I told my mom about it, how can she help me in this journey?

Hello,

Early December I told my mother about my addiction to pornography. It was something I had in mind for months but finding the courage to actually do it was difficult. Apart from a psychologist that I visited some years ago, no one knew about my addiction, so telling my mom about it was not easy at the beginning but then I felt very relieved. My dad passed away years ago and I'm an only child, so my mom was the only resource I had left at home (i'm living with her at the moment).

Before telling her, I thought she was going to be mad or depressed by my confession, seeing that her 24-year-old only son does not have a social life / girlfriends because he is addicted to porn. But she surprised me; the first thing she said was that it was normal, that pornography is used by many people who don't have a partner just to satisfy their sexual needs. I told her that in my case it was a problem because I was doing it against my will; I didn't want to satisfy those needs through porn, but I continued to do it.

So she understood it was an addiction, and she said she was going to seek professional help for me. But I told her I had been to this psychologist to talk about the addiction, and what I needed now was to have someone near me that also knew about it.

So after this conversation, a week passed and I relapsed. We hadn't talked about the issue in a week, I didn't really know what to tell her about it. Maybe I should dedicate some time every day to tell her how I'm feeling that day, so she knows my state, if I'm dangerously close to a relapse or not, so she can keep me away from the computer...

So my question is: if you've told your parents or someone near you, have they been able to help you in overcoming this addiction? If so, how do involve this person/s in this process? I don't want my mom to be a policeman, telling her to keep my laptop in her room after a certain hour... there are other devices in the house, and I don't think that "policeman" role would help me out, because it no longer myself fighting the addiction, but someone preventing me from reaching it... what will happen when that person is no longer there?

Thanks very much for your help!

 

Thanks very much rthnwi.

One question: are there online meetings focusing on internet pornography, or is it just sex addicts in general?

Regards,

Roberto