First post here goes. I have had social anxiety for the longest time. Dealt with it through alcohol. That didn't go so well, two addiction centres and after a good deal of carnage, eventually gave it up oh about 4 years ago. I started reading about Buddhism. I tried applying buddhist principles to my life for the past year but no real improvement. Went to loads of anxiety counsellors / groups over the years, bought books, attempted new hobbies etc. Anxiety has never gone away though, always extremely uncomfortable in groups. Buddhism talks about ending cravings being the key to happiness, so I thought what cravings do I have? It talks about other things, but cravings and desires are a big deal in buddhism. Sugar / junk food, caffeine, porn world, internet use and the very odd time cigarette. Read a book on how bad the caffeine drug is for us. Gave that up about 4 weeks ago. Haven't drank it since. Same with sugar and junk food, read a book on how awful it is for us, gave it up and increased healthy food and fibre intake, relapsed twice but fairly confident I can give it up. But the porn world. That goes deep. I call it a 'world' because it is that for me. I feel I have to come clean on it and here I am. Started at 14 or so on porn. Escalated to trans porn and I am still on that to this day. But the problem for me is that it escalated beyond that. That's why I call it a 'world'. Ladyboy dating sites, friends found ladyboy porn on my computer, erotic massages by women in massage parlours, meeting up with ladbyboy escorts (I never have sex, just handjob, presumably coz I am so conditioned to masturbating), actively planning on going to Thailand on holidays to meet ladyboy escorts, spending weekends messaging ladyboys on whatsapp. I calculated I have spent anywhere between €30,000 to €70,000 on massage parlours over the last decade. Other random things, like I met a young woman for a massage while on holiday in Brazil, we went on I suppose you could call it a date, she said she was going to come to my country to learn English and we could go travelling together in Europe. Messaged her for about 6 months then she stopped messaging me and I was really disappointed and felt betrayed because she 'ghosted' me. Well basically I started connecting the dots. All of what I described in this paragraph is all part of the escapism porn world that I occupied. I read 'Your Brain on Porn' and that was a bit of an eye opener. I never realised this was so pervasive in my life until I wrote it all down and started connecting the dots! I decided to give it up about a month or so ago. I have relapsed a few times, but I hope to (and am fairly confident) I can give it up or at least stop porn (masturbation, not so sure on that but it is my intention to give it up). I am not hard on myself if I relapse, I know from giving up alcohol that relapses are common and part of the journey of breaking free. Internet use, hmm that might be just as difficult to give up. Youtube, tiktok etc. But I never realised those things were creating my social anxiety (or if not creating it, certainly making it much worse). Of course I will have an apathy in interacting with people if I have dopamine and opiods on tap with those bad habits and addictions. Anyhow I just wanted to get that off my chest. If you got to the end well done Would be interesting to hear your thoughts. Also do people here intend giving up both porn and masturbation for good, or just porn and keep masturbating, or both porn for good and masturbation for a period and then return to the latter (masturbation) eventually after the 'link' between masturbation and porn is broken?
Sounds like you've been through a lot, but all of that can help you! Remember to look back only to remind yourself how far you've come! And regarding the question, I myself want to give up porn forever and masturbation for 90 days, so my brain could reset.
Good stuff @Mryan ! I also like to think of porn and masturbation as different worlds. Different rules apply. If I give that world a small ounce of me, it just exploits me and the addiction gets uncontrollable. So to answer your question I intend to give up porn and masturbation forever. I hear that some people can use porn and masturbation occasionally and live comfortably. But not me. I have to rid it of my life completely in order to be at my best. You will get there too. Just keep that right attitude!
