "numb" unpleasant feelings. Even though you may want to avoid pain, or something uncomfortable, and use pornography to "forget" about it, the feeling will continue to exist, just buried deep down. That feeling is a sign that something is wrong, that something needs your attention.

Some people get addicted simply out of habit and can break free "relatively" easily. But, in some cases, there are underlying issues that, combined with the addiction, create a spiral of negativity; one thing worsens the other, resulting in an endless cycle. That’s my case. Through therapy, I realized how much unresolved stuff there is, how many misconceptions I have about reality, how many, to use therapeutic jargon, cognitive distortions I have.

All this creates an enormous problem. My distorted views of reality make me feel unwell, and as a result, I use pornography to try to feel better. But do you think pornography actually solves anything?

Don’t be afraid to face your demons, don’t be afraid to confront reality, don’t be afraid to accept who you really are. If you’re unattractive and overweight, that’s okay; that’s reality. If you’re unemployed and unsure what’s next, that’s okay. If you’re in a difficult situation in life, that’s okay—accepting reality is the first step. The important thing is to focus on what you’re going to do from here on out. Who do I want to be? Accepting who I am, accepting my life, where do I want to go?

There are habits that make you a stronger human being, someone who has the ability to feel pain and not run away from it, to face the world head-on, accepting all the hardships they've gone through in life. Accepting that you’re not perfect, but feeling the infinite potential to improve. Cold showers, meditation, exercise, weightlifting, among others—all habits that build perseverance and teach the mind to keep going, even when there’s pain.

That’s what I wish I’d known earlier, and that’s why I’m writing this. I want to share this message that I consider important. Don’t be afraid to feel pain; don’t be afraid to face the tough situations in life head-on. Because, in the end, that’s life. It’s the imperfections that make it more interesting, don’t you think?

When you remove this crutch—pornography—from your life, reality will come knocking, and it will hurt, believe me. But think carefully: will you go back to that habit and "pretend" you forgot everything, or will you let yourself feel this pain and face it? What’s better, to keep masking the pain forever, indefinitely, pretending everything’s okay, or to move forward, feeling what needs to be felt, walking the path, and living life with your head held high?

Meditation has helped me a lot with this. Always. It has helped me train my mind not to run away, not to mask any unpleasant feelings. To stay there, feeling, without reacting, without using crutches like pornography to forget everything. Meditation helps me be stronger, more resilient.

Allow yourself to feel the pain, let the uncomfortable feelings surface. If you need to scream, scream; if you feel happy and sad at the same time, that’s okay; if you need to cry, cry. In one of my meditation sessions, I needed to cry for an hour without even knowing why. But you know what? It felt good—it was like pulling a thorn out of my chest; it was a relief. It’s better to live life as it is than to mask the unpleasant things with pornography!

I bounced around different homes growing up. I’m on a road trip helping my dad pick up wine in a different city, and I’m spending the night in the house he raised his second family in. Never liked it here.

I’m missing porn right now.

What’s your experience with getting urges in particular locations?

Even when I stopped for a week, life began to have colours again.

Things like going to the gym, doing a side hustle or even just mowing the lawn became enjoyable.

Porn took away my lust for LIFE and replaced it with fantasy-fuelled nonsense.

I just wanted to post and let you know that it’ll get better and life will start to feel worth it again.

You mean more than this.

Porn

The entire ~730GB collection. I wiped it today without a second thought. I'm breaking free from this horrid addiction of mine. I deep cleaned every single device, deleted accounts, everything. It's all gone. I know this will be impossibly hard, but I hope I can stay on the right path this time. To anyone reading this who wants to quit as well... join me in taking your life back, and start right now.

[throwaway account for privacy]

As I’m typing this I just realized how much I fucked up. I never expected this to happen to me, I’ve been going so so soo strong, been doing so much everything is just going great, and now I relapse?

After 4,5 months I don’t know what to do. I’m scared that if I reset I’ll set the bar to relapse again lower, I don’t want this to happen again. What do I tell myself, my people.

I don’t even know why it happened, there was no need. I take full responsibility tho, and I see that this was in the making.

I still needed to desexualize my brain. This wasn’t the best move for it. I feel indifferent tho, I hate porn and nothing will change that, idk why I relapsed.

I don’t understand the appeal, but my brain just did it, it just went there.

I’m not planning to go on a bender, I really don’t want to do this again

Idk if I should reset, I relapsed but I also need to cut myself some slack. If I notice that I have it hard with fighting urges again like I used to, I’ll reset. But it just feels so fucking dumb.

It’s like I just went to the sites out of curiosity, like I beated out of curiosity, I wanted to see if there was any difference between with or without.

It’s like I was experimenting? Which was still wrong, I shouldn’t have been on there & should’ve known the results. Because what if I liked it? That would’ve fucked me up.

I am kinda glad tho in a certain way? It’s not a reset of my path, but a bump in the road. I should know better in the future & I’ll make sure that some bullshit like this never happens again.

So i clicked on a video I only could make out the word naked but I clicked on it was a military video and so I read the rest of the caption and left when I realized what it said and haven't gone back now I curious if this was a relapse or not hence why I'm asking

I got a notification for a video and it was a YouTube short a d it was a military one and i seen a the text and text the only thing I was certain on was the word naked and so I clicked on it and once I read the entire text part I left because I realized what it said and now Im wondering if I relapsed because I clicked on it but left after so is this a relapes

Is it possible that anytime I'd type in the hub(incognito too) it would lead me to Cornhub?

I know the title seems insane, but hear me out.

I'm recovering from a porn addiction that I've had for about 10 years since I was 18/19. However, even in the deepest throes of my porn addiction, I never viewed or desired to view what most people would consider "porn". I never viewed content of women naked, or videos of sex or sexual intercourse of any time.

Typically, I would look at more soft-core pictures of women, or photo's that wouldn't be considered porn if I wasn't getting off to them. I seemed to get off to photo's of them smoking or acting in a certain way, particularly middle aged women, but I never really liked any sexual imagery. In fact, the naked body and depictions of sex would instantly make me lose any arousal.

The problem is that I remember before I watched any porn, I had zero interest in sex and I've not once in my life fantasized about sex. Even when aroused I never wanted to have sex, in fact the thought turned me off entirely. When masturbating I never imagined any sexual act or naked body. It's part of the reason I got into porn, in fact, because I had a few options to lose my virginity with people I felt comfortable and not anxious with, yet I turned all these options down because I wasn't interested in having sex, so I thought that I might as well get my rocks off in a way arousing to me. This was before porn was even in my life.

I've noticed that, since quitting, I still desire the same things from before, but far less, as if my libido has shrunk rapidly. I can masturbate easily to fantasies only involving people I know and have met now, but even in these fantasies, sex/naked bodies are never involved.

Is it possible that you can be asexual and addicted to porn?

here i have 3 challenges for you

physical: run 1 lap every thought you have for porn. if you look up porn but don’t click links, run 2, if you watch porn run 3. MAX 3, it’s to distract you not kill you.

gamers: fortnite users: get all medallions from the current bosses, if difficulty, get a loadout full of legendary/ mythic (bot lobbies recommended. i’ll teach how to do it), cod players, survive till wave 5-15. other games, complete 3-5 quest

drawers: draw a jungle background of your choice.

none of these? don’t worry, comment some ideas, the main idea is to not watch porn. trust me i watched A LOT since i was 9 or something but now i don’t watch porn anymore and i’m a great gamer and good christian!

Given that it's November 1st I'm already seeing a lot of "time to start", "the time is now", "journey begins today" kind of posts. And what comes with those sorts of posts is deleting profiles and apps, installing blockers, unfollowing influencers, plans to start diets and workout regimens, among many other things. With all that being said, I want to give a few recommendations in no particular order on where I believe most people should start and how to approach this journey. And full disclosure I'm sure I will get downvoted into onblivion for some of these tips. But frankly I don't care because I'm here to help and these tips have come from working with a license counselor AND a licensed compuslive sexual behavior counselor. Not some bullshit you saw on Reddit. Ok, bring on the downvotes!!

1. Don't worry about tracking days or having a streak. It's pointless. The moment you begin a streak you are creating internal mental pressure about the potential of breaking said streak. Doing this not only causes unnecessary stress but also has built-in guilt and shame the moment said streak ends which makes no sense. If you were struggling with this vice and suddenly went 89 days porn free but on day 90 you watched porn are you suddenly a failure? No, that's a ridiculous way of thinking. You were SUCCESSFUL for 89 straight days.99% of the time you were successfufl. Relish in that success, study what worked, and ask yourself why you watched porn on the 90th day. Which brings me to point 2.

2. ACCEPT THAT YOU ARE GOING TO WATCH PORN. You're going to watch it. Stop lying to me and all the other people here, but most importantly stop lying to yourself. You are going to watch it. I would stake every dollar in my bank account that you will. And you know why I know that you will? Because you're here. If you weren't here then you wouldn't have a problem. Acceptance of this is huge because it removes shame from the equation. Look, it's okay to be upset or disappointed with yourself on a slip up. But just pick yourself back up, study what triggered you to look at porn, study what was working before that and then apply the lesson learned. Simple as that. Remember, if you live in shame you are only going to further your need to watch porn because that is the vice you prefer to use to self regulate.

3. This is where I'll get downvoted. When you do watch porn, go for it. But here is my caveat. I want you to let yourself watch it, and you have to make it a MINDFUL PRACTICE. You have to accept that YOU are making the choice to do it. Instead of living in fight or flight with all the "just a peak nonsense", just let yourself watch the fucking video. Now it isn't necessarily compulsive. You made the choice to do it. Now here is how you do it right. Pick one video. Don't spend 3 fucking hours like you usually do to try and find the "right one". Don't open 15 tabs like I know you want to. Do not find a compilation or quick cut video or any of that nonsense. Don't use youtube or tiktok or instagram or any 7 second bullshit. Find 1 video on the front page that looks good and is focused on 1 scene. And then watch it. Really watch. Don't just start cranking your dick like its a garden hose. Sit there for a moment and take a few deep breaths and say to yourself its okay to watch. And then after you do that, ask yourself why you wanted to watch it? Did you get a work email that made you anxious? Did your spouse send you a nasty text? Did a friend unexpectely make fun of you today? Do you have an exam tomorrow that you're anxious about studying for? Whatever your reason is you need to figure out why. Maybe you were just bored. Okay great. Why are you bored? Are you working a job you don't like? Are you isolating and not spending enough time with people? That is for you to figure out. But by allowing yourself to make the decision to watch, and after you determine your "why", examine the specific content you chose. Is it some sort of power play content and maybe it's an inversion of you feeling powerless in life. Is it someone giving full attention and servitude and does that reflect the attention you wish someone was giving you? Examine what's driving you to watch and why you chose what you watched. And to reiterate, do it with one scene. Don't cheat. If you make it through the whole scene then try to find another. I guarantee you will start to feel uncomfortable that you can't jump from video to video or tab to tab and THAT RIGHT THERE is where the uncomfortable feelings come in and you really start to learn about yourself. And by the way I know you will cheat. But just keep trying. Even if its only 2 minutes of being mindful, that is great, and build on that progress until it's 3 minutes. Keep going until you get to a point where perhaps you can watch just one full scene by your choice. This brings down the dopamine and makes less of a novelty.

4. GO GET A THERAPIST. If this issue is bad enough then a licensed sex addiction and compulsive sexual behavior counselor is a good idea as well, but keep in mind that that counselor should not be a substitue for a general therapist. Get a therapist. If you don't like them, find another one. If you don't like the 2nd, try a 3rd. Can't afford it? There are programs you can find online where people who need hours to build towards their licensure will offer treatment for free. Get a therapist. Visit with them regularly. Engage with them. Be vulnerable with them. LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF. This is honestly the biggest thing you can do for yourself. We eat healthy and exercise for our mind and body but most people miss the step of mental/emotional exercise and therapy is a tried and true skill to help refine your abilities.

5. Band-aids will not fix this issue. Diets and workout plans are great. Cold showers have many health benefits. Finding new hobbies can be good for your mental health. But just cramming in random "healthy" habits when you're feeling an "urge" doesn't lend itself to long term success. You can't play COD Black Ops through your urges for your entire life. Understand that this issue you have is driven by EMOTIONS. Your inability to process and regulate your emotions in a healthy way is what drives you to self-regulate and self-soothe with porn. That doesn't mean you are a failure. That doesn't mean there is anything wrong with you. Healthy emotional regulation is a learned skill that every healthy person goes through and unfortunately unhealthy people miss.

6. Last but not least, there is no formula. Just because one thing works for someone on here doesn't mean it will work for you. That's why the tips mentioned above are about studying and obseving YOUR OWN BEHAVIOR. One persons trauma could be sexual abuse, while the others could be a helicopter parent, while the next could be a cheating partner. We all have different drivers of why we self regulate with porn. So stop assuming that what works for someone else will work for you. Someone else's remedy is specific to their own experiences which is why it won't work for you. Go become an expert on your own emotions. Trying to copy someone else or listen to David Goggins scream at you might motivate you for a week but it won't lead to sustainable sexual integrity. You need to devleop a process to learn about yourself and your emotions and doing therapy, and practicing mindfulness is a great way to get started.

You're not going to fix this in a week or a month. Focus on feeling better. Do what works for you. Study what didn't work and why. You will get to healthy place evenutally, I promise. Good luck.

My recovery starts today. My addiction has taken so much from me already, but most of all my dignity and conscience. I feel so much shame and guilt. It disgusts me even to think of some of the things I've gotten off to over the years. And on top of it, I have this rare disease called POIS that makes me feel terrible after having an orgasm. It gives me horrible brain fog, fatigue, and other things. There's lots of theories about what causes it, but no one really knows for sure. But it doesn't really matter because at the end of the day the solution to the problem is the same, abstaining and staying away from porn.

Whenever I go on a streak, my brain tries to convince me that I'm missing out and that I'm giving up the most amazing thing in my life. That I'm giving up ever feeling any pleasure or being truly happy again. But in reality, until I give this up, I will never gain life. I will never truly be able to enjoy anything else in life. So yes, I am giving up that few seconds of pleasure, but I stand to gain literally everything else. I want to be able to truly appreciate the little things in life again. I want to feel genuine emotion again. I want to not be weighed down by shame and guilt all the time, looking over my shoulder scared somebody is gonna find out my secret.

I'm just so tired of this.

I don't really know where to start and I'm not too good with grammar and I'm on my phone. But here it goes.

I'm a 15 year old male. I'm addicted to porn and have wanted to quit to improve my life and improve myself in general. It all started when I was around 11-12. I remember seeing some sexualized ads and kinda wanting to watch porn to "see what it's like". I remember it ramping up in a way. I started slow. I started with a little bit of porn then it expanded over a few months. I masturbated nightly and sometimes in the morning. The nightly and (sometimes) morning masturbation continued. I would watch porn. I never saw a problem with it until around 4 months ago. I don't know what changed but I attempted to quit. I quit for around 2 weeks but relapsed. I felt really guilty for relapsing but the guilt eventually went away. Later in this last summer I quit for 2 weeks. It wasn't only porn but simultaneously I quit my phone. I relapsed and have been stuck since. I just feel so empty in a way. I feel stuck mentally and emotionally. I have pretty low energy and have been fatigued for around 7 months now. I don't know. I want to tell my parents but they'd shame me for it because I've always acted "above" porn in a way. As if I'm "too good" for it. Which I'm clearly not. I'm not really emotional and feel empty because of it. I feel like I'm trying to fill that void with porn but instead I'm just making it worse. It's so difficult for me to get emotional connections with people now. I feel so stuck I guess. This is the first time I've ever put this out in the world. I've never discussed this with anyone. What I'm really asking for is some tips. If anyone has some tips to help me quit I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

I'm deleting all the porn files on my external hard drive. No more.

EDIT: the porny 1s and 0s are all gone.

Hi! I've been posting to /r/pornfree for many years. This update is kind of complicated. It's definitely nuanced. I'll get to it:

I had so much shame with my porn addiction which drove me to try to quit. In doing so, I couldn't untangle the notion that "porn = bad" from shame around the fact that I was watching gay porn which didn't align with (what I believed was) my sexuality. I couldn't watch any porn in moderation, so I just tried to shut it all out of my life and quit.

I knew something was not right, but it took years of building up the courage, strength, and waiting until my life had the capacity to tackle this. I found a new therapist. He is specializes in LGBTQ+ topics. With his support, I've been able to untangle things and have accepted that I'm attracted to men. When I'm ready to try dating, I'll be trying to meet a man with the goal of finding a life partner. It feels like a huge burden has been lifted, I can't believe how much energy I was expending to suppress/repress my innate sexuality. Finally, everything feels right. It's surreal how much of a positive shift this has made for my mental health.

I still have a lot of emotional unpacking to do and figure out. I still have a lot I need to learn about myself. I've used porn a bit in October - and it's strange, for the first time in my life, it felt "right" how I wasn't trying to shut out that side of my sexuality. My long-term goal is still to quit porn - and to have a life partner who I can share all the joys of life with, including my sexuality.

But for now, I'm in a very good place and don't really have urges to use porn anymore. I'm grateful for everything from this community, which helped me grow and was a crucial component to getting to where I am today - and I am happy to be me. So thank you all :)

I’m a 24 year old male. I’ve been watching porn and having strong fantasies since I was 11 years old.

Since I was young I have been an addict. I have already gone through recovery programs for drugs and alcohol and have been sober for nearly two years now. However my addictions to porn and social media has been as bad as it’s ever been. I barely miss a day and when I don’t have commitments I can go on 6-8 hour sprees. I know that pure resistance has never worked for me and I often go to worse activities like cheating on my girlfriend or delving into onlyfans and spending money I don’t have.

This has hurt me so much that I haven’t had sex with my girlfriend of near 5 years for the past 4. I feel like love and sex just don’t work for me and I can only get validation from making women feel good or fantasizing how I win women over. I have also had issues with believing words of validation and sex and porn are such an easy way to see someone’s reaction and pleasure from sexual actions. I know I’m sick and I want my sexual activity to be a choice rather than an animalistic habit that takes over my whole mind and attitude.

I’m just so sick of this dissociation and lack of presence to show up for those I love.

For context I go to AA meetings 5 days a week and have a therapist. I also am extremely adhd and take medication for this.

Really looking for support because I am worried I may relapse on drugs or cheat again and I can’t ruin my life like this again.

That's it. I was clean for some time now and I was feeling really good about that. Lighter, calmer, more confident. Hadn't felt so good about my relationship and my sex life for so long, and now everything was going really great...

Until this morning when I relapsed. "Just a peak" I told myself. That "peak" ended up leading to a 4-hour go*ning session, exchanging nude pics and videos with strangers on groups behind my boyfriend's back. I just feel so ashamed about everything now...

When I finished and realized what I had just done, I noticed a text message from my bf saying "Good morning, just wanted you to start your day kwowing that I love you" and immediatly burst into tears. I'm always around this community telling everyone to stay light and positive, to be happy about things and don't be so hard on themselves, but today has been really hard for me... I can't stop crying from all the shame and regret. Please help me

Hey everybody, take a second to post a congratulatory comment to the victors of the Stay Clean October challenge, listed below. 75 out of 356 original participants made it. that's 21%. Victors, feel free to post a comment with your thoughts about the month. Was there anything specific that worked to keep you clean? What advice do you have for the rest of us? Here are our 75 victors:

/u/4of4

/u/Accurate-Ostrich7418

/u/Adventurous_Course88

/u/BearAccomplished9792

/u/BlairRedditProject

/u/Bulky_Profession8653

/u/Caesar-708

/u/CloseToTheHedge69

/u/Curious-Succotash-41

/u/Daltinoloco

/u/DavidBonehill85

/u/DirtyMike1775

/u/Discipline2023

/u/Distinct-Okra-6026

/u/DoubleFinding

/u/dubondrums

/u/dzvalentino

/u/EdvR_k

/u/EffectGold9757

/u/Effective_Public3502

/u/essmackd

/u/eternallyhopeful310

/u/ExoticBump

/u/Faddy10

/u/foobarbazblarg

/u/FourPillarCactus

/u/Future_Interaction

/u/G-nome420

/u/GnarSickRad

/u/Grej99

/u/H0meb0dy1980

/u/Happy-Bagel-Man

/u/Jeviant

/u/Kindly-Assignment751

/u/Lamb089

/u/Legitimate_Ride_8644

/u/LightBurden18

/u/LocalMango9288

/u/Mediocre-Seaweed-130

/u/Mrleibniz

/u/Mysterious-Ad6270

/u/MYusuf17

/u/No_Republic2240

/u/non_newtonian_jelly

/u/not_falling_again

/u/Old_Satisfaction_138

/u/ole12312

/u/OPMSnake

/u/Proper-Strength4471

/u/QuitQuitQuitQuit

/u/Sad_Paint9663

/u/SaLtYcHiPdUdE

/u/Sam36192

/u/SebsAGZ

/u/Septeban

/u/small_shawarma

/u/SonOfSunsSon

/u/streaker2014

/u/sunkenbean

/u/Tehpuuu

/u/Think_Signature_2408

/u/TimberNomad

/u/TodoBestfriend10

/u/toemosdapfunk

/u/Top-Attention3178

/u/tothefuturw

/u/TraditionalOcelot

/u/TropicFlash

/u/Useful-Plankton-9700

/u/Whiskey_Hellbeing

/u/Wyvxrns

/u/yourboiquirrel

/u/Yrchk

/u/zapata1954

/u/zblastex

Daily news: This is Friday, November 1, the first day of the Stay Clean November challenge. We will no longer be accepting new signups. Good news! We will be be accepting late signups for the next 3 days. If you forgot to sign up for the November challenge, just leave a "sign me up" comment below, and I'll add you. Best of luck to everyone here!

Here's how this thing works:

• At the end of this post is a list of people who have signed up for the challenge, and who are still in the running. That means that they have not needed to reset because of a relapse or slip.
• Please check in with the group in the comments as often as you want! Feel free to share thoughts, feelings, experiences, progress, wisdom, encouragement and whatever else!
• IMPORTANT: if you relapse, please post a comment to that effect here and I will remove your name from the list. We will not judge you or shame you, we have all been there.
• If you have a "~" after your name, you have yet to check in on any update threads. If it is still there by November 15th, you will be removed from the list, in order to keep the numbers as realistic as possible.
• We will not be accepting any new participants, but even if you're not on the list, please feel free to check in in the update threads anyway! Also, stay tuned to catch the December thread!

Good luck!

For a chart of relapse data, check out this Google Spreadsheet.

Here are our 226 original participants:

/u/-FunkyDuck ~

/u/4PocketsFull ~

/u/7_0_Splixo ~

/u/_de_novo ~

/u/vovcik ~

/u/Academic-Holiday5439 ~

/u/Accurate-Ostrich7418 ~

/u/Adorable-Resist472 ~

/u/AgitatedStay5046 ~

/u/AlexPortnoy4 ~

/u/Allstar310 ~

/u/Alozuer0900 ~

/u/AlternativeWave85 ~

/u/ARBRangerBeans ~

/u/Aromatic-Law9352 ~

/u/Arroz_Campollo ~

/u/Asuntara ~

/u/atlastic1 ~

/u/Atorgh ~

/u/Awkward-Energy7448 ~

/u/Baraecus ~

/u/bbjsharpie179 ~

/u/BearAccomplished9792 ~

/u/Beneficial_Mix_8773 ~

/u/biggiantporky ~

/u/BigRecognition871 ~

/u/BillClay89 ~

/u/Binge_pot ~

/u/BlairRedditProject ~

/u/BrightObligation1255 ~

/u/Bulky_Profession8653 ~

/u/captnmavrk ~

/u/Clean-Current-9448 ~

/u/CloseToTheHedge69 ~

/u/Coalas01 ~

/u/colebahorize ~

/u/Complex-Seat-2892 ~

/u/Confident_Ratio_6531 ~

/u/constantine152 ~

/u/coupe312 ~

/u/Curious-Succotash-41 ~

/u/curtlytalks ~

/u/CyberpunkNomad13 ~

/u/D3af43v3r ~

/u/Dangerous_Review_906 ~

/u/darkaph ~

/u/DavidBonehill85 ~

/u/DirtyMike1775 ~

/u/DrunkMateX ~

/u/EducationalPeanut548 ~

/u/EdvR_k ~

/u/Emergency_Task4159 ~

/u/eno_one ~

/u/Environmental-Law670 ~

/u/epic008 ~

/u/essmackd ~

/u/Fantastic-Bet-5393 ~

/u/Far_Economics9429 ~

/u/fontainedl ~

/u/foobarbazblarg

/u/forthebestthistime ~

/u/FreshBeginning303 ~

/u/Front-Revolution8450 ~

/u/FullOfShame93 ~

/u/Future_Interaction ~

/u/G-nome420 ~

/u/gamingisntarealhobby ~

/u/GAProman72 ~

/u/Glittering_Ad_6635 ~

/u/GlumTradition5769 ~

/u/GnarSickRad ~

/u/goldennuggetsfly ~

/u/GrabSecure8613 ~

/u/H0meb0dy1980 ~

/u/Happy-Bagel-Man ~

/u/heisyourbrother ~

/u/High_Quality_Box ~

/u/HJV123456 ~

/u/IcedRocks ~

/u/IDeserveMoreThan ~

/u/Ill_Relationship436 ~

/u/iloveicecream371 ~

/u/InaBunchofHeathee ~

/u/Independent_Yak_2421 ~

/u/Inevitable_Injury897 ~

/u/Infinite-Rush-6312 ~

/u/Itchy-Agency-7345 ~

/u/j-mac-rock ~

/u/jimboyoyoyo ~

/u/Jonathan549 ~

/u/JustGotta-Say ~

/u/Kalameet_0 ~

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I had quite a few huge urges but I resisted. I also had some but mostly one instance where I realised how much porn clouds my brain and just how badly it affects me.

Today I'm going to start closing down all of my NSFW accounts and to live a better life. No more of the lifeless pleasure that gets me nowhere. Time for me to turn my life around and do something about it. While others might think that it is tedious, I might think that it is easier.

For those struggling to quit, pay close attention to the type of porn you are watching. If there is serious shame, and you believe that the evil powers of porn and escalation are forcing you to watch, you’ll always lose that battle. Because in that scenario you are chasing your tail, trying to place blame on something other than yourself. Realize that it’s your fetish for a reason, maybe try to talk about it with someone you trust. Forgive yourself for watching it. Once you have a real strong understanding of why you are watching, it’ll be much easier to walk away.

I never really expected to make it this far. I still get urges almost every day, but life is so much easier now. I've been trying to get sober for about 3 years now, and i see that every single relapse i have had and every shortcoming has led me to this moment. they were all as equally as important as sobriety itself. I no longer see sobriety as an end goal, but rather a journey. good luck brothas

Hey all, I am sharing this in hopes that others will have had similar experiences and that my success can be an inspiration to others

First thing I should share is what my experiences and symptoms were from a young age. I was a child of an abusive violent alcoholic father and a schizophrenic mother, so by the time I was ready to engage with a woman I was already an angry traumatized dysfunctional guy. I am sure this background, or something comparable, is shared by many of us. Years of therapy, shadow work, meditation and journaling has helped me put my past into a reasonable context, so I'm not as actively haunted by my trauma as I once was. I suspect this will be a lifelong endeavor for me, I'm by no means fixed, but the progress has been liberating and validating.

Even with my first partner, I found that I was able to be aroused until it came to vaginal penetration. I was so insecure and had developed such a perfectionist catastrophizing persona from my upbringing that I think on some level, the commitment and vulnerability of sex brought out a fight or flight anxiety response in me. I would tighten up (especially in my pelvic floor), my breathing would get shallow, my heart would race, my thoughts would spiral out into fear of failure, which sure enough would result in loss of erection and shame/embarrassment.

This trend has persisted for nearly all of my life. 20 years of this struggle. And because just being a person is so uncomfortable to me at times, that tight pelvic floor and anxiety dump carried over into many facets of my life, affecting my social skills and career success.

I definitely used masturbation, which I never struggled with, to offset the shame of PA and PIED. I also abused marijuana and alcohol, video games, and basically anything I could to stay clouded from reality to avoid the shame of my situation. I had a history in my youth of ruining computers compulsively looking at pornography. Once I began college in the mid 2000s and bought my first computer, I began to access porn on a regular basis. I was frustrated by being surrounded by pretty girls and seeing all of my peers have seemingly easy success with them, and in spite of occasional success with girls it was almost always a one-off, because I almost always had anxiety issues which made the experience unsatisfying for both of us.

For most of the 2010s I basically gave up on trying to engage with a romantic partner, the trauma and the pattern of shame was such that it just felt safer and easier to watch porn and live a distracted life to avoid the shame. This pattern came to a halt in 2017 when I took a job which required a lot of travel with a group, and I had romantic encounters with a co-worker. Up to that point, I had avoided engaging with a co-worker but this time I really wanted to have a normal intimate relationship. Unfortunately I was still watching porn all day every day and our interactions were predictably unsuccessful. The shame and pain I felt being stuck in a situation where I saw her every day at work was intolerable, and at that point I knew I had to make a change.

I began doing research into my condition and found the familiar sources where erectile dysfunction are concerned, and quickly determined my porn addiction was the culprit. I struggled with totally overcoming the addiction, but I began to do the inner work to determine how I had gotten so lost. My upbringing, my anxiety and insecurity and shame, all became contextualized in my behavior and my trauma responses. I went to SLAA meetings, began seeing a therapist, tried anti-anxiety medication, and made disclosures to my closest friends and family about my situation.

Unfortunately I did not stay current in my recovery, and moved across the country to attempt to reboot my life. During this time my father died young (early 60s) and I struggled to establish myself in a new location. I used these circumstances to justify keeping a relationship with porn and avoid pursuing any romance. This changed when I met Candace.

We met at a mutual sports event where her and my friends left after we grouped up, so we spent an afternoon together and I felt brave and interested and got her number that day. After a brief courtship we began to become romantic. Although we struggled with intimate success, she saw something in me that she wanted to follow thru on. A few years into our on and off again success, I struggled to let go of pornography. I was in a cycle where I would want to quit totally, but after one or two failed attempts at intimacy, I would binge on PMO to feel normal and then feel shame and not want to engage physically for days, weeks, months at a time.

Candace remained exceedingly patient in my while I smoked and drank and watched porn throughout the first several years of our relationship. No one had ever gotten to know me so deeply, and she was incredibly sensitive and commiserated on the trauma of my past. I slowly let her in on my experiences and my trauma, and bit by bit I set aside more and more of my bad behavior responses.

This year, our sixth year together, I began to see a therapist again. I was still not ready to disclose the depth of my PMO addiction, largely because it's such a shame in our society for men not to be sexual heroes. But the therapist recommended quitting drinking and drugs from now on, that I took my fathers bad behavior and internalized it as rewards and coping/self medicating responses. I did, and have not had any substance for nearly 6 months. Quitting has been shockingly easy, largely because I didn't have a chemical dependency on any particular substance, but a general addiction to aversion to my trauma and shame.

One day after a particularly deep session, I was explaining the session to Candace when she asked me point blank if I had an addiction to pornography. It was perfect timing and after a brief inner moment of consideration, fully disclosed that I did. Over the past few years I had compartmentalized and sectioned off my porn addiction as something I would abstain from masturbating to for weeks at a time, but would continue to acquire/download/look at porn and fantasize about it and experience the shame of looking at naked girls while not having reproductive success with my partner.

Instead of it being the end of the relationship doomer scenario I had anticipated, it was somewhat of a relief for her. Don't get me wrong, she wasn't thrilled - but in her mind, my situation was more insidious or manipulative or intentional than it was, and she had done enough research about our circumstances to know the signs and patterns and feel validated that it wasn't as dire as it could have been.

I had already quit drinking and drugs successfully for a few months, so I pledged to quit PMO as well. This was not going to be as easy for me as the other coping mechanisms, because porn is so much more secret and accessible than being obviously under the influence of substances. So I bought a year long subscription to the Famisafe app, made her the moderator, and installed it on my devices. The accountability measure of knowing any time I acted up she would be aware of it has helped me tremendously in going cold turkey. I unfollowed any triggering accounts/friends/subs that would lead me towards temptations, so my social medias are all largely vanilla and basically used for work, and the closest of friends and family. I also unfollowed political content which was always very triggering and engaging for me.

I have had a relapse or two during the past 4 months, especially when I found my tablet which I hadn't touched in years and wasn't 'safe'. I regretted the relapse and although I didn't disclose it, I did sell the tablet on the marketplace the next day and confirmed that I was still actively going through a healing process.

Initially when I quit porn, the relief of disclosing it to my partner and not feeling the cloud of shame and fog that we experience in the throes of addiction led to success in the bedroom! I had acquired a Cialis prescription, which I felt I didn't truly need as my experiences felt psychological and not strictly physical, it still gave me a edge where courage and confidence were concerned. We had maybe 20 successful encounters in a row, and I felt like I had overcome my lifelong issues with intimacy!

However, the familiar dread and anxiety, the tight pelvic floor, the racing heart and doomer thinking re-emerged after a month or so of success. We were initially devastated after many attempts to engage resulted in failure. The last time this happened, a month or so ago, I was so upset with the circumstance that I began looking a bit deeper into my specific symptoms - success with arousal until the commitment of vaginal sex, the tight pelvic response, the anxiety and breathing issues etc. I found that these symptoms weren't uncommon, and even our on again off again success was a pattern in people with our background. I found that a lifelong response of tightening my pelvic floor in response to anxiety, be it sexual or social or anything, created a pattern where I basically clenched down in those situations which would engage my sympathetic nervous system to come online and release fight or flight chemicals into the body, outcompeting my relax and reproduce system and leave me in a confused state of total loss of arousal and intense anxious shame and pain.

I found a variety of stretching exercises to undo the damage of a lifelong over trained pelvic floor, as well as some methods of reframing intimacy away from the unhealthy mode I had put it in over my life. Some examples include not reacting to symptoms like losing sensation or breathing getting shallow or heart racing or tightening in my pelvis with fear or dread, but with curiosity and wonder, to not be so hard on myself for my system reacting in a way to protect me from harm, even if that's not my desired outcome. This keeps me from spiraling out, losing control, feeling helpless and gives me some control over the situation. Other mind set methods I have discovered involve not being so strictly 'goal-oriented' in my love making - to not make it all about reaching an erection and orgasm specifically, but to give in to the experience in the moment regardless of outcome. As well as methods to regain control over your nervous system with breathing methods, and other ways of brining your parasympathetic relaxation oriented nervous system back online after a flood of anxious energy, such as snapping your fingers on each hand separately and then clapping your hands - it sounds silly, but next time you have a stressful nervous response to something, try it and see how within a minute of mindful belly breathing and a few snaps and claps, you come right back down to earth.

Last night I laid naked with my partner in an unaroused state and let her totally look at me as vulnerable as I get to see how I felt about the situation. I have the typical male inadequacy issues which has always led to me fearing a woman seeing my unless I'm fully erect, leading to further shame/tension/anxiety about performance. I found I was initially almost totally uncomfortable with the experience and wanted to get dressed or cover myself with our bedding. But I stayed with the experience and concentrated on my breathing and feeling the love and acceptance of my partner, and the irrational feeling of being unsafe melted away in moments.

We haven't re-engaged in intimacy yet, I really wish to avoid any further trauma events in our relationship as we're engaged and she wants a baby in her future, another consideration which I am working on overcoming my fear of - after the trauma of my upbringing, I've always felt like I had no interest in a family, but in my early 40s I'm working on undoing a lifetime of trauma and stress and overcoming my programming, and I want to provide my partner with all that she wishes and not let my past hold me back.

I'm still very much in recovery, but here's my thoughts after years of slow but steady progress towards a healthy intimate life and letting go of coping mechanisms and self destructive thoughts and actions:

Quit everything. If you're struggling with an addiction and it's led to issues with your reproductive fitness, you need to get rid of all of the behaviors that are obscuring the source of your struggle in order to have the space to be honest and deep with yourself. Drugs, alcohol, social media, video games - if you find yourself losing hours of time to something that turns your mind off and you're not proud of it, you need to distance yourself from it. Treat your situation as your priority and do the deep dive - meditation, journaling, counseling, exercise, a hobby you respect (I enjoy fishing and playing guitar, and I'm not great at either), a clean lifestyle that doesn't leave you feeling any sense of guilt or shame. This may take weeks, months, years, a lifetime. If a healthy relationship with your sexual fitness is the goal, no obstacle should be considered insurmountable, and often we place those obstacles ourselves and treat them as what we need to do to feel normal or OK, but they themselves become the coping mechanisms that hold us back from greatness.

Be easy on yourself - chances are, you didn't come to a porn addiction as a totally otherwise healthy and successful and untarnished being - and even if you did, you are not a villain in this circumstance. Our minds react to different things differently, and just like some of us have some capacity to become alcoholics, some of us have the capacity to get addicted to the PMO/shame cycle. Treating yourself with curious compassion helps to not repeat the cycle of feeling abnormal/indulging/feeling abnormal cycle. It is a chemical loop that is self-feeding and you need to address it with compassion to avoid perpetuating it.

Be honest with yourself and your current/future partners for the duration of whatever symptoms you experience. Not only because it will help you expose yourself and have courage/be brave, but because you will either receive a surprising sense of support and understanding, or you will avoid further traumatizing yourself and someone else with an issue that is part of you. And while we're on the subject - modern women know that porn and addiction have really messed up the modern generations of men - being honest with them and yourself can actually be a leg up in the romantic pursuit, women love a project and feeling validated by successfully fixing something in a partner. Now I'm in my 40s and it might not be true across the board here - but honesty and vulnerability are qualities you should cultivate in yourself, because those are traits that a porn addiction can undermine in you.

I'm here for any follow ups. I feel like I'm on a good path here, with my addictions but also with my healing as a man, and would be happy to be a resource for our scene going forward. Thanks for reading, take what you can from my experiences and see how they fit with your situation and apply what you will towards your path to success!

After quitting did you guys realized your weeny get more sensitive and cum quickly? I am now over 100 days p free. I masturbate sometimes(few times a month) not like I used to be when watching p. However I cum so fast now. I am wondering how this affect when you have real sex. I am not having sex since I have a long distance relation rn. Thank you

So yesterday I didn't post because I was busy ALL DAY. So I'll make 2 posts today, now I'll talk about yesterday and in the next post about today.

So I've met my girlfriend's parents for the first time! Bought them presents that they liked so Imade a good impression I thing. Met her 2 dogs too. She has a Scottish shepherd and a dachshund. The latter is a menace, he bites stangers and doesn''t let you pet them. But guess what? He let me pet him! Still tried to bite me a few times but apperantly it's a big thing if he lets you pet them the first time you meet him haha.

After that we went to the Halloween party. Got tipsy had fun. We got home around 2 AM and oh wow we had our best sex yet. With a gf like this I truly don't need porn.

As for urges I had some before I went to meet the parents. Nervousness is a trigger. Thankfully I fought the urge.

Is anyone from the UK in here and doing any courses/counselling with APSAT Chris jones ? Just wondering if you would reccomend the courses groups etc

Seems to be the only one in the UK following the minwhalla model and relationship recovery focused.

Thank you

Like insta models with clothes on ?

As title says, i was doing so good, but the girl i was dating is going to leave the city forever (almost girlfriend) , then i got sad for this and relapsed so bad, i want to get on track somehow.