Hey everyone, I've struggled with my porn addiction for many many years, since I first discovered it in elementary school. As of today I watch porn for about 4 hours a day, with there being days where I'm busy and I don't watch any. I have this external drive with over 1TB of porn that I use instead of tube sites and I cannot part with it. I've tried quitting many times, I've been on NoFap over 5 times and I've relapsed after a week or 2. Whenever I tried quitting I actually deleted all the porn on that drive but after I relapse I would rebuild that collection, regretting ever deleting it, this was the cycle that happened whenever I tried quitting. My porn addiction controls me all throughout the day while I'm on my computer I would, do work, play video games, watch shows, doing anything and I'd always have porn on a separate tab and I edge the whole day. Days where I go out are great cuz I don't think about porn and I enjoy myself. but whenever I'm home its PORN PORN PORN and to be completely honest, part of me FUCKING LOVES PORN, and the other part wants to quit and knows what porn does to my brain but its overwhelmed all the time. and I want help.
I think for where you are in your recovery, you need to focus more on building positive habits than necessarily trying to quit porn. What kind of positive habits do you have during the day?
My average routine would be, waking up at 11am, and going on my computer, and spending the day watching shows/stream/youtube videos while playing games with friends. When I'm with on call with my friends I usually have all my porn turned off. 5 times a week I'd go out and do something for the day with people. I'm very social so whenever I am with friends I find that as a positive habit, I also enjoy reading which keeps me from my laptop for an hour or so. I'm looking for a job this summer so when I get that, I'd be out of the house a lot more frequently so that'd be a good start
Okay that's awesome that you're staying social. Very important for recovery. The next thing is to work on adding habits like working out, meditating, or journaling. These things help make us more disciplined, more self-aware, and allow us to deal with urges far better.
Yes, I would echo +Masculinity that you need to build a more engaged lifestyle with added habits. If most of your time is spend on the internet, porn is just too close by. It's like letting an alcoholic walk through the alcohol isle in the supermarket hoping they don't buy any. Because if porn is just one click away for hours a day, it's going to be real hard. Does that make sense to you? As for me, I only use internet about an hour a day and I still slip regularly, lol. There's many cool hobbies you can pick up that don't involve computers. Perhaps you like something with your hands like a craft. Or something to develop yourself like sports or debating clubs or whatever. Volunteer somewhere, do sports, write, study something, etc. It will make it far easier to quit.
That's awesome! You're going to be making huge progress once you start. What can you start doing right now?
I really don't know, I can't really go out with friends often since I don't have any spending money. So until then I guess I could move that external drive away from my laptop, to where its inconvenient and apply to any job I can.
I read an article on YBOP that said a recovered Fapstronaut throwed his flashdrive (I think?) with porn clips into the literal ocean to mark a new step in his recovery. You might want to attempt something drastic like literally throwing it into a body of water or burning it.
My advice: Next moment you feel strong, format that drive, buddy! You saying you can't part with it, to me sounds like the addict part of you who wants to store it for later when you will use it again.
That Drive holds everything. A lot of games, school work, movies, photos, any kind of files that you'd want to save. Along with over a TB of porn tucked away so its not easy to discover. I only have one external drive because incase something happens with my laptop, I'd have all my files backed up on one drive. So i cant just format it, if anything I'd just delete all the porn. Which is difficult to do.
Hi. Why don't you just get rid of all porn in your laptop? What do you mean by saying it's difficult? You mean They can't be easily deleted bacause of software things or because of your will?
My laptop is clean of porn, this makes it so I'd have to grab my external drive to watch it or search shit up. Deleting the porn of my external drive is difficult because of shear will.
Look budy! Before sayin anything, Do you really want to quit this shit? Do you really want to get rid of this kind of life? You exactly know how life is without porn but u still go on doin it ! All you have to do is determining your purpose! Ask Your self this question: Do I really want to quit porno and save my self? Then, first، you have to cut all ways to reach porn ! Delete all things. Every thing that provokes you. from a tiny pic, to all vidoes u got! If you go to Instagram or sthand It ends to porn, then get rid of them... .
Of Course I want to quit, but maybe that route isn't for everybody. What's wrong with taking this slow?
