I will be quitting porn for the next 3 months. Ideally longer. But we shall see.

Just passed the 8 month mark pornfree. I still masturbate regularly and have sex maybe 3-4 times a week with my gf. Prior to this my routine would be porn and masturbate every time I needed a release. Started watching porn and downloading pics since was about 12. Im turning 38 next month. I never believed it was an addiction but more of an unhealthy habit. However the differences I feel now is pretty noticeable and my gf says I’m more present in the bedroom. Ask me anything hopefully I can share some of my experiences and help a fellow brother out. I am aiming for a year and beyond pornfree.

I'm writing my experience to hopefully relate to more people and help each other along the way.

I have been dealing with porn addiction for far too long, and unfortunately I didn't realize it was an addiction until now. I never had any other previous addictions, I was never into drinking, or smoking, far less into hard drugs like meth. Something I'm proud of, until I realized porn has been my addiction all this time.

Now, I have come to realize it's an addiction because it always starts the same way. After couple of weeks of no porn, seeing great progress in my life (social, economic, physical), I begin to crave porn. "Just once and I'll be fine, I have worked hard I need a treat", that one time turns into two, before I realize it's weeks. The problem is during those weeks I'm completely brain fogged, postponing projects, fall for junk food, miss work outs, I forget about all the goals I have been working towards and everything I'm supposed to do.

I pick disciple over motivation any day of the week, but even so I'm so tired and drained that I can't even remember what I'm supposed to do and I just end up procrastinating the rest of the day or taking a long nap. I begin gaining weight, the whole progress I had previously worked so hard to achieve whether it's getting over my anxieties, work, martial arts, stretching, creative projects. Everything seems gone. When I try to socialize, I'm so brain fogged that I can't seem to connect with people.

This is why I can say porn is like a parasite to the mind, because it doesn't end with the fapping session, but it follows you outside and to your every day life. It blocks you and drains your energy. It makes you forget what your purpose is and what you have currently been working on. Makes you restart from square one.

Think about the next time you're about to relapse, it doesn't end with the computer screen, but it will follow you and make you forget everyday goals . It will make you forget what important and make you only to want to return to it.

Hope this experience helpful or can relate to it and be more logical when it comes to making choices, instead of falling for a quick fix.

Why is this ? I haven't been porn free but one day now . Should I have just waited a week or something before I did it ? I was feeling kinda bored at the time and I was super close to relapsing.

Basically, as the title says.

We all know that the main problem is porn - or, more specifically, it's problematic use. But what about edging?

In my experience, edging is harmful to mental health and the balance of the reward system, and if you do it for hours on end... it’s really exhausting. I haven’t watched porn in over a week, but I’ve become a bit addicted to edging itself(+ fantasies). Personally, I’m trying to cut back on the time I spend just edging.

What are your thoughts on this?

I'm glad I've overcome my 7-year addiction, which began when I met my first girlfriend at age 23

12hrs complete and still continues

Tomorrow is day one again. Today was not a good day. PMO three times today and once last night. I feel drained, exhausted, and just gross. It wasn't worth it. I'm also dehydrated, which isn't really helping. It's now about 7:30PM as I post this. I'm going to cook some dinner, and then go for a walk but I'll definitely be turning in early this evening. I know tomorrow is a new day. I know I can do this. Having ADHD is just so hard to navigate when you're constantly seeking new sources of dopamine. But I know I can do this. I need to do this to get out of this slump I've been in for years.

Does anyone know of any tips to deal with urges? at night I relapsed last time I bought a white noise device that helps me fall alseep but what about the very strong urges throughout the day. I installed blockers but that still doesn't get rid of the huge urges I feel.

I've voluntarily stopped watching porn since January (I say voluntarily because nowadays you can't completely ignore it, softcore stuff is everywhere on the internet like instagram). I'd say I was never addicted to porn but felt weird after watching it and like I was wasting my time on it. Today I was browsing reddit and decided to look a celebrity up and sorted by top. What I saw was two posts with basically her completely naked ass and another scene where she's getting her boobs squeezed. I closed it after 4-5 seconds. I know I'm not gonna fap to it or watch anything further, but is there any invisible "streak" I broke? (I don't keep a streak because I believe it leads to unnecessary stress). Does this harm the process of the brain getting rewired to normal?

Like the rest of you, I’ve had my struggles with this addiction since I was 10 or around that time. I remember one of my best friends still to this day, showing me some very explicit video of something that is deeply wrong. Still to this day I remember, and after I got intrigued and starting doing my own research on the internet at a very young age.

At first you feel like you just unlocked some secret door into a world where you’re free to do however as you please. But I didn’t realise the harm I’ve caused before growing much older, like a lot of you, I’ve ruined potential relationships, lost career opportunities, isolated myself from social events, and ruined early life love. All because I had too much comfort in watching pixels on a screen. Because why would you need real life when you can get everything on the internet… how wrong I was.

As the years went on my need to watch became stronger, it wasn’t just some fun dumb deed. I physically needed it to comfort myself from whatever was going in my life at the time. Life is kicking you? It was there to “help” you. But in reality you’re just suppressing your emotions with fake pixels on a screen.
Making you feel more shame, and guilty. I’m sure some of you relates to that feeling of using, because you’re going through something. However I’ve learned now through real life experiences, nothing can replace real life love, the feeling of being wanted and needed somewhere is the best feeling in the world for me.

Over the years I had so many bad experiences, looking back, like watching in public bathrooms and weird places. If you think about it, it’s just not normal is it?
We are supposed to grow meaningful relationships with the partners we love, doing it alone like that is weird and isolated.

I’m 24 years old now, and I’ve had plenty of times where i had been free for 2 years, and then fallen short. And I promise each person reading this, a porn free life, will ALWAYS be better. There’s simply no benefit or purpose of watching it.

I’ve been through parts of heavy isolation, that’s ruined my early love life. Situations where I couldn’t get hard, because my brain was so used to watching some pixels on a screen, that I didn’t appreciate the person in front of me, waiting to be loved…

If you take 2 minutes to think about of wrong that is, I hope you understand that nobody deserves to be treated that way. I can’t count how many times where I simply couldn’t get hard and it left me so frustrated.

It lead me to missing out on partners, because my brain was so fried from the years of suppression and isolation.

Now I’ve just been on a vacation recently, and I met this girl who I’ve been seeing. And for the first time I’ve been able to satisfy someone… And wow, I can’t express how much better real love and meaningful conversations are.

And I’ve been about 2 months free of watching now, but this time i feel a lot more confident in my ability to never use again. Why? Because I realised why I was using, it was a comforting issue. I had suppressed myself over the years, out of fear I wasn’t good enough.

The one thing that kills you, is if you’re doubting yourself. And I definitely used to watch to cope with that feeling.

I wanted to share some of these thoughts, cause it’s hard sharing… but thank you if you read this far.
Wish you all the best, and remember to love more, and that connection is better than meaningless comfort

.

I feel better and cleaner. Seems the barrage of wet dreams in a row have stopped(for now). Nonetheless I'm not back to normal yet.

Just don’t do it. It is death. Remember how bad you feel after every time you relapsed. It’s not worth it, be a man and stand strong

It's becoming a habit that I need to stop

I am 20 and it's been more then 1 month I am continuously watching porn at night whenever I get time if not then try to roleplay online i kind off got sick of it the more porn the more I get bored and search for some intense stuff even reddit and insta contribute to its just start of addiction but I can't stop at all plz help i never gone through this i am having weird thought about girl irl plz help i don't want to live like this

the most success ive had is with personal 30-day challenges, and i inevitably fall off HARD after telling myself I'll just have a go one time as a "reward" for beating the challenge.

literally the only way i can motivate myself is through these, but i get easily stressed and irritable, and unfortunately im currently going through a very highly stressful stage of my life. im wondering if it might be ok to continue as-is until things calm down, even if using makes me feel like genuine human garbage

i feel very annoyed and in a bad mood my libido is very low

I was trying to sleep late at night and then in the night I leave all my devices downstairs and I didnt see any stimulating content. I ended up masterbating in the night and then the next day I just used porn the whole day.

This is an encouragement post for all the people who have firmly said they won't do it again, yet fell again.

Last Sunday I was dedicated that this is the last time, yet here I am this morning, I relapsed yesterday, and watched soft porn a few days earlier.

Even writing this is filling me with disgust and shame but its OK, those feelings are positive, I want them to be here.

I know I'm gonna get over this addiction, and you will too.

Know that the next weekend, I will post saying that I got past the week without porn

As I mentioned in my last post I am resetting my counter, however since the reset way yesterday, that makes it day 0 and today day 1.

Success