New guy trying to get himself straightened out and under control.

Hello there everybody. I'm a 26 year old geeky and artistic guy who has been addicted to porn and masturbation for 16 years. I tried to kick this bad habit for a long time, and it is pretty much has been screwing with my head for years. Unfortunately I'm not the most social person and i don't have many people to talk to about this, but a friend of mine from high school mentioned this website to me.

Porn pretty much started back when I was in middle school. I was searching through my basement and stumbled across several porn tapes hidden in the basement. Eventually it went from the tapes to dvds my older brother would stash in our room. Then we got a computer and that changed things a lot since I would find myself looking at it for more and more porn. At that point I was pretty much an very reclusive person and barely even went out. Social interaction seemed pointless and I stayed in my room and masturbated to porn multiple times a day. I also had major anger issues and would be very defensive. Even when I attempted to be more outgoing in community college, i felt the shameful feelings and had trouble in social situations. Things just never really went well with me in social situations, especially with women. I can't help but feel fear of what if a girl ever found out about my porn addiction. It even has affected my artwork, and it feels as if I couldn't draw anything I wanted for a long time. I tried to kick this bad habit before, but I always ended up relapsing after a week or so. I'm joining this site because I want to finally get myself straightened out and back on the right track.

I've recently returned to college for not being satisfied with my current job and so far it's been rough socially since I'm a awkward guy who is not comfortable with the social situations and being around the ladies. I've unfortunately kept to myself and haven't made any friends due to failure in keeping conversations going. Unfortunately when social situations randomly spring up, my body freezes and i just shut down. I want to change this and not have any issues anymore. I hope you experienced guys on here will be able to help me with my issues and help me kick my porn habits.

 

I Haven't had much of a strategy besides getting out of the house and studying in the library. I've been trying to not use my laptop as well since there's a lot of porn videos on it and bookmarks to porn sites. That kind of worked for a bit, but since I didn't have another computer and my family being overly paranoid about where I am it and whether I am alive or dead it backfired. Now I'm just trying to read some books about addiction to come up with a better strategy for dealing with this issue.

 

Thanks for the link. I think this is really going to be helpful to me. I noticed that the thread mentions Your Brain On Porn, which is what I have been reading lately along with some other books. I should try to finish that book soon because it seems like it is been a helpful book for me to read.

 

Hey there. Sorry I didn't reply to you sooner. I've been feeling okay,but I unfortunately relapsed a few times. I'm trying not to beat myself up about it, but slowly I'm making strides to not let this happen again.

 

I guess that's another issue of mine. I'm not used to having people to lean on for encouragement, or maybe i'm too scared to do it. I'm too used to being "on my own". It's just another thing i have to work on personally.