Time to share what I've learned

32 year old mostly hetero, been doing porn on and off for almost 20 years. It started as relief for social anxiety, but the addiction quickly grew after that. As the porn numbed my anxiety, it also degenerated me into an addict and a catch 22 soon developed. Early days of NoFap first intimated me as I do not follow rigid schedules very well, same with college courses, I learn on a slower level. So I went off on my own and decided to try and fix it myself. Progress has been slow past few years. I have written 3 journals on overcoming porn, writing whenever I relapse to see if I can uncover any sort of underlying motivations and/or mechanisms that causes such relapses. After relapsing again lately, I realized I was going to need additional support.

The guilt and shame I have already understood and worked through, majority of which is not my fault but the programming of the dopamine circuit not wired to reject such intense pleasure because it is programmed to find the greatest pleasure. A lot of it is also due to indefelityThe problem is rejecting it. The problem is creating a moral foundation and standing by it as best as you can as your strength grows against the mind's programming. The problem is looking into our own childhood and realizing what the triggers are for viewing porn. The self-esteem, the self-hatred, why we were told to accept ourselves only after meeting certain criteria. The fear of rejection plays heavily into this. Porn is often a cover for a spiritual problem.

I don't know if this site will work or not for me, but it is certainly worth a shot. My experience has taught me that stopping cold turkey is impossible unless you have developed a set of moral principles beforehand and can forgive yourself for such things out of better understanding one's causes of their transgressions. Personally, I feel weening off via mindful masturbation is a better idea. Eventually, that can trickle down to nothing, too. It is important to keep one person in mind only, because infidelity can be a trigger for guilt and shame.

I think that's a long enough introductory post. Hopefully what I said won't be too triggering, but I am a rather blunt person so again, not sure how well this will work out.

 

Thanks PMO addict. I am a poet by nature so stuff like that is expressed without thinking about it. I didn't notice until you pointed it out.

This place has definitely given me the encouragement to keep going after seeing so many other people facing similar issues.