To start the journey...

Hi All

So here I am. I've finally got the spirit to put it out there. Thanks to all the brave souls before me that have had the courage to share their stories. As I've read here and elsewhere, and watched on a few videos, saying it out loud is a weight off one's chest and the start to recovery... even if it is anonymously.

I would really like to get my life "back in order". I've masturbated for many years. I wouldn't say I was a "chronic" masturbater for a long time. I would say it wasn't an issue until a few years back. I accepted responsibilities at work and in life that made things a lot tougher. I guess I turned to porn and masturbation to relax and take my mind off things. That lead me to the road I am on now. My consumption of porn has gone up and down over time, but there has obviously been a trend on the up.I admit that I did my share of public masturbation while watching porn on my phone: alone on a trail, bathroom cubicles, friends houses while visiting them, hostel dorms etc

About a year ago I broke up with my then girlfriend, not because of masturbation. I did masturbate while we were together and my feeling at the time was that we didn't have a fulfilling sexual relationship... to my liking or expectation. There were other issues that clouded our relationship. The day I moved into my new apartment I must have orgasmed at least 20 times. My balls were so empty by the last few rounds that I could only finish with a dribble. And I thought that was stress relief! It didn't even occur to me that I may have a problem.

That break up put me in a depressed state for many months. It took a long time to get out of it. But, once getting out of that mentally depressed state I was still watching porn and masturbating up to ten times a day. In that time I had met a girl who helped me through the depression. We were just friends for many months and enjoyed conversations over a quiet beer, one-on-one. That friendship evolved into a relationship. In our own quirky way we are stable. We give each other support in many ways: emotional, career, life, companionship and friendship, advice on many issues etc.

My girlfriend accepts that I masturbate, but she isn't aware of how often. She doesn't have a high sex drive and is comfortable not having intercourse very often. I accepted her low sex drive and was able to compensate with frequent solo orgasms. She is open minded in a sense and has an alternate view on sex.

I first started becoming aware that I may have a problem a few months ago. Porn addiction is a topic that is being spoken about more often in the news, social media and other platforms. And so it has come to my attention. My girlfriend teased me a little about my masturbation habit which also got me thinking. A week or two ago I read a CNN article on the interview that Alex Rhodes gave about porn addiction and NoFap. I didn't finish reading the interview, my bad. I was tempted to click the link to the NoFap website, but didn't!

Then, last night my girlfriend came over to my place a little tipsy. She was in the mood and initiated sex. We started to have sex but I wasn't able to maintain an erection. It wasn't the first time that happened either. It made me feel really disappointed in myself because I compared myself to my previous performance in times gone by. I let my girlfriend fall asleep and left the bedroom in a huff. In my irritation I sat alone in my lounge, in the dark, and found the CNN Alex Rhodes interview on my phone's history. Just "one click" and I was on the NoFap website.

It was an epiphany! I knew I had a porn addiction/masturbation problem from that moment.

This morning I read a lot of threads in the forum, watched linked videos and read other peoples' posts. Thank you to this community, I know I'm not alone in this. It makes facing the problem and recovering a lot easier. I'm here for a reboot.