30+ Year Addiction to Pornography will end starting today.

Well, here goes.

41 year old male. Married. 2 children. Full time 70 hour work weeks. I pay my taxes and consider myself an "outstanding member of the community". Heh...a little self congratulations before the main antagonist rears it's ugly head.

I never spoke or wrote of it during my entire life, but seeing that I'm in company with those who've been down the same path, I'd feel less ashamed to speak of it here. I'd trace the origin of pornography use all the way to my childhood years. I'm guessing I was about the age of 7 or 8 when I stumbled across a late night Cinemax or HBO softcore movie in the middle of the night while my parents were either sleeping or working. Back in the 80's, there were no such things as parental locks on our cable tv subscriptions. Anyhow, I vaguely remember the images...but the power they had on me was astonishing. I didn't quite understand it, but my mind was telling me. "More...you want to watch more".

Fast forward five years to my early teen years, about 12 I'm guessing. Girls, became a lot more interesting all of sudden. Hmm...I'm guessing thousands upon thousands of years of evolution had something to do with that. I was shy and didn't know how to handle myself around my girl teen peers. I'll admit, I wasn't very high in the good looks department for most of my teen years. Often teased by girls as being the "ugly kid", I didn't take it personally. It was just how it was. Girls were always attracted to the boys high on the dominance heirarchy. The jocks, the skaters and the bad boys had their varying levels of success with the opposite sex. While the geeky nerds, like myself, who played video games were on the bottom of the totem pole of desired males.

During that time, I was over at my best friend's house playing Nintendo and listening to music. During my game of Super Mario, or Castlevania...or whatever, my friend was got up and walked over to the door of his room and says in a hushed voice "Dude, come here". Not knowing of what he had in store and having good faith in him, I followed him down the hall to his parents bedroom. Inside their bathroom were some vertical shelves built into the wall. And hidden on the top shelf, were my first glimpses of the P magazines. My heart raced, I could literally feel it beating out of my chest as my friend and I glossed over the pages. Wow, we just said to ourselves. Not only were they fully nude, but looking right back at us with these "come hither" eyes that never looked back on me in real life. They were smiling, right back at me. It was there, I became wrapped into something that would change my wiring for the rest of my life.

Through the rest of middle school and the first two years of high school, my addiction had begun. Though at the time, I didn't think of it as an addiction. The way I saw it, since I was "unlucky" with the girls anyways, I might as well relieve myself of my sexual urges when I could with the help of magazines I had managed to somehow get a hold of. This turned out to be very damaging however. When I was 16, I had the chance to lose my virginity to a promiscuious(sp) girl who attended another school in town. As we torn each other's clothes off and I laid on top of her, there was nothing. Nothing at all. She was just laying there, and I on top her...and all I could do was...nothing. It was probably the most humiliating moment of my life. Needless to say, we never did it...and she stopped calling and ended all contact with me. Strike one.

I did manage to date a few girls throughout high school, but nothing really came out of the relationships in a sexual way. Which was fine. I told myself that having a sexual relationship would be a one way ticket to prematurely becoming a father, and that scared the living hell outta me.

After high school, I did lose my virginity, and held a few relationships with sexual contact. Not the type of girls that I'd be proud to introduce to the family though. It was nice, but nothing how I felt looking at those magazines. The relationships came and went, all with sexual encounters. But they paled in comparison to that of power of the porno magazines. I'd always retreat back to my "safe space". No pressure to perform, no pillow talk afterwards, just that release of having that smiling face stare back at me provocatively.

Fast forward to the year 2000, I'm 21 and just bought my first condo. Life was going well enough. The internet era of America Online was all the rage. I found that dial up modems and chatrooms to be somewhat of a waste of time. Until the local area cable company releases broadband internet. I was probably the first one on my block to have it. Surfing the web a thousand times faster than anyone else. Online gaming became normal in my home, and sadly...so did the discovery of online pornography. I just couldn't comprehend what was I seeing. Not photos, but the real deal of video. Prior to this, you had to make your way to the local seedy video rental store and rent the porn videos in the closed off "Adults Only" section. Not anymore. Freedom for glaring judgmental eyes...just me, my broadband internet, and enough pornography to satisfy the most debauched fantasies. To say I was in the clutches of the addiction back then, would almost be as close as saying nothing at all. Though I didn't know it, I was far down the rabbit hole with no end in sight.

Skip forward to 2006. My personal life was struggling. I couldn't maintain a meaningful relationship and I continued to struggle with my confidence with women. I'd only have one or two relationships a year and the longest they would normally last was a month or two. I struck up a new relationship with a British girl a few years younger than me. She was outgoing and the life of the party, quite a contrast from my own personality at the time. But we had a good chemistry nonetheless. While in the throws of our sexual desires, it must of been the third or forth time, I couldn't perform. I did everything I could to please her. And after about 30 minutes of...whatever I was doing, she bluntly asked "Don't you want to f*** me?". She eventually left later and all I could do was sob like a small child, asking myself "What the f*** is wrong with me?". Truth was, I couldn't perform because of the shackles that online pornography had put on me. The relationship with her ended shortly after, but my relationship with online pornography was stronger than ever. Strike Two.

In early 2012, I started dating a coworker of mine. 8 and half years younger and so full of life. We were taking a gamble, being together. My family didn't approve because of our age difference and she had a four year old daughter from a previous marriage. But I was determined to make it work. I didn't want to end up the lonely old man yelling at kids to "Get off my lawn". I resolved to ween myself off of pornography and make our relationship work. Making love to her came natural and was very fulfilling. We married a year and a half later in the summer of 2013 and brought our daughter into this world in the summer of 2016.

Now, when I say I was weening off of pornography, I wasn't entirely clean. There was a time, I was strong enough to wipe my hard drive completely clean of any pictures and videos I had collected over the years. Not Gibabytes...TERABYTES of it. Just like many addicts, you can rid yourself of your vice, but that vice is always laying in wait, waiting to take hold of you at any moment of weakness. I started dabbling into it with my smartphone after work, and would give myself an excuse why like "Well, she's on her period now anyways...what's the harm". My wife's physical appearance wasn't turning me on like it once was even though I love her to death and would do anything for her. I would catch myself staring at teenage girls walking past in short shorts, only to stop myself and say shamefully to myself "What the f*** are you doing, you creep" Grown men, grown family men don't gawk at high school girls. But I did. It really scares me. I started downloading my favorite pornstar again, like pouring a shots of Jack Daniels for a recovering alcoholic.

There is too much at stake here. A home, a business, a family. All could be lost because I can't tame that beast that has been inside me all these years. As professor of psychology doctor Jordan Peterson says "Do not pursue happiness, pursue meaning". "Do not purse your impulsive pleasures to the detriment of your character". As much as I admire Dr Peterson's work, I could never find a lecture from him on online pornography addiction. I only know he spoke of the matter once in a Q and A and disapproved of it.

So my family, wife and two daughters went to Mexico last Wednesday to visit her family for two weeks. Two weeks of home alone???!!! Beer and pizza!!! I can binge watch all those TV shows I've never had the time to watch!!! And...oh...ehm...when no one is around, which is 100% of the time at home while my family is gone, reacquiaint myself with my favorite porn star with no one to interrupt me. Six days alone, six sessions with her on my computer screen. Sigh. Strike Three. I'm out. I'm done.

I've come to the realization that there is no such thing as "casual" porn use. You're either in or out. Pornography addiction isn't something I can pack up inside a box and store away just in case I absolutely need it. It must be ripped out root and stem and worked at everyday. As I got home today from work, I booted up my computer, deleted everything off the hard drive and vowed I will never use pornography again. Not just for my sake, but for my family and everything that I hold near and dear to my heart. Everything I have, I have worked for. And anything worth having is worth working hard for. But porn is the exact opposite. Porn doesn't require hard work or sacrifice. Porn is the barrier that has held me back for the majority of my life. The countless hours wasted on the vice, what good has it done for me? The time I've searched and watched porn in my lifetime, I could have learned two or three foreign languages in that time wasted. I'm not joking.

What do you have to gain by quitting pornography? Everything. What do you have to lose by staying in the grips of it? Everything.

I apologize for this long and drawn out monologue. But I never admitting this to a single living person in my life. Not myself, wife, parents, nobody. It was just 30 years of addiction that came pouring out my fingers onto this forum I heard from on Youtube. I didn't spend time reading other people's stories or carefully plan what I was going to say. It all just came pouring out. Many people here are probably younger than me and there are skeptics out there that say pornography is harmless. To them I say, fuck that. I'm living proof of the long term effects. I actually felt physical discomfort when I was deleting porn off my computer. As if my body was already going through withdrawal symptoms. Men in their mid 20s, with tested average levels of testosterone( I had it checked by my doctor. And he gave me a little blue pill prescription, HA!), shouldn't have erectile dysfunction.

Day 1 complete. NoFap.

Mansini

 

Thanks for taking the time to read the full unabridged genesis to current state of my process. I've taken the time to read other testimonials from other users, and I'm glad I didn't go completely off the deep end. By that, I mean, I kept somewhat vague "standards" on what I was watching. No gangbangs, violence towards the female performers. Borderline stuff like that. I always thought to myself..."That is just wrong". So, with that said, I hope my road to recovery is faster. Day 2 has been a lot more difficult, more so now that I'm at home and writing this post on my computer. It's as if my mind or body is expecting me to watch porn now, especially now that my family is still out of town. I'm having somewhat shortness of breath and a nervousness I don't ever remember experiencing. Maybe it's time to go back downstairs and watch the hockey game, something to get my mind off it. I'm sure it's just some mild withdrawal symptoms.

Thanks again for the support.