It's like everything else. There is lots of bad advice generally in real life. But there is a way to distinguish between good and bad. For example - you want to train karate, jujitsu or mma - which club or trainer will you choose to have the most possible progress and the best methods and instruction? Club A - colourful advertisements, posters on the street claiming that they can teach you fight effectively ( but you entering the name of the trainer in the google search engine cannot see any important martial art competition where he is listed as a winner or at least in the 2nd or 3rd place) Club B - the trainer there is the world champion which you can see in the Internet. Which club will you choose? If club A then don't wonder why after some years of training there you are only midiocre. How to find good advice ( how to get rid of this addiction ) here on the forum? It's very simple too. If somebody has 500 clean days and more it means they know what works but what doesn't. Read what they write. It's not clever to read the advice of the addicts who still are addicts. If their advice is good then why they are still active addicts? It resembles a man earning 1500 dollar a month who wrote a manual how to become a billionair. Will you read the manual too?
The only problem here is you’re dealing with addicts and addicts lie…. Even on here. Right now, I know of several who are claiming xx months or years sobriety but also know that they are lying. Several men have done this, some finally confess on their own. Studies show the most common time for an addict to relapse is just after one year sobriety. Most, with this addiction cannot even get to a year, that’s why those who hit over 365 days stand out! The best advice you can get? Go to a specialist who deals with trauma and sex addiction. A csat is a good start. Or go to Sa/Saa. Or read! There are a lot of good books out there. Or…. Shocking I know, listen to the partners in the partner section. Most partners I know have researched 1000x what their addict spouse/partner has about this addiction. They read everything they can about it. And they have not been getting high for decades so they see things more clearly in many cases. They usually know when their partner is close to relapsing. If the advice you’re getting doesn’t align with specialist maybe examine why or do further research on your own. Research other addictions/disorders. Such as eating disorder as recovery from it closely resembles recovery from this. They cannot just cut food out of their life, they must change their relationship with it.
It’s hard to link because if you browse different sections you just run across things without commenting on them ( at least I do). Unless you remember the specific title of the thread or the party who posts it, it can be hard to go back and find.I’ve experienced the same as this poster. I’d say more so in the last year? There have been some pretty mean things said.
Does that still work if it's a mod enabling addictive fetish behavior? Can they even be "ignored"? People's outside politics don't belong on here, we're supposed to be about fighting addiction, and nothing else. AA maintains a strick policy about avoiding any and all "outside issues", this space should as well, and enforce that evenly across the board.
Of course you can recover…. It’s just rare. One of the hardest pills for an addict to swallow though is he must be honest. Not just to those around him, but to himself. Think about it, most addicts have been lying since childhood. My husband perfected it lying to his mother. Learning to be honest is as important as learning to be sober. It’s part of recovery. Why do addicts lie? Fear and shame. They have to confront both to get into long lasting recovery.
This feels true to me as well, no PMO kinda means none of the above, at least to me. For me if I O while by myself, it would be a matter of time before I went back to PMO. So M.O., even without porn, is to be avoided. I'm on day 41 of no PMO, and hyper paranoid of somehow giving myself permission to wank, need to stay vigilant. But I read a comment a while back about looking at it in percentage that I thought was interesting. If a man goes 99days with no PMO, then does relapse on day 100, but gets right back into a streak again, has he "failed", or was he 99% successful? Or is this all my addiction just trying to get me back to PMO? Damn hamster wheel just spins away in my head at times.
Lying is not specific in case of addicts, it's rather typical of all people. I'm sure you've encountered lots of lairs in real life. Another thing is to lie to your partner about pmo. Is this simply lying or being very afraid of your partners reaction plus great shame because pmo is probably the most shameful addiction. You surely know that addicts are usually hurt people coming from destroyed families, pathological circumstances etc. ... so for them to lie in pmo aspect is not simply to lie but to protect themselves. The reaction of women when they get to know about their partners' pmo involving porn (and very rare are cases when the man masturbates without porn) is mostly - every such pmo act = adultery, the addicted men know this so their huge anxiety to tell the truth. I'm not sure here but the worst possible way of recovering from pmo is doing this 'together' with your wife because the probability to lie when you did pmo is very high. But if a man does it (the recovery) 'without' his wife knowing then there is almost no incentive to lie for a long time. Why? because it lacks motivation to state regularly on the forum that you are 500+ clean. Such men disappear one day from the forum for lack of motivation or change their acount and nickname and appear anew as 'beginners'. Yes, and pay him/her thousands of dollars not knowing if it helps. I know some alcoholics after many therapies. Luckily in my country you can have a free therapy if you will but I know how is it in the US or other West countries. I don't say - don't go to a therapy, it's rather - be ready to pay thousands of dollars, maybe it's still better to pay so much on therapies then to pay for your addiction but if you have little money you can dream only about a therapy. It's better to go to AA or something similar, maybe SAA if it's free. They don't give the best advice. the best advice give former addicts who have long years sobriety. Why? because they understand much more the addicts and can influence them much more. the only exception are former addicts who are therapists now. This would be the best solution. ....hmm, if an addict wants to experience a real horror then he should do the recovery with his partner. I observed it for years on my former non-existent now forum ''feedtherightwolf'' for many years. it was a horror for both - the woman and the man. Mostly the story ended in separation, divorce or at least huge longlasting depression. I don't remember a 'lucky story'. Why? it's so simple - every pmo act involving porn is treated by the woman as adultery, even if they don't want to treat this so and read tons of books about pmo addiction. Of course there are few women who don't treat pmo of their partners as adultery. I heard (better said read) about two women like that. All written above is only my personal opinion.
I agree. Everyone lies to an extent. But addicts take it to a whole new level with theirs ( or at least that has been my experience). I would say the lying about pmo is because of their shame. Only because very few tell their partners beforehand so they really have no idea how the partner will react. In fact many partners didn’t care about porn until they realized just how it affected their relationship. Obviously there are many who feel it is adultery right from the start, but many do not. What I’ve encounter with the majority of women I’ve worked with is they cannot deal with the lies and the gas lighting. And yet the addict continues and then uses the excuse of his or her partners reaction to justify why they are lying. You’re right about it being a horror show when the couple is working recovery, but it was already a horror show with the addict acting out and the so completely going crazy not understanding what is wrong with the relationship. These of course fall on a spectrum too…..How bad was the addiction. Did it cause loss of jobs, did it cause imprisonment, or was it just withdrawal from the relationship , anxiety or anger issues. All of that also comes into play. I know for my Husband of all the therapist he went too, one helped him immensely with depression but not his addiction at all, and he was an addict in recovery. The one who helped him the most with his addiction was not an addict but knew trauma very well. Just an fyi even within gay couples the men feel it is adultery with pmo as well ( when it’s an addiction not just casual use) it’s not just the women. Maybe because of how much time and effort an addict gives to pmo while ignoring their partner. I also agree, be prepared to pay a lot for therapy but hey, sex addicts spend thousands on porn subscription, only fans, cam girls and escorts so if you want it bad enough you will find a way right? I believe SA and SAA and SLAA are all great groups as well as some of the religious Celebrate Recovery and Pure Desire which are all free. I just don’t think there is any one answer. I think help can come in many different forms if you want it bad enough. My husband is in several different groups, two of the groups have men with over 10 years sobriety. They still continue to work recovery. They help the men who don’t have as long time in recovery but they have been sober. So in that regard I agree , taking advice from a successful addict is different than from one who has one month sober and has been trying for 5 years. If after years of trying you still only have months of sobriety then you’re obviously doing it wrong. Did it ever occurs to you that maybe most of the couples divorce because the addict didn’t get the help they needed and never got into long term recovery? Any addiction within a marriage creates a high divorce rate. My husband knows I’m done if he relapses. Not because “ he’s cheating” but because the man he is when using is not the man I want to be with. He is a selfish, self absorbed miserable human being when using. Every bit as miserable to live with as the drunk who stumbles home and yells profanities and passes out. It’s just more insidious. I can deal with resets, if he’s honest but I will not deal with a full blown relapse. He is the one in absolute control over how and where our relationship goes. With success rates of 5% is it any wonder marriages don’t last? Luck has nothing to do with it, the addict must get into long term recovery and if with a partner the partner must work through their own issues within the relationship. That makes for miserable odds.
Going through this recovery with, or without your wife, good debate topic here. I'm doing this without her knowledge, but I know others on here swear the path to success is with the wife fully on board. I suspect we all know our wives pretty well and are able to judge what they are and aren't ready to hear.
I agree. It's hard to disagree with what you wrote. You must know very well the women's perspective. I'll describe few points you wrote from the addicted man perspective. Seeing it wider - addicts ignore everyone and everything while doing pmo (children, job, friends, family) They ignore their own life too and God but women seem to think that they especially ignore their wives, partners. Not always, if you have little money what is often the case outside so called West culture you can have this addiction for free, only the cost of the internet. It's maybe the only addiction which you can maintain almost for free. Porn is free accessible. Long term recovery is as far as I see it on different forums something absolutely unusual. Every forum I was had 1 or 2 sometimes more but still very very very few men with long term sobriety. I don't know the percentage is in SAA or similar groups. So if this should be the basic (for the women) for divorce then we could say that over 99% married couples with pmo addicted man should divorce sooner or later. the problem is much more general. i think that the most frequent cause for divorce is that the man or the woman doesn't want to be with his partner and it can be thousands of causes - another woman, lack of money, immaturity, looking for novelty , addictions too... / selfishness is typical of men, even of not addicted. Women have in their nature the sense of self sacrifice for children, men especially, for example mother instinct. The men haven't it given from nature, so the cases of unselfish men are hard to find. We can call them saints. How many saints are there? Your man knows about it for sure so how do you know if he tells you the full truth? He must know that it will probably end in huge depression or divorce. That's why I'm against 'together' recovery. I didn't disagree with you it's rather written from the addicted man or pure man's perspective.
If the above post was aimed at me, then you should know I am a man as well, married nearly 30 years. It's in my bio. I appreciate some of the points you made above, but I'm certainly not ready to put women on the pedestal of pure self-sacrifice while their men are all selfish and act like little boys. My own wife clearly has a bad casino habit, she inherited it from her parents, they go all the time, but they go together so in my head it's at least family time. Could it become an addiction? Absolutely. When it comes to dopamine rewards to the brain we on here know all too well how powerful that can be, it really can destroy lives. I also feel I'm not is a position to bring it up to her as I battle my own addiction to PMO. The point is that it's not women up on a shelf of goodness and men down in the mud. We ALL belong to the same human family, and we're all fragile and can become ensnared in bad habits that turn to dependency that can become additions. Men addicted to PMO probably outnumber women buy a 100:1 ratio, we're visual. Women getting dopamine hits from romance novels likely are 100:1 over men, they are emotional. But you think as the story builds towards the sex scene and then a couple pages of them describing the sex that the woman isn't pouring back over those pages again and again? Of course they are. Bottom line is that it all comes down to dopamine blasts into our brains from artificially extending the most rewarding thing there is for a human - sex. As for long term success, I suspect there is much more success out there than you give credit for. It's logical to think that those who achieve real and long lasting success might not be present much in these forums anymore, they might not feel the need to be. We would all benefit from them here, but I don't blame them for drifting away either, there is some serious wreckage presented here on a regular basis, it can be a dark place. If you've beaten this addiction, you'd be a true saint to keep coming back just to help others. I'm here to battle an addiction to porn along with other sufferers, because nobody can help an addict like a fellow addict in good recovery. I'm not here to self-loath or bash my own gender. I hope I didn't offend, I just thought a little pushback was in order. Don't be so down on your fellow males, there is good and bad in both genders.
How do I know for sure…. Mostly he’s a completely different man when using. I’ve been with him 35 years, it’s actually easy to tell, now that I’ve seen him clean. But I verify with a polygraph. Is it 100% ? No but like I said I use it to verify what I already feel in my gut and they are 90% accurate. I’ve taken 3 for different jobs, and worked my entire career in law enforcement so I know how they work and I’m confident for myself. Unselfish men are not saints, they are just decent. I grew up surrounded by unselfish men. My father, grandfather, uncles and cousins. The selfish ones were the outliers in our family. Here is where things can get tricky- my husband while dating was attentive, affectionate, kind, giving, thoughtful. We dated 5 years, literally the second day of our honeymoon I knew something was very wrong and off. What changed? We had sex for the very first time. That simple act changed how he interacted with me. I never would’ve married him if I hadn’t been adamant about waiting for marriage. I’d have left him after the first week or month of him treating me the way he did after we had sex. But why would sex change him? That’s where counseling helped. He was IA. He had to work through that as well as his addiction. For us, the IA was much more devastating to our relationship than his addiction ( although they label IA as a co addiction with sex addicts). They estimate 30% of sex addicts are also IA. Once he worked through that, man oh man! Yes! He is a different man. Then add recovery on top? Holy cow! I’ll never go back to living with an active addict. Never. Should he relapse and we divorce I will stay single. Every wife knows. Until dday they don’t know the why, but they know that you change when using. Heck you guys know how it makes you feel, do you really think you’re hiding it? The wife just thinks that’s the way you are and it confuses her because she doesn’t know why. Until she does. And all the pieces fall into place. Now she has to work through the fact that you’ve lied to her your entire relationship , the betrayal if she feels it’s cheating ( this can change from not feeling it’s cheating to 100% feeling it’s cheating and vice versa). I believe it’s harder to work through with your wife in the beginning especially if the addict just can’t get into recovery. But if he can? Life is so much better. If the wife can get support and help as well as the husband ( unfortunately how many can afford private counseling for 2?) their marriage has a chance. If she doesn’t get help? I don’t see how they can work through it. They both need recovery.
This is not a pedestal but I ment rather that is in the nature of women. So most of them have it without much effort like the tendency to clean and tidy the house. Of course there is some pertentage of women who are bad mothers, don't like to clean... even evil but I wrote about the inborn potential. If women IMO have the tendency to self sacrifice and unselfiness then the more worthy of praise are unselfish men because they had to do much more effort then women who just have it as a present ( of course I don't maintain that they don't need to work on it but I mean they have much less work ) and we must fight for it and shape it in hard work. It seems to me that psychologically is this allmost impossible. If somebody get rid of this addiction they are so happy that they want to help another men in misery or simply men like to brag - hey! I did it! You know which of men wouldn't tell his friends about their greatest achievements in sport, job etc. And on the forum - we feel that we are almost friends in misery. Who would leave them saying nothing about his long term succesful recovery. At least once a year. Psychologically is this for me impossible.
Yes women might naturally attempt to make a home more inviting, however men die earlier because we work ourselves to death, all for the same reason, love of our family. I simply cannot agree that somehow females are more likely to self sacrifice, the genders simply do it in different ways. The best example (in the U.S. at least) is the percentage of new female phycology majors, about 74% vs the percentage of police officers that are male, about 83%. One profession heals, the other protects. Both are positive and loving, but in different ways. I'm not a woman hater, after all I've been married to one for 30 years plus have two daughters. But to see either gender as somehow more giving or selfless as the other is simply wrong and does a disservice to the other. I've been a member of AA for 5yrs, I can tell with absolutely certainty that some successful members have in fact drifted away. It's the nature of addiction recovery, we all need LOTS of help early on, then are flooded with good vibes and love for the program if we recover, then slowly drift away, hopefully not losing all contact. I used to attend AA meeting 4 or 5 times a week, now it's once weekly. I'm still there to give back and help, but I just don't need to go as much. Besides, PMO addiction is still incredibly taboo to talk about, much less brag about recovering from.
Because there are creeps on this site . I once spoke about watching trans porn and some dude started sending me private MSG's on a daily basis until I told him were to go. Msging about my NoFap journey all and all it was.just a thinly veiled disguise. Bro if you know your not gay your not gay . Simple as that. If you are on the forum talking about issues you don't want this type of bullshit all you can do is deal with it there and then and if the problem is significant enough report it to the moderators as you say what is there policy
This is exactly why porn is an escalatory activity because as you say it is as far away from healthy sexuality as you can get which is spot on . because you don't feel real life genuine gratification and intimacy in relationships especially not in porn so it only leads further down the rabbit hole. That's what it is . People looking for some sort of love intamcy. through in porn and only becoming more and more perverse This and childhood traumas all seem to have the potential to play into it . Very messy world is porn Explains a lot I remember reading somewhere that newer genres of porn were designed by phycologists Porn is just becoming demented . Like bro and sis mom and son and on and on these people just sick
I have been on some 12 step program meetings too ( for various addictions but the vast majority were alcoholics) and what alcoholics even with 20 years sobriety or more said was that they still are addicts and that they must go on the meetings and that without meetings one comes back to drinking, sooner or later. As you know in AA nobody claims that they beat the addiction, everyone is only a sober (dry) alcoholic with lasting tendency to drink when something difficult happens in their life. The second thing I heard from alcoholics that some of them only state that they are 15 years sober for example but they were seen drinking so you cannot say that you are absolutely certain that somebody is successful. This you can say only about yourself with certainty.
