ok let's do this

I've tried so many times to quit porn and it never lasted. Luckily I heard about you all on NPR awhile ago, then I started a new effort to quit, started running into difficulties and finally visited your website...

wow!

Thank you Mr. Rhodes and everyone here! I love the panic button - so much inspiration already. I love the "Porn Addiction 101" page - FINALLY an explanation that makes sense and which my intellect can fully support.

For me the hardest thing has always been "I decide to stop, but when it gets really hard, I lose interest in the struggle." Persisting the willpower to stop through the difficult times is not something I've achieved lastingly yet. Maybe now that there's NoFap, and I've finally joined a community, and not just doing this alone or with a counselor I infrequently see, this will work.

Looking forward to receiving help and giving back in kind with all you wonderfully honest and courageous people.

Ganbatte! (Japanese for "do your best!")

:-D

 

Now that my feet are wet, giving some others what is hopefully some helpful encouragement, here is a little more info about me and my situation:

I'm almost 40, married, working, just starting to raise a family, and been struggling mightily with porn addiction since I was 12 or so. Very computer savvy, got into porn on the old dial-up BBS's, before the internet had images on web pages.

I just recently decided to start a 21 day effort without porn or masturbation. The intent is for this to be a stepping stone to cutting out porn for good. The motivation this time was that I was completely sickened by how much further my fantasies had escalated since the last time I tried to stop. I normally consider myself a good, compassionate, respectful person, and my public behavior bears this out. But behind closed doors with the vast internet's darkest corners a few clicks away - Jekyl & Hyde is actually a rather tame comparison.

I have gone back and forth hundreds of times - is porn ok as long as I control my use of it, or is it something I and those around me are better off if I have nothing to do with it?

Pretty sure I have finally reached the point where there is only ONE acceptable answer: My use of porn MUST stop, period.

I hope that, here, I will finally learn how to make that decades-old goal a reality.

Today I had many temptations to give up on the 21 day effort already, and I have overcome it by joining NoFap and reading and posting. Thank you all so much for this opportunity.

Respectfully Yours,
LuxSublima

(the meaning for my moniker is intended to be "Sublimated Light", and not the literal Latin translation - and "sublimate" is intended in the psychological sense of "raising expression of libido to higher forms of expression")

 

Thank you! I too have already experienced the immediate counter-urge effect of using this site. I am so grateful to be here.

 

so now I'm about to go to bed, and go head-to-head with a core problem: an immense sense of dissatisfaction. very often strikes before bed, or before any other event where I know I'm going to have to do a lot of work I'm not looking forward to. It's like a balance that feels titled all the way to one side - why do I put in so much effort for things that ultimately leave me so dissatisfied?

so this time I'm committing to you, whoever you are that reads this, that I won't use this feeling as an excuse to relapse tonight. Cya tomorrow.

 

last night's commitment was upheld. Today has been easy until just now. Now having a hard time with temptations. Working late, alone, on the weekend, not sure how long I will have to stay, but its one of those things where I kinda dropped the ball and a lot of people will be negatively impacted if I don't get this done now. This doesn't happen too often, but is pretty hard when it does.

does anyone else have the problem where, awhile after setting the parameters for what they're avoiding, their mind goes into hyperdrive looking for any possible loophole?