Out with the old

So I'm new here. I never wanted to admit I had this problem. I have a severe anxiety disorder and I always went to PMO to help my loneliness or anxiety but in the long run I think it's feeding my anxiety. I was laid off earlier this year from my job and it's just made everything worse. It went back to being an everyday thing. My anxiety has gotten so bad that I can't work and I have some very important life events coming up in a couple months. To say I'm distraught would be an understatement.

About two weeks ago I did the usual and that evening I had such a horrible panic attack. I finally admitted to myself that this wasn't a problem I could ignore anymore. It's an addiction and I need to stop. And I have since then but it wasn't enough. Early on in our relationship, I told my fiance that when the bedroom isn't active enough, I usually take care of things myself and it makes me disconnect. Well that's exactly what was happening. I couldn't communicate my needs well enough is really the base of it. It's not her fault in anyway. I thought I could just keep this to myself and it would get better, but I realized I had to admit it to her and own my mistakes. So I did.

I broke down and explained everything, she was understanding and didn't make me feel any worse. I felt my anxiety get a bit better after admitting it to her. It's not gone and I have a lot of work to do, but damn I'm so grateful for her. I guess I write this as sort of another way to admit that I have a problem and have had this problem since I was in middle school. This part of me needs to die so the rest of me can live. I've come here because I know I'll need support to stay vigilant about this and true to my fiance so as to not feed this addiction and consequently my anxiety.

A few months ago I broke my streak at 165 days, and since then I haven't been able to get that streak back up again. The highest I've gotten is 4 days 😭, I thought I was able to quit the porn addiction but I went back to it as if I never stopped. Any help or advice, please? I desperately want and need to break free 😭

The message I want to convey is simple, I want to quit porn. It shouldn't be as scary and intimidating to say that as it is, but that's the very reason I need to quit. I've been watching porn so long that it seems like life and watching porn are part of the same package deal, that I need to suffer through one to enjoy the other. I want to prove myself wrong, and I want to fully embrace the life I get to sample when I'm multiple days into a clean streak.

I''m slightly embarrassed to say that this isn't the first time I'm sending a message to say this either. In fact, it makes me feel weak. I know I'm addicted to porn. I know I need to quit it because I have that nagging sensation in my head, begging me to stop every time I give in. Because of all the horrible shit it does to my physical and psychological wellbeing. But an addiction is difficult, and recovery requires patience and dedication, but most importantly, it requires a starting point.

I want to start here, by holding myself accountable to this sub reddit, and hopefully to an accountability partner too. If you're interested in it, send me a PM. Otherwise, I think it's important I also look into ways of making me feel good about myself, for the right reasons. I've recently seen that a common reason people get into porn addictions and stay there is poor self esteem and the desire to drown out one's negative emotion. For this, I can think of no better remedy than exercise, which is going to be another goal of mine: just 20 minutes of exercise for at least 4 days a week. I know it's not optimal for building muscle, but it's a decent beginning.

Anyway, thanks for reading my post if youve made it this far. I'm hopeful for tomorrow, and I what I have said could maybe have inspired you to be too.

So I’m trying to get rid of porn for good. I set up a counter to track my progress as it motivates me more, but I’m still masturbating

The big reason I’m doing this is because I’ve recognized some unhealthy mindsets within myself. I objectify women more than I thought and I wanna prevent this. Obviously the first thing is if I see a woman in public my mind goes to perverted places and that’s not ideal. But I also get jealous and kind of frustrated when I see an attractive woman with another man. It’s not that I blame him for dating her, but it’s a jealousy thing that he has a relationship I crave but can’t have. I want a girl that pretty and I want to be loved, I want sex, he gets it all and I don’t. And that’s where the jealousy and frustrated feeling comes from

I also sometimes get this when I see a girl without a man. I get jealous and frustrated because part of me wants to talk to her, but it’s difficult for me to approach strangers in public, so I never do. And then I feel like I let myself down

But I’ve become to objectifying. Sometimes I’ll think “how did he land such a pretty girl” or I get jealous that these dudes are able to have sex with pretty women and I can’t, or that I can’t find an attractive girl to have sex with

I never blame these people for the way I feel, it’s a lack of confidence from me as well as the expectation that I should be dating someone at my age

How do I fix this objectifying mindset?

So 8 seen some full on nudity In a show and I looked away ended up liking up onece but looked away again and didn't go looking for more

Went about 3 months without drugs or porn, starting smoking weed again and then slipped back into porn and being a degenerate. Started gooning etc and let my gym focus slide a bit, realised now I gotta lock in again but needing motivation. Currently 5 days without. DM me.

Has anyone felt rather quite lonely after they have stopped watching porn?

I’ve quit porn about a month now and feeling really lonely, I guess it’s good a found my trigger or reason why I turned to porn but is the best way to counter just to be with people?

I'm on day 13. No porn, no masturbation. Cold turkey.

When I decided I needed to quit, I deleted all social media because I knew that the things I saw on there almost always caused me to watch porn.

After deleting it all, I went a full 7 days without anything more than passing thoughts, and so I downloaded Instagram again. And within a few hours of scrolling memes and reels the urges started coming back because I started seeing pretty women, and 7 days isn't enough time to rewire the brain from sexualizing all women.

So I began pressing "not interested" on all those posts, and that mostly fixed Instagram. Same thing happened with twitter. But that did not eliminate the urges or desires for porn, because my own brain correlates Instagram/Twitter before bed with porn before bed.

If you give your desires or urges a foothold, it becomes so much harder to fight. If you know that a certain social media app is causing you to give in, I ask that you just delete it for a couple days to start, and go up from there.

sidenote: I replaced doom scrolling with reading or going for a walk. At night, instead of porn I would read. YOU don't have to read, you just have to fill the void that porn left with something that keeps you occupied.

I began to fully realize this was a big and traumatizing problem in my life maybe 3 years ago and began to get help for this and other bad habits and actions of mine. Past 3 years have been up and down. I wont lie i often find myself dissapointed I haven't fully kicked this thing. Tbh I've done loads of work..tons of therapy, exercise, meditation, volunteering, opening up, journaling etc. If anything I am getting burnt out from the 'healing journey.' I browse again and find myself PMOing about once a week now. But I'm trying to shift my persepctive and not beat myself up more for this...a few years ago I was PMOing multiple times a day, completely shut in, paranoid, severe health problems, really bad money problems. The porn made me crippling anxious and miserable..i am still coming to terms with the damage and results of my actions

So in the end I'm not where I 'expect' myself to be and still stuggle quite a bit with doomscrolling and anxiety/muteness and occassional porn use and sexual/body dysphoria but I am doing a hell of a lot better. My health has improved a lot and I am definitely breathing and talking way easier than before. May I be compassionate with myself and all people I meet struggling with this and anything else. I blame myself less and less week by week and am feeling more compassion for myself now and when I got trapped at 11 years old by this ill and evil industry. I also am recognizing that my fault or not I am inheriting the the results of my actions from the past 2 decades and I am lucky to have the time and space to work on all this and pursue my aspirations

I was looking at doing one of the porn addicts anonymous meetings, but quite a few of them say they’re either on zoom, or discord. In fact it seems like all of them are. How does that work? When I do a zoom meeting my whole name shows. Sorry if this is a dumb question.

Im a gay man, and when i take a break from my porn binges, i end up going to mens spas, cruising parks and hook up with random men all day.

The upside is i get out of the house more instead of gooning all day and night, but i don’t think this alternative is any better. I now have to worry about my sexual health ( I’m on prep and take other precautions) but ive just replaced one addiction with another. Any other gay porn addicts in this sub?

Hi everyone, I love this community, you’re really helping me (24f) and my boyfriend (23m).

So, I’ve always watched porn since I was 8, I’ve never seen it like a problem or an addiction since it wasn’t an everyday thing most of the time (only during my “sad” periods). My mind changed when 18 months ago I met my current boyfriend, since the first moment we fell in love and started spend most of our time together. He was, and kinda is, pretty much an addicted, the kind of addiction that makes you watch porn and masturbate as soon as you aren’t with your girlfriend, even after being intimate in the last few hours. His addiction made me start looking at porn in a different way, all my exes were porn user, but the way he NEEDED that, really broke my heart and made me start feeling like shit. After few fights and after seeing how much he was hurting me, he understood there was a problem and started his journeys to become clean. Of course, I stopped too, even if I thought I didn’t have an addiction.

He’s doing great, had only few relapses during the last 3/4 months and he go to therapy once a week, I’m so proud of him. The big problem is, thanks to this community and the awareness I’m finding online, I think I could be badly addicted as well, maybe in an even shameful way. It’s not something I always did, I started having a sex life like in 2015 while this started with my ex in 2021. Anyway, from that moment, I need to imagine porn scenes during foreplay and sex to cum. I always only watched lesbians because it was more soft and cute than mainstream straight porn, but now I can’t cum without thinking about that. I don’t know why I’ve never thought it was wrong, i used to think it was easier and faster so the best for both me and my partner. But now, I just feel so bad for this, my partner is wonderful in bed, he listen to all my needs and I find him really hot. Despite that I think I’m so used to that kind of “entertainment” to cum that I can’t do it anymore without those scenes. Just to clarify, thinking about girls has nothing to do with me being lesbian (at most bi/pan) because I’ve already been intimate with women and I already know it isn’t my preference in bed.

So, even though I’ve never been a compulsive user, porn is affecting a lot my sex life and I don’t know what to do. Has anybody had similar problems? Do you have any advice? Should I tell everything to my bf even if it could hurt him?

I really needed to vent, thanks for reading everything!

(Hope my post isn’t too triggering, English is not my first language and I’m always afraid of using the “wrong terms” for this context)

I have been doing very good, my mental health improved alot and brain fog is fading away, unfortunately im having withdraws and combined with stress it cooked me yesterday i been doing great till yesterday, specially that i have some stuff im anxious about in life atm but we could this. No more damaging my brain

I made it thru 1 week without any Porn, Masturbation or Orgasm. Keeping busy and not falling into boredom has been extremely helpful. Ive been working extra hours at my job which kept me so busy I didn’t even have time to think about Porn. Getting out the house when I feel bored is a good fail safe. I take a walk in the park for 30 mins and it helps to clear my mind. Exercise is a must, cardio and lifting weights is essential to my journey. Instagram and tik tok are huge triggers for me so i unfollowed all the social media models I used to follow. Also rewiring my brain and my ways of thinking to not sexualize every woman that i find attractive. Overall so far Ive seen great results with my libido and have had strong morning wood in these last few days.

I feel like shit im nothing cant go more than 14 days addiction is a fucking curse ill never be able to quit i just have to die to be free

Hi, I'm 13 and have been watching porn 3 days a week since 11. It's ruined my life and I will make today the last day. I've been trying, yet ended up relapsing on the 4 or 6th day. Give me some advice and motivation if you can. I'm going to try my best. Porn has taken my love life from me, my confidence and probably even the future. If you're new here, I advise you quit. Thanks for reading. 2024/8/18

I recently had a relapse after 15 days of abstaining from watching porn. Even though I’m feeling a bit disappointed and frustrated right now, I’m choosing to see this experience as a learning opportunity. I’m confident that I can make even more progress in the future and beat my previous streak.

Hey guys! Been married since 2 months but couldn't do the deed yet. Also, I'm not feeling horny nowadays. Whenever I go close to my wife, I feel like I'm only 60-70% hard & when sometimes i try to do I looses erection.

Can someone tell me what to do ?

I think the main reason for most of us is to distract ourselves from the present moment. This could be loneliness, boredom, anger, unworthiness, etc. Essentially, there’s something our mind perceives as threatening and wants to escape it. It’s basic biology really and since we can’t physically flee from these emotions, we do it mentally by escaping in the screen.

Next time you feel these urges, ask yourself what it is you’re trying to escape from. Find the root of your urges. With practice it gets easier. I find it easier to pinpoint my emotions through writing but maybe for you it’ll be by reflecting on a walk or through a meditation practice.

You can’t heal from this addiction if you don’t isolate the root cause(s) of your addiction in the first place. For most of us there’s lots to unpack so a physical journal or notes folder may help you keep all of your thoughts in an organized way to revisit in the future.

Hope this helps. Keep fighting the good fight. There’s a better version of life (and you) waiting on the other side when you’re ready.

Sorry for the long post, english is not my native language so i used google translate for a big part of this post, so maybe it isn't too coherent. This is my very first post here and it took me a lot of courage to post here. I don't feel comfortable sharing my age so I'll just say what I have to say. In the last year I came to the realization that I am addicted to porn and I don't know how long it has been like this. I felt it was degrading my life and making it worse. I was less energetic, weaker, fuzzy, and my social connections were loose. The thing is, I have a girlfriend, and she is the love of my life. She is the most wonderful person I know and I want the best for her. After reading some of the posts in this sub and finding out how porn can destroy relationships I want to quit even more. It's not that I didn't want to before, I knew I was addicted, I just thought it was an addiction that couldn't do much harm. But I am in no way willing to lose my girlfriend because of it. Luckily things have been getting better lately. I feel more motivated, I've started doing some sports, eating healthier, talking to more people, playing the piano, and I'm starting my bachelor's degree the very day I'm writing this post. I am optimistic that I can get rid of this addiction once and for all. We celebrate a year together in three and a half months and I hope I can get rid of porn by then. She still doesn't know about the whole situation and I plan to show her this very post and be proud that I was able to get rid of the addiction. I believe if I work hard enough I can definitely achieve this milestone. I still don't know what will happen in the future, but I owe a huge thank you to all the people of this sub. You are a huge reason why I took the motivation to improve for my girlfriend. Good luck to each of you in your personal war! I don't know if I will make more posts here or not to tell about my progress, I just needed a place where I could vent all my thoughts without people judging me. I really really hope it will make her happy, as I saw in a lot of posts that some people's girlfruends broke up with them after thet confessed about their porn addiction, but i just can't hide from her the fact i am addicted, she deserves to know. I really will do everything for her to be happy. Good luck to you all!

To be honest I don't want to completely quit masterbation. I want to limit it to once a week. Th problem is I do it twice a day on weekd6and several times on weekends. It's hindering my learning outside of work, because I have personal goals.

I have been struggling with this addiction a lot and often do it when I am bored, lonely or depressed, which I am often since I live alone and have moved to a new city for work. I know most of yiu would suggest going out but I can't, I have work to do, I am working on personal projects and learning technologies. In college I had deadlines so I somehow started working hard at the last moment but here I don't have any such pressure.

Also I very few times watch porn I often get off to celebrities, and don't check my profile, it has nsfw content which might be bad for you

Sometimes I feel like Ive destroyed my brain (SSRI’s did most of the damage) but excessive porn usage has for sure gotten the best of me in recent years and I just dont get pleasure from it anymore. I feel like I’ve fried my brain.

20 year old male have been battling this for 5 years now and I can’t do it anymore it’s really hard for me to quit and since I’m so lonely this always finds time in my day especially at night because I can never sleep. I have a really big opportunity coming up and I wanna do good but this is holding me back and making me scared can someone help me please

Guys, I haven't watched porn and masturbated at it for 3 days now. But today I am having strong urges. How to avoid such urges so I can keep going?

After many many attempts at sticking to my promises, I finally went 7 days without MO. I've been trying to do this for years but I finally did it. I'm glad I was able to control myself this whole time.

However, there was one part of the promise I didn't stick too: never watching porn again. While I succeeded at no MO for 7 days, I was hoping to use my imagination on the 7th day, but porn got the best of me and I gave in, and now I feel like crap, after spending so many hours watching it again.

I think this came from believing that maybe quitting porn cold turkey might be too much. However, after that session, it made me realize I absolutely need to quit completely. One peek and I'm back to square one, even if I use it as a reward for going 7 days with MO.

So I'm gonna try once more, I'll go another 7 days without MO, and I promise I will never watch porn ever again. You'll definitely see me with another update post exactly a week from now, this time fulfilling both my promises. See you all then!

Hiii!!

Well basicaly what the title says,

Can i read your experiencies in the area of health, not just guys with PIED who now can have a proper erection, im talking more on the general health side like more stamina, some old health condition healed or restored after the discipline of being away of pr0n?

Thanks to everyone!

Day 3 of porn free and was feeling quite horny. Masturbated using only my imagination and was able to finish, now I’m back to good and did not lose the battle

I'm sure many of you are familiar with feeling like a different person when aroused than during your normal state. Watching things you typically would not, having fantasies that you don't really have when thinking about sex with your/a partner. But I genuinely feel like the second I'm aroused I lose all self control. I suddenly don't care about consequences at all, like a drug addict. I've slept with multiple friends who I know have awkward relationships with. I've chatted with strangers online and shown my body to many people who I would never be intimate with. I just feel so trapped and like I'll always be this way because I've had trouble with my sexual impulses for as long as I can remember at this point. Will it ever be possible to control it if it seems to override any and all decision making? I'm sorry if this seems too doom and gloom but I feel so frustrated that everyday I feel like I don't recognize myself and like I will never live a normal life.

Despite the title, this post will be educational. Oxytocin is released during nipple stimulation for both sexes from the posterior pituitary gland. This hormone is responsible for emotional attachment and is the basis of love. There are other ways to promote secretion in smaller amounts such as a massage and consuming chocolate surprisingly. Sex is obviously the biggest trigger of it and masturbation comes somewhat close.

If you routinely play with your nipples when viewing a certain genre of pornography, you will grow a greater attachment to it overtime than if you didn’t.

My goal from now on is to not partake in nipple stimulation in order to decrease my current addiction to a certain genre of pornography.

Please feel free to fact check me. I learned this material when studying for the US medical school admissions test. I have a degree in biochemistry and psychology as well from a Top 20 college.