How addicted am I?

I wrote a reply to a similar topic yesterday and i think it fits here

Not that "normal" user is healthy, cause it's not, any amount of pmo is unhealthy... but i would consider heavy user anyone that

• (first and foremost) can't function normally/optimally without masturbation/watching porn or erotic content /sexually fantasizing. That is, he has trouble sleeping, concentrating, has anxiety/depression, mood swings etc.
• masturbates/watches porn or erotic content/sexually fantasizes more than one time per day
• masturbates more than 1 time per week (not that 1 time is healthy, cause it's not)
• masturbates/watches porn or erotic content/sexually fantasizes more than 10-15 minutes per session
• masturbates/watches porn or erotic content/sexually fantasizes to any type of porn that is not solo female or POV (not that those are good, but they are less bad than boy-girl [cause it's basically cuckolding] or all the rest of fetishes)
  
• can't go at least 20 days without masturbation/watching porn or erotic content /sexually fantasizing
• can't watch movies or walk around on the street without getting triggered (aroused)

 

There are a few signs that you might have a problem:

When it affects your work and home life.
You hide your use from other people. It's almost like living a double life.
You increasingly isolate yourself from family and friends to spend time with porn.
Intimacy and expressing emotions becomes very difficult.
Your use makes you feel bad.
You experience some type of sexual dysfunction.
You have a hard time quitting.

Even one or two of those symptoms can mean you have a problem. If you feel you have a problem with porn, it's a problem. The majority of people can use porn and not have it affect their lives in any of those ways, but for the rest of us, we need to avoid it because it's having a detrimental effect on our lives. Admitting the problem is the first step.

 

YOU WERE ADDICTED..I STARTED MASTIURBATION AT AGE 14, TRIED FIGHTING WETDREAMS FROM AGE 16....IN ADDICTION STAGE TILL 25...LAST 3 YEARS, I FOUGHT ADDICTION BY BEING BUSY...NOW I'M 28............CHANGES IN TEENAGE ARE VERY DANGEROUS....NATURE PUNISHES UR VERY BADLY.........ITS NEVER TOO LATE.......DONT LIVE IN THOUGHTS, BE BUSY.....FORGET BODY AND MIND.......LIVE PIOUSLY

 

Even though it`s not affecting your daily routine, even though now it makes you feel happy. It`s not real, you may end up watching porn every time you get depressed, you will be watching over someone`s nudity rather preparing yourself for meeting and having sex with a woman in real life

 

Let me add my 2 cents here. I am 21 and very similar to you but started maybe a year earlier (only using P occasionally). My PMO sessions would be like 10mins long and I'd do it roughly once a day too, when I was bored. It didn't interfere with my life, I still got top grades and played sports and had friends etc. The issue for me was that after about age 16 my morning wood basically didn't happen and I had no desire to be with real women (even with ones who were into me- and they told me so). I obviously was still attracted to them, I just didn't have that fire inside me like I used to.

The first time I tried stopping it wasn't too hard but I got lazy and relapsed. My advice to you is to just cold turkey it and never go back. I got stuck in a abstinence- relapse- binge cycle and believe me it's AWFUL. I am now much more addicted than I was before I even started nofap. You need to be serious about this problem and eliminate it from your life. One relapse strengthens the connection between PMO and pleasure and makes it significantly harder to stop. Keep this up and you get deeper and deeper into the pit (my tastes were pretty normal up until I first started, and now they're a bit extreme, I also watch it for longer periods now and experience massive dopamine rushes, even when I think of a scene my heart rate goes crazy). Just quit now man and say goodbye. It will destroy your life even if you're a 'high functioning' addict like myself.