A Much Needed Admission

I am addicted to masturbation and porn. I have never typed those words out before, so I guess this is a good start. I've watched porn and masturbated since a pretty early age (can't remember when exactly), but it hasn't really been a problem until the last couple of years. I'm in my mid twenties.

The addiction really started around the time I started trying to find a relationship a few years ago. My lack of success on the dating scene led me to get gratification in other ways. Initially it was just porn and masturbation. But then I matched with a girl on Tinder who sent me nudes and asked for some in exchange (a genuine girl sending and asking for nudes first surprised me too). She liked what she saw, but for various reasons we never met up. Now porn wasn't quite enough for me. I needed validation as well. I needed someone to say they thought I was hot, or they loved my cock. But I also wasn't on the dating apps for that purpose. I genuinely wanted to develop a relationship, so I never even considered trying to use the apps to get nudes.

I don't know how it happened, but I ended up on reddit using the gay snapchat subreddit. I'm bicurious in that I find some guys physically attractive but am not romantically attracted to them. So I guess I'm straight from a relationship point of view, but bi from a sexual perspective. On that subreddit I found an endless supply of people who genuinely wanted to share pics for nothing other than sexual pleasure. It was fun at first. But then I found myself on snap sharing my pics with 10s and then 100s of guys whenever I got even mildly horny. Then I started doing it before I got horny when I got bored. Then when I needed a distraction from work. The instant validation made me feel amazing at the time, but the moment I came I felt dirty and ashamed. Not of the gay part of it, but of the pointlessness of it. Of the waste of time. I was doing this instead of doing hobbies I genuinely enjoy. Instead of getting work done. Doing this was making me late to gatherings with friends.

I keep deleting and redownloading reddit and snap and kik etc... Sometimes I could go several weeks if I really tried, but I always cave in the end. Recently I've tried using porn as a way to ween myself off using snap. But then I ended up on cam sites. The female cam models would respond to my typing, blow me a kiss and all that jazz. This is why I've finally come on here. Over the last 2 days I have spent £75 on exclusive cam sessions with girls I found attractive, but didn't really even get any enjoyment out of.

I crave the validation of a stranger saying they like me as I can't seem to find anyone to do the same in real life. Perhaps the reason I can't find it in real life is because I'm looking for it. Perhaps it's because my mind is on digital pleasures.

I have deleted the snapchat, kik, and reddit accounts I used. Annoyingly the snapchat account takes 30 days to delete, so if I give into my cravings before those 30 days I can get back on the account with all the 'friends' that say I'm hot.

So today I start my journey to beat this addiction. I'm aiming for 30 days free of porn and masturbation. I hope this will improve the way I think about relationships generally as well and allow me to focus on the things I actually enjoy. Hopefully, having a community that knows my story and can relate to it will help me.