How would your life be like today if you never started this addiction?

My life would be very different but I cannot tell for shure if it would be better. I mean, I got caught into porn and masturbation because I wasnt able to cope with a reality I found painfull, my disfuntional family.
I needed a crutch and found it, but if it wasnt PMO coulda have had been other shit...

Anyways... In fantasy land my life would be awsome. I would have had finished college as an artist and I might be doing art in a big studio with a nice artsy girlfriend and some other 2cool4school guys.. Whatever..

 

What a question. There is no telling - I was MOing or PMOing from the age of 10.

There's a ton of shit I failed to do, or did badly, in the 53 years that followed.

 

Your past doesn't define nor does your future I don't think I wanna take back anything nor can I. I believe thing happens for a reason and this addiction open my eyes to a lot of things and importantly lead me back to God. So I don't want to dwell on the past all we truly have is now life is on a never ending continuum there is no real future or past it's a psychological identification we as humans hold on to. I use to always say what if this or that but that's avoiding reality and externalizes your power and control over own your life just my opinion.

 

No I completely agree I use to always do this but it's detrimental to your physical and mental health and causes you to play victim instead taking responsibility and taking steps of what you can do now.

 

Well, as for me. My life would have been a whole better. Am a very handsome guy and girls come to me all the time, but cos of my addiction I'll blow the whole thing up.

Now my hair

 

Now my hair is thinning and it has practically stopped growing.

The one thing i regret from my addiction is the hair loss and it's really messing with my mind

 

I wish the only thing I had lost to porn was some hair.

 

why do you say so my friend?
We have all lost something in our own way. what have you lost?

 

Agree Immature, wish it were just some hair. I have nice full hair and everything, but what does it help when you sit there and fap? We lost much of our youth, lost love and friendship while staring at a screen.

 

I would probably have been a much smarter person with more money and better grades in school/university. Also I would have been more confident with girls and not worrying about dick size. When I think back, man have I left out great chances to pull girls because of my low confidence.
But I guess I doesn't not matter what could have been, but what can be now or in the present. Just wait till I have beaten my PIED. I am gonna be unstoppable. Lol

 

I reckon I would have achieved a higher grade with my degree, wouldn't have ended up with a criminal record and most likely would have had more real life experience with dating and experiencing proper intimacy, i may even be married by now and doing the whole family thing. I think my self esteem would have got better and experienced less depression and anxiety as time went on. But it's all hindsight, you can never really know what your life would have been like, we have to deal with the cards we hold in our hand and focus on the present and the future. What I know for sure is that staying away from porn gives you an advantage whatever point you're at in your life because you have more capacity in your mind to focus on other things that benefit you, sometimes those benefits can be slow to materialise but it's worth it.

 

See @Vulkan below, but add that I'm 63, so *all* of my youth and most of my adulthood was tarnished or squandered. There were multiple women I refused to commit to, at least partly due to PMO. And my work life was messy, too - my motivation to do things well and on time were damaged.

 

well man. you know there's a saying "You don't know the value of what you have until you loose it"
i bet if you start losing your hair, you gonna know thevalue of hair on your head. It actually kind of funny now that i say it.

i guess we all have our issues to deal with. i'll be 19 this year and i haven't really lost any thing to porn and masturbation that i can't recover, that i'm a lot grateful for but i have the hairloss issues to deal with.

 

Without PMO, we would have Take Right Decision would have performed with our true potential and never regretted .. Everything happens for a reason.. At last we realizing there is a problem .. we need to overcome Now .. So that Present and Future we can make with better Conscious and take Right Judgement ..

 

I had other addictions, so I would've probably doubled-up on them. When I first quit PMO, I noticed I was slowly gaining weight, so definitely food binging.

But some positive things wouldn't have happened also. If I didn't quit PMO, I wouldn't have gotten back into dating and met my SO (two years this July!), and I wouldn't have a steady job.

I have to echo fapstronaut Karan ghuman's words: the past isn't a mistake, use it to enhance your future.