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how long were you addicted and how do you feel about it?

Discussion in 'Rebooting - Porn Addiction Recovery' started by Trips, Dec 12, 2017.

  1. Trips

    Trips Fapstronaut

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    Hi guys,

    I'm on my 52-nd day of being clean from P and M. Very little edging (two or three times maybe), nothing else.

    Although 52 days isn't some amazing achievement, it is the most I've ever achieved by far.

    my mind is slowly changing, I'm more open, more confident and more interested in hitting on real women. Like I feel I can easily succeed and it's not that hard, plus I view them somewhat differently.

    my problem is I was addicted for a long, long time (over a decade probably) and now I feel as if my entire past was heavily influenced by the addiction. like it altered my entire psyche and rewired me to a somewhat different wavelength that only now is changing. I feel as if I wasted too many good years to this addiction and feel as if my entire youth has been flushed down the toilet by something so stupid as a P and M addiction.

    it's like I have a constant feeling of regret, every single day. like "you stupid motherfucker, you lost so much time, now you're over 30 and you're going to play catch up to people who are way, way ahead of you" and I know, or am convinced, and this depresses me the most, that I can never catch up to those who didn't waste so much time. it almost makes me feel resigned, because if I know what I wasted and what I'm never going to have, why bother?

    to the rest of people here - how long were you addicted? and how do you feel about it in retrospect? do you feel regret, or resignation? something else?
     
    Former_CD and Deleted Account like this.
  2. sknnyjns

    sknnyjns Fapstronaut

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    Hey man, congratz on your 52 days! I'm 25 and started around 11-12, so more than half of my life i've been doing pmo. I definitely understand what you're saying and for a part i agree with you. I feel regret and I feel like i could've achieved more if i wasn't addicted. But i also feel like that is our brain rewiring and it is also wishfull thinking because Yes looking back we can always say what we did wrong and how we could've done better. But we don't know if we weren't addicted, how our life turned out. Also almost nobody goes through life without any hardships. I feel like i still had a nice youth, still have a lot of good memories and that my p addiction was a part of me and I embrace it. But i definitely have the feeling sometime, like you have, like i missed out on something and I need to somehow restore that and that other people have more experience in some fields. But i had that feeling also already when I was still addicted. Not everyone goes through life the same, everyone has his or her own Journey. And if you really feel that you lack something or that you missed out on something then just go out and do it! Maybe you are a little older, you can still say you did it and you still have the experiences. We can not change the past, we can not take back time that we wasted. We can only make the best of our future. And 30 is still young, you possibly have more than half of your life still to go!
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  3. I have been addicted to porn since I was 12 years old and now I'm 21 years old. My teenage years Was a mess because I fell into this vicious trap. I felt that in my teenage year I was a lazy person with no energy I developed a depression and I thought it was because of I was a loser but now when I look back then it's all make sense. It was my porn and fapping addiction that made me a loser :(
     
  4. Trips

    Trips Fapstronaut

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    Yeah, this is true. I was also incredibly lazy at the height of my PMO addiction. Even during university. I used to do it at sometimes even up to 10 times a day. In retrospect, even with youth on my side, that's insane. The constant dopamine rush, etc. It's so not healthy, but I never put together how it drains my energy levels and how it makes me incredibly passive, sleepy, even anti-social.

    Right now, I want to go out more, be social more, everything. My personality is going through a lot of changes. A lot of people even figured I'm some weird, totally introverted, asocial person, that's how much it influences ones behavior.
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  5. Tobirueben

    Tobirueben Fapstronaut

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    For me, i also fapped to porn for over a decade and until 3 years ago i didn't realized the damage it was doing to me. Had my first case of PIED with a girl i was dating, it happened the second time we had sex, my man went limp right inside her and then it happened over and over again. And that ruined my relationship with her and then i met another lady but never experienced this issue with her so i thought maybe i wasn't kinda attached to the other lady, to cut the story short. I experience PIED with some women and i don't have any problem some. But all these times, dating or not i still masturbate almost everyday. Don't know if i'm suffering from performance anxiety or PIED but which ever the case is i'm blaming porn and masturbation for it and that's why i joined Nofap. and since i started i have noticed alot of improvement the confidence with women is overwhelming and i can talk to any woman i want. Haven't tried sex yet though but i know it all get better with time
     
    Deleted Account likes this.
  6. butlerjoe51

    butlerjoe51 Fapstronaut

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    In my case, I was 13 when I began. I looked it up out of sheer curiosity.
    I didn't realise how addicted I was until one year ago when I tried to stop doing it.
    I barely lasted 3 day before relapsing.
    Compared to other addicts, I was into very tame stuff.
    But that wasn't an excuse.
    Around that time since I started, my self confidence dropped dramatically.
    I thought it was due to the pressure of moving to a new school but now I know the truth: PMO did this to me.
    It made me a more insecure person, a lazier person, a shadow of my former uber-active self.
    Because of PMO, I was too anxious to tell my crushes how I felt until I was too late.
    Instead of getting straight As, I got straight Bs
    I lost most of my energy and I became physically weak.
    The day I realised this, I cursed myself for ever looking up porn.
    I try to stop my addiction at every turn.
    This is my longest streak so far.
    I don't EVER want to go back.
     
  7. Former_CD

    Former_CD Fapstronaut

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    All of you are mere amateurs when it comes to porn addiction. ( its a bad joke I know) :).
    I was addicted to porn from age 20 to age 48. If any of you feel like you have wasted your life then look at me. Its not a pretty picture.
    On top of that I was a lifelong cross dresser from about age 5 on. My other addictions include phone sex, chat rooms, sexual fiction stories and others.
    I have been free of these addictions since march 11, 2016. That's 21 months. Every day is a new fight.
    You can't look back and regret your past actions. All you can do is move forward and don't repeat your past actions.
     
  8. DarBeider

    DarBeider Fapstronaut

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    Those 21 months shows how worthy your life is, big respects men, salute!
     
    Hopefulgirl likes this.
  9. Trips

    Trips Fapstronaut

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    Wow. That's starting in 1988, when porn was at best on some videotapes? I'm not judging of course, I'm the last one to do so. I was addicted for almost 20 years myself and I knew about the addiction and battled it unsuccessfully for roughly 10 years (which is the worst part for me).

    Anyway, kudos for those 21 months. Keep it going, no matter how hard it gets.

    Since you've been an addict for so long, I'd like to ask you a question if you don't mind. Do you feel like your personal development has been arrested for those 20 years? Because it's something I kinda feel about myself, as if my mind was some mixture of the experiences I necessarily gained as a human being, but emotionally, as if I was kind of stuck back all those years ago when the addiction started. Or something like that.
     
    u376 likes this.
  10. u376

    u376 Fapstronaut

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    the first time i masturbated was in march 2009 when i was 14........but i was not addicted .......i would generallly fap two times in a month(at most).....then in 2010 which is still one of my best years...i become clean throughout the year i masturbated 6-7 times...........and then came march 2011........the darkest period of my life which is somewhat still going on.......... i used to fap 4-5 times a week .......and then i got myself addicted to this porn and all..........but i am sure i am getting out of this.......as now i am well aware what leads to my downfall....
     
  11. EthosLogosPathos

    EthosLogosPathos Fapstronaut

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    I started my addiction 2 years ago, also outta sheer curiosity. Now I'm 14 and I regret that decision, a lot.
     
    u376 likes this.
  12. Former_CD

    Former_CD Fapstronaut

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    To answer your question about my development. I would say the answer is yes and no. Looking back my social development was definitely hindered because I spent so much time alone indulging in these addictions. I didnt get out and interact with people. Ive never had a lot of friends and I have blamed that on being an introvert. I never thought about my addiction being a factor until now. My addiction definitely kept me from interacting with women and having the confidence to ask women out. This was especially true because of the cross dressing.
    I know for a fact that my addictions hindered my academic work. I spent so much time indulging myself that I didnt study. I look back and wonder how well I could have done if I had studied instead of jacked off. I'm beginning to belive im smarter than i give myself credit for! I have a masters degree and two B.S. degrees and so I have done pretty well.
    The addiction has hurt interpersonal relationships because I used to be so agitated. My reaction to adverse situations were not good.
    My demeanor is a lot better, my anxiety is gone and I'm not on edge all the time. It is also a LOT better between me and my wife. She never questions me anymore about where I'm going or what I've been doing. That used to happen frequently. I hope that helps.
     
    u376 likes this.
  13. u376

    u376 Fapstronaut

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    u r just 14 ......you have plenty of time
     
  14. Trips

    Trips Fapstronaut

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    Yeah, I have pretty much the same experience. Introversion, hindered studies and agitation, bad handling of situations. I took things way too personally and seriously often. A lot of people even think I'm a big introvert. I used to often prefer staying at home than going outside and friends/family became accustomed to me being such a person. Now, I like to go out a lot more and people are thrown off by it, they don't really understand the change. It's getting a lot of mixed reactions from people who know me a long time.

    It's funny that every serious addiction negatively affects family life, career, social life. It's heroin, alcohol, gambling. It's one of the main effects of addiction. But for some reason, I never fully understood that P and M addiction isn't any different, even when I knew I had a problem, I had no idea just how serious it is.
     
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  15. Former_CD

    Former_CD Fapstronaut

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    I didn't understand the effects on me either until now.
     
    Trips likes this.
  16. Trips

    Trips Fapstronaut

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    Dude, at 14, it's not a problem. It's natural you're mega horny. Just stop watching P, reduce M to like once every two weeks at most (this shouldn't be a bad interval, at your age, you regenerate faster) and start getting with girls. Once you're clean, it'll come on its own.
     
  17. Rob_B_

    Rob_B_ Fapstronaut

    How long was I addicted? Depends on how you define 'addicted', I suppose. I'm now 52. I started jerking off when I was probably about 14 or so? First ten years, pretty innocent stuff, hardly any porn (and even then mainly Playboys etc.). I must have been in my 30s when I first came across some internet porn, but even then it was mostly similar to the Playboy material, only online. In my mid-40s things took a turn for the worse, I started to work from home (a lot of alone time), broadband became faster and better so videos were very much in play, and my marriage also started to deteriorate so sex became scarce. I guess the earliest I'd date my addiction is from around that time, maybe 6-7 years ago, although I wouldn't necessarily say (and I certainly wouldn't have said at the time) it was an addiction; others might disagree. But the last 3-4 years definitely qualifies as full-blown addiction, and increasingly out of control.

    How do I feel? I never thought there was anything wrong with masturbating, I thought (and still do) that within moderation it's normal. I do, in hindsight at least, regret that I was wasting my sexual drive and energy on DIY work like that, when I could have saved it more for my wife. Definitely, that was a mistake on my part, no question. But when porn started to feature in the scenario, that's when (I now realise) I really fucked up, by not nipping things in the bud. And the last few years, I'm really ashamed of, I hate myself for being that guy, for having let something as nasty as porn get between my missus and I, and regret beyond any measure the PIED problem it has caused.

    I also kick myself for not having got a handle on things sooner. If only I'd have come across this site or others like this a few years ago, I could have avoided the worst excesses of my PM obsession, and I'd be in so much better a place now.
     
  18. u376

    u376 Fapstronaut

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    the scariest thing about pmo is that many people dont even consider it as an addiction
     
  19. Trips

    Trips Fapstronaut

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    Sounds like you lead a pretty normal sexual life up to the P and it caught you at a later age. So it didn't damage you during your formative years, "only" kinda sidetracked you for a while later in life.

    It probably needs to be discussed more in the open. We have studies and approaches towards all kinds of addictions. Alcohol, gambling, shopping, eating, whatever. But porn addiction is never spoken of openly, even though it's a pretty dangerous thing considering how widespread internet porn is. I mean just like with any addiction, it affects only a percentage of the population, I'm sure most guys can keep it in check, but it obviously can damage a lot. And it is very easily addictive.
     
    Rob_B_ likes this.
  20. Rob_B_

    Rob_B_ Fapstronaut

    Yeah, I think that sums up it pretty well.
     

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