I keep relapsing.

I keep relapsing every 2 days. Before I joined this group I was watching porn every day, several times a day. I also managed to stay away from the more kinky porn during my relapse today. I felt tempted but I managed to resist.

I've been going through a lot of stress this week. I'm trying to make important changes in my life but yesterday I received some bad news that were completely unexpected. I know that life is made of ups and downs and that I can't resort to porn to deal with stress and frustration every time I get bad news. However, I haven't been able to find a healthier stress coping mechanism yet.

I try to draw parallels with my former smoking addiction but I realize there aren't many. A key factor in quitting smoking was realizing that the "pleasure" I got from smoking was only an illusion. However, the pleasure one feels from orgasm is quite real. We are hard wired to find sex pleasurable. It is not a "learned pleasure" like smoking (ask any smoker if they got any pleasure from the very first cigarette they smoked in their lives). So, the approach to quit porn must be different. I just haven't figured it out yet.

Right now I think that I'm going to try small steps. I'll still try to avoid porn but if I relapse I will not watch kinky stuff. I watched that because "regular" porn no longer worked but I always felt ashamed afterwards. I must not lower myself into watching porn that I find degrading under normal circumstances and will only make me feel worst than I already do about this addiction.