Apparently, I am not alone with this and neither are the rest of you. Good to know.

I guess it pays off at this point to become a bit personal. It's a long ordeal that covers a lot of space - the tl;dr version is that I've had it, and it's time to make a stand against myself.

Long version. I've always been a bit of a junkie for any kind of distraction and temptation. Being an only child I've always gotten my way with anything, and having a bad/absent father that never gave me any advice on anything that relates to being a man, it's been an uphill battle to contain myself and keep my "eye on the prize", sometimes to even know what the prize is. While I always was a good kid from the outside my inner self was lost from the get-go. If only I even had the kind of a dad the protagonist from American Pie did, if you know what I mean by that..

I started finding my sexuality when in junior high. Chubby nerd kid with nothing going on, yet I was up on my computer all night long, and I started to find my sexuality with the use of my eloquent words on anonymous chat rooms. Hearing from a grown woman that you talk her into an orgasm when you were 16.. was and is both fucked-up and sadly something that got me into a weird high. As I grew older and went to high school, I had become a sort of a master of cybersex. First it was stricly txt based chat, then slowly webcams became involved, places where you could share your photos could be used as well.. also a lot of pornography in the mix too, naturally. Not interested in serious relationships until my 21st birthday, I was too busy investigating my sexual urges with other methods. Paradoxically I was still - in a way - a young guy who just wanted to feel loved for who he was offline. Not my strongest suite nor the "persona" I spend too much attention on.

Then I found Neil Strauss' The Game and realized I had to find other motivations for my life - with a trial by error I started having girlfriends, became a more active kind of guy in general and had my share of adventures. I saw the harming effects of cybering as opposed to being commited to serious relationships, so I decided that the best choice was to emotionally detach myself from it and focus on porn as the go-to choice for masturbation. Cold turkeying just wasn't an option. For a while it worked, and as years went on a sort of a status quo persisted, but now as a 27yo man I realize the symptoms have been there for too long - porn and masturbation have long served for me as a means to "run away" from displeasure and become more a sad routine to deal with #### than anything that could be even remotely positive . As a guy who's online all the time, trying to do all kinds of projects (no cybering, less facebook, no fantasy sports, no online time midnight etc etc) has been a constant thing for me for some 6 years now. But now it's time to get serious before I waste away.

I'm about to break up from a two-year-relationship that has been a long-distance one for 4 months now, and it has ravaged my psyche and left me with zero self-confidence in my physical appearance, ability to function as a sexual creature, and first as foremost as a man. Not making the challenge any easier, I'm writing the finishing touches on my masters thesis after spending a total of 7 years in the college system so the big jump ahead sure is scary as ####. I've also gained weight during the last few months due to being depressed in the relationship, struggled to keep my healthy diet habits (which I fought furiously to maintain for a year), struggled to keep in touch with friends outside the online world, and realized that the hardships are many but the most important one is my relationship to masturbation. Calling it that - a relationship - really says it outloud. I've even used my bad habit as a conversation piece before on chat rooms to talk about sex addiction as a way to keep the talk going. While I've connected with a lot of like-minded ladies, the means and the ends just don't match. They never do in a setup like that.

Whenever I struggle with my work, my subconscious urges me to go online and fap - no matter what the source and inspiration for the fap. Online dating sites, anonymous chats, porn streams, Facebook where some of my earlier flings attend (...), pretty much anything I can instinctively use as a diversion has to do with some sort of sexual gratification which climaxes in masturbation. I've been circling around the severity of this issue a lot during my time, and now that I realize this community exists - and that I'm not alone, I'm want to join in, in whatever function which works the best for me. Learning as I go.

It's been a full day since my last fap and I realize that I want this to happen - I've set my counter to 60 days but it's less about the days than about the ability to feel some resemblance of pride in my actions and my resistance to urges. I take pride in the fact that I'm writing this, and that I'm here, and I feel committed to do this, and am overwhelmed with joy by the fact there is a community for guys like me. But I know that this is an easy day for me, and it gets harder - not every day, but some day, again and again.

If you read this through, I thank you sincerely for your time and wish you the best of luck in your challenge too. It's good to know you're not alone with your burden, and it's essential to know that in a way we are all brothers in arms with this problem. D#mn I feel good saying this out loud.

 

Thank you for all your responses!! Giving it my best shot, and as I do know I can beat this habit, patience and perseverence is now the only thing that matters.