Quitting not because of a new-year resolution, but a decade-old struggle

I feel I’m jinxing myself by posting this on Jan 1, but I made the decision before, and this is not a new year resolution for me.

It has been almost 16 years since I began watching porn. I must be nearing my 50th attempt to quit at this point. I have read every major book out there on quitting multiple times. I’ve tried the “not complete abstinence route”; rather, just reading stories, using my imagination, and touch as ways to replace the old habit. However, all of it has led me back to porn.

Although I have always failed to quit permanently, every failure taught me a lesson. Every failure frustrated me to the point that it pushed me to learn more about the cause of behavioral addictions and the science behind them. But I'm at a point that breaking my streak is not teaching me anything, except highlighting my dependence.

Porn has not to single handily ruined my life. I have many issues, from childhood trauma to living a stressful life environment which I can’t change for the foreseeable future. However, it changed from a way for me to cope with stressful situations to a prime behavioral addiction and the only constant in my life. Over the years, I suffered both physical and psychological impacts from it. However, for some reason, I became aware of it fully only in the past several years. On the top of the normal issues, after-effects of quitting have become just too much for me as well. What has become more painful is the withdrawal effect. Every time I quit, the withdrawal effects get stronger and stronger (can’t sleep, agitated 24/7, depressed for a long long time). So I’m at a point where I need to quit for good. Otherwise, I don’t know how much physically I can tolerate quitting.

I’m giving this another shot, but this time I want to share my experience along the process to see if this can push me past the 17-day mark, which has been my all-time record. Fingers crossed.

 

Appreciate the advice! All of them were at one point. The latter three were much less so in the past year. I made the change to be more active consistently, eat healthier, and spend significantly less time in front of the screen. The results have been great and I certainly have less triggers compare to a year ago. However, my struggle with loneliness and anxiety still is as strong. But I'm doing my best through multiple resources to address those as well.