My Story

Hi, I'm a 22 year old male, and I have been trying to go cold turkey from porn since February 2020. Before that I was just trying to limit my usage (for maybe 2 years I think), but after a getting into my religion again (I'm Muslim) and reading up on this more, I now recognize this as an addiction and not a habit and am more determined to stop this.

As for my story in regards to porn, I think I started watching "normal" porn maybe around grade 7-8, but I was searching for and watching sexual material like YouTube videos, Bollywood dance sequences, celebrity pics, fan-fiction material, furry's and cartoons (embarrassing I know) even before that. To be honest, I think I was born a somewhat horny kid. I say this because when I did get into porn I jumped around to genres (like the aforementioned ones) VERY quickly. I don't think this was a desensitization thing and more curiosity from being horny; desensitization came latter.

Unfortunately, the more I look back, the more I realize I looked into horrible genres from such an early age. Everyone seems to have one area of porn they get heavily addicted to, and for me that was incest. I was always an anxious kid and I think it was my clutch.

A large reason why I wanted to quit was because my tastes were becoming worse and worse, and around this point I felt TRULY dirty for indulging in them (like PHYSICALLY dirty). I realized it was time to stop. I tried cutting down only because I didn't know what to do. Only latter did I find nofap and started to understand that it wasn't a habit but an addition.

I'm not just writing this to introduce myself and my experience with porn though, I'm writing this to maybe give someone else who had been in a situation close to mine hope. I thought I was some damned thing when I was younger. I thought God had abandoned me. Now I know that I'm not alone, that I never asked to be addicted to this nonsense. I even made it to 90 days, but have since then fallen three times, all due to fear; first from work/uni related fears, second and third from fear of what I had become/watched, if that makes sense. Again, I'm an anxious kid, so I get overtaken by stress and worry a lot.

Below are some tips and reading material that helped me make progress:
-Meditation. Any number is fine, I usually go 5 minutes every morning
-Exercise. Hard to do in these trying times, but push-ups and abdominal crunches in my basement I can still do
-Getting more sunlight and fresh air. Getting out of the house generally helps
-Be thankful for what you have
-Realizing that porn has unfortunately become a normal process today and it does not make you a cursed or lesser person. Remember, when you started you never asked to become like this
-Having more fixed wake up/sleeping times. Having more of a routine gives order and sense of purpose
-If anxiety is a trigger, remind yourself that everything passes soon enough. Before I used to think that porn relived by anxiety, but now I realize that it was because I was just doing something stimulation enough to take my mind off my worries. So now I make it an aim to lock my phone down (I use the "Lock my Phone" app) and just do something else.
-Your Brain On Porn is good reading material
-But for reading I REALLY recommend "The SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION Way to Stop Pornography" (available for free online). This was the book that helped me get to 90 days, to help me come to terms that I was addicted, and that was OK and nothing to be shamed of, and that escalating genres to more and more worse material is part of the trap.

Hopefully I can become more involved in this community. I might start a journal, but since I have a physical one I'm not sure how much I can do

 

Thank you all for the warm welcome.

 

Just coming back and mentioning that I am a free man now. The book I used for freedom is called The SPAM REMOVED (spam code #001) - REPORT TO MODERATION method for PMO (you'll need to Google it as a bug on NoFap doesn't parse the link properly).

Just remember, what you are is nothing more than an addict, and in this world of internet porn, its sadly very easy to become addicted, very easy to desensitize and find new material, and very easy to search for taboo stuff. Too easy, I tell you

 

Best of luck man, I'm rooting for you!