More difficult than I imagined, but I'm determined to overcome PMO & end my isolation

Giving up PMO has been much more difficult than I would have imagined. Repeatedly I've told myself "OK, that was the last time!" after a binge, and yet somehow I keep finding myself saying it yet again. I knew giving up porn would be difficult, but I thought I had enough will power to make a decision, stick to it, and not look back. Apparently I don't. Not yet, anyway, though I'm working on it still.

See, I've given up other addictions successfully before. A few years back, I got fairly heavily addicted to opium, but decided that was not a road I wanted to go down any further, so I resolved to stop. I went through a couple weeks of very painful withdrawals, then a couple months of pretty severe depression, but eventually came out of it. I haven't been tempted to get back into opiates ever since. I decided to quit and I did! Done deal. So giving up porn should be a snap, right? Or so I mistakenly thought. The withdrawal symptoms from PMO have been nowhere near as excruciating as they were from opiates. Nevertheless, I find I've been struggling much more to actually give up that surge of endogenous dopamine that PMO provides than I struggled with giving up dragon-chasing. This came as a surprise to me.

Anyway, just to let everyone know a little bit about me, I'm a 31 year old single male living in California. I've had a couple really good, long-term relationships with women, the last of which I broke off several years ago because I was so ashamed of my rapidly declining sexual performance (my passionate sexuality used to be something I felt proud of). I strongly suspected even then that it likely had something to do with my daily "consumption" of porn, but it was easier to blame it on other factors, such as depression and fatigue - factors which ironically I now know were also a result of PMO.

Since I was fearful of the embarrassment and shame that would inevitably come from new sexual encounters, I avoided women with whom there was even a remote chance of developing a relationship (I've never been the type to go for casual sex - even back when I felt like I was decent at doing it). That also meant I didn't really make new friends at all, and most of my old friends I had stopped communicating with when I ended the aforementioned relationship. So I've been pretty much a recluse these last few years, and honestly... I'm getting really fucking sick of it. I want to have some self confidence again, feel comfortable around other people, develop friendships, and eventually maybe even a romantic relationship. I'm just so tired of being this complete loner/loser that I've become. I don't want to be like this anymore. And I know that STOPPING this addiction to looking at porn and jerking off is the only way I'm going to accomplish that. But as you all know, it's much easier said than done. Especially when PMO has become the coping mechanism for dealing with the crushing solitude it created in the first place.

So yes, here I am... Trying to kick this habit once again, but this time, hopefully, not completely alone. I am going to try to post here and on the NoFap reddit. I'll be putting up a post for an accountability partner if anyone reading this is interested. I've been lurking the community for quite a while already, but maybe I'll have more success if I'm an active participant rather than the silent observer I usually am. Needless to say, I'm so very glad this community exists. I've seen how beneficial it is for so many people, and it has been for me too, even as a lurker. So let me end this long-winded post by saying to those reading this as well as to the community at large: "hello and THANK YOU."