When porn addiction turns into general sex addiction...

Dan,

I don't have a lot of suggestions for you man, but I'll keep you in my prayers. One or two things I KNOW that have an impact on me are commitments to things that keep me active (like work) and trying to maintain a stable home refuge (both physical space and routine times etc) is helpful.

Currently I'm desperately trying to get back on track with a positive routine, but I've had glimpses of that stability and peaceful home sanctuary, and it is so wonderful to build towards more positive actions from that kind of foundation.

Awareness is step one, maybe get an AP and then start to ground yourself in a newly arranged space and schedule to get to some new habits.

Drift

 

I am 30 now and I went from porn addiction to sex addiction a few years ago. I had quite a few friends with benefits at the same time. So I've sort of been where you are at now.

You probably get quite a thrill from it during the act but then you feel depressed and alone, right? And you might be breaking some hearts but feeling too numb to care.

Once I realised that sleeping around was making me unhappy, I didn't quit porn immediately but I decided to be celibate for at least 90 days. I banned friends with benefits from my life. I made a rule that I would never have sex again unless it was with someone I loved.

It wasn't until I met that someone that I found the strength and self esteem to gradually remove PMO from my daily life. But I would recommend you quit as quickly as you can and start looking for a healthy relationship with a woman you can love and respect, someone who you can be proud to be with and that makes you proud of yourself.

 

Dan,

In my opinion, you are lucky in that you have gotten to the root of the problem. Lots of folks here think that if they can just stop the porn and have actual sex, they will be happy and fulfilled. But it is just an empty, endless cycle. The way out is to change the way we think and feel about sex and women, not just about porn. In our society, it is assumed that sex is good, and everyone wants sex all the time, and if you get it you will be fulfilled. Not just that we have a sex drive, but that ALL we really want is sex and physical pleasure. Sex is also cut off from the rest of life, so having sex is almost always time taken from the other aspects of your life. Sex is not just a "fun activity" you can do with your friends, or business networking acquaintances, like sports or watching a movie. So we are taught by advertising, movies, TV shows, books, etc. that what we really want in life is only this one thing that can only be done in secret. But this is no way to live a human life: our lives should be public, social, and honest. Now, maybe you can go live in a swinger community where they have worked sex into their lives as a main ingredient socially, but this is not where most of us live, and I honestly don't think that most of us would want to have sex as a main hobby because sex is not really that interesting.

The other way to live is to realize that these cultural assumptions are not the truth. Even though we may have sexual desire all the time, having sex all the time will not make us happy. Just like regulating our appetite for food is necessary for health and strength, so is regulating our appetite for sex. We here on NoFap have been eating too much tasty food, so to speak. Maybe it's candy and junk food (porn) or maybe it's fine French cuisine (sex with attractive women) but either way we are getting fat, unhealthy, and unhappy because we think that physical pleasure will make us fulfilled.

So the first step is to admit that we've been lied to, and the that we believed the lies. This is actually hard to do, because it amounts to admitting that we have been fooled, and nobody likes to admit that they've been fooled. But you know who else has been fooled? The women who are having sex with you. If you think that your life is all about sex, imagine what it's like for them! Everywhere you look you see advice for women on "how to get a man" "50 ways to satisfy him in bed so he'll never leave you," and garbage like that. For centuries women have been nothing but sex toys for men, and in contemporary society men and women are both guilty of perpetuating these damaging and unfulfilling sexual dynamics.

If we want to end this, we will have to help each other through it, and the best thing we can do as men is to stop playing our part in objectification. We are told not only that sex will make us happy, but that if we don't get sex we are worthless. We are shit, we can never be happy, and we might as well die if we don't have sex. So much of our lives are wasted trying hold this anxiety at bay and prove that we are not "one of the ugly ones," or "too pathetic to get laid." But we can never prove it, so we have to keep running on the hamster wheel, getting more and more sexual attention for ourselves. To free ourselves, we have to be able to believe one thing: It is possible to have a happy, fulfilled human life and never have sex. Sex is not necessary for happiness or fufillment; as long as we believe that it is, we will remain in the trap that has been created to sell us beer and jeans and Coca-Cola.

It is not easy to believe this. Imagine yourself never having sex again for the rest of your life. This is probably unacceptable to you, but ask yourself, why? Would it really be so terrible? Would it not be worth living? Ridiculous. What other pleasure do we think about in this way? We could live perfectly happy lives without candy, or steak, or windsurfing, or fame, or many of the other great pleasures of life. If you think hard about what really makes a happy and fulfilled human life, I think that you will probably not put sex on the list, but rather things like friendship, family, and community. I think that sex is more like ice cream: it's something I may desire, but I don't need it and if I never have any ever again it will be no great loss.

So how to put this into practice? Here is a simple exercise that I find helps me a lot. Whenever I see an attractive woman and I want to have sex with her, I think to myself "I wonder what other wonderful things this person can do besides have sex?" Surely the ability to have sex is not the best thing about this person, because it's not the best thing about me. I'm actually really good at sex; I am basically God's gift to women. You would have to look far and wide to find someone who is better at sex than I am. But even so, there are a lot of other things I can do that are even better than sex. I'm a really good musician, and I'm good at my job. I'm a good listener and conversationalist, and I can help people I care about work through the problems in their lives. I can tell funny stories and jokes. And so I think about the attractive women I see in these terms: I wonder what is the best thing about them. Maybe they can sing beautifully, or they love poetry, or they are a loyal friend. And I think about how I could elicit these beautiful qualities in them, and experience all this person has to offer. And then fucking them seems pretty silly, because there is so much else to do with a beautiful, unique human being. I will admit that it's hard for me to do this! I am conditioned to see women as sex objects first and people second. I did not even realize this until I started doing this exercise; I thought I was an enlightened modern man. But no, I am still basically a sexist caveman ruled by my libido.

So that's my advice to you: most of life is better than sex, so don't worry so much about having sex. It's all a lie to get you to buy beer and coca-cola. Start looking at women as human beings, and free yourself from the trap of consumerist sexism. Maybe tomorrow when you hang out with this girl you have "lined up," you can try to do something that's better than sex. Believing that such things exist is the first step.

 

Wow, this was very well written and a joy to read. Thanks!

 

As for stopping the cycle: In fact, you replace your old behaviour by switching to a new one.
So the best is to focus on positive things and pursuit them. Learn to relax, learn to have goals, learn to follow your very own voice.
Make peace with yourself, make peace with others, forget the past, look forward.

As for the day barrier: My personal best ("hard mode") are 35 days. Achieved 4 times last year.
I am learning now since 18 months and I found that it takes around 2-3 days of celibacy until you get into a new stable mood.
Then it is cool for some days; but after 10 days, you feel biology coming in and making pressure. In this time, you need to find new ways, but it works.

The other good news is also that it really becomes better and better. After a total of 18 months I'm now much more relaxed, much more productive and much more content with myself.
In a way it is now really a pleasure to go on without PMO, becasue I see the many new possibilities it brings.

 

Thanks for the note of hope snow. I'm in over two months now and barely holding things together. Music and weakly attempting some slight form of mindfulness helps deal with waves of biology, but damn if that's all that keeps coming in this big ocean.

 

No you shouldn't tell her right away. That is a huge TMI for something starting off. Perhaps if it escalates to you wanting to date her, you tell her before you date her officially. However, if I ask you to marry me the second time we meet, are you going to go bananas? How about if I tell you my mom is a cereal rapist? You just don't want to know that so early, give it a chance to develop at minimum into a decent friendship before you spill your heart.

 

Very glad to hear that we were helpful. It sounds like you're going in the right direction.

About your question "do I tell her about all this?" I agree with 8Bits above. I don't think it's necessary to explain everything about your fapping and PMO addiction etc., but discussing the fact that you're trying to make a change is good. I think you have to decide how much to reveal on an individual case basis. If you find a woman that you can talk to honestly and openly about sex, that is a very precious thing. Tell her you're trying to change the way you view women, for example. Any woman knows that there is inherent sexism and misogyny in our culture, so she might have a helpful perspective for you.

As for motivation, it's hard. We are giving up something significant when we give up sex addiction. There is great pleasure and novelty in it, and it can really make us feel 10 feet tall sometimes. I have a really hard time facing the real facts of my life without the escapism of sex addiction. I'm trading immediate, intense rewards for long-term, uncertain rewards. It's really tough for me. But I know that there is a better life for me. When I can actually envision it and believe in it, then it motivates me. But this is really not so bad -- it just means that I'm moving from the pretend world of sex into the real world, which is actually a really hard place to live! I think that motivation to live an honest life in the real world is a life-long project.

 

Hey there is no reason to lie to us buddy. We are here to help you quit and we aren't going to judge when you have setbacks. Pretty much all of us have lost control plenty of times. I'm confident you will beat your addiction. Don't lose hope

 

Awareness of a problem is the first part of figuring out how to resolve that problem. So even if you relapse, or do something you might regret, at least you can take some degree of encouragement that you are aware that what you're doing is creating suffering for you. Now it's just incremental change towards ceasing that suffering.

I've stayed up waaaay too late on okcupid, which led me to want to find a casual encounter on Craigslist. I had a few late nights that just undermined my ability to do my best at work the next day, and I wasn't putting time into my better habits. So, now I write out my list of tasks, so I have structure to my down time, and then just try to do things with other people. It's helping me fill my time with other things instead of the okc route.

Just takes awareness of knowing when I'm slipping, and then I can take action. You can now too.