RRKaizen Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 I am a porn addict that is determined to quit. Until about three weeks ago, I had not seen any porn for three months. It felt great and the journey had been difficult. Has had a very good effect on my life. The only issue is that for a wide array of reasons I can’t have sex with my girlfriend of three months at all. A combination of her bad past previous experience, distance, living logistics, etc is causing us to take it really slow. So three weeks ago, I watched some clips again, masturbated to them but made a conscious decision not to cum. Instead what I did was get hard, turn the porn off then finish to a pic of my gf on my screen. What I am TRYING to do was get to a point where I can masturbate just thinking about her – well... maybe a pic or two. But I have no sexy clips (she doesn’t want to make any yet…) or pics of her. What I am WORRIED will happen is that I’ll start going back to porn. Unfortunately, I don’t get hard when I want to and have time to masturbate. Going back to porn would make me feel extremely bad about myself - not fighting the addiction - and in turn would not allow me to have sex when I want to with her as I don't get hard easily. Any tips? Any other forums you recommend I post on? Link to post Share on other sites
somedude81 Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 Really, you can't masturbate when you just think about her? You need porn to masturbate? Link to post Share on other sites
Philosoraptor Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 Really, you can't masturbate when you just think about her? You need porn to masturbate? That's one of the differences between an addiction and casual use. Link to post Share on other sites
whichwayisup Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 she doesn’t want to make any yet…) You want her make videos so you can jerk off to them.. Still a porn problem! Seeing as you two are taking things slowly, to even have thoughts/desires of her to make a video for you just shows that you need to go see someone otherwise your porn problem is going to get worse. Link to post Share on other sites
dreamingoftigers Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 Dude, as someone with a former porn addiction and a husband who has been struggling (heavily) with porn addiction for years, you cannot go back to it, period. Even for starters. It still messes with your brain chemicals. Negotiating with it will not work. For me personally, I didn't notice the big turning point until about 6 months. It seems like that was when it started to really dissipate. By the two year mark I think I was completely free overall of the urge to go back. I saw some inadvertently and it didn't "grab out" at me like it used to. Every now and then I will have a very brief flash of that urge (pretty much when I see a website profile on my roommate's google chrome) but it is VERY brief, almost unnoticeable (in fact it wasn't until I thought about it here, I might ask if she minds just hiding that one as a favor). I don't want to go back to that dark place again. I like to be in control of my sexual choices and stimulus, not some fat cat ******* producer exploiting people's basic urges for his own capital gain. Link to post Share on other sites
dreamingoftigers Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 Truly, you gotta nail-bite and stop jerking with the stimulation of thoughts of porn. It's a tough thing. And you will fall (at least with the thoughts). But sooner the old neural pathways stopped being reinforced and they fade out. But only if you stop reinforcing them by using visual media and thinking about pornographic scenes to masturbate to. It will be very overwhelming, but it seems that you have made progress. Good for you for recognizing the problem. Many people are in heavy heavy denial about it and many don't want to believe that it even exists. Just so you know.... Real sex becomes much better. It is like the difference between junk food and real, healthy food. Junk good may taste good right in the moment, but when you become accustomed to eating well you feel better overall, and going back to junk food us no longer pleasurable. You can taste the cheap chemical flavors and it makes you sick because much of it is somewhat toxic. When you find out what porn is taking away from you, when you experience real, de-toxified sex with a recovered mind: porn will actually become a turn-off. Although you may have the occasional crave for how it used to make you feel. Link to post Share on other sites
dreamingoftigers Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 FInal thought: getting an erection will become easier without the porn. You may need to take an extended break from "jerking the gherkin" for awhile. Link to post Share on other sites
Feelin Frisky Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 I question trying to force-limit your imagination while fantasizing in masturbation. What's up with that? Are you rather young where porn has always been instantly accessible? If so you may just simply not have the perspective other older people have whom have not come along with this instant access and had to use their own powers of fantasy. Being older I came up thinking that whatever I want to fantasize about that gets me hot enough to cum is fair game and that there is no one onside my head monitoring my thoughts telling me what or who I should limit my mind to. My fantasies are probably typical of most hetero-sexual guys who don't have some weird fascination with the hurtful or deviant. So, is as much as sex is a kind of an abandonment of the veneer of civilization and a spontaneous act of self-indulgent "wildness" I consider it fair game to think a lot of sexy things perhaps about many different sexual situations when enjoying masturbation by yourself and wonder why one would try to put on some sort of artificial "horse-blinders" to limit the fantasy to one person. It's not "cheating" or weird in any way to use your mind to get yourself off. Lighten up and get used to being comfortable with your imagination. It sounds like you are trying to "repress" yourself and that can be an erection killer. The imagination is the one place you are entitled to the variety which is the "spice of life". The less neurotic you become about your own fantasies, the more natural and free you may behave when you are actually with a real lover. Good luck. Link to post Share on other sites
dreamingoftigers Posted January 23, 2012 Share Posted January 23, 2012 FF touched on something I wasn't super-specific with. What I was purposely trying to illustrate was not to keep the link between porn and your masturbation married to one another. If your imagination can create otherwise, it would probably be somewhat healthy to do so. They being said, since you are unable to easily het hard without porn, you may need to reset your brain for a time and lay off of the self-stim altogether (I have read and heard 90 days to be the magic number but I think most guys would have my hide by suggesting that and think I am the sex-Nazi.) (I myself have only gone 90 days once in my life, right after I became a Christian.) The idea is simply to break sex with self or others away from porn. Not to kill all sexual expression, including intimacy. Link to post Share on other sites
Author RRKaizen Posted January 23, 2012 Author Share Posted January 23, 2012 (edited) It's really good to know that people have gone through the same thing. It's hard. Real hard especially since I am almost not getting any at home and yet I still have to be loyal. Issue is that when we get into a fight it's even harder to hold back. You think "This is not worth it, I want to **** something. No woman is available right away so why not go the easy path: porn." I guess sticking to it regardless shows a sort of character and strength. She doesn't know about my addiction and what I am trying to do - get rid of it. She knows I USED to watch and that I stopped... But not about the fact that I broke. The only bad thing is when you fail you fail hard. Oh well, 3 months is my record. I'm going for the FOREVER next. And I do get hard. Problem is that as soon as I get hard and start masturbating I lose the erection. But towards the end of the three months with no porn I noticed a slight improvement in that too. Only not enough. I think after 6 months I would be good and if not, I'll keep going. Edited January 23, 2012 by RRKaizen Link to post Share on other sites
dreamingoftigers Posted January 24, 2012 Share Posted January 24, 2012 I give you tons and tons of credit for what you are doing. My husband spent 3 years avoiding and hiding and there has been tons of damage to my self-concept and our marriage. I would consider being honest with your girlfriend about your issue depending on the strength and security of the relationship. Btw, my husband has noted the exact same peak in urges: right after a fight. Fights trigger huge anxiety and usually porn/sexual addiction is about relieving anxiety. Often intimacy in itself triggers anxiety. The only way to get over it is to push through it. Be intimate. Become comfortable with it and then it becomes enjoyable beyond belief. Link to post Share on other sites
Author RRKaizen Posted January 24, 2012 Author Share Posted January 24, 2012 (edited) These are the things that make me go back: 1) Fights 2) Intimacy 3) Jealousy that I keep inside 4) Lack of any affection (email, txt, call, skype) for more than a day 5) Me doing something that in the past she deemed too affectionate I thought boredom did it but it's not really a factor. In one word, anxiety, you are completely right. In fact, my breaking point was when I emailed her and she didn't answer for two days. I was SUPER-concerned\anxious. Little did I realize that she was in another city with no Internet. AND she did text me. Anxiety strikes again. Edited January 24, 2012 by RRKaizen Link to post Share on other sites
Meeks7 Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 Dude, as someone with a former porn addiction and a husband who has been struggling (heavily) with porn addiction for years, you cannot go back to it, period. Even for starters. It still messes with your brain chemicals. Negotiating with it will not work. For me personally, I didn't notice the big turning point until about 6 months. It seems like that was when it started to really dissipate. By the two year mark I think I was completely free overall of the urge to go back. I saw some inadvertently and it didn't "grab out" at me like it used to. Every now and then I will have a very brief flash of that urge (pretty much when I see a website profile on my roommate's google chrome) but it is VERY brief, almost unnoticeable (in fact it wasn't until I thought about it here, I might ask if she minds just hiding that one as a favor). I don't want to go back to that dark place again. I like to be in control of my sexual choices and stimulus, not some fat cat ******* producer exploiting people's basic urges for his own capital gain. *applauds* I want to +100 this post. I too am a recovering porn user. The longest I went was 30 days clean. I'm nearly 2 weeks clean currently, and don't want to go back to my old lifestyle ever again. I commend you RR for being starkly honest and introspective. Tiger is right, most people are in heavy heavy denial. In fact, I remember last summer my friend told me I was addicted to pornography. I was like "Addict? That's a strong word there man..." but he was right. I had the compulsion to masturbate 3-4x a week. I depended on it. It was a drug. An addiction. I was an addict. Keep up the good fight, soldier! Here's to FOREVER clean, and FOREVER CLEANSED. Link to post Share on other sites
dreamingoftigers Posted January 25, 2012 Share Posted January 25, 2012 good for you Meeks. For me it happened one night when I found out about my H's porn use. We had both known that I had trouble staying away from it, but I had no idea thst he was even doing that. It hurt that he kept it from me and I felt very insecure because our sex life was the pits. I looked over my internet history and saw that I had spent 3 days straight viewing it! 3 whole days of viewing, self-stimulating and getting ready to go again! i decided to stop then and there. Unfortunately my H has even a worse compulsion and go to public wi-fi in parking lots. geez. Link to post Share on other sites
Author RRKaizen Posted January 29, 2012 Author Share Posted January 29, 2012 So the end date for porn was 2012/01/24. So far so good. Although this morning I was thinking of getting videos I stashed away of my ex and I... Fortunately the procedure would be so lengthy that I cut that thought out right away. I also realized another trigger for porn usage being away from home with Internet access and nobody to talk to! This includes your friends who may be working or your family or your gf. Link to post Share on other sites
Appleanche Posted January 31, 2012 Share Posted January 31, 2012 So the end date for porn was 2012/01/24. So far so good. Although this morning I was thinking of getting videos I stashed away of my ex and I... Fortunately the procedure would be so lengthy that I cut that thought out right away. I also realized another trigger for porn usage being away from home with Internet access and nobody to talk to! This includes your friends who may be working or your family or your gf. Good luck to you. I admire you for doing this, of realizing you ave a problem with it and taking steps to overcome the addiction. Many men out there claim they are just casual porn-users and aren't addicted, but if they actually tried to stop watching as you are, many of them would realize just how difficult it is.. and that is evidence of a true dependency. Link to post Share on other sites
Author RRKaizen Posted February 2, 2012 Author Share Posted February 2, 2012 Why? - Had a big BBQ at my house last night. Very social thing. Made waking up alone that much more difficult. - Didn't talk to my gf last night since I was busy hosting all night... - Went to fill up at the gas station and right underneath the main counter there were the most recent Playboy-type magazines. - I know that even when I see my gf this weekend we can't have sex so when I woke up this morning I found myself thinking of sex with exes... Although my gf is the only one I want... - It would be so easy to start contacting an ex or much easier to just put a clip on right NOW and get the stress out. But I won't. - I am sick so I can't work out hardcore to get my mind off things... But I am still doing yoga tonight. Thank you all for your support. Link to post Share on other sites
Recommended Posts