Hey y'all. Glad to have found this!

I've never been one to post really on any sort of online forum. Shoot, even when my FB account was active, I didn't post much!

This is my first post, but I found NoFap on January 3rd of this year the morning after a binge. I knew something needed to change. I'm a 36-year-old male (almost 37), and I shudder to say it, but porn has been part of my life for about 25 years.

The last few years in particular have been a time of significant personal growth, but it wasn't till about 10 days ago that I really let myself acknowledge how much porn has affected my life. In big ways and small ways. Even though I don't use it a ton any more.

Shoot, I did the math, and I figured that porn could have cost me more than $15,000 last year.

Now, I didn't spend a dime on it. I'm self-employed, so the $15k is the estimated opportunity cost from my porn use due to lack of sleep, occasional illness from said lack of sleep, and the hours upon hours the next day or two

Anyway, I just spent 3 weeks in my hometown at my parent's house, and being in close proximity with my family forced me to confront the effects porn has had on my life. The shame. The hiding. The way I can avoid sharing my life. The way I can avoid intimacy. The way I struggled to love and connect. The thoughts/pictures that can run through my head. The cravings. The sheer craziness of being in a house with 10-14 other people for the holidays and trying to use porn and keep it a secret (I almost got caught twice and used it in a couple more situations with others around but oblivious/asleep).

Being with family caused me to see these things more acutely than I ever had, and I didn't like what I was seeing.

I spent a lot of time the first couple days of being a member reading NoFap material and reading posts in the forums, and I felt inspired that if I wanted porn out of my life, I was going to need to be proactive. Now, for the past few years, I had been a bit proactive in finding ways to grow emotionally/in maturity, but until a couple weeks ago, I never considered that porn was actually holding me back from those goals in a big way. I just figured if I got matured enough, porn would just fall away and be a thing of the past. But on the 3rd, for the first time, I resolved inwardly to proactively work to heal and get well.

So that's why I'm here. In the past few days, I've found a counselor to start potentially going to, but I want to post on this forum at times as an outlet to share what's on my mind and in my heart as I need it, especially when I'm feeling tempted and need to process. Because I want to stop turning to PMO to try for any reason. It's just not worth it. There are too many things I want to do and too many ways I want to change the world to keep messing with this stuff and having it steal my time and ambition.

I'm thankful to be here, and I'm looking forward to the journey.

 

Thanks for the encouragement, guys. All the best to you in your own journeys. We can do this! And not just to feel better about ourselves so we can then somehow be 'okay' b/c we've been PMO free long enough, but because it's just worth it. We have good things inside to offer to others, and that feels way better way longer than a cheap thrill.