1. Welcome to NoFap! We have disabled new forum accounts from being registered for the time being. In the meantime, you can join our weekly accountability groups.
    Dismiss Notice

Addicted for YEARS, here is my story...

Discussion in 'Porn Addiction' started by justneedtogetbetter, Feb 28, 2016.

  1. justneedtogetbetter

    justneedtogetbetter Fapstronaut

    15
    3
    3
    Always remember, the first step to recovery from anything is admitting you have a problem, I have done this for 2 things in here (the 3rd is smoking but whatever).

    If anyone feels like private messaging me with tips/their own experiences feel free if you don't want to explain it all in a post



    First off, hello everyone, I found out about this site after a TV show called Dark Net. What a show it was.

    Anyways, I've kind of always known that I had an issue with my porn usage for quite awhile. So knowing that I HAVE a problem, I am not going to go around to family/friends and announce that LOL.


    Anyways, I am 30 years old, been watching for 14+ years. I also have developed a gambling addiction in the past several months.

    So basically, my wife and I separated, I hardly drink, but when I found that out (and it came out of nowhere) that she was leaving me for someone else, I moved out, was drinking HEAVILY every night after work, then I would get depressed even more, gamble, lose $100-$200 then resort to porn to feel some type of positive feeling. Clearly this is not what was happening as it still made everything worse.


    Depression I have been dealing with on and off for 5+ years, now, I'm not really in the same spot depression wise as I was back then, to which I must state that my depression is NOT nearly as bad as it used to be nor is it related to this addiction either.


    Anyways, the porn use has taken a serious toll on any physical relationships that I have had, which isn't many, when I say taken a serious toll, I don't view women as objects in any way nor do I treat women as objects, I love women, however for me, it's taken away so much feeling, made vanilla sex not exciting/boring and all that stuff. My wife at the time never did know about it either. Current girlfriend that I left for my own reasons also didn't know. I do have a collection and still have it and don't want to delete it. I don't know if I HAVE to delete it, because to be honest I don't see any problem with using it once in awhile, but I am on a daily basis as of right now.

    So what kind of porn do I watch?

    Vanilla/Softcore does absolutely nothing for me

    I'm on the more extreme/hardcore side. I don't like BDSM/Torture, if anyone here is familiar with evilangel, a lot of their stuff is basically what I'm in to which for those of you who are familiar know that it's on the edgier side of the spectrum.

    One breakthrough for me in all of this, I don't use until after work cause it makes me too tired at work hahaha, I lost $400 today gambling and finally said to myself "You have a problem, fix it before it's too late and you're in huge debt!!!" So what did I do? I closed my account entirely, it's gone, my fathers account I am going to make him change the password when he get's back from his vacation (I've locked his account so I can't even play on it either way). So so far, 2 small breakthroughs but we gotta start somewhere right (the debt I am in from gambling is $600, I'll have it paid off in 1.5 months or less, I'm not worried about it at all to be honest), lastly, I'm 'vaping' now instead of smoking, on day 5 and feel good, setup my bank to put $10 every day into my savings, ridiculous how much it adds up to over a year!. I'm sure there's alot more to my story than what I mentioned here.


    But anyways, hopefully I can break the habit, do I want to completely stop? no, I still feel like we all need some form of release regardless, but I want it to get down to like once a week if that. Is that OK or do you all believe it needs to be cut off entirely?
     
  2. Buzz Lightyear

    Buzz Lightyear Fapstronaut

    2,690
    2,878
    143
    Hi justneedtogetbetter, you're asking a question that I think you kind of already know the answer to. You know quitting P is going to bring you short term pain, which is why you waver. But keep in mind it will bring you long term pleasure... and joy... and peace... and happiness... etc. Kind of like the opposite of P right. ;)
     
    Last edited: Feb 28, 2016
  3. justneedtogetbetter

    justneedtogetbetter Fapstronaut

    15
    3
    3
    I understand what you're saying, however going from 5-6+ years of every 1-2 days of indulgence to nothing is bound to make someone go insane hahaha

    Is there no 'weening off' phase? I mean crap, I've gone 5 days without a smoke, just vaping and the first 4 days were absolute hell. But I think I'm over it now and am good with just vaping which I plan to quit within a year.
     
  4. Francesco

    Francesco Fapstronaut

    58
    43
    18
    I think that you should not underestimate the issue. Porn, for people like us, is not a bad habit. Is an addiction, and as such is something extremely hard to remove. It may seems counterintuitive, but reducing the masturbation frequency is possibly harder than quitting for a number of months.

    Since you are a new user (welcome by the way) I don't know if you are already familiar with some basic notions about what's happening in an addict's brain. This is a good place to start http://yourbrainonporn.com/
    I was like you, regular vanilla porn became less and less interesting after 9+ years of addiction. I turned to more extreme content in order to get my daily fix.

    You are currently dealing with more than one addiction at the same time. This can be harder than for most other people, like me, who are just trying to quit with porn. It will require some huge self-discipline from you.

    I still suggest you to try quitting for a limited time. If 90 days seems excessive to you, try 30 days or just one week. You should notice something (anything) as you give yourself some rest from pornography. And DELETE your porn collection. You really don't need it. I know the feeling, I deleted over 250 GB of porn. It seemed so necessary to me, but after almost two months of reboot I finally realized how much of a wasted storage space it was.
     
    Buzz Lightyear likes this.
  5. justneedtogetbetter

    justneedtogetbetter Fapstronaut

    15
    3
    3
    I see you've stated you deleted 250GB of material. If I wasn't so lazy and tired at this moment I'd show you me deleting almost a full terabyte of the stuff. It's just been collecting for so long hahah.

    As for multiple addictions, the gambling account I had online (which was recently allowed by our government) I had I completely closed. Literally, it's gone, I am not allowed to re open an account EVER again under any circumstances. That was my one addiction that although might have seemed hard, on break at work I was calculating how much I money I gambled away in a month ($600-$700), multiplied that by 12 then by 5 to see what I was spending over 5 years... I turned off the phone screen after that and felt like I was going to pass out. I have now set my bank to $100/week to be realistic and won't touch that money for 5-6 years, when that time is up, that's a whole new car paid for in cash!. Now, gambling as a whole, I don't have a problem, I don't get an urge to go to any real casino really if ever, ONCE IN AWHILE is fine for that, I go in with what I know I can allow myself to lose and if I lose (which is the most likely outcome obviously) I leave. I have never once gone to the ATM to take out more $ to gamble. The problem with the online version is that I could be bored on my PC and be like "Hey, what's $100 I'll just try it out". Now that I can't do that it is like a huge weight has been taken off of my shoulders especially because they won't allow me to open an account again. That said, the GOOD thing is that I am not in huge debt to anyone because of it. But it was closely tied to the addiction I face for what I am here for. Lose, watch P, be depressed and go to bed, not in any particular order. The other + of beating that addiction (because I haven't had any second thoughts about cancelling/blocking access to that account) was that I do NOT trust random online sites at all, only the government run was what I trusted (and yes I have won several $1000 over time, but probably lost the same amount in the end, I kept track of my wins/losses and I'm down like $800 overall which is not bad at all over a years time)


    Here is a question for you, when you say do a 30 day or 90 day challenge, do you mean do 30 days then keep going, but if you fail it's ok and just start again?

    One question as well, I mean we all know it's an addiction, we're here for a reason. Personally though, and I hope at least one woman reads this, is that I do NOT objectify women, hell I don't even go to strip clubs. I fully respect women however I do NOT see pornographic material as an evil. I personally view it as entertainment or something for experimenting couples. We all have our own needs/wants when it comes to sex, however for some of us (all of us here) it becomes a constant want and it becomes a problem and causes issues in other areas, I have reached that stage, and do need help. I would LOVE to be able to just right click my one hard drive, click format and OK however like I stated, I don't see it being a problem if it's a very limited thing, right now I am an every day user and it's not that I DON'T want to stop it, I absolutely NEED to stop it, so deleting it seems like my only option. In fact, for now, I am not formatting the hard drive, I am going to disconnect it from my PC (it's internal) and give it to my friend who knows nothing about PCs and tell him keep this and don't give it back to me. I will use it as a reminder of what I am gaining out of all of this instead of just deleting it all and potentially redownloading everything. Does this seem like an OK idea?
     
  6. justneedtogetbetter

    justneedtogetbetter Fapstronaut

    15
    3
    3
    Update: failed day 1 unfortunately (I'm sure I'm not the first person to do that but I have no shame in admitting it). I was doing so well, one problem is that I get off work late at night and there's nothing to do afterwards. However, I have just not disconnected that hard drive (I didn't delete everything) and put it in my car under the trunks floor, if heat/cold doesn't destroy it overtime, it will still be a reminder about my fight in this addiction.
     
  7. shallowest

    shallowest Fapstronaut

    71
    31
    18
    What I did was I backed up my porn to a backup harddrive and told a friend to look after it without telling him what was inside. That way you can theoretically go back but not without some effort. I'd put a porn blocker on your computer. Let me know if K9 doesn't work, its free, thorough, and it can block sites explicitly listed by you whether they're porn or not. For your cell phone(and you will go to your cell phone once your cpu ceases to be an easy option) install either K9, or if that doesn't work, install Kid's Place, where you can ban all but a few apps and give your friend the password. I hope this helps. It'll take probably two or three weeks before your urges start settling to a more manageable place, but please go as long as possible each time without looking at porn or masturbating. Also keep a calendar, where each day says whether you jerked it or not, and how many times if you did. It helps reinforce you.
     
  8. Rav70

    Rav70 Fapstronaut

    991
    938
    93
    Delete your stash stop making excuses. What positive has porn brought to your life? Helped destroy some relationships. Well that's not positive.
    As a woman and partner to a recovering addict I'm not surprised you failed on day 1 at all.
    Your first post talks of you wanting to save your stash so you can jerk off once a week. That doesn't sound like someone committed to recovery.
    You can read stories of addicts who quit porn for extended periods of time to try it once then end up on a 5 day binge.
    I challenge you to focus on thinking that porn will never have a place in your life again. Heal your body and your mind. Perhaps you can have a meaningful and loving relationship with a good woman for the distance.
     
    Last edited: Feb 29, 2016
  9. Rav70

    Rav70 Fapstronaut

    991
    938
    93
    Vanilla sex does nothing for you because of porn.
    My bf was into cross dressing, she male porn talking to guys on Craigslist before we met.
    Once we started dating he cut out the cross dressing but didn't give up talking to people or porn. Our love making consisted of him exhausting us both because of DE.
    90 days no PMO and no MO what so ever he's enjoying vanilla sex. Saturday night dinner, backrub with a happy ending and snuggling afterwards to a movie then sleeping peacefully in bed with me. Nice!
    Compare that to sitting alone watching porn and shoving a dildo up his butt then wondering WTF has his life come to and being alone, anxious and depressed...
    Porn is rubbish. You don't need it in your life. Period.
     
  10. justneedtogetbetter

    justneedtogetbetter Fapstronaut

    15
    3
    3

    Thanks, theoretically I could use my phone for it but I refuse and haven't viewed porn on my phone for over a year so I think I'm good in that sense, as for the PC software I doubt I'll need it, if any video/movie is not 1080P or glorious 4K I won't bother watching so no worries there.

    Today is a new day, I feel good and ready to make the change.

    What I forgot to mention is I did something extreme, hear me out, that hard drive that I put in my car is encrypted, meaning it needs a password, I basically put random numbers and letters then deleted the file that unlocks it in case you forget the password. In English that means yes the porn is all there but it won't be possible to get into it, cause I'm not sure what I typed for the password. I chose this route cause again it's a reminder and second, if I deleted it that means I'd have space to restart the addiction, each hard drive in my PC is for specific things only and I don't mix them up
     
    shallowest likes this.
  11. Rav70

    Rav70 Fapstronaut

    991
    938
    93
    Why don't you delete it or burn it. I don't understand your reasoning.
     
  12. Francesco

    Francesco Fapstronaut

    58
    43
    18
    Yes, basically. But I want to insist on one point: the challenge is not about abstinence. It is about recovery. You can stay away from porn for as much as you can, but if you want to stick to your habit and remain a regular user I see no point in starting. Besides, your use of words like "entertainment" suggests me that you probably wish to control the addiction, not to remove it. Do you feel any regret about quitting for good? Your attachment to your porn stash could be considered an answer?

    Amen. Don't try this at home, people. Binge is likely followed by long term relapse.
     
  13. justneedtogetbetter

    justneedtogetbetter Fapstronaut

    15
    3
    3
    We all do things differently. But in the end as it stands is the hard drive is completely inaccessible, it's encrypted with a random password I don't know, I'm keeping it that way as a reminder and not something to try and find the password out because it won't happen
     
  14. rimsky

    rimsky Fapstronaut

    7
    10
    3
    Good luck - quite a few (if not all) of us will have been down the route of attempting to control and/or reduce our use of porn to an "acceptable" level. I certainly have, and repeatedly failed. Maybe it works for a very few, but for most it won't. It's like giving up smoking but still having the odd cigarette. The basic thing to accept is that you are an addict, and porn, and the excuses it produces, is the same kind of thing an alcoholic or a drug addict experiences. It may seem harsh to have to accept that the "wonderful world of porn" is forever lost to you, but it isn't that wonderful and that's the way it is. It may not seem entirely fair, either, but an alcoholic must feel a bit miffed when they watch other people enjoying a sociable drink. The ones who succeed come to realise that the only way is not using at all, and that the world beyond is, in fact, a better, brighter, happier place.
     
  15. justneedtogetbetter

    justneedtogetbetter Fapstronaut

    15
    3
    3
    Well I've completed day 1, just waking up to day 2. Best part is is that I've had 0 desire in 3 days to gamble, which is good cause I thought I'd be tempted at least. Smoking I think is day 7 without a cigarette now.


    Here's a question, how is MO without P a really bad thing if that is once in awhile? I mean it's natural to do that even without P. I'm not trying to make excuses I'm legitimately asking.
     
  16. Francesco

    Francesco Fapstronaut

    58
    43
    18
    Masturbation is a normal aspect of human sexuality. It is not bad at all - until you use it as an escape mechanism. IMHO healthy autoerotism is occasional and not intended as a way to deal with frustration. Still better to avoid any form of sexual release during reboot, though. This has to be true especially in the beginning, when the idea of masturbation/ejaculation is still closely related to pornography use.
     
    Rav70 likes this.
  17. justneedtogetbetter

    justneedtogetbetter Fapstronaut

    15
    3
    3
    Alright thanks for clarifying that
     
  18. rimsky

    rimsky Fapstronaut

    7
    10
    3
    All I can say is that P is something I've been actively trying, and failing, to give up for years. Keeping a log, watching out for danger signals, finding other activities, etc. But MO wasn't something I was prepared to give up. It never worked. The Nofap idea that 90 days without MO or porn did feel a bit weird to me, as I don't think I've ever abstained for that sort of period, but it kind of makes sense. The problem with MO being that, inevitably as a porn addict, your erotic fantasies are likely to be keyed toward some of the porn images you looked at. So, instead of really turning your back on porn, you're really just reminding yourself about it. I've heard it said that you should should just try to avoid porn-ish fantasies, but that didn't work for me, either. I'd like to think that, once the clock is reset, MO will be a safe and pleasant release. Like you I'm hoping and waiting to see!
     
  19. justneedtogetbetter

    justneedtogetbetter Fapstronaut

    15
    3
    3
    Day 2 failed, had a long day but my biggest hardship is I work late into the night so when I get home there's not much to do. The reason I'm keeping that hard drive even though not accessible is for the reason that if I do beat this, and I will, is that I can remind myself about the dangers and the problems it has caused me. If that doesn't make sense to anyone then so be it, because it does to me. I'm restarting now on day 1, and am telling myself that I'm gonna wake up in a good mood, have a good day at work, come home, make something to eat then take a sleeping pill so I go right to bed.

     
  20. shallowest

    shallowest Fapstronaut

    71
    31
    18

Share This Page