I've been trying since 2017... Why do I fail?

You're not too different from myself, on the surface. How I can help you is this: The taste of a woman's genuine love is divine beyond speculation in your head. I had the briefest of tastes, and it went from something I merely entertained and thought "wouldn't that be nice" to a genuine goal post, something to pursue. It feels so right. No niggling feeling in the back of your mind that you're doing something wrong- women force you to be present and in the moment almost at all times. That's their spell over men, and it's one worth falling into, because the benefits are enormous. You're stuck with the comfort of knowledge- that you might feel crappy after a wrestle with the jade stalk, but hey, at least you're safe, right?

Wrong. You're being rotted from the inside out. There are no benefits to addiction in this shape. Seek purity. Risk, because all of life is risk.

 

I understand you very well. I am in a similiar age group as you are (24) and I also failed to recover from my porn addiction for over six years at this point. Similiar to yourself, I started recovery in 2016 and till this day, my sucess is rather negligible. For sure I had phases, where I was doing very well and made good progress but I always fell back eventually. Not only did I not recover, I actually made my addiction problems worse and worse in the process as it seems, probably because failing over and over and over again doesn't leave yourself untouched. I does something to you, it crushes your sense of self-respect and your sense of self-control; at least for me it did. In the beginning I felt so incredibly motivated and capable of turning my life around but as relapses piled up, my self-worth diminished immensly. Quite frankly, I absolutely hate(d) myself and everything I did. When I looked in the mirror, I often felt disgusted for who I was. I became even more depressed than I already was before, which by itself made everything even worse as well. It really is a deadly cycle and oftentimes I feel absolutely hopeless. I often feel like I am just not able to do this and I even considered to just stop trying and live with the fact that I am an addict for life. It sounds horrible and it feels horrible.

A few weeks ago though, something happened in my private life, which really made me think long and very deeply about my life, especially my future. During that thought process (which isn't yet finished), I also thought a lot about my addiction of course and what to make of it. One night I was so fed up with all this shit I have to endure on a daily basis, that I wrote a very intense rant for myself. I poured all my anger, my frustration, my disgust with myself, and a lot more into that text. I pretty much wrote down whatever crossed my mind and I put it all on a piece of paper. For a short while, that made me feel a bit relieved. A couple of days later, I re-read what I wrote and I could feel the pain in the words. I knew I couldn't go on like this, I just could not. So, I basically gave myself an ultimatum: Either I get my shit together finally, or I will...well...do something else. I didn't expect much of that excercise but currently I feel better than I did before. I really try to put everything I have into myself right now. I force myself to do the tiniest of things, which would be benefitial and I do feel some tiny, tiny improvements. It's all very slow and also very tedious most of the time, but I try to give this my all. You might have heared about this rule of thumb, that says "try to do 1% better than you did the day before". That's basically my daily motto right now. I know that I am faaaaar away from "good" but for the first time in a long time, I feel like I take myself somewhat serious and actually try to help myself out of this hole. Of course, it's not been that long yet but I feel somewhat confident that I'm gonna fix this, simply because there is no alternative anymore for me. I don't have the time to wait any longer. I must fix this now or never. With that in mind, I am able to push a little further than I usually would. And although I have no reasonable grounds to suspect, that this time will be any different from the hundreds of times I said similiar things before, I kinda feel different about this entire thing. It just feels like my last chance pretty much and that kinda pushes me forward currently.

I don't know if this is at all helpful for you, but maybe you could consider doing a similiar mental excercise for yourself and see where it leads you. In general, I feel like we younger folks, who grew up with modern forms of porn right from the beginning, have it harder somehow. We are at the disadvantage, that we had no chance to develop a personality without the influence of porn and other things. We never had any chance to grow up "normally" without the impact of all this modern shit. That paired with the fact, that a young brain is much more plastic and therefore much more susceptible to all sorts of pathological learning, makes this all so much harder for us in a way I feel.

I can do nothing more than to wish you much strength to fight your (mental) battles, mate. I can really sympathise with you, since I am pretty much in your shoes. But I think we are all capable of turning this around, if we take ourselves serious and consider ourselves worthy of improvement. Best of luck.

 

Watch Hamza's videos about NoFap, and other topics about being a man. It is time for us to change how we view ourselves! You literally do a 180 and want success in all areas of your life so badly that you are willing to die for it. Sitting, and obsessing about not touching your dick is ironically what makes you do it more. Change your self image, and self talk and you should win 75% of the battles. Also stop calling yourself an addict! That self limiting belief system will keep you trapped! I believe in you brother, but you need to start truly believing in yourself!

 

Friends, its never to late. I recognize your feelings and problems. One thing that can break you is that IF you fail, you feel TOO bad about it. My goal is to stay away from it, for sure, but im also trying to be friend with myself IF i fail. Being to mean to yourself can really hurt you.

Even if we started with P* at a young age im sure we can overcome this. Keep motivated and do your best!

 

I think many people who are addicted to watching porn can relate.

Humans are sexual animals . It's on our DNA . If we didn't have porn and you had no girlfriend it would be MO addiction . I think many people are starved .

Most men would have sex at every possible opportunity . That is simply how our body works and the survival of our species again it's in our DNA ..it's more.tha..jist sex though . Your not just starved of sex your starved of intimacy in a relationship. Having someone who actually gives a shit . I wrecking many people are Carrying around traumas and ongoing traumas in life something most people find comfort in from relationships .
Something long-term singletons dont have the luxury of. Many don't even know.they need it . So porn porn porn . There's more going on than just sexual urges

That feedback loop is life . Biology . And one of two options masterbate or have sex. That's it. It never stops not until you are well into your 60/70s probably still horny

 

Everyone's story is different, but I had a similar situation of my first sexual experiences being porn and that being the blueprint for future reference if you like.

There might always be that part of us that links intimacy to screens, but we can largely change most of our sexual habits over time, slow as it may seem.

Sex is one thing, but without meaningful connection it can be just as fleeting a feeling and just as meaningless as a magazine or video. What matters more is the intention and connection along the spectrum of intimacy.

What do I mean by the spectrum you might say? Sex would be on one end, eye contact and a smile the other end, and conversation, flirting, and light touching in between.

My point being you can start connecting with girls today. When you next go out to run an errand, smile at the cutest girl you see. If that's too much, just try making eye contact. It's all about small steps and slowly pushing out of the comfort zone. And you can do this no matter if you relapsed the other day or not. It doesn't matter.

You can ignite this intimate connection at any age. And there's plenty of feminine women out there who are waiting for a decent guy in their life. The best is in front of you my man!

 

Been here since 2015 still haven't gotten over the addiction and also no gf just like you. Wish I could help but can't even help myself

 

Hey guys, I’m not part of your generation, however my first intro to “ sex” was through a pornographic magazine. Even though I still struggle there is a light at the end of the tunnel. What is that light? All the issues I’ve been dealing with (and for the majority of people in our situation, I believe ) are connected with the sacral chakra. If that word puts you off then let’s substitute it with “the prostate gland.”
If you would like more info then just let me know.

 

There is a reason you watch porn, you already analyzed it: emotional pain. This is the root to many addictions. You need to do two things:
Write everything down for yourself, what is it, that causes you this pain, what exactly do you feel, when does it happen?
The second thing is to figure out how to cope with these issues, because right now, you use porn and masturbation as a coping mechanism. You avoid the pain of confronting your emotions by delaying it into the future. You will eventually have to do it, and once you figured those two things out, you have a real chance for a restart, a real restart, a new life.

Edit: Maybe I can help you a little bit here. This is what I found: I was a gifted kid, everything I tried always immediately worked, I always had good grades. My parents were very proud and then this weird concept manifested in my head, that my self worth is linked to my abilities and my intelligence. So every time I failed, I felt worthless. In order not to feel worthless, I stopped doing difficult things. In life, difficult things are sometimes necessary, like college, so instead of learning for this big test that I was afraid of, I watched porn and masturbated, so I was numb enough not to study and numb enough not to feel the pain of anxiety. Went to therapy, got my head fixed, if I fail, I fail, has nothing to do with my worthiness. I can now tackle things, that are difficult, even if I'm scared to fail. I actually plan everything out, with a realistic plan to do, if I fail at something. Cannot repair my car? Call my friend Steve. If we both cannot get it fixed, bring it to a shop. Instead of procrastinating, because I believed that I MUST be able to fix the car.

Keep your head up, youngster, you're way better off than us old dudes with a decade of porn programmed into our heads.