My addiction has got me in trouble.

[Steve1992]

Hello everyone.

Just signed up today on the advice of a lovely understanding lady from the "stop it now!" help line. I am a 25 year old male who has an unhealthy obsession. I am not proud to freely admit this, But yesterday there was a police raid on my property due to proof of indecent images being downloaded from our property of young people. This was me and I freely admitted it when confronted by the police. I have not been arrested, nor have any bail restrictions which I am still finding hard to believe since this has been YEARS in the making and it's not exactly a small amount of media either, but I am under investigation.

I am using this time to completely get myself stuck into helping me with this problem and seeking help wherever I can. Against the advice of authorities that advised not to tell anyone, I told my partner the one who I truly trust and was shocked that she was still supportive of me.

My goal here is to talk to others in a similar situation as mine to seek help from them, as well as give whatever help I can back. I know what I did was terrible and I knew for years but I was always scared of retribution, my loved ones shunning me and the public seeing me as a monster. I have never thought about doing what I do online physically to a young person and I was always afraid of being caught will automatically place me in that category to everyone around me.

I want to perform this websites modules that it has to offer in order to stop these horrible thoughts. I've been through the first stages of understanding and acknowledging my addiction, Now here goes to eradicating the addiction completely. If anyone has anything to say to help me please do so for I will try anything and everything.

Thank you for listening and I hope to stop this problem together.

 

[johnkite99]

Go see a psychologist and an actual doctor.

Doing this alone can make everything worse.

 

[Steve1992]

Thank you. it may be a good thing to do to speak to a healthcare professional now. During my problems I used to seek about counselling or to see my GP about it but was always deterred by the fact they HAVE to notify the authorities. Now under investigation it is no longer stopping me from doing that.

 

[ssbackup]

Get an attorney. Tell the attorney what you did because they can tell you if there was a law broken or not and they can advise you what to do or not do to maximize your chances of having the best outcome legally. I’m not an attorney but I like law. Not sure what else to advise. Good luck!

I think you can call the bar association where you live and get recommendations for an attorney.

 

[Deleted Account]

Hello everyone.

Just signed up today on the advice of a lovely understanding lady from the "stop it now!" help line. I am a 25 year old male who has an unhealthy obsession. I am not proud to freely admit this, But yesterday there was a police raid on my property due to proof of indecent images being downloaded from our property of young people. This was me and I freely admitted it when confronted by the police. I have not been arrested, nor have any bail restrictions which I am still finding hard to believe since this has been YEARS in the making and it's not exactly a small amount of media either, but I am under investigation.

I am using this time to completely get myself stuck into helping me with this problem and seeking help wherever I can. Against the advice of authorities that advised not to tell anyone, I told my partner the one who I truly trust and was shocked that she was still supportive of me.

My goal here is to talk to others in a similar situation as mine to seek help from them, as well as give whatever help I can back. I know what I did was terrible and I knew for years but I was always scared of retribution, my loved ones shunning me and the public seeing me as a monster. I have never thought about doing what I do online physically to a young person and I was always afraid of being caught will automatically place me in that category to everyone around me.

I want to perform this websites modules that it has to offer in order to stop these horrible thoughts. I've been through the first stages of understanding and acknowledging my addiction, Now here goes to eradicating the addiction completely. If anyone has anything to say to help me please do so for I will try anything and everything.

Thank you for listening and I hope to stop this problem together.

Hi. Welcome to forum!

Make sure you create a personal journal thread in Reboot Logs section and blog there on a regular basis. As well as just generally be active participant in various forum discussions. I recommend this to everybody new here because it's the major thing that helped me when I was first starting. Just lurking on forums, reading and learning is great. But it usually is so much more powerful to engage. It helps to keep us motivated and accountable when we are active part of community. And keeps this in front of our minds so we don't forget about importance of it and slip away in our old habits. Sharing is also therapeutic. This is a major reason why AA meetings work so good. But that was developed before internet era. These days we can get most of the same benefits online through communities like this. So don't underestimate the power of active participation.

I would also like to suggest you to look into mindfulness meditation. It has helped me personally tremendously to learn how to deal with urges and triggers. It takes a while to get good at it and notice results, so you need to be consistent with it, but once you do it's very powerful. It has been used by sages for thousands of years to deal with various issues of the mind. And in recent decades the science is also catching up to what ancient sages have know for centuries. Meditation these days are widely used as very effective tool by psychologists for treating addiction and by neurologists for supporting recovery of the brain after physical injury. Plus it is generally a great exercise for the brain the same way as jogging is great exercise for the body.

You gotta make sure it is proper mindfulness meditation though. "Mindfulness" meditation where we just focus on breath is more like a concentration meditation instead. It works too but differently and not as powerfully in my experience. Real mindfulness meditation however trains you to accept your urges by understanding the nature of them by observing them, not just suppress them by concentrating on something else instead. It makes you comfortable with them. And once you accept and become comfortable with them there is no need to get rid of them, so there is no need to PMO. Only reason why we PMO is because that urge, that itch in our crotch is uncomfortable, we wanna get rid of it. And then after PMO we have our release. Or we simply want pleasure. And inability to have that pleasure makes us uncomfortable. But if we accept that we can not have pleasure then resistance is gone and there is no reason to PMO.

Acceptance and mindfulness is the key. Check out this Ted talk on acceptance and mindfulness practice, it gives a good idea of what's it's about when it comes to philosophy. The mindfulness practice as described by psychologist in a the video can be used by itself but ideally should be used as supplementation to your daily sitting meditation. Sitting meditation I personally practice and recommend to people is as explained by meditation expert in this YouTube playlist. If you don't like the monk or want other method there is this awesome smartphone app called Headspace for guided meditations.

Wish you lot's of strength and success in your reboot journey!

 

[Steve1992]

Thank you to you guys for listening and giving good feedback. I can say since everything has happened I am doing very well coping with this stress, The more advice given the better. I will try everything you guys have mentioned and I will update my story in hopes for others in this situation too that they see there is always support no matter how terrible this addiction is, as well as write a log just to get it all off my chest. I know in my head and in my heart I am done with any forms of pornography because reading a certain book I brought has made me realize that porn in general is a gateway to illegal things as well as an addiction that can take hold of your life. My urges are not being suppressed as I have an amazing supportive partner (who knows everything about what I've done) where we can still be intimate. which obviously as you said, Stopping the urge does not help.

I am tired as I just worked last night so when I wake up later today I shall look more into what you guys have suggested. Thank you for understanding.