A month without porn. God, help me do it!

Hi guys!

I'm a masturbation addict. I think I was born that way. Teenage body exploration continued into adulthood. Increasingly sophisticated in ways to pleasure myself. I wanted to give examples of the horror and obscenity of masturbation here, but decided not to. Maybe later, or not in this place. After many years of masturbation, I was introduced to sex-enhancing drugs. After that I fell into a much more serious sensation trap, which I am still trying to get out of and which is killing me physically and spiritually. I haven't used drugs for over half a year, but I can't avoid porn for more than four days. The porn I've watched on drugs has a much more profound effect on the psyche than regular porn. My fear, based on my experience, is that I will start using drugs again if I don't stop watching porn. If that happens, I'm definitely not alive. That worries me.

Nevertheless, I'm here and I haven't given up hope of stopping, of coming to my senses, of returning to my normal state. To be honest, I don't believe I'll be able to abstain from porn for long. I just haven't had that experience in the last ten years. I don't think it's realistic. Like in the movie Inception, when Cobb, who is stuck in a dream, is visited by his buddy and told that he is in a dream and that he has come to get him out. I feel similarly: all this fornication, the pursuit of sensual pleasures takes me into some other, unreal reality. But I will try to refrain and keep a diary here. I hope for your support, guys. I could really use it. I don't want to apologize in advance for a breakdown if it happens. I'm gonna set myself up to win.

So, I declare to myself and all of you that I will abstain from watching pornography and everything that goes with it, as well as masturbation and everything that goes with it for one month. Wish me luck and the courage to keep my word.

I will try to keep a diary here of what I encounter on the road to normality. I will do a summary of my journey on 4 August.

 

Yesterday, after another masturbation to porn, I ended up coming on here and vowed to put it on hold for at least a month. So yesterday was day zero.

Day 0
A few after the fact. Images came flooding in with the memory of the porn video. Feeling arousal coming on. Trying not to develop these thoughts. I think of how I find myself inside the video, and then the fantasy sets in. I also try to ignore it.

In addition to the promise here, I also mentally try to stand before God and make that promise to Him. Not swearing, because Jesus said not to swear, but promising strongly. I said to myself afterwards - Let's see how strong my faith in God is. To what extent I can keep my word. God created the heavens and the earth by His word, can I made in His image and likeness by my word for 30 days without a wank?!

A study project, whose deadline is tight, I did not do. Instead, I spent the rest of the day on YouTube. I watched a confession from a drug addict/prostitute, some other drug addict, a transgender girl who was being mocked on all sides about her sexuality, some other similar videos. Watched it all night last night. Turned off the computer at nine o'clock this morning. Now it's lunchtime. I know that sitting idly in front of the computer can and will lead to sinful thoughts. How many times have I had that kind of breakdown over porn - I watch some crap, then at the end I watch porn, jerk off, and that's it - I'm not interested any more. It was as if I was hypnotized by this idle state on purpose, so that in one moment I could miss the thought of sin, let it in, and get carried away by it.

I need to watch less YouTube to preserve my purity.

 

Everything except rock 'n' roll. Thanks, I'll try keeping a diary, yes. I hope I have enough to do a daily report. Did you have 52 days as of yesterday? If so, my respect to you. Maybe 52 days isn't much for life, but for a clean life without porn, for me, it's a significant amount of time.

About the NA alternative, thanks. I'll have to see if there's a Russian-speaking community among them, if not, I'll have a problem because of the language barrier at the moment. I went to NA for a long time, tried to adopt their program, saw how many people do it, my city has a large NA community with many different interest companies within it. It's great, but I couldn't stay clean from drugs with them, unfortunately. Something, apparently, I wasn't taking and doing wrong. For today I am trying my hand at religion: there are no group groups here, but there is a pastor who can give advice and support, there is a community where I better try to be cleaner in life, there is a relationship with God, which I am trying to establish.

Did you attend SMART Recovery only online or do you go to similar communities in real life too?

 

Found it on an online group in my language. Thanks for the link!

 

Day 1

I don't remember much thought of watching porn on the day. It was an emotionally calm day. I told my brother that I was waiting for a book on porn addiction to be delivered. I told him about its contents, about the story of how I had stumbled upon it. Talked to him about it in the kitchen. Sometimes his wife would walk past us and he would furtively look back at her when I said words like "porn," "addiction or "erectile dysfunction". Went to an online addiction group called SMART Recovery

Worried about the onset of the fourth to seventh day. These are the days when I usually break down.

 

Day 2

I couldn't make it to class, so I got on YouTube and stayed there again until morning. Bad practice. I could lose my temper like that. I don't remember having any clear, persistent thoughts of jerking off.

 

Day 3

In the afternoon I was in one public place. There was a girl dressed provocatively. I tried not to look at her, but I looked in her direction a few times anyway. I could feel the tension from it. There was also another girl with a guy who was wearing a short skirt or shorts. I wanted to look at her directly at first because I saw them out of the corner of my eye, but then I thought it was a bad idea and never did. I consider it a good sign that I am consciously observing my behavior and regulating it based on my considerations rather than instinctive feelings. Maybe there is nothing wrong with them, but I have turned my instinctive feelings about reproduction into such a farce that there is nothing left of the original feeling there at all.

When I got home, I felt a strong sexual attraction. My penis area was kind of tingling. I wanted to watch porn, pictures of that girl came to my mind, I even tried to imagine having sex with her. At that moment I was studying on the computer. I tried not to develop these thoughts. It went on actively for maybe five minutes. Twice a day I turned to God with a prayer of thanksgiving. During the day I felt broken, in the evening I felt better.

 

Day 4

At lunchtime I felt a strong urge to watch porn. I felt a tightness in my groin area. It was uncomfortable to be in that feeling. In the evening I was stuck on YouTube again until morning. I watched everything in a row, unable to find my place. I watched the news all the time, hoping to see new news that I hadn't watched yet today. So far I don't really understand how to work with it - to watch less crap. I know from my own experience that the urge to watch porn often comes from idleness. That's why it's a problem.

 

Day 5

I noticed girls dressed provocatively on the street. My eye would go down to their private parts, but then I would move my eyes away. Sometimes I saw such a girl in the distance, and then I told myself not to look at her and didn't. Then I asked myself - What am I stalking? Two seconds of ocular pleasure? Realistically, I was chasing those seconds, feeling the pleasure of seeing a defiantly dressed girl. Well, these days I'm starting to ask myself, how much do I need this?
Memories of watching porn under the influence came flooding back. I remembered the genre of porn that most aroused me. Regretted my decision to stay clean. Overall, though, I had a great day. I went to Sunday worship in the morning, then went to the market to buy groceries for the week, then met with the guys from the church community for a game of volleyball, and then we had tea and chatted.

 

Day 6

12:45pm Legs walk back and forth when sitting. My lower body twitches. I want to jerk off.
01:15pm Strong desire to watch porn.
03:11pm Itchy balls. I've been scratching them constantly for the last couple days. I seem to shower periodically. Maybe it's because it's hot in the room. But it makes me a little embarrassed to put my hand in my underpants periodically.
08:48pm I accidentally saw an anime picture. Typed anime cuteness into a search, followed the link to an anime clothing store. Saw a girl with her breasts slightly exposed at the bottom. Got excited. Felt regret that I don't have a girl like that now or in the future. Fuck, it's so comfortable to jerk off! I'm so used to being satisfied with this. I don't need anything else. I've resigned myself to being a loser.

I felt uneven at times. I encouraged myself that no matter how bad I was, I was doing God's work. He sees that. He sees my efforts.

 

Day 7

Awakening. I had a dream that I was caressing a beautiful young girl. Then there was my acquaintance (once a friend in real life, with whom we stopped communicating long ago), with whom I started to have sex, imagining that instead of him it was a girl. There were some other details that I don't remember.

I consider myself a Christian. But there are a lot of Christians in the world, so some may deny others. I consider myself more Lutheran and a little Orthodox. What I like about Lutherans is the warm, vibrant community. The pastor comes to say hello, asks how you are doing, other people are also friendly, there are various interesting events, and the most important thing is that I am close to the tenets of Lutheranism in relation to Christianity, although I do not quite understand some of the points. In Orthodoxy I can't accept some dogmas, so I can't classify myself as an Orthodox Christian. But I like their ministry, their interesting tradition and customs. There is something very ancient and mysterious about it. So, I have an icon of Jesus Christ. A little icon. I put it under the monitor, I put it away. When I wanted to jerk off, I'd put it away, then after a while I'd put it back up again. It's awkward to jerk off when the image of God is nearby (it's clear that he doesn't look at me from the icon as from a window - he's everywhere - nevertheless his image, once captured by witnesses of his life, reminds me that he's nearby), so I put it somewhere else and didn't put it near the monitor anymore, because I got used to the fact that periodically I jerk off under porn in front of the computer. Now I've put it back in its place under the monitor. It inspires me and inspires me to do good and protects me from evil.
Hopefully I won't have to remove it for those purposes again.


2:29pm No mood, weak. Snot is coming out of my nose, although I don't feel sick. Don't feel like studying.

Been outside in the evening. Had intrusive memories of drug use. During the period of active use I took euphoretics, the purpose of which I had one goal - to jerk off for hours. On today's day, these memories have escalated greatly. I tried not to dwell on these memories, as I knew that they could easily suck me into those false feelings of happiness that I experienced when I was intoxicated. I've had a lot of breakdowns on this, where I go for days at a time with these feelings. It's a constant churning and irritation.

Printed out a picture of an Orthodox women's choir. Hung the picture in a frame. It's a reminder that girls are different. And they don't have to sleep with multiple men on camera to be happy. They can dress all in black, take a vow of celibacy and be happy too. At least in the pictures I see of happy girls.

Late at night those memories would come back again. Felt bad for a day.

 

https://disk.yandex.ru/i/8yh32bvUxCUuMw
https://disk.yandex.ru/i/GikhlwbKG-OQRQ

For some reason the image links are not attaching.

 

Day 8

The memory of drug intoxication came twice. Literally for a second I held it in my head, but it went down to my heart, making me agitated and excited. The last few days especially the drug craving has gotten stronger. In the days of watching porn, this craving would come directly during the viewing. Then in the moment I felt regret that I couldn't do it again now, but after ejaculation it passed and the craving didn't bother me much. But now I don't just want to watch porn, I want to do it under the influence of substances. I can feel myself reawakening feelings that I last experienced a little over six months ago. I got all twitchy today when I remembered those feelings (while in God's temple).

Man, it's hard. It's hard with porn, and it's hard without porn. There are these drugs popping up everywhere, drugs be damned, and those who distribute them. I'm hoping I'll get better with time, but for now I feel lousy. A book should be arriving in a week, hopefully with it I'll take my mind off the anxiety a bit.

Recorded a voice mail to the pastor today. Told him that I'm journaling here, that I promised myself and God to abstain from jerking off and watching porn, asked him to pray for me that I would reach the end of my journey to freedom from fornication.

By the way, this interesting thought came to mind, that restraint makes me free. How so, I thought, does restriction seem to make you free nonetheless? But it does, doesn't it? I restrict myself from watching pornography and masturbation to be free from those things. I'll be freer if I restrict myself. Paradoxical, but true. I think this logic can be extended to many other things.

Cravings came more than twice in the end.

 

Day 9

Got up at 7am awake, which hasn't happened in a long time. I usually got up at 9 or 10 and went to bed at the same time. Hmmm...the first positive sign of abstinence? I've heard somewhere about decreasing my sleep time. Let's see if I can keep getting up earlier while still getting enough sleep.

11:25 am I have a fantasy of using drugs with a man and masturbating with him. Feelings of anxiety, arousal, heaviness in my chest.

Throughout the day, thoughts of drug use came constantly. Understandably, I can't watch porn in sobriety. So far, I feel strong enough to resist temptation. But my dark side knows a loophole. All the more reason I want to use now that I've forbidden myself to watch. Now porn on drugs is the most desirable. It's not easy to live with these thoughts. They're distracting, exciting, confusing. I start desiring and fearing a drug breakdown. I apologize for those who haven't used drugs and are reading about my cravings for them, but my experience is that first it was just masturbation, then masturbation with porn, and then masturbation with porn and drugs. So drugs and porn in my case are two huge, destructive addictions going side by side.

In the evening I went to a Narcotics Anonymous group, which I hadn't visited in a long time since I left Russia at the end of last year. I was disappointed by the lineup. Swearing every word, horrible bad language. There were three of them, two of them looked more like mature alcoholics than drug addicts. One of them had spent half his life in prison. God, is it my destiny to sit around with people like this all my life and listen to them rave? - I used to say to myself when the speaker told me what he was thinking when he had a tooth extracted. I don't give a damn what you were thinking! I don't care what you're doing at work, what you're saying to your boss... Why am I listening to this? I have a thesis to write, and I'm sitting here. I guess I'm too strict, I look at people's appearance... Yes, I look at their appearance. I haven't gotten to the point where I can look at a person's heart first. Well, I'll get to work. When I got home, the cravings came back. Before I went to bed, too. The day after I wake up, too.

I'm starting to wonder if I did the right thing by starting this journey. Shouldn't I have waited a little longer?

 

Day 10 RELAPSE

God, that was awful. The last few days have been hard: the constant intrusive thoughts of drug use have shaken me badly, as I haven't experienced that in a long time.

I came across a picture of a girl, I got very excited, started looking at similar girls, saying - it's not porn! I just watch girls. Then I switched to looking at another category of girls, still making excuses for myself. I was really annoyed. I was swearing at them, calling them names. By the middle of the day I gave up, went to a pole 200 meters from my house that had a link to a drug website stenciled on it. I remembered it, came home, went to the site, realized that I didn't have enough money to buy drugs. I ended up going to a porn site and masturbating.

Holy shit, on the tenth day of abstinence from porn and masturbation I went to get drugs, knowing that I was in the process of writing my degree, I wanted to get the most destructive drugs with long term problems, knowing that I was currently seeing a gastroenterologist and would be seeing her next week, yet I was out of control. After masturbation I imagined for a moment that if I had taken a drug, I would have jerked off all night, but by morning, the drug had worn off. Where would I be left? I'm a wreck, all dirty, sweaty, probably somewhere, excuse me, pissed. I won't sleep the next night either, due to the nature of the drug. I'll lose a few pounds at once, weighing in at 53kg. In such details maybe I did not think, but I imagined this picture, that I stand after the action and realize that I did it again. I got scared. I was close to it. Good thing I didn't. Although the occasional wank didn't blow my mind like that. Your Brain On Porn came that day and I read it all day and into the night. Almost read the whole thing. Well, I fucked up in front of God by telling him I'd keep my promise. I also gave out advice here to the right and left, attaching references from the Bible, apparently feeling myself a great preacher of God on the sixth day of purity.

I've decided to do the following:

• I moved the computer desk. A change of scenery, I read, can be helpful.
• I decided to keep the door to my room open during my abstinence. If I close the door, it will be a wake-up call.
• I decided to watch the news less or not at all, as I may encounter a trigger there or just get distracted.
• Restricted YouTube and all porn sites. In the first case I did it through the program Cold Turkey, in the second case through OpenDNS. I recommend the second way! Free and easy to set a limit on adult content.
• See a sexologist or therapist. Talk about my problem with intrusive thoughts that are difficult to cope with. Perhaps take some calming medication or get better clarity with his or her help.
• Do not give advice to others until I am strong.
• Also continue abstinence for a month, with zeroing, taking into account the above described edits.

 

Hi, Chavin!

Maybe if I had read your post earlier something was different yesterday.

About the deathbed, good example, but so far I can't experience it real enough to reformat myself, but it's worth a try. I've been thinking about this recently. What about when my child asks me (if he ever does)
- Daddy, why did you marry my mom so late?
And what will I say to him?
- Well, sonny, I thought about myself until I was 33, rubbed my pee-pee on drugs and watched pictures on the monitor for years. I didn't care about you. I was thinking about me.
When I presented this honest conversation, I feel bad about myself now. But that's the way it is. It made me think about myself that day. Maybe, drop by drop, the realization of my situation will come.

 

How did this manifest itself? Can you tell me in more detail what you have rethought or done in this direction and how?