You read that right, 52 days. I am staggered by the total number of hours I have wasted of my life this year. So, you may well ask, 'how come its such a crazy high number'? The answer is that I had become 'committed to porn' and had made it a major part of my day.
This condition is a manifestation that originates from when I separated from my partner back in 2010, and moved out of the city in to the country. Up until 19th December 2017 on average I was spending 4 hours a day on a dopamine road trip. I would search the internet for several hours looking for ever increasingly arousing forms of porn, I felt completely desensitised to tame commercial every-day porn and lately my tastes had become much darker. What was worse that being a creative person with design skills if the image didn't exist I could manipulate an image to create one that I found to be suitably stirring, a truly sick, twisted waste of my skills.
What I found deeply unsettling was that recently whilst under the heavy influence of the digital crack that is the internet, I found myself walking around looking at attractive people and sexually objectifying them in my head, I would look at someone and say to myself 'that person is a complete F-k Doll'. From there I started to stray in to the realm of consuming progressively more sordid types of porn which would result in feelings of extreme depression and shame, to the extent that I would then spend a further 3 hours resetting my computer to ensure that my machine was clean of any remaining web files.
In reality with the 'computer cleaning ritual' the true total number of hours wasted must be: 7hrs per day, thats 49hrs per week, 102 days a year - almost one third of the year.
I want my life back, and I truly mean that. I am thoroughly ashamed of myself, and I am aware that with my very severe porn addiction I should seek professional counselling, but I am determined to do this for myself, for the sake of my future, and to earn the right to expect a fuller and richer life, ideally shared together with someone that can offer me real physical love.
Im aware that my story sounds deeply pathetic, I do have an 'alter ego' and that man is a professional consultant, with healthy interests such as competition running, climbing, and travel. When I am mindful to be a dignified and 'proper' person I am told that I am lively, fun, engaging and loyal, and yet the dark side has been the stronger force, aggravated by the internet and the sheer volume of readily available pornography.
I no longer want porn or masturbation in my life. I want to feel free and to live my life as a dignified and whole man. I am 10 days clean now (40 hours reclaimed). I have had one weak point yesterday evening, I spent 2 hours looking at non-erotic, yet arousing images, before I stopped myself form going any further. I'm not going to be a slave to porn or masturbation a day longer.
Thanks for allowing me to share my story with you, I am grateful for the anonymity of this supportive space to be able to express my feelings and to be able to 'hold the mirror up' to face the reality of my condition, whilst sharing in the support of this forum. I also hope that my story will highlight the perils of progressive porn addition to those here that are only mildly afflicted in comparison, trust me, its not the way to go.
