Hello all, new here. I have struggled with porn addiction for nearly 20 years. I am now in my mid 30s, in college, a decent career and a lovely wife and 2 children I'm so grateful for. I am tired of living a double life where I stay up late at night in secrecy feeding into my addiction. I tried the 30 day challenge before and was successful. I have gone many times before without watching porn. Despite these small victories, I always seem to go back to watching it and feeling ashamed and disgusted with myself. I want this to be the last time I have to reboot and to have a healthy sexual lifestyle with myself and with my wife. I am truly appreciative to see many fellow nofappers on their own journey all with similar goals as mine. I support all of you and I hope we can all find our best lives!
Here is my story and some things I have learned and hopefully this helps. My story has some similarities on age, length of porn, and kids. i relapsed twice after 6 months Or so when I thought I had it beat. I’m currently 8months 3 days free from that relapse. It had been A struggle for 17 years in my life. I’m also married with 3 kids. I have learned a lot in my struggle with porn. One, is what triggers me. A lot on the internet and tv triggered me(seeing beautiful women). I believe my last relapse was super bowl halftime show, I didn’t relapse that night, but like a week or two after it, but those images stayed with me and I kept wanting more, even after 6 months. I also researched And watched videos of the science behind it all and it releases dopamine In your brain and scary how the addiction get you when I thought I could control it. the ways I feel like I have conquered it for good was that I had my wife put in an adult filter password that I don’t know what it is(it could be a friend if you are not married). It’s my backup plan when having a bad day and can’t see the adult sites. I also don’t watch shows that could trigger me and try to turn my head if I think a scene is coming. More importantly though, I have really grown in my faith with God. I have listened to so many sermons on temptations and that has helped me tremendously. Rick Warren and Greg Laurie are 2 of my favorites and have helped me a ton!! I learned about all the garbage I was putting in my mind. The analogy was how we have to watch what we eat, we can’t eat McDonald’s fried food every meal without bad consequences, the same thing applies with what you consistently put in your mind. We are trying to undo years and years of bad addictions and it takes time to undo that. “Above Inspiration” YouTube videos are great too. Give them a listen, it’s usually 10-20 min long. A good quote I heard on sermon, “ a warrior might not win every battle, but they never stop fighting.” Hopefully this helps and try and learn as much as possible and avoid whatever gets you tempted and triggered. make it a lifestyle change and don’t beat yourself up if you have a relapse. Just learn from it and keep trying to do better. Porn free radio podcast by Matt Dobschuetz I also told myself , I would help as many people possible struggling with this as I could once when I got it under control.
Thank you so much for your reply! I have been away from here for a few days due to life, but I have managed to stay strong and keep going. I'm glad I came today and read this, very motivating! Will definetely check out those youtube videos!
Great to hear!! That’s what helped me and maybe help on lifestyle change. I also learned that bad addicting habits didn’t happen overnight.... it often took months and months and most likely years. In that same thinking it’s hard to flip a switch overnight without a relapse. It can be done, but you get the point.
