Introduction

There's only one way from now on dude, and it's upward. You can man

 

Welcome to NoFap where you are amongst friends who are here to encourage you and not judge you.

 

What are your current strategies for combating the enemy called PMO?

 

First off, welcome to the forum! It's important to know that you are NOT alone in these struggles. You are now among safe and caring people that get what you are dealing with.

Second, porn and sex addiction, in my opinion, are really all about intimacy disorders. We are all wired for intimacy and connection with other people. Studies have been done showing how babies need that and human contact to survive. The problem comes when we don't get enough of that in our childhood, or it's not modeled for us how to go about getting that intimacy and connection or perhaps there is trauma and wounding that has caused us to feel like people aren't safe enough to fulfill that need we have. Enter P and M and in our case other people that we act out sexually with and use to get that O high. Now we have a quick fix coping mechanism of trying to fill that need ourselves. It feels safer than risking being vulnerable with another person. We can get that fix anytime we want and on our terms. That doesn't change the fact that if we try to numb the pain of our past with porn, sex, work, alcohol or drugs and do that enough that we can become addicted to acting out in those unhealthy ways.

Sex addiction and porn addiction many times though have their roots and got their starts as a result of unhealed underlying issues, concerns or trauma from the past. In my life, porn use was a symptom of the underlying issue of lack of intimacy/connection and not being shown how to get that with other people that lead to addiction as a result of my dealing with that issue in healthy appropriate ways. The key to breaking the addiction for me was to figure out what the underlying things were that needed to be addressed in more appropriate and healthy ways so that I could learn to not turn to porn numb out as I had done for almost 35 years. Once I was able to dig down to the root causes and work at healing those wounds from my past (with the help of a great counselor), than I could break the cycle and as a result I naturally had less of a desire for P and M because I was getting those needs met in appropriate ways through healthy connections with other people and building intimacy with those people.

If you are truly wanting to recover and be more healthy as a person, don't lose sight of the fact that there are probably old wounds that need to be identified and you'll need to work at healing in order for the PMO and using your b/f as a sex toy to stop being used as a self medicating or coping mechanism. I like to use this analogy, if you get a cold, you'll have the symptoms of a runny nose and cough. Focusing all your efforts on what kinds of tissues to buy or which cough drops you need misses the mark. While that can help with the symptoms to some degree, you need to get at healing the underlying cold and then the nose will stop running and the sore throat will go away.

Great article on the basics of sex addiction and how there are underlying and root issues that we sexualize and put porn and masturbation on top of to try to address which can lead to addiction and host of other problems from the addiction: http://www.mymensgroup.net/uploads/7/8/1/1/78111116/sex_addiction_-_the_basics.pdf

I you find this helpful. Please reach out to me if you have any questions!

 

Check out In Case You Didn't Know for strategies and tips to help you along your journey.

 

hello, i congratulate to you for to be brave and decide to change, and i recommend to you one page in internet it name is: (la opcion V)is in spanish . where you can find very god articles about the process for control oneself, good luck.

 

I'll have to respectfully disagree with you on that point. I had no idea what it was from my past and childhood that had wounded me and lead me down a path of trying to cope and medicate pain by using PMO. It took the work of a counselor to help me process through that and figure that out. Perhaps for some they are able to intrinsically realize and know that. My experience as been though that it doesn't work that way. For me and the many other addicts that I have close personal relationships with (I lead a weekly men's support and accountability group) understanding the roots of our problems didn't come easy and working to heal those wounds from our past was the solution and is the key to our recovery. Until we heal the wounds of our past they will just continue to bleed. We can bandage them with sex, food, drugs, alcohol, PMO, etc. but eventually it will all ooze through and stain our lives. We have to find the strength to open up the wounds, stick our hands inside and pull out the core of that pain that is holding us in the past and make peace with them. That then allows the wound to stop festering and finally begin to heal.

I know strong motivation and willpower are a great thing to jump start the recovery journey, and as you said are important to the exit. However, they will only get you so far. They can start you on the that path, but quickly after then the addict needs to recognize that they can't do it on their own and need the help and support of others to carry them in times of weakness and in times when the motivation is lacking all the while working to heal the wounds of the past. I can tell you from my experience with many other addicts in recovery, we all experience those times where we don't have the willpower or motivation we'd want and are struggling to not give in to the temptation. It's in those times that you need more than just motivation. You need a support network to help you and to lean on. Lone Rangers don't typically survive in recovery.

 

My experience is that sex and PMO addiction is really an intimacy disorder and it all relates to meeting our emotional needs in unhealthy ways using sex and PMO. For me, what I learned from my childhood is that I have a need to be validated and that when I feel rejection I tend to turn to PMO. Through counseling I realized that in my childhood I didn't feel validated by my parents and when I felt rejection from them, from friends, siblings, etc. I learned to self-medicate with PMO and after years of using those coping mechanisms instead of reaching out to others for healthy connection and intimacy it became an addiction.

I agree that digging into the wounds most definitely won't automatically heal them. I believe it will do more harm then good if it's not done the right way or with the help of a trained professional. I've found that typically things also get worse before they get better. As you dig into the pain from the past and reopen the wounds you feel that pain more intensely and that increases the temptation to act out. But that is a necessary part of getting to the healing. You have to reopen the wound to allow it to heal. But then with the help of trained counselor that specializes in sex and PMO addictions you can begin to see where you used sex and PMO to try to numb that pain in childhood and recognize similar situations in the present as an adult and begin to change to healthy responses to similar pain. As an adult when I experience the pain of rejection or am not feeling validated, just like from childhood I tend to want to self-soothe in those situation. But now I've worked at that and can change from old addictive ways of responding to those difficult feelings or times of not having our emotional needs met and instead I've learned to reach out to others in healthy ways to help meet our needs. When I'm feeling wounded, lonely, rejected, etc. I now use my support network to help counteract those feelings. I can get my emotional needs met through healthy connection and intimacy and relying on other safe individuals instead of taking matter into my own hands.