How I understood my addiction

Hello everyone! I think this will be my first long post but I found some insight into my addiction(PMO addiction) that was astonishing to me and thought I would share it with you too. I'm not cured yet but I post in Success stories because I think it's a wonderful victory.

So, I asked myself a lot lately(in the last 3 years) "Why am I addicted to PMO?" because let's face it, I am, no doubt in here. I'm a 19 years old guy, started to M at about 13 and used to do it every day, maybe 2, 3 times/day without actually realizing what I was doing but it felt good, it was among the few things that made me happy(even if it was only for a few seconds) and here I am 6 years later still trying to beat this "monster" inside me. Have you ever asked yourself "Why?" do you P/M/O? Are you addicted?

I recently got a book for my 19th birthday from my best friend called "Never good enough" by Carol Cannon. I put it in my stack of "to read" books and I picked it up 2 days ago and found my "Why?". The book mostly speaks about addictions. How our circumstances lead us to being addicts to drinking alcohol, smoking, drugs, work, sex(even PMO), etc. A phrase that caught my attention says that addictions are present in our society to ease the pain of an improper developed self(this is translated from Romanian by me but I think you get the idea). I started masturbating at the somehow early age of 13(some would say it's not early) and used to do it because I truly felt ease in it. I didn't know back then what it was but it felt good temporarily and it suited me.

Okay, but you may ask yourself "So where's your 'why?' after all?". Well you see, the book talks a lot about how our environment actually pushes us to trying to ease our situation so we become addicted to various chemical substances or habits, anything that distracts us from the painful reality of our life. My problem? Well, my parents are addicted to working, making money and saving them. They work until exhausted to make money and save them "for the future" although we don't have that many because I live in Romania and we get payed like 300$ per month. Because of their addiction to this, I was neglected as I child. They always came home tired from work, no time to play with me, most of the time when they were home I needed to be quiet so they could sleep, showing affection was something weird in my family from as long as I know. I never saw my parents hug or kiss, everything was just like a business deal or something. I'm not trying to victimize myslef or find excuses here, all these patterns are found in parents and lead their children to addiction and are discussed in the book.

Because of all these factors I can literally feel my soul craving for affection, for love, for people spending time with me. I value a lot the people that do spend time with me and really appreciate meaningful talks because my parents never did offer me time and affection so I started looking for it in other sources. Masturbation was my first distraction. It flooded my brain with all these chemicals that finally made me feel better(even if it was temporary). Later I started talking to girls. Can you guess what happened? I fell in love with every girl that spent her time chatting on facebook or whatsapp or any other way with me but not in face-to-face encounters because I didn't met girls face-to-face, girls are a blurry, shady subject for me until now too because I don't really know how to approach them, I have no clue about showing affection and am scared of deciding to express feelings. I did it a few times but it wasn't mutual so I just got burnt.

Here I stand now, after 19 years of life and 6 of masturbating finally getting a glimpse on my addiction. My counter reads 6 days and 8 hours of being fapfree at the moment and I'm more decided than ever to finally free myself. If I truly understood it, I'm like half cured, right? I don't really know, my urges are back and I'm fighting them(can't sleep at the moment and it's 4AM), my brain wants it's chemicals again.

A lot of things "help" me ease the pain like music(dubstep or trap), gaming, spending meaningful time with friends(I really don't feel like Ming when I have people around me) but it eventually all comes back to Ming when I feel alone, it eases my pain but only for a little while(after that is like the pain comes back even stronger).

In the end I want to say that I'll keep fighting with it, I'll keep reading the book, understanding my addiction and in a little while I'll be clean. Thanks for reading and good luck with your NoFap journey.

PS: I highly recommend the book, it really caught my full attention!!!

 

Yeah, exactly. It's a really nice feeling when you are needed. How old are you?

 

They pressured me a lot to do well in middle school and most of the high school.. I always needed to be the first in my class, get the best grades and whenever someone would get a better grade than I did I would get some punishment like no internet for x days or not being allowed to go out of the house... Maybe it has something to do with our issue too, never though about it like that