It’s finally time to stop the nonsense...

Hello everyone, my name is Redmonkey54.

Currently 27 years of age, male and ready. Ready for what you may ask? For this addiction nonsense to stop.

I have been heavily into porn since my middle school years. It slowly started with Girls Gone Wild infomercials that plastered the late night television screen then worked to very soft core porn. It wasn’t bad at first. Yes, I can already hear you: “But Red, isn’t what you were doing bad?” Yes, but these types of late night escapades were no where near the intensity that would soon unfold a couple of years later.

I tried finding the courage to tell my dad about this and to be honest, I was literally characters away from sending him a text describing all of what I’d been doing, but the last minute I chickened out. However, I didn’t need to really talk to him because my mom started suspecting I was doing things at night that I wasn’t supposed to do and because of the fear of what possibly lay before me if I continued, I stopped.

Yep, cold turkey for a year and a half.

Upon entering high school, certain things led to another and I started again. This time, however, I experienced an orgasm for the first time. As many will know, that feeling from orgasm is completely ridiculous and because of the “wonderful feeling” I keep chasing it. It was so bad that I would surf the web on the family computer, something that is an absolute no no, and was caught by my parents. Obviously when you’re caught you feel ashamed and try to tell your parents it will never happen again, yeah wish that was the truth.

I got caught multiple times throughout my high school years and it never deterred me from looking at my favorite models or videos every night in bed. This was when I knew that something was wrong. So, that was when I started to search for ways to curb this addiction. As the Internet was still in its infancy stages as late as 2010, I found websites that boasted they could help, but I had to either pay or go to counseling. The latter was an absolute no go for me, I wanted to beat this by myself without them ever knowing.

Also, as this was a subject that was scoffed at at the time, I found the Internet gave me little to no help. Relapse after relapse would occur and there I was depressed every time. There was no help, I was too ashamed to tell my parents, and I was completely failing...alone.

Finally, during the summer of 2014, I was able to make progress. By that time, I had heard of NoFap, but like an idiot, I didn’t take any advice, didn’t even join the forum.
What actually helped me was a Batman comic I read...yes, I know, old Redmonkey relied on his favorite comic book hero to save him. To be honest, I can’t remember if it was Batman and the Monster Men or Batmen Venom that showed a panel where Bruce was working on locking away his pain deep inside an imaginary box in his mind that whenever pain cropped up, he focused and mentally put it away. Now, I know that sounds like poppycock, however, it worked for me. It worked so much that I was able to go 35 days! That was something that was unheard for me. I was stoked, I felt different, I got smarter—believe it or not.

Looking back on that though, I was by myself. There was no one to share my progress with, no one to reassure me or guide me, none of that. So, like clockwork, I relapsed. Ever since that day, I have never, I repeat, NEVER SEEN THOSE 30 DAYS AGAIN!

From that time onwards I’ve rationalized my addiction, saying things to myself like: “It’s only a little bit,” “I’ll stop when I get a girlfriend,” or “I’ll stop when I’m married.” But as we have seen from our wonderful brothers and sisters of the nofap army, having kids, a wife, a husband, a girlfriend or boyfriend will only delay the inevitable.

It wasn’t until I noticed one little thing that got me a little spooked recently, my memory had started receding ever so slightly. I had read that these are side effects of porn abuse and I literally had never noticed it before because I had been in school and reading and actively participating in discussion, but now it has really shown.

I knew I needed help, and this time, it had to be someone other than me. Yes, you don’t have to tell me: “Redmonkey, I told you so.” I know, I know that you need people who you can talk to about this.

So, here we are again, on the threshold of tomorrow, ready and willing to change my mindset and crush this addiction once and for all. I know that I’ll have ups and downs, but I also know that you guys and gals are here to help me as I am ready and willing to help you.

Redmonkey’s home peeps and glad to be home!