Chat rooms

It is call sexting, can include sex roleplay and other stuff... "erotic games"... and you are not alone...
Probably the same persons that you talk there have the same problem.

 

What do you mean when you say Chat room?

Like is it just regular website chat rooms or cam sites?

 

Lots of people including myself have this issue. I've made a lot of progress but there's still work to do.

I'll give you some tips soon. Bit tired right now lol. I encourage people to reply here because this problem isn't talked about enough.

 

sexting is one of the big reasons that i come here.
Not the only one but one of the reasons.

 

Get a nice book to read...it's much better then sexting! But i know it's not that easy. Anyway, try to avoid these sites, they are addictive.

 

crazybutconscious
You right they are addictive... i can tell for myself.
Porn is not about only video and and pictures.

 

These erotic tales are something that fire our imagination. Try to think that the people who u are sexting or reading a tale is a fat nerd who eat pizza everyday.

 

The first tip that springs to mind is to get rid of all "accounts" you may have that relate to this addiction. For example you may have a Skype account that you use for this purpose. You can set the Skype account to delete, but it takes 60 days to accomplish this (after setting it to delete you have to wait 60 days without logging in before the account is fully deleted).

So you might be able to make a throwaway email account*, then change the Skype account's associated email address to this new throwaway account, then change the Skype password to something unmemorable and delete the throwaway email account. Then you won't be able to log back in to the Skype account and it will be deleted anyway after 60 days.
(*alternatively, perhaps the email address associated with Skype is already "throwaway", as in it's an email you only use for sexting purposes etc., in which case the process may be even simpler)

This may sound complicated and hard to understand. Feel free to ask questions about it. The main point is to make it impossible to contact old chat "buddies", as far as possible. You also want to put more "friction" between yourself and the addiction. Make it harder to act out, generally speaking.


Another tip. What device did you use to act out? Personally, I used to use a laptop computer. So now, I hardly ever use laptops any more. I'm typing this on a desktop computer. I get fewer urges that way. Although I didn't often use a phone to act out, I'm careful with phones as well. I don't bring my phone into my bedroom and things like that. If you used your phone to sext, you might want to take extra precautions. You could even go back to a "dumb" phone for a while.

There's a pretty useful book called "Never Binge Again" (https://www.neverbingeagain.com/). Although it's not about P/sexting addiction, it applies very well.

You also want to engage in hobbies, interests, exercise and other healthier habits to replace the addiction.

That's probably enough for now!

 

Struggling with this and everything that comes from it.

like @diaspar said, delete all accounts associated with it. Lately I’ve been tellin myself that using chat rooms are a waste of time. I would spent hours upon hours just waiting for someone to chat with to keep chasing the same highs of sexual gratification that led from this. All that time wasted is not worth it and the person on the other side is more than likely not who they say they are anyway, so what’s the point?

I used to pose a woman and catfish so many guys and I struggle with my sexuality because of this and I never did before porn and chat sites and voice apps etc.

One tip is I used to always be in private mode, so see how long you can go without going into private mode

 

Chat rooms just goes to show this habit is a matter of being addicted to an ENVIRONMENT, not just the content.

There will ALWAYS be a limit to how far people recover if they ignore this and just try to be abstinent with the content of porn. This is especially true of a SOCIAL environment, even when it is online. The thing is we are social by nature, a lot of people are isolated, so this simulation of real socialization is appealing, not to mention there's the promise of some poor shadow of sex and intimacy.

Come to think of it, this is even true of substance based addiction. How the hell do they know where to buy drugs? Those of us who don't struggle with that have no clue, but if it's not something you can go to the store for like alcohol you have to know people, and people who move into a new area probably have little problem scoring some junk if they try. The substance addict can probably just tell by the way a person looks, a certain physical environment that they can ask a few people and pretty easily get something.

It's pretty much the same with online environments, but the thing is it is way easier for us to find that here. Smartphones makes it portable, you don't have to physically go to that seedy part of town to get something physically, it's just transmitted to you as data.

 

I think a common rationalisation for using a chat room is, "there could be someone nearby that wants to meet up in real life".

Well, I spent a lot of time in chat rooms and that never happened for various reasons.

I think people get "high" on the idea of potentially meeting. But when the possibility of actually meeting up arises, one or both people decide against it.

 

Or in the case of chronic catfishing, a collusion of delusion, because it's going to be obvious you're not who you say you are.

 

For me it started with this, and had a few offers from people to meet up while I was working away. Glad I never did go that far. Really though, I think the driving force was to have an escape from my normal day to day life. I didn't feel happy with where I was and my "online persona" allowed me to act out whoever I wanted to be that day. That persona then got steadily worse.

 

If it's a profile based site...then delete your profile. My chat site allowed me to email them and have my profile deleted. If you have to log in at all...also try changing your password to something completely random if you can't delete it.

Other than that....chat sites are very hard to quit. They exacerbate all of the symptoms of PMO...seeking and searching...edging...escalation. You can quit, but it is hard...but I quit. I spent up to ten hours a day on chat sites. If I can do it so can you...read advice here on quitting PMO. The same rules apply for quitting chat sites.

 

Also keep in mind this is a part of a bigger picture of social isolation. When you only ever quit the addiction and don't look to connect it's going to be hard, even people who go to in person recovery groups sometimes don't end up doing that very well and they don't necessarily think about how the addiction works and what to do to have a healthy life. People are not supposed to be isolated from each other, and that includes from physical contact - but we do that with tech because it's safe and not so in your face. At this point even people who are not dealing with PMO may have a hard time connecting when they meetup so it's really the more pervasive and deeper issue that has to be addressed.