Hi, 21 y/o Male Newbie Here (All Advice Welcome)

Hello everyone,

I'm a 21 year old male, and I'm in college. The first time I watched porn was when I was 14, after I looked up a word I didn't recognize. Over the past 7 years watching porn has gradually transformed from something that fascinated me into something I resent doing. Over time, it's become an addiction. Though, until recently I was hesitant to use that word.

I tend to overthink things and be self-conscious, so I've always been somewhat aware of how porn affected me and what triggers me to watch porn, but I've struggled to do anything meaningful with those observations.

I have stopped watching porn in the past, but I've had trouble finding tactics that consistently work. Erotica pretty much destroyed my interest in porn the first time around, but now it's a guarantee I'll break my streak. Meanwhile, masturbating in the shower each morning has been effective this time and it's worked well in the past, but there have been times it was useless too.

I've always wound up relapsing and usually it's "just because," because I'm bored, or because I tell myself it'll be different. Otherwise, it's mainly been as a response to stress. My parents fight a lot, and it really scares me and stresses me out and keeps me from sleeping. I know I'll regret it, but it's hard not to watch porn when the alternative is to stay miserable. Porn has been a way to distract and comfort myself in that situation.

It never takes long to wind up worse than where I was at when I start watching porn again. A few years ago, a bad day with porn meant I watched porn for roughly 3 hours. Last week I watched porn every day except monday and friday, and over saturday, sunday, and this monday I spent 9+, 12+, 6+, and 4+ hours watching porn. I nearly missed work because I stayed up to watch porn.

I also sabotaged my other goals. One of my main motivations for not watching porn right now is that if I don't stop I will fail school. I caused myself problems during my last semester because porn was easier. I'd stay up late, start off on the wrong foot the next day, rinse and repeat. I relied on deadline panic, and I can't do that this semester. My classes are about to get a lot harder and I will have to study this semester. I also have extra stuff to study for so I can petition next year. It's going to be hard enough even if I do everything right.

In addition to watching for longer periods of time, I've been watching almostly exclusively rough BDSM porn. I know porn isn't why I like that stuff. I've been drawn to bondage since well before I knew what porn wasbut I've been watching increasingly intense porn. Including unethical porn. I mostly avoided it this time, but I have watched porn that I knew wasn't consensual. It just became part of the narrative/fantasy going on in my head. I read "Beartown" recently, a book where rape happens, and I felt extremely uncomfortable for the next couple days. The characters felt incredibly real, as real as me, and I couldn't stop thinking about the trauma the girl in the book went through. I felt incredibly uncomfortable with thinking about sex at all, and I was hoping it would make it easier to keep away from porn. One slip up later and I'm watching stuff that probably traumatized the performers in the same way. I can never undo that, and I've been thinking about that all day.

I visited the NoFap subreddit on monday with the hope of doing something different this time. I know that if I repeat the same pattern I have before I'm almost certainly going to fail school and end up working my way back to watching unethical porn. I installed a new site-blocker, because it was too easy to disable the one I was using before. I'm hoping that having people to talk to about this, and who understand my feelings will help me stay away from porn-sites. To an extent, it already has as thinking about what I wanted to say and checking in on the 7-day challenge day helped cancel out the moments I thought about porn. Seeing a post on the subreddit called "10 Things I Tell Myself When I'm About To Watch Porn" resonated with me, and it's what got me to visit this website. Reading the pieces about rebooting and addiction helped it hit home just how drastically and gradually the intensity and frequency of my porn watching has increased. It also introduced me to the chaser effect and convinced me to reconsider what change is actually going to look like.

I'm taking part in a 7-day challenge with the intent of not watching porn, but still allowing MO (and keeping an eye out for the chaser effect). Masturbating each morning in the shower has helped me stop in the past, and right now staying away from porn is my priority. However, I'm planning to follow it with a 14-day PMO challenge. Right now commiting to the 90-day challenge seems intimidating, but reading through these articles and some of the forum posts has convinced me that I'm probably going to need a reboot to make the long-term change I need so I'm hoping the 14 days give me a foundation I can use to move on to the 90-day challenge or a 1-month challenge. I plan on making posting here part of my daily routine to get support/community and keep my whys fresh in my mind.

My long-term goals are:1) To never watch another horrible video again, and ideally stay away from porn altogether. 2) I want masturbating to be something I do because I want to do it instead of compulsively. Orgasms without porn or erotica feel satisfying, rejuvenating, and affirming and I want to experience that without worrying I'll use it as an excuse to slip back into old habits. 3) To see how rebooting effects my sexual fantasies/sex drive.

Any and all advice is welcome. I'd also love to hear how people deal with reseting and setbacks, because my main concern right now is about what will happen if I screw up. I don't want to keep renewing the same problems in my life.

 

Thanks for responding. I like what you said about attitude and perservering through the slips and setbacks, and I'm going to try to keep it in mind while going through this journey.