I have the severe case on the site

Testosterone hormone's drop is quite linear in men. As long as you're aging, it drops constantly without major drops. You can keep good levels over time with healthy diet and lifestyle. Gym, cardio, sports and so on... All helps keeping testosterone high.

 

It will not impact the porn addiction, but can impact on erectile dysfunction for what I said earlier.

 

It also hurts your lungs. Lost an uncle, my grandfather and my sister in law to lung and throat cancer.

 

Oh I missed that. Does he not realize it will be different for everyone? Only took my husband 4-6 months to get rid of pied.

 

Where did you get these stats from?

 

I’ll try and find the links again. I did extensive research when my husband first started recovery. Like hundreds and hundreds of hours. Since I was planning to divorce and felt maybe if he could get into recovery I might actually not have to divorce. You have to consider the fact that many porn/sex addicts don’t actually treat this like an addiction though. I’ve posted it on here before. Having been on this forum 4 years though, there are only a small handful who have gotten past a year in recovery. Relapse at a year is also very common. I actually believe it’s less than 5 % after all the betrayal trauma groups I’ve been in. It’s just too easy to access, too easy to hide, and too many triggers that can’t be avoided irl. That’s just my jaded experience now.

 

https://healthresearchfunding.org/39-shocking-sexual-addiction-recovery-statistics/

 

Willpower is everything, and you have to see this as a challenge to yourself. Are you a loser or strong enough to overcome your instincts?
Anyway, abstaining from porn should be easy even in longterm. What I find really harder is abstaining from MO for years. This can be easier if you have a gf/bf, because you can have real sex, but it's very very hard for singles. After all, mating and reproduction is in the human being's DNA.

 

Finding any stats on recovery for this is almost impossible. I think because it’s still not officially recognized as an addiction( which is crazy to me). But here it states some studies don’t even think porn causes Ed. I absolutely know that pmo causes Ed because my husband had de our entire marriage which then turned completely to pied. For 5 years from 45-50 he could not get an erection at all. We thought it was age related or because he took up long distance road biking. At age 50 he began recovery, between 4-6 months his erections came back. Today, he can get hard without any touching, no pied at all, harder than when he was in his 20’s and any time he slips back to pmo his erections get soft, or he can’t get hard or he loses it mid sex. I know this is just our experience but I’ve been with him long enough to know pmo kills his ability to have sex and his ability to relate and have a healthy relationship with me.

 

This may be true for you, but many partners prefer pmo to real sex and consistently turn down sex or immediately pmo after sex. My husband finds it much easier to stay clean if we are not having sex and he does not masturbate. He also truly thought that once he married he would no longer “ need” to masturbate. Instead he regularly turned down sex while masturbating daily.

 

Everyone is different, of course, but I'm still a pmo addict. Started at the age of around 14, and now I'm 42, so I know very well on my own skin what this means. The "willpower" thing refers exactly to this. Once you find out the problem you get with pmo (in my case: pied with zero libido/manhood) it's time to take some decisions and see if your brain is stronger than your body. I'm still healing, as you can see I'm on day 63, but I get longer streaks over time, but I don't want to teach anything to anyone. At the beginning you need to avoid all the triggers, and stay clean from sex and masturbation. Infact I'm speaking for "longer period", I mean: after 8-9 months of total abstinence it should still be easier to no look at porn, but harder to avoid masturbation/orgasm at all.

In your case there may be also psychological issue (with real life sex you need to, somewhat, "demonstrate" a performance to your partner, and this can create anxiety and false expectations, while on solo, you are always more comfortable).

 

I agree there are many reasons for Ed. However if it were psychological then it would not magically disappear once he stopped pmo. After 37 years together, it’s pretty obvious that masturbation ruins his desire and ability to have real sex. Masturbation is the actual addiction that escalated to using porn to enhance the masturbation experience. Once we understood that, we knew that he would have to stop masturbating entirely in order to cut out porn entirely. He’s been in recovery for 5 years now and the difference is obvious and quite frankly startling to both of us.

 

Reading the link it says:

"It is believed that only 5% of addicts who go into therapy will be able to succeed in beating their addiction, although this figure is disputed."

It is referring only to 5% of people in therapy, but also the figure is already in dispute. However say the stat was true, it does not include people like myself (or others here) who have been able to recover from their porn addiction outside of therapy. Then there's the people who have recovered via AA. None of these people would be included in this 5% stat.

I would also say that HRF are responsible for funding the research. The link doesn't give any detail as to where the stat actually came from or the study that was carried out. HRF is responsible only for funding the research.

I do agree that it is likely a large percentile of people who do not recover from their porn addiction. But my question is how exactly would such a large, worldwide addiction be quantified? Even if 5% was the amount that recovered out of millions, what's to say that the majority of those on this site make up that 5%?

I am aware of your story, and I am sorry that you were lied to, gas lit and betrayed by your partner. But I would say that with all the factors that make up a porn addiction, everyone's recovery is going to be very very different.

 

I had a read, but this looks like it is written on a personal blog.

 

U will recover in 18 months ......with some suppliments, exercise,yoga,herbs

 

I agree there has not been enough research. I also know that the 5% is referring to 5+ years of clean recovery.

Thus 5% refers to long term recovery as defined by other addiction models. That being -5+ years of clean recovery. I only know of a few people across the board in every group I’m in that have reached this. Honest to God I would love for this to be completely wrong. So then I’d have to fall back on the 30% recovery rate for addictions. But even just on this forum you have addicts who gave up alcohol, smoking, drugs, but have been unable to stop this addiction. I want the truth because if people recognize how devastating this actually is, perhaps then we can do something about it. 100% of addicts can get into recovery. Why aren’t they?

 

Yeah I couldn’t find the actual link. I would love to find more. I know all of you think I’m against you, but I’m not. I want your eyes opened to just how much work it’s going to take to get clean. I’m pretty sure that in 5 years I have read thousands of articles, studies and as much research as I can find. Been to intensives, groups, and several csats for ongoing therapy. So much out there that denies porn is detrimental much less that it can be an addiction. But I’ve lived it for 32 years. I’ve seen him go through physical and mental withdrawals and changes based on getting help and stopping. Probably the best thing a porn addict could do is get rid of his phone and computer! My husband had 4 years clean in his 30’s. No phones no computers. He’s around 3 years now. He still struggles with masturbation.

 

Meshuga also had a discussion about the 5% recovery rate back in 2017 I believe. I can’t find it for you now but will look later, not sure if he had links or not as it’s been a while.

 

Do you mean by getting rid of phone & computer that it is easier to stay clean or that recovery itself is more effective?