Introducing myself and my porn addiction

db_dan · Feb 10, 2015

Hi, I wanted to vent out my story. I've been making failed attempts at quitting pornography and masturbation for about three years now.

I'm a 26 year old male. I've been out of college and working as a Software Engineer for four years. I'm married for just over a year. We have two sons. Our youngest son is 5 months old. Our oldest is 3 years old - I am not biologically his Dad but I adopted him when I married his mother.

I first masturbated in 7th grade to some late-night sexy dance party TV show on E! tv in the basement. I found it incredibly exciting. I was kind of a shut-in kid, preferred to stay in and play Nintendo so it was a really really exciting thing.

My first encounter with internet porn was when I was in 7th grade. We had dial-up AOL and I would try to go to Playboy.com or whatever or stuff like that. I would sneak it all the time. In 8th grade I was given a laptop computer. So I started looking at porn on that. I'd say even then it was 4 or 5 times a week. I'd get myself all riled up watching porn on the laptop then head over to the bathroom to 'release'.

I got caught once or twice with the laptop, but my parents never really punished me or tried to control the situation. Just a generic 'this objectifies women so don't do it' kind of thing. I didn't even understand the concept of objectifying a group of people. I just got excited at all the porn I could get at. I wasn't hurting the girls at school, so what's the big deal?

Into high school I built my first computer, a desktop gaming rig. It was a big project so I moved it into the basement. I was super amped for this. It was a lot more about gaming, this was kind of a 'golden age' for pc gaming with HL2 and CounterStrike and WoW and all that jazz. At that point, from there until I was out of college, I kind of had a pattern of behavior.

I would go out to school or work or whatever I had to do that day, and take care of it. Then I would spend the nights gaming until I got tired, and then when it was late and I had privacy, I would watch porn for hours. Hours and hours. I remember one summer between college semester, I had completely reversed my schedule. I didn't have a job that summer so I was home. I would wake up mid-afternoon before my parents got home from work. I'd play World of Warcraft until 1 or 2 in the morning, then masturbate until about 4 or 5 am. Then sleep and do it all again.

In college it was the same story. When times were easy, stressful, mediocre, whatever. Porn was a great escape. For a while during this time I was into competitive Starcraft. I would wake up at 4-5am to watch games streamed live from South Korea. I would watch porn on one monitor and the starcraft games on the other.

After college I got a job and my own apartment. This is where the porn addiction started really getting out of hand. I bought a big monitor. I had high speed internet and guaranteed no interruptions. I would spend weekend long masturbating, gaming marathons. Day and night. I'd be excited to leave work to go home and watch porn. I remember I'd start looking at pics on my phone at work then driving home with a giant boner, playing with it as I rolled down the freeway. It all felt great.

I'm married now. I started dating a single mother. I knew that it was for real. She is awesome, my world, my love. I would give anything for her and our boys. And that includes finally breaking this porn addiction. I've quit smoking cigarettes, weed, and World of Warcraft. I can break this too.

When I look at a lot of porn now, its different than before. Because of the demands of life being married with children, I sneak it in on my phone a lot. In the car at stop lights. In the bathroom. Early in the morning when I'm supposed to be doing chores before the boys wake up. And when I do, I become mean. I use it to escape from the stress of this life. But it doesn't make sense. I have a great job and great outlook. I make enough money to provide for us alone and my wife is going back to work soon. Everyone is healthy. What could I be running from! It is an addiction plain and simple.

But I've been having a hard time with it. I've known that the porn addiction has been a problem since about 2013. At that time in my life I had just dumped the on-off girlfriend and moved to a new place. I committed myself to self improvement. I said, no girls for one year. Break the porn addiction. Up at 5am and in the gym every day. Well I didn't get too far. By mid 2013 I was living with my now wife. It was a similar story to everyone else. We had a lot of crazy sex and I fell in love with her. But now there was a child in the picture. I had to step it up and be a good Dad. So my commitment to this self-improvement has to happen while forming our family.

I've tried to quit many times on my own now. My wife knows about these attempts and failures. It was really bad during the pregnancy last year. My wife was so terribly sick for the whole thing that sex was completely out of the question. On top of that I had to take care of her and our son and all of the stacking up medical expenses. On top of that I was trying to quit porn and failing miserably. It seemed like every time I tried to quit I would go back in fuller force. Like they were just tolerance breaks or something. And then I unconsciously treat my wife worse. My patience with my children dwindles. I become lazy, unsympathetic, uncaring.

Honestly, I become a lot like my father. That thought scares me.

So I'm here to join a community to talk about the problem. Maybe contribute a little bit to figuring out how to control it. I look forward to learning others stories and supporting each other in this self-improvement endeavor.

For me, our family is in a transition. We are moving to another part of the state. Away from my parents and closer to my wife's mother. I'll be starting a new job where I have many old friends. This is a new start for my family, me, and I plan to take the nofap community with me on the journey.

- db_dan.
(and if you read this whole post, thanks!!)

Triangle · Feb 10, 2015

Hey man,

Well done for getting it all out in the open. Hopefully you feel somewhat better after writing it all down.
It sounds like a pretty intense addiction to be honest.

The patterns you have been engaging in are probably so well established that its going to be tough. The neural networks in your brain around porn and release and dopamine etc are probably burnt in to your brain.

I'm not trying to sound negative. What I am saying is that you are going to have to take this shit so fucking seriously. I'm 37, probably a sex/porn addict since 12 or so and have been trying to give it up for the last few years. But I've been only making half hearted attempts in all honest until now. Now I am switched on and fighting for my life every hour of every day.

You have too much to lose and so much to gain. Get on board. Get on the forum as often as you can and start getting involved and take control of your life back from one of lifes worst addictions. Get an accountability partner if you can.

There are loads of guys on here with great advice. Its inspirational to see guys with problems like ours up at 200 or 300 or a 1000 days without PMO.

Good luck. If you are gonna do it - do it right.

db_dan · Feb 10, 2015

Thanks Triangle it does indeed feel better writing it down. I am open with my wife about the problem but I don't discuss with her how it has affected past relationships. I don't need a porn addiction hurting her feelings anymore than it already has.

I agree it is a rather intense problem. I've been able to break many other bad habits but this has been a particularly difficult one. I remember reading that in your mid-20s is when the brain's neural networks are 'locked-in' for the rest of the brain's lifespan. So I hope that it isn't too late to take advantage of the brains last stages of development.

I am confident either way that I can break this - just as you can too at 37 - because while the mind does 'harden' over time, people can always change, no matter what age. Thanks for your kind words and best of luck to you as well.

Triangle · Feb 11, 2015

Thanks man.

I'm a big believer in brain plasticity and I know I can make changes if I keep at it.
I beat alcoholism and a few other issues and this is pretty much the last one for me. I'm a different person than I was 6 or 7 years ago.

We can successfully rewire our brains if we keep at it. Release the old negative emotions that cause the bad thoughts. Break down the old bad,dysfunctional networks in our brain and build new,constructive links...
Easier said than done but its achievable if we go balls out and really commit.

Best of luck to you

zevza · Feb 11, 2015

Hello!

I am a 25 year old male and have been dealing with this addiction for the past 13 years. I guess I started out around the age of 11 or 12, but I remember that at that time there was no cum, whenever there was an orgasm. I started with some old magazines, Playboys and watched MTV and had lots of fun with it at that time. It was all hidden joy. Later on, similar to you I spent a lot of time at the computer playing games and seeing porn was just a click away. We would revel with my friends at how easy it was to download any porn you wanted. I was downloading it and very curious. At that time the main library was puretna.org where it was the biggest storage of porn on web. I would watch all categories as I am a very adventurous person and of course my brain was not pleased with just basic amateur or brazzers action. So I would try to watch dirty scenes and masturbate to see whether I am aroused by it. I would even watch gay porn as at that time I was not so sure that maybe I have a taste for the same gender. Sometimes I would sneak in when my sister would take a shower and secretly watched it through the keylock. I even taped her secretly when she got out of the shower. So I was daring myself to all the extents. I played with toys and got them in my anus and wanted to experiment in every single way. I felt disgusted with myself, but kept on doing that as my mind would just go on to the darkest corners of porn. I would watch BDSM and felt like violating women in my mind was what would keep me strong. I watched beastiality and read emojis, played games with porn where you could edge for hours. I was eating my own cum afterwards and it was automatic. I went to full extents in this description to just show how far your mind can take you if you let it. Of course, I had problems in my relations with women because I was scared by them. I still feel it sometimes and always in the back of my mind I have these images from all the negative stuff I did experiment on. On the outside I seemed normal, I would not talk about my addiction to anyone. The moments you first have this other mind, which is scared by what you are doing and it seems to it that all the stuff will collapse is when you are fucked. You are basically living in two worlds, constantly in conflict with eachother, trying to break free from it. I tried quitting tons of times, but failed. I could say that during that time I could not stand longer than a few days without watching, only to relapse and do it 3 times in a row, then again feeling guilty about relapsing.

The mind is a fucked up thing if it controls you and the way you act at the time the mind is in control is basically like a robot programmed by all thats going on in your brain. I discovered that a bit more than 2 years ago.

I had a breaking point in my life. I split with my former gf (whom I twice cheated on) and found a new one in just a very short time. She was amazing or so I thought as I was not very close to my real self. I was trying to become a financial manager, studied for GMAT and was basically having the mindset of living for a future moment. I would study and jerk off and still watch dirty porn.

One night when I was with this new gf I had the most intense experience. I was with her, hugging and felt like she was a very good person and I was really really bad one. I felt like I was the most fucked up person, covering up all my dirtiness and now trying to be with someone this good.... My world would collapse, I had to leave her and had a heart attack on the way home. I spent a month trying to figure out whats going on with me. I was close to suicide at times as I was totally in the grip of mind every waking hour. I was surprised I could sleep, but I guess I was just so exhausted from thinking all the time. I had an on and off relationship with her, sometimes at the point where I would say to her that we cannot see eachother again. I didnt know what the hell was going on. I was lost.

Im not going to go into details, but Ive spent the past 2 years recovering from it. I read a lot of books, opened up and had an upswing in my life. I know now how the mind works and what really counts in life. I still get lost, but those periods are way shorter than they were. I am becoming an adult, who is more aware and able to take care of himself. But there is still this thing with porn. I still get on my computer, I still watch and jerk off. Although I do it only 5 times per week I still feel that guilty for doing it. Sometimes I enjoy it and I just imagine and masturbate in bed, but other times I feel like my mind takes over and I go on and do it. Now ive installed pornblockers on my devices. I havent really had an abstention of porn for a longer period since I was, well, 12 So here I am im trying to deal with this and I will start a 100 day abstention from any sort of masturbation to just delete the links in my mind. I want to have a great life with an amazing girlfriend, which I am yet to meet, and I just cant let a thing like this stop me from it. I will be on this forum, I would also like an accountability partner as someone said above to just check on me and I would check on him and just chat. I feel like it is possible, but it will be a big test to pass

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Introducing myself and my porn addiction

db_dan Fapstronaut

Triangle Fapstronaut

db_dan Fapstronaut

Triangle Fapstronaut

zevza Fapstronaut

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