Desire for Cleanliness from Filth

[Empyreal]

I am 26 years old. I like to write, I'm married and have a wonderful career protecting the public firsthand from some people who did some very bad things.
My life is everything I want it to be. I'm achieving all my major long-term goals and moving forward every day. Yet... one thing holds me back.
Regardless of the negative environment I work in almost every day, which would be an excuse to lean on that, I am addicted to pornography. I have been since I was a very young teenager.
I have always been attracted to a good variety of women, like most men, and have decided to pursue that attraction solely through my eyes and not through my heart, body and soul. I was even dumb enough to believe I was ready for marriage before I quit the damn habit.
I, like many, hate myself, or at least the part of myself that hides away, sneaks online and steals a peek at other women's (complete strangers) bodies, whether "artistically nude," famously nude, or any of the infinite varieties of sexual expression online. I hate that something like this is so readily and freely accessible to all at all times. It makes me wish I was born a hundred years ago or earlier to avoid it entirely.
However, I know, as a Christian, that I am here to serve however small or large a purpose that God has in store for me, and to do so I must conquer my sinful desires.
Desires for pleasure are not always strictly sinful, as love between a husband and wife is a beautiful, celestial thing, but lustful desires and eyeing other women, even digital women, is sinful and simply unethical.
Regardless of spirituality or religious belief, one thing is sure, this is not a healthy habit.
I have spent half my life looking at p, m-ing and o-ing. Sometimes three times a day. I wish I could say I didn't love it, but my actions prove otherwise. I, like so many millenials, believed that all my wildest desires could and should come true, as if I deserved it, without any consequence. How foolish I have been.
There is a consequence to everything. Even now I see the train upon which I ride coming to a permanent stop. I feel the walls closing in around me as all the dreams I've made come true are being threatened by pornography. I can and must do better, abandon the dark practice and live my true life--be the true person I left behind years ago for the sake of following this wicked hobby.
I hate and love it so much. It tears me apart having this backwards thought recurring in my mind over and over. My heart and soul condemn it, but my body and mind welcome it. It tears us apart from the inside.
I have decided to turn my life around. For about a year now, ever since learning my PMO may be keeping my wife from getting pregnant (more PMO than real sex), I have becomed to determined to reboot. Here I am, on yet another site, observing what experiences others have had that may inspire my own future success. The longest I've gone without so much as looking at a naked girl is less than ten days. The human body is so beautiful and I have such a deep appreciation for every speck of life, my eyes so grateful to the female body. This is great, in my opinion, and the woman of my dreams, my wife, should be the one to enjoy this passion and desire, exclusively. What sort of marriage is this if in my mind I'm allowed to share my sexual love with my wife and the digital concubines of porn, whereas she sits and waits for me to fulfill her desires and I am so selfishly resisting her due to P.
I have made many strides. We have S every other day. No children yet, but I always have hope and positivity, thank the Lord!
Anyway, I wanted to share in the beginning of my journey, for I believe it is possible to win. I believe it's possible to cast the evil aside and defeat temptation, just as Jesus had done His entire earthly life. Through Him even in failure I am made whole, and though I repent and fail I know He is always there to scoop me up and willing to see me try again. I like the sin too much and work daily to turn my mind against it. Reality, shared with a real amazing woman/spousal partner, is the only place sexuality should be expressed.
Good luck everyone. The journey begins.

 

[D . J .]

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

The enemy is here to steal, kill and destroy. What are your current strategies for combating the enemy called PMO?

 

[Bnnybnny]

Welcome to the site, and thank you for sharing your story.

It's not unusual for it to take a while to get pregnant - up to a year is considered perfectly normal. Don't get too discouraged if it doesn't help straight away, and try to relax about it . You're young, and I'm guessing your wife is too. Also in case you're not aware: there is a short window in the menstrual cycle where your probability of conceiving is high; outside this window, sex is unlikely to result in a child. For that reason, it isn't necessary to make sex a chore that you have to do every other day if you don't both feel like it.

Looking forward to hearing how you get on with your PMO reboot.

 

[i_wanna_get_better1]

I hate and love it so much.

Welcome to the forum. The statement you made above encompasses exactly what it means to be an addict. We love how it makes us feel, we hate how it makes us feel, and we compulsively do it anyway. We are enslaved to it without any visible chains. We all thought there were no consequences to PMO, but slowly our brains start to change and the side effects become impossible to ignore. Delusional thinking hides our ability to self-diagnose we have a problem until we have hit a rock-bottom moment. So far you have avoided having everything crash down around you. I hope you are able to make a success of your reboot.

 

[Empyreal]

Thanks everyone for your hospitality and support.

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

I have a few strategies and have learned many tips from exploring safe sites on the internet such as this. Here they are:

1. P encourages and leads to M. M generally leads to O, always for me. P=M=O. Flirt with the cliff long enough and eventually you will fall over. It's inevitable.

How to combat this?

2. Easier than it sounds, obviously, but I try to block all access points, sometimes to the internet in general. I even took a massive hiatus from facebook and social media to remember the real relationships I have in life. Also because mindless scrolling has divided my attention and numbed me to where looking at P is far less than a hop, skip and a jump away.
3. I leave doors open and don't give myself too much privacy. I avoid incognito or private browsing. I also designate safe sites, but even the few such as netflix, youtube, IGN, etc., can be deadly dangerous for the addiction. I also hear videogaming can rack up dopamine levels unhealthily which makes it more normal to go from gaming to porn. Not sure if true but should start rethinking how much time I spend playing.
4. P is a visual fantasy, endless visual entertainment. Perhaps that's a link to gaming. Anyway, I like to write, and haven't done so in a while. I haven't even read a full book in years, and that's a travesty. But where do I find the time when all I do is PMO whenever I get the chance to sneak away? The cell phone just makes it ten times easier, as I know I'm clearly not alone. I've tried to spend time away from my phone for this very reason. Anyway, realizing that P is fulfilling some fantasies for me, I decided it's time to really buckle down and get some reading done--I chose fantasy as a genre so I can still experience a fantasy coming true but in a different way. No this is not sexual fantasy in any way. Just adventure. So far it has helped immensely in keeping me focused, my attention undivided, my thoughts clearer, and my imagination has begun to appear again (don't know when I lost that).

I've gone almost as long as ten days as a streak so far, right now going on five days. My symptoms are always libido shutdown, migraine attacks, illness, exhaustion, lack of motivation, huge spurts of depression, emotions racing. I woke up one morning bawling my eyes out and I simply couldn't figure out why. Like all the emotions I've neglected to feel over the years came rushing in. Even anger, and I'm fairly mellowed out. Perhaps that's what this drug does. Empties people as human beings.

I desire to know my true self, to enjoy the world as it really is, the bad with the good. Every time I step away and have days and days of success (no more than ten in a row yet but I am consistently quitting days in a row every time I relapse)
Every success is a chance to celebrate and every relapse is a chance to forgive myself, bandage my wounds, return to the war of many battles.
I feel the color returning to the world in every sense, and that gives me so much hope. I want to be my best self, not this self-loathing, lazy, anti-social ghost of a man. The reasons for quitting, for me, are endless, and it's nice to continue to note those reasons, refresh my memory frequently.

Lastly, this is the first time I've ever shared my habit with anyone, so thank you all for being immediately welcoming, and non-judgmental. I hope one day my success over this addiction will help someone else find his or her way. Every mountain has a path to the top!

 

[Bnnybnny]

Every mountain has a path to the top!

I might steal that - that's a very good way of thinking about it!

 

[Deleted Account]

I've gone almost as long as ten days as a streak so far, right now going on five days. My symptoms are always libido shutdown, migraine attacks, illness, exhaustion, lack of motivation, huge spurts of depression, emotions racing. I woke up one morning bawling my eyes out and I simply couldn't figure out why. Like all the emotions I've neglected to feel over the years came rushing in. Even anger, and I'm fairly mellowed out. Perhaps that's what this drug does. Empties people as human beings.

What you describe here are withdrawal symptoms. You withhold something the body is craving (i.e. dopamine) and your brain will make you feel like shit, until you return to your addicted behaviour. You have a price to pay if you want to beat this addiction and that price has to be paid over several months. Substance abusers (i.e. alcoholics and drug addicts) have even worse withdrawals from their addictions. We just have to take it if we wish to be free.

I also advise you to tell your wife what you are going through. Stopping sex, will enable you to reboot more quickly.

 

[D . J .]

Thanks everyone for your hospitality and support.



I have a few strategies and have learned many tips from exploring safe sites on the internet such as this. Here they are:

1. P encourages and leads to M. M generally leads to O, always for me. P=M=O. Flirt with the cliff long enough and eventually you will fall over. It's inevitable.

How to combat this?

2. Easier than it sounds, obviously, but I try to block all access points, sometimes to the internet in general. I even took a massive hiatus from facebook and social media to remember the real relationships I have in life. Also because mindless scrolling has divided my attention and numbed me to where looking at P is far less than a hop, skip and a jump away.
3. I leave doors open and don't give myself too much privacy. I avoid incognito or private browsing. I also designate safe sites, but even the few such as netflix, youtube, IGN, etc., can be deadly dangerous for the addiction. I also hear videogaming can rack up dopamine levels unhealthily which makes it more normal to go from gaming to porn. Not sure if true but should start rethinking how much time I spend playing.
4. P is a visual fantasy, endless visual entertainment. Perhaps that's a link to gaming. Anyway, I like to write, and haven't done so in a while. I haven't even read a full book in years, and that's a travesty. But where do I find the time when all I do is PMO whenever I get the chance to sneak away? The cell phone just makes it ten times easier, as I know I'm clearly not alone. I've tried to spend time away from my phone for this very reason. Anyway, realizing that P is fulfilling some fantasies for me, I decided it's time to really buckle down and get some reading done--I chose fantasy as a genre so I can still experience a fantasy coming true but in a different way. No this is not sexual fantasy in any way. Just adventure. So far it has helped immensely in keeping me focused, my attention undivided, my thoughts clearer, and my imagination has begun to appear again (don't know when I lost that).

I've gone almost as long as ten days as a streak so far, right now going on five days. My symptoms are always libido shutdown, migraine attacks, illness, exhaustion, lack of motivation, huge spurts of depression, emotions racing. I woke up one morning bawling my eyes out and I simply couldn't figure out why. Like all the emotions I've neglected to feel over the years came rushing in. Even anger, and I'm fairly mellowed out. Perhaps that's what this drug does. Empties people as human beings.

I desire to know my true self, to enjoy the world as it really is, the bad with the good. Every time I step away and have days and days of success (no more than ten in a row yet but I am consistently quitting days in a row every time I relapse)
Every success is a chance to celebrate and every relapse is a chance to forgive myself, bandage my wounds, return to the war of many battles.
I feel the color returning to the world in every sense, and that gives me so much hope. I want to be my best self, not this self-loathing, lazy, anti-social ghost of a man. The reasons for quitting, for me, are endless, and it's nice to continue to note those reasons, refresh my memory frequently.

Lastly, this is the first time I've ever shared my habit with anyone, so thank you all for being immediately welcoming, and non-judgmental. I hope one day my success over this addiction will help someone else find his or her way. Every mountain has a path to the top!

Those are awesome strategies! Check out In Case You Didn't Know for additional strategies and tips which may help you along your journey.