35 and older accountability, Group 2

i am struggling with this PMO addiction since about 7 years when i realised i had a problem and almost 18 years since i had this ongoing. i am grateful i realised i had a problem as i had horrible thoughts coming to me. i have been through therapy in an out but could not somehow be committed throughout. i have been spending loads of money on this which literally led to me needing to lock my account permanently with no access to those funds. i am from a conservative family which has led to a lot of grief and no help from that side. i am single and have never had a relationship and being conservatively brought up it has ruined me. i have drastically different thoughts then my close family. Dealing with this alone has been really taxing. this has completely also ruined my professional life with me having had no growth in the past 10 years. i have thought about ending it but i cling to a ray of hope that i will get through this. Therapy and my sheer survival instinct helped me at the worst of times. On the positive side i was a voracious reader and trying to get back into it. I love playing video games and watching a lot of niche films. i hope i can succeed this time and recover fully. i can do without this drug. Thanks for welcoming me and i hope we all can help each other get rid of this addiction and become better human beings. this is an industry which completely ruins you as well as supports horrible things like sex trafficking, revenge porn and much more. i am okay being lonely then taking this drug to feel a fleeting sense of pleasure.

 

What if the real war is not with pmo addiction, but with self-doubt and all the fear and anxiety it generates?

 

yes I totally agree. PMO is just a symtom of the of all the anxiety generated by not able to live up to your own ideals and going to PMO to forget the constant starin that you are so much better and can do so many great things if you put in just a little bit of work. PMO gives you momentary pleasure without doing a thing but good and great things in life do not come like that.

 

Thanks for your thoughts, @calmpeaceclean & @persona2903.
Boredom and dissatisfaction are also in the mix as you rightly pointed out. There’s one other element I didn’t mention - sexual greed. In other words, lust. But then, what causes that? Is it simply greed, or is it a combination of all the elements we’ve been talking about? We clearly crave something, and because we feel unfulfilled through pmo then surely it’s something deeper?

 

i feel as humans we need a sense of being loved and feeling part of a group. i have never felt that with my family or currently with the society i live in. So in a perverse way i look to fill that void with PMO.

 

I have had a reset

 

I had a reset today

 

I agree we need to loved, and without that there is a void. I also think we need to make love, ( to unify with and receive love from a woman) and when we don’t experience that then lust makes it’s appearance. I mean, what are we viewing and fantasizing over ? It’s not scenes of people eating lunch in a restaurant. It’s people having sex. Isn’t this what we crave? To make love?

 

Really glad to have you here. Please never give up on yourself. Your life can get better if you work at it.

 

I believe not feeling this in my early years contributed heavily to me escaping and soothing through addiction. Now I use it for any uncomfortable feelings.

 

Back up to 3 days after losing a 13 day streak. There wasn’t an urge to use P and I hope it stays that way. I’ve sort of retreated into myself over the summer due to a rough spring. I hope to find ways to reconnect with folks.

 

I’ve considered strategies like that. I worried that donating money to something helpful would remove the guilt from my actions and that’s why I didn’t ever implement it.

 

yes thats the major pitfall of that. I too use it to get rid of the guilt. It acts as a reminder though for me as there is a real financial impact for me when I looks at my statements. I think it has helped but I fully understand what you say. I will have to think of something new. I tried one very drastic thing which was looking one of my sources permanantly and only accessible after 5 years from now.

 

There is no option of update day counter anywhere

 

Happy Monday everyone. It was a good week all things considered. I managed to stay away from P and M. I also did not try to pressure my wife into activities with me. The amazing thing is that my ability to not ogle people in public is getting stronger and stronger. The other day I accidentally caught myself admiring a checkout girl at a local fast food restaurant. But the weird thing was that it was very confusing. She was probably just barely 19 or 20, and what I saw was the face a human being. Someone, like me, just trying to get by and understand what the hell is going on.

The idea that she might be an object for my pleasure was incredibly fleeting because this idea that she was herself “someone,” and on top of that, someone’s daughter, quickly settled in. This, I have to say, is exactly what I was hoping for with my abstention from P and M. I just don’t want to see young women that way anymore. I want to have control over my urges so that I can contribute to the world just a little bit a gaze of love and compassion rather than use and control over other people. And I’m more and more beginning to believe, based on the benefits of abstaining through a program like this, that letting go of my unnecessary sexual urges is the way to get there. Thanks all.