It’s time to turn my life around

I started watching porn when I was about 13, and began sexting strangers when I was 16. I’ve finally accepted that I’ve had a problem with masturbation for about 10 years and I realize that it’s only affected my life negatively. I always struggled with school and going to uni only made the struggle more difficult. I would have a lot of down time and I would use it to pmo for hours on end instead of doing schoolwork. This caused me to fail out of university. After this I became somewhat depressed and continued to use pmoing and sexting as an escape. I knew that this wasn’t what I wanted my life to be so after a year I moved out of my parents house and began working on getting readmitted to my university. During this time I made new friends. However my problems with pmoing still loomed in the background. I began engaging in a lot of casual sex during this time with girls I met on dating apps. This stopped when I started dating my gf who am still with now. However I began to miss the rush and validation I would get with casual sex, this caused me to begin sexting strangers again. Trading pics and even video chatting gave me such a dopamine rush. I don’t know how many hours I’ve wasted trying to meet girls on these apps and convince them to sext with me. Many times I would waste hours trying to find a sexting partner with no success. However when I did end up sexting with someone I would always feel terrible and disgusted with myself after finishing. I would also feel so stressed that somehow my gf would find out. I kept trying to stop sexting for good, and I would have pretty long streaks without sexting but I would eventually always start again. I was even sextorted at one point and I thought that would be the end of it, but I still eventually went back. My addiction is just too strong. I always feel awful afterwards because I have a beautiful girlfriend that I love and it’s not fair to her. The girls I sext with are usually ugly and I would never want to do anything with them in person. This leads me to where I am now. I’m back in university and I’ve been struggling lately with pmoing when I should be doing course work. Luckily I haven’t sexted any strangers in over a month and I intend to keep the streak going and stop for good. I want so much more out of life and my addiction is holding me back. I know that I can achieve some great things. I want to earn my degree, make a YouTube channel, and get my body in good shape. I won’t be able to achieve any of this if I can’t get my addiction under control. I pmoed this morning and decided that it was the last time. I’ve taken some measures to help prevent porn consumption such as deleting reddit and Twitter and putting a porn blocker on my phone. My biggest problem is using my free time to pmo, so I am going to start planning out my days so I can reduce my chances of relapsing. I am going to eat breakfast, go to the library to do homework, attend all of my classes, go home, eat lunch, clean, and try and work some exercise in, then go to my job. I will post updates on my progress. I will not let this addiction hold me back from becoming the man I want to be any longer. This is my declaration that I will beat this and stop letting these compulsive sexual behaviors control my life.

 

Thank you for the support, and advice! I definitely need to work on making sure my environment works in my favor. Having free time when I’m alone is dangerous so I’m definitely going to work on putting that energy into more constructive outlets. I think that admitting I have a problem and posting on here is a big step to recovery. Posting on here a couple times a week will also keep me accountable.