Abbout 10+ years
My husband doesn’t like this forum but I can answer for himThis post is dedicated to serious addicts. Can you tell me how many years you have been addicted and what are the symptoms you experience as a result of being addicted to PMO? What happened to your life that you decided to try to stop? What did you suffer from?
I'm in my late 30s now. First exposed to P and M when I was 11. Someone in an AOL chat room (who said they were a girl around my age at the time but was likely a predator I know realize) sent me a link to P and told me how to M. I started becoming addicted to M'ing every time I took a bath. Started seeking out more P since I had a computer in my room. Also used my parents CC to buy P and got busted while I was still living at home. Also bought hundreds of dollars of P movies on the satellite. I had no idea really what addiction was or that I was but I already was before I turned 18 and it's especially gotten worse over the last 15 years..seems like every year is just worse.
I want to quit because I absolutely hate P and hate myself and hate that I can't stop. I hate that when I get urges I cannot control myself and the time I spend browsing and M. I also have ED due to my P and M and have more many years. i want to have a normal sex life. I want control of my life back. I suck at work because I work from home but spend most of my time on P and M. I want to better myself.
I'm in my late 30s now. First exposed to P and M when I was 11. Someone in an AOL chat room (who said they were a girl around my age at the time but was likely a predator I know realize) sent me a link to P and told me how to M. I started becoming addicted to M'ing every time I took a bath. Started seeking out more P since I had a computer in my room. Also used my parents CC to buy P and got busted while I was still living at home. Also bought hundreds of dollars of P movies on the satellite. I had no idea really what addiction was or that I was but I already was before I turned 18 and it's especially gotten worse over the last 15 years..seems like every year is just worse.
I want to quit because I absolutely hate P and hate myself and hate that I can't stop. I hate that when I get urges I cannot control myself and the time I spend browsing and M. I also have ED due to my P and M and have more many years. i want to have a normal sex life. I want control of my life back. I suck at work because I work from home but spend most of my time on P and M. I want to better myself.
What symptoms do you suffer from?
Addiction
I first got addicted between the ages of 12 and 14, and I'm 35 now, so I was addicted for a little over 20 years. I've been recovering for 3.5 years now, and it's only in the last few months that I've been feeling like I'm almost free from this addiction. The past three years have been a hellish rollercoaster, and I'm so glad to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. I've only relapsed a few times in the last year, and I barely think about porn anymore. Every week that goes by, it seems like I leave more and more of my old self behind. Healing from something like this seems like it's going nowhere at first, but the gains you make are exponential. A lot of people get impatient during the first few months of NoFap, but once you start hitting milestones like six months or a year, you'll notice that your progress will gradually be speeding up. It's very similar to physical exercise in the sense that it feels like it's a perpetual uphill trudge when you first start, but it gets easier and easier as the weeks and months go by.
Don't lose hope; it can take a long time to rid yourself of this addiction if you were addicted for many years. And if you got addicted during adolescence when your brain was in a very malleable, impressionable phase, it can take even longer to reverse the damage the addiction did because your brain hardwires everything during crucial stages of development like adolescence. I have a feeling that this is why it took so long to rewire my brain.
No matter how bad the withdrawal symptoms get, you just have to persevere through them because what other choice is there? Yes, it's going to be a very difficult journey in some ways, but just think about how much of a relief it will be to finally get this monkey off your back once and for all. You also have to ask yourself this: what alternative is there? There are only two directions you can go from here: you can continue being an addict, or you can decide to work towards no longer being an addict. Only the latter will improve your existence; the former will do nothing but keep you shackled to this situation that you're in right now. By quitting PMO for good, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain. That was the crossroads that I found myself at when I knew that I had to quit PMO for good, and I knew there was no way that I could continue down that same road that I had been on for two decades.
I know you can do this because I'm living proof that it's possible; I was a severe addict for a long time. Sometimes, it will be easy; other times, it will be immensely difficult. Recovery from an addiction isn't a straightforward, linear process; it fluctuates up and down. As you progress, however, the lows you experience will gradually get milder, and the highs you experience will get better. Then it will dawn on you one day that you haven't even thought about PMO for a few days. And then a month or two after that, you'll notice that you can go a whole week without thinking about it. Once you reach that stage, it just keeps getting easier and easier.
As for the physical symptoms, I actually made a long post a little over a year ago that addresses the physical symptoms in great detail. I'm going to refer you to that post with a direct link if you would like to read it. You might be able to gain some additional insight to get a better idea of what you're going through. The whole thread is full of very useful information if you have time to read through all five pages, and there are quite a few responses by one user named mentorr who is very knowledgeable about the recovery process.
https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?t...s-and-downs-normal.315051/page-2#post-3098178
For me, the symptoms reduced considerably after about a year of abstinence, but they didn't completely resolve until my second year of NoFap. I don't think this will be the case for everyone, but I'm not surprised that it took me so long to overcome this because I first got addicted to PMO between ages 12 and 14, and I didn't quit until I was 32. So I was an addict for pretty much two decades, and I was edging multiple times a day for most of those years. A lot of users on here aren't quite as extreme as I was, but I have met a few who were, and their recovery process was very similar to mine.
I wish you the best of luck in your recovery! And if you ever need to message me for any kind of advice or support, I don't mind at all.
This post is dedicated to serious addicts. Can you tell me how many years you have been addicted and what are the symptoms you experience as a result of being addicted to PMO? What happened to your life that you decided to try to stop? What did you suffer from?
About 7 yearsThis post is dedicated to serious addicts. Can you tell me how many years you have been addicted and what are the symptoms you experience as a result of being addicted to PMO? What happened to your life that you decided to try to stop? What did you suffer from?
Your story is quite similar to mine...I discovered porn at 15 years old...To me until 10 years ago it was more or less normal to use it, although deep down I knew it was bad... Since I fully realized that it was causing me a lot of pain, separation came a year after that, and then things went from bad to worse...All hell broke loose on me since 9 years, so I continued as it was the only way for me to deal with this terrible pain I had inside... And no one to talk to or see, all my family being either passed away or very old now, and friends now matched so no time for me.... I was alone, going from jobs to jobs as consultant and then in regular jobs I didn't like...So I can understant how you feel.. I'm stuck in teleworking since 3 years, so I'm going haywire spending my whole days alone at home in a condo that now became real toxic to me...I'm in my late 30s now. First exposed to P and M when I was 11. Someone in an AOL chat room (who said they were a girl around my age at the time but was likely a predator I know realize) sent me a link to P and told me how to M. I started becoming addicted to M'ing every time I took a bath. Started seeking out more P since I had a computer in my room. Also used my parents CC to buy P and got busted while I was still living at home. Also bought hundreds of dollars of P movies on the satellite. I had no idea really what addiction was or that I was but I already was before I turned 18 and it's especially gotten worse over the last 15 years..seems like every year is just worse.
I want to quit because I absolutely hate P and hate myself and hate that I can't stop. I hate that when I get urges I cannot control myself and the time I spend browsing and M. I also have ED due to my P and M and have more many years. i want to have a normal sex life. I want control of my life back. I suck at work because I work from home but spend most of my time on P and M. I want to better myself.
I was unfortunate enough to hit puberty right as the internet was going mainstream. My family got our first PC when I was 10. The following year at age 11 I began looking at porn, both on the internet and on TV channels like Cinemax and HBO. In hindsight, I can see that I was already addicted when I was around 14-15. So yeah, a roughly 20 year addiction. It's caused me all kinds of problems to say the least. No single thing made me realize I needed to try and quit porn. It was a number of things. Severe PIED, worsened mental health, substance abuse, etc. I'm not going to blame all of my problems on porn, but it has definitely been a major factor in my trainwreck of a life.
I can quite relate to your life story... Freakin' porn.... What a mess this is causing to so many people...I was unfortunate enough to hit puberty right as the internet was going mainstream. My family got our first PC when I was 10. The following year at age 11 I began looking at porn, both on the internet and on TV channels like Cinemax and HBO. In hindsight, I can see that I was already addicted when I was around 14-15. So yeah, a roughly 20 year addiction. It's caused me all kinds of problems to say the least. No single thing made me realize I needed to try and quit porn. It was a number of things. Severe PIED, worsened mental health, substance abuse, etc. I'm not going to blame all of my problems on porn, but it has definitely been a major factor in my trainwreck of a life.