Newbie here

Hello everyone, I am a male from NY.

I have a lot to get off my chest. I've been watching porn since high school, so for about 13.5 years. I first saw a pornographic image sometime around junior high school, but by high school when my parents purchased a new computer, I was watching it everyday. High school and college were my peak years where I would watch porn everyday and spend a lot of time downloading videos and images. I would masturbate to it everyday, sometimes up to three times a day. After college I would watch porn intermittently, on and off. I would try to stop and I would be able to do so for a while, but then I would start watching again. I tried to wean down to just viewing static nude images of women. But then I would again be tempted to watch again. Regardless of whether I had watched porn or not, I would always masturbate at least once a day and I would engage in a lot of sexual fantasizing. This is a huge underlying problem. In the past I have spent whole days, just fixated on sexual fantasies, which eventually lead to masturbation. There have been times when I can skip a day or two and also be in control of my sexual thoughts for a couple of days, but then I would get to point where the thoughts would just intrude and the urge to masturbate becomes unbearable where I can't sleep at night. On a few occasions I have been able to stop masturbating for a week, but I become very very irritable and frustrated. There's a throbbing tension in my head and on top of that my sexual fantasies become more deviant.

Recently, I have not watched porn or viewed any nude images for about 2 months and I have zero desire to watch again. However, I have still been masturbating almost everyday, ranging from once to three times a day. I still engage in a lot of sexual fantasy. I am in a relationship and lately I've been pressuring my girlfriend for more sex and physical affection and blaming / criticizing her for not being so affectionate. In all fairness, physical touch is important to me in a relationship and she is not the most affectionate touchy-feely person in the world when she's stressed out. I really consider her a great companion and friend and I enjoy spending time with her. I've come to the conclusion that being porn-addicted for years and years of chronic masturbation have conditioned my brain to expect immediate sexual and physical gratification and I don't want that expectation anymore. I know I have a problem, because whenever I would meet a new woman in the past, I would automatically have sexual fantasies about her. We as men are highly sexual beings, but I want my brain to quiet down and have realistic expectations. And I want to be able to enjoy platonic / intimate companionship with women without sexual thoughts always intruding and creeping in my mind everyday.

So that's what I have to say. Any advice or support that any of you may have is greatly appreciated!! Also, does anyone have any specific advice on how to gain some mastery over intrusive sexual thoughts and compulsive urges to masturbate? I am going to try some of the challenges, but how do you deal with the negative feelings that come up when you're not masturbating for a while?