It has been a question I have repeatedly been asking on this site and I'm not really getting much of a response. For some background on me...I found a stash of porn when I was 7-8 years and old and started watching it. By the time I was 12 I was addicted. This led to sex addiction and for about the last 20 years I've been a full fledged sex and porn addict. I opened up about my porn problem to my wife at the beggining of the year and she was supportive. I had been lurking on r/nofap for over a year and knew I had a problem for probably 15 years. I never took concrete steps to fix it because I was scared as it was all I knew. Once I opened up to my wife I realized that it was time to get serious and I joined NoFap...20 days later she found a text between me and a pro from back in January and my life was rocked. Ever since then I've been going to a counselour alone and with her. I've been going to 3 SAA meetings per week and have been abstaining from Porn, masturbation and looking at anything that my wife wouldn't approve of. I'm part of a 90 day challenge and am only 2 days away! When I go on the challenge thread I'm shocked at how often people continually relapse without taking the most obvious and simple step. BLOCK PORN! You can put controls on your phone. You can put k-9 on your computer and you can block your porn from you wifi. I understand that some will say "well, I actually not that bad off...I don't need to take such drastic measures" but here is the thing. You're either here because you don't want to masturbate anymore or you're not here. If you're here and you're failing at quiting masturbation what are you waiting for? I wasted 20 years because I didn't realize I could do these things and wasn't committed enough to join a site like this. I have a friend in recovery that just lost his incredible job, incredible fiance and most of his friends because he just got caught masturbating at work. That is not where you want to be! So I guess my question is "if you've decided it is serious enough that you're here and you're 'challenging yourself' to quit...and you're failing...why aren't you taking the most basic and fundamental step?" Why don't you just block the porn? (I'm aware there are ways around this but here is the deal...if you can't get it off your home wifi, or your own laptop or your phone unless you find public wifi that allows you to access porn how often do you think you'll look at porn? I started my 90 day challenge and 10 days in I was already cheating by looking at prostitutes advertisements. Once my girl found out about my double life I shut everything down and now I'm 2 days away from 90 days. I'm typing this from my living room on my laptop and for me to look at porn I don't even know what I would have to do. I guess go to starbucks and see if I could access something over their wifi. That isn't f'n happening. So I wish everyone the best but once you've joined a 90 day challenge and have failed 3 times but haven't blocked porn I don't know how you could be expected to be taken seriously when you're obviously not taking your problem seriously. Block porn, find a counselour, go to meetings...don't waste another day.
Yes i agree with you. I am bored of porn. However i use fb. But fb logged me out some reason and am sick of them asking for mobile number to confirm account so i thought fuck it and deleted the app for the last week. Ive done the following; Deleted fb app Deleted pics of girls Deleted numbers of girls that I had sexual attachment to or know i will Deleted previous conversations Deleted anything that will trigger. I need to log on to my phone network and disable over 18 content as i did briefly look at porn other day. What these actions do is create a new "prison cell" for you. So when you get urges you have nowhere to go. And this will be hard as you have to refrain from relapsing refrain from porn and commit yourself to resistance. With porn before you was so used to that prison cell... you dont want to leave.... However you have to take measures to "change prison cells" ie delete and block shit.
I am half assuming programs to block porn don't necessarily block social media sites, or certain chat and other sites that might be considered a waste of time/trigger (or at least not best/most productive use of time). I agree, definitely block porn at an absolute minimum. To be a bit more strict, why not limit general consumption internet activities and replace with production activities that are more self-improvement/goal oriented? That or make up some other permutation where the set of things you do on the internet turns to overwhelmingly positive life experiences. That is the direction I am leaning after seeing so many relapses. For many people, their addiction to Facebook/smartphone use may be more of a problem than porn and they don't even know it yet. This is analogous to a bunch of people who are trying to diet effectively, but who insist on keeping their houses full of junk food (bread, chips, all manner of high calorie/low nutritional content foods). It is so much easier to throw out all that junk and start with healthy fruits/veggies/proteins. Matter over mind. When I force my self to think of a counter-example as to why people don't block porn more, I'd have to say that porn is just one (sometimes small) piece of a much bigger problem(s) that they are facing. I don't have porn blocked on my PC, but by far my biggest challenge starting out is not having an orgasm of any type. But overall I agree with you. One relapse due specifically to porn and I'd have something like k-9 in place immediately! No clue why others don't' see it that way.
How come you didn't have PIED? I am amazed how long you have been able to live the life of a sex addict while watching so much porn and from a young age...
Well..as for me i have struggled a lot, lost years of productive life, let down people who had faith in me, made my life a mess...so i know what porn has done to me and i'm honestly motivated to get rid of it...i tried a lot and failed countless of times. Every time i think of blocking porn, i bring up some excuses and end up falling prey to porn again. But finally, I BLOCKED porn and shut myself from social media and now i'm reaping the wonderful results...I think people don't block porn because they aren't 100 % committed to getting rid of addiction or they are fine with making up excuses or they falsely believe that they have supreme self control... As for me, blocking porn made a lot of difference
I got off all social media 70 days ago and it has been great. I was knee deep and am an American living abroad so I thought I "needed it"...I don't. It's great.
Our story is probably very similar and I'm glad you're doing great. I attribute my success to blocking porn and leaving social media. It had been amazing.
I only had PIED in committed relationships and some one night stands. When you become addicted to prostitution and fetish you get easily aroused. I could go to the nightclub and pick up two hot girls and take them home and have trouble performing but then when they left go to a 40 year old fat gross prostitute and get immediatly aroused. Fucking terrible.
