5 days later and success. I'm filling my evenings with other stuff. I'm not ending up with a laptop on my lap at the end of the night, and that's setting myself up for success.
Every night I am getting twinges, compulsions if you like. When I'm left alone I have a twinge, but I just live with the twinge and acknowledge it. 85 days to go! Let's look at the issues below one by one, starting with some awareness around escapism.
So, let's start the challenge today. I just got off from a 2 hour porn binge. So 90 days from now is 15th July. At the end of July 15th, I will achieve 90 days.
What does success look like: 90 days of not intentionally looking at naked women, bikini shots, and porn. However, one slip and you add 30 days onto the target. You might slip, the point is to get back up again, and reduce the frequency of slips to zero. You practically did 90 days below without any slips, so this time, let's do 90 days with zero slips, let's make it happen.
I think the deep seated issues are: escapism (when stressed or life is tough), self worth (I've made mistakes in the past: I'm a bad person), being with one woman for the rest of my life.
I need to redefine my character, and want to be my new creation. It starts by sensing a purpose to my life, and I contend that the most valuable thing you can have for yourself as a human being is self worth, self pride.
My comments below this one are from May 2011. What happened? May turned into a month of porn, and the rest of 2011 up to now April 2012 was filled with constant porn watching, binges and feelings of self worthlessness.
Porn alters your mind, makes you think differently about your wife and family. Makes you literally sick of yourself. How do I feel now? Worthless, low-life, angry, bitter, sad, lazy-slob, and unhealthy. All this is compounded massively by my porn addiction. The below and what I've experienced in the last year, show me to be a serial porn addict. This addiction will not go away for the rest of my life, it will stay with me. I need to become a recovering pornoholic.
ok, so my struggle continues. In the last week I've looked at soft and hard porn pictures. No video, just pictures. This is really a disappointment after all the hard work done, but I did it. It all started with looking at bikinis or celebrities. Then one picture after another leading to a feeling that it would be ok to drink the whiskey, just one drop, it won't hurt. But it did hurt.
There was a part of me that wanted to test how I'd feel, and I can say that yes just one shot of this stuff and I'm back on the band wagon. OK you might not classify this as an addiction but now tonight I'm feeling the urge, the compulsion to just do it again, since you did it yesterday. I'll resist tonight.
Why? For what? I don't know. Part of me did this to test how I would feel, part of me to stop being so perfect, part of me because I didn't replace the habit and needed this "chocolate" in my life. Part of me couldn't face the fact that I'd never lay eyes on a fresh piece of ass again. It's over, [foul language] ys of hunting are done. But that's the porn talking. I remember after 100 days I felt so good.
So let today May 2nd be the start of another 100 days, and give this a go again. Let's stop being lazy, a couch potato and put the energy in to break the worst habit in my life by far.
Yesterday i went the furthest yet, I went to an old porn site i used to go to and looked at the thumbnail pictures there. Why? Just to see what it would feel like, just to feel what the reaction would be. It started with looking at girls in bikinis again, then I said to myself how about checking out xyz.com (the old site) and off I went. Terrible. It's a part of me that just wants to fail. I wasted about 1 hour looking at this site, and thinking about having sex with the women.
Why did I need to escape last night? Again it's like chocolate. But last night was a violation of looking. I did look at porn. I didn't do anything with it, but I did look. I was the alcoholic, looking at and holding a bottle of whiskey. I opened the lid and I took a sniff. Dangerous behavior, and for what?
I flirted with naked women and bikinis today. I had time on my hands and everything else that i should've been doing was harder. It was the easy route, and I chose to do it. It's a bit like having a bar of chocolate. I was like an alcoholic, looking and and holding a bottle of whiskey, and reminiscing about the old times. A part of me felt repulsed, a deeper part of me was bent on taking a shot. I avoided going further, but it's a clear sign that I need something else, another lolly pop.
My personal BS list: porn, random surfing of the web, TV (excluding certain documentaries, e.g. TED), computer games, writing lists of things, playing around with iTunes, reading news more than once per day, oversleeping, surfing Apps Store, eating junk food, eating chocolate every night, spending too much time "reading the manual" versus getting out there.
Even worst than my BS, is BS I don't enjoy e.g.: hanging around in the house with my wife and kids on the weekend, reading a book i don't enjoy, my current job, being with people that I don't enjoy being with, going to shopping malls frequently.
I just need to get through this pain barrier, by taking the extra effort most of the time.
My definition of BS: Something that comes easy, even for free. It only provides in the moment pleasure and gives no satisfaction after you've done it. If it's something that's bad for you, and you do it often, it's an addiction.
Porn and TV have been misleading me for a long time, pulling wool over my eyes. It's a bit like The Matrix. I feel unplugged now, my life isn't as rosy as it seemed. Just like in the The Matrix, a battle is brewing, pain is now to my front and my sides. But that's the real pain, that's been underneath the glossy pages of porn, for a long time. Only now do I see the real dashboard of my life.
I've broken the 100 day barrier, funny how the human mind sticks to these sort of psychological breakthroughs. I'm on antibiotics at the moment, and am not thinking as straight as i would like.
So, i still don't have a new habit for this old one, and i now see my life for what it really is. If you take out of your life all the bullshit you fill it with e.g. TV, porn, smoking, alcohol, drugs, whatever, you end up facing the truth about your life. It's painful, what i face is the fact that my life just isn't that interesting. It wouldn't make a half decent television show.
I think what Tim Ferris says is right: success is excitement, failure is boredom. I don't think my life has enough excitement in it, adventure. I don't feel the company i work for is doing worthwhile work. But with porn out of the way i now see that, i truly feel the pain of that, for the first time.
Pain is good, it creates change. I can get through this.
After reading this article (below) about Christie Brinkley, who looks amazing at 57, I get to a part in the text that I'd like to quote.. (it could have been me?)..
"She has had the unhappy distinction of being cheated on repeatedly by her husbands — two out of four of them were unfaithful to her, with the last one throwing in a mortifying addiction to internet porn and an affair with the teenage daughter of a neighbour."
Also it says of Billy Joel "He had the most beautiful woman in the world, and he threw her away."
Still chugging along. I still have occasional thoughts of previous sexual experiences when I'm day dreaming, or have nothing else on my mind. I sometimes wake up in the morning and think about having sex with other women, flash backs to previous experiences.
I'm scared that just 1 look at this stuff again will drag me back into the addiction. I'm saddened by this fact, since it means that I can't take just 1 look.
Hooray for you! Keep on keeping on and never give up. You are inspiring me in my battle against my own personal addiction to procrastinating.
I agree with what AudioVirtus said about getting rid of a bad habit by replacing it with a good one, especially if you can do something to help other people or a good cause. It's true what they say: Nature abhors a vacuum.
So, I've done it, I've made 90 days! Congratulations to me, congratulations to this site, since it proves that it's useful. Like Ben Franklin said, if you can change 1 bad habit per year, think of what a great man you'll be in 10 years or less. If I can maintain what I've done it will be amazing.
How do I feel? Well I've got to say that I don't feel any of the twinges I use to feel. I'm still missing a way to escape, so that puts me in a bad spot. At the moment it's chocolate at night, but at least that's better than porn. My next task is to go for physical fitness, and to keep reading what I've written here not to forget this lesson. There'll always be a chance that I slip back into this personal poison.
How do I feel about women? I still think that beautiful women are beautiful. I still think certain women would be lovely to go to bed with. So I still have thoughts of cheating on my wife, but I don't have the time draining, and bad feelings associated with porn. My mind is not poisoned with images, videos, or magnetic feelings around porn. That's all gone. I guess what they say about 90 days is true. I feel as normal as any other healthy guy.
I wonder if my drive to have sex with other women will go down as I get older? Or will I hit my 70s and still look at women in their 20s and wish I could go to bed with them.
Another bigger question to me is what am I trying to prove by wanting sex with so many different women? Maybe it's just like a chocolate addiction. You enjoy every taste that you get, but it never satisfies in the long term. Each taste is a new experience, each session ending in short lived satisfaction. Within days your hunger is back again.
Thanks for all who are following this, and thanks for caring about me as I start to love myself again.
It's tomorrow! I've had a few skirmishes on the way, but I'm practically there! Absolutely revolutionary, and all thanks to the level of consciousness I've brought to this problem, and the willingness to write down [foul language] ily thoughts. I can't believe I've practically broken 24 years. At 90 days (tomorrow) I feel like a different man. The desire for other women is still there, but the twinges for porn in the evening are totally gone. Plus work is stressful at the moment.
All that said, today i found myself searching in google images for "Beautiful girls" "Russian teens". I find myself toying with just killing this whole initiative, like there's something inside of me saying, "you're just not worth it, you've made enough mistakes in your life to not think that you can truly solve this one". This low opinion of myself means that this non addicted behavior doesn't fit in with my subconscious set point.
By bringing a greater level of consciousness to this problem, and by measuring results (monitoring myself) I am 95% towards my goal. This is revolutionary, and proves that I can change. My self esteem is growing every day. I'm even performing better at work.
If you're doing porn, you just feel like a hypocrite if you ever criticize someone for a weakness or a mistake.
The April 2nd target is just under 2 weeks away! Awesome, that'll be 90 days. I'm really looking forward to seeing how I feel then.
APRIL 02, 2011, the date I hit 90 days without porn, for the first time in 24 years. Now that will be amazing. May there be many years ahead of freedom, so that I can look back and say this was a phase of my youth, when I didn't realize the effects of this, my personal poison.
Let's keep rolling to the 2nd. Let's keep a grip on it. Let's remember how devastating porn is to your self esteem, your opinion of others' opinions of you, and how it makes you lie. It's just like a mind changing drug.
Can you say you're better without it, absolutely YES!
Indeed the future danger is these 3 ingredients: 1) stressful period when I feel the need to escape into a pleasure zone 2) feeling so normal about porn (like a non addicted person) that I think it won't hurt to take 1 look. 3) forgetting about the negative side of porn, besides which, if you only look once, a lot of the negative stuff isn't applicable.
Awesome, as my life loses the "pain of the day" I lose the need for an escape from reality, and my desire for this stuff is practically zero.
The danger now is that your mind feels quite normal. You don't feel any strong compulsions for porn, you don't get late evening twinges. This could lead to you thinking that your cured, or even worse you persuade yourself that you can sip this stuff now, like everyone else. Wrong, that's a big trap. You should never forget that just one taste of this stuff can hook you, and will send your self esteem plummeting. One dose and you're finished.
Very easy at the moment. Flying through this, well on target for my 90 days. It's become easy again, as I've settled into my new job. Although I must say that I'm becoming blazee since I've forgotten how dangerous this stuff is for me.
Managing ok at the moment. Settling into my new job, so stress levels are coming down. Amazing how closely associated the compulsion is with having a tough time. The more I want to escape my life, the stronger the feelings.
Still tough, but better. My new job is settling down already, so my stress levels are going down. But at the end of each night I want to have a treat. I'm eating chocolate at the moment and will go to bed soon. I'm tired. Sleepy.
Very tough at the moment, and it doesn't help that a few days back I decided to use Google image search to look at girls in bikinis. Why I did this I'll never know, but I chose to do it. Then I searched for body painting, and got a bunch of girls with body paint. But I'm not going to give up, I'm going to press on towards the 90 days.
There's something inside me that really wants to look at porn at the moment, and each day is nearly driving me to look at porn sites. I'm escaping by the skin of my teeth each time. Maybe it's because I'm starting a new job tomorrow? Maybe it's because my wife is stressed at work at the moment, but my need for an escape must be huge.
Still tough at the moment. I'm missing excitement in my life. I'm missing risk taking. I'm missing doing something naughty. I'm missing feeling desired.
The women are an escape. An escape from facing the effort in my life, from facing my fears about my job and life in general. But if I was able to get around those fears, and take some of the effort, then I wouldn't need an escape as often as I do. Last night I read a book, and after 9PM.
I've also read a book recently that I should apply. It talks about setting up yourself for success. e.g. building towns without MacDonald's (fast foods) drive throughs, building more pavements for pedestrians and cyclists, living near nature.
Applying that to my porn habit, I should avoid ending up with the computer on my lap at the end of the night. I should avoid ending up alone at the end of the night. Why do I stay up, vs. reading in bed with my wife? I should avoid thinking about women at the end of the night.
March is to be my month of fitness. I think getting out of the house and into the gym once or twice a week will also help me feel better about myself.
It's still tough. After stopping the diet I was on I feel more tired in the evenings. Less useful energy meaning that I just want to slob around after 9 pm. I need another hobby, definitely, something that will have a low procrastination factor, and is enjoyable, whilst consuming a low about of energy and effort.
I had a dream that I looked at porn, it was like a nightmare. Then when I woke up and found that I hadn't I felt so good about myself. It was a really good feeling. I know I would feel terrible if I looked.
When I have more cerebral time, I'll dig into the reasons why I'm using women as an escape. But boy are they a beautiful escape. I need to work hard to get my life in a position where I don't need to escape.
How about making your life more interesting that TV?
Oh my god have I struggled recently. The day before yesterday I was so close to looking. I really want to escape, since I've got a new job coming up, and I'm nervous about the move. Also I've been thinking about all the women I've slept with and getting hot about that. I use thoughts of women to escape thinking about my current reality.
It's been really tough, really tough. I can't understand why after over 50 days, but I've never been this close to failure since the start. That's how bad it is, I so am hungry for it. But tonight I'm going to keep myself busy, and enjoy some YouTube or something else to distract me.
This has become incredibly easy. But I think it helped that I did the comment that I did just before this one. Just letting the feeling out, acknowledging them is great. It doesn't mean that I will follow through just because I wrote it down. In fact the opposite has happened.
I find thoughts in my head of ending the run, just for the sake of it, with the thought of you'll never do this. Also there's a thought of naughtiness, doing it for the sake of breaking a rule, or run. Why would i have these feelings? What's interesting is that I feel the compulsion, am slightly scared, but then remind myself that I'm in control, not the addiction any more. I'm in control, I'm the one setting the rules.
Try anything new as a hobby, that you really enjoy. If there is nothing that you can think of now, perhaps writing down a quicklist of ten things that you enjoyed as a kid can help. Just jot them down without much thinking, the idea is to not let the thought process get in the way. Once you have this list down, try one of them out for a week and see if you enjoy that to become a new hobby. ** For example if you thought of becoming a fireman as a kid, maybe you can offer to work voluntary for the summer and take a course. *** If you wanted to be a doctor maybe you can study something related to medicine in some way, do some research, read some books. *** The main idea behind this is to have some good thought, something that is good for you and beneficial of your time and that can possibly help others as well, instead of wasting time that would not make you feel as good about it. Another way to see it too, is that we cannot get rid of a habit, unless we replace it with another one, so the way to get rid of a bad habit is to replace it with the new one, knowing that you are doing something good and for a good cause.
Thanks. A good idea, I'll give it a go. I totally agree that the vacuum has to be filled with something. I need another way of escaping, but in a healthy way. Escaping to another part of my life vs. fantasy BS.
I made it!!! This is the end of Thursday, and for the first time in 24 years I've abstained from porn for 45 days. This is revolutionary, and shows what you can do if you measure things. I am a new man, and I proved to myself that for at least 45 days I can change. Bless you all...
Thursday is 50% through the 90 day cool off period. 50% towards normal brain activity. So Friday I celebrate. I need to think of a treat for myself. I'm very proud.
I think this is the first time in 24 years that I've gotten this far, even if you just make that statement today. Absolutely awesome! And I can say with certainty that 90 days without is definitely an achievement never before had in 24 years. 24 [foul language] ing years!!
Last night was easy, I squashed out any thoughts with work on culture and business until late. I left no empty spot for it, no time to dwell, or wash myself in the prethoughts that usual end up taking me down the wrong road.
It's amazing what you can do when you "measure" it. Whatever you want to achieve, you must measure the results, the progress.
To stress again: one shot of porn and you're v. close to addiction, with 80% probability of looking again the next day. If you do look again the next day, then it's 99% likely you'll look the following day. Within a few short days "Bam!" you're back on the wagon, like a pig searching for truffles. That's your personality, it's a pattern you've seen many, many times. Then you're addicted for months, even years and suffering the negative consequences listed below.
I even remember a depressed period where you started dreaming of being a porn star, and started questioning your marriage.
THIS STUFF ALTERS YOUR BRAIN, JUST LIKE DRUGS. Regarding relationships and women, you're not your normal self when on this stuff
It's become tougher at the moment. I think it has to do with me shaving a certain area down below. But basically I'm thinking more about the women I've been with. This thinking caused me yesterday to start wondering about porn women, recalling them in my mind. Then in the evening I was left alone with the computer and the thought did cross my mind. I became busy with something else (good strategy) and didn't go there, but recently it has become closer to my thoughts.
Also when you're not addicted you can do something once or twice a week, and then totally skip it the next week. Whereas for me with porn, once or twice a week would create the compulsion to do it 4 or 5 times the next week, and then into a full 100% everyday cycle, with at least 1 hour viewing every night.
I guess an addiction is also something that you do everyday, or nearly every day. Because I generally drink alcohol once or twice a week, but I wouldn't say that's addiction. Addiction has to be something that a) when you do it, you do it to the extent that it's bad for you or others b) you do it frequently, i.e. once per day, or once every other day.
Likewise, people who can sip porn, like I do alcohol, can do it once per week, or twice per week, with 1 hour of viewing, and not feel compelled to bend it to 3 hours, or compelled to do it again the next day with a surge of lust.
But the overall pull of porn sites is very low at the moment. I'm talking to family, I'm keeping busy, it's going overall very well. One trip though and it's finished, because just one trip and I could get addicted again. This poison fits my personality and make up, and I can't tolerate sipping it.
After 90 days I want to see the same way about porn as I do about alcohol.. I want to feel nothing for it, that I can live without it. I want to feel nothing, indifference.
At the moment, due to shaving my lower regions I've been reengaged in sex thoughts. 1 great thing is that I'm really attracted to my wife, more than I've been in years. Secondly I'm therefore closer to her physically, and mentally, I'm not hiding anything.
But since we haven't had sex in a while (1 or 2 weeks), I'm craving it. This makes me remember all the other women I've had sex with, and fantasize about that. So my mind is wandering at the moment.
I want to repeat this comment: I need to remember though that my personality and make up means that porn is a highly addictive substance for me. Just like heroine for some personalities, once shot and you're hooked, addicted. Whereas for other people they can sip porn periodically, like I can wine or beer. This means one slip to watch it, and I can be hooked again for days, weeks or months.
Never fall prey to the idea that porn is not your poison. Never believe that your mind can handle it, because it can't. 25 years on the bandwagon has shown that.
"...if someone has a beer at dinner, I don't feel a compulsion to leap across the table and grab it or even to order one for myself. Does that mean I'm cured? Maybe. But it may also mean simply that it would take a much stronger trigger for me to fall prey to addiction again--like, for example, downing a glass of beer. But the last thing I intend to do is put it to the test. I've seen too many others try it--with horrifying results"
Basically what this says is that your brain can return to normal (typically after 90 days), with porn only triggering the same response as a regular person. However, your make up / history / disposition means that the road to addiction will be much faster. So as with AA members, they go years, even a life time without even touching the stuff again.
i.e. the compulsion goes back to normal. But just like heroine, porn to you can addict extremely fast, if you follow through with a compulsion. But the good news is that the compulsion will be weak / normal.
Researchers at Yale University have documented what they call the sleeper effect--a gradual re-engaging of proper decision making and analytical functions in the brain's prefrontal cortex--after an addict has abstained for at least 90 days.
So you need 90 days of doing this, and even then you need to relook at this stuff every month to keep it alive. The other thing will be that your most challenging times, and times that are most likely for a relapse are the stressful times, when life is not going well and you want to escape quickly and frequently. You need to acknowledge that.
as 12-step recovery programs have emphasized for decades, never lose their vulnerability to their drug of choice, no matter how healthy their brains might eventually look.
This is all from a TIME article "How we get Addicted" in 2007.
"Some people have a genetic predisposition to addiction," says Volkow. "But because it involves these basic brain functions, everyone will become an addict if sufficiently exposed to drugs or alcohol."
"Addictions," says Joseph Frascella, director of the division of clinical neuroscience at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), "are repetitive behaviors in the face of negative consequences, the desire to continue something you know is bad for you."
Addiction definition: an uncontrollable compulsion to repeat a behavior regardless of its negative consequences. A person who is addicted is sometimes called an addict.
So a compulsion, yes I've felt that. But addiction is only called so when the consequences are negative. This is easy to discuss with drugs or alcohol, because they impair your brain, and have a real effect on driving machinery or talking to people. If you're drunk in the morning then you can't perform at work. But if you jerk off to porn in the morning you can still go to work. In fact you can be to all intense and purposes a "normal" person.
So what is the negative consequence of porn. I would say: 1) it absorbs a huge amount of time -fact 2) it makes you want to cheat on your wife -fact 3) it is a compulsion that grows stronger the more you do it. The more you look, the more you want. 4) it makes you lie about your time 5) it distances you from your family, and especially your wife 6) it makes you look at women as meat 7) most of all it makes you feel bad about yourself, since you create a 1 or 2 hour part of your life each day that cannot be shared with anyone else, a secret life. 8) you can't look at yourself in the mirror and admire yourself for this act. 9) you believe everyone else doesn't know the real you. And they don't
So yes it does have negative consequences. I'm much more happier now than when I do porn. So doing porn means you sacrifice day to day happiness, and possibly your marriage and family for the sake of a few hours of escapism behavior and moments of pleasure with yourself.
I've got to say at day 29, it seems quite straight forward. The thoughts that used to haunt me are dying rapidly. The images that were emblazoned in my mind have faded. I am still getting the deep seated twinge at night, if I'm not busy. But keeping busy and going to bed early with my wife are 2 solutions that are working, plus this site journal.
I need to remember though that my personality and make up means that porn is a highly addictive substance for me. Just like heroine for some personalities, once shot and you're hooked, addicted. Whereas for other people they can sip porn periodically, like I can wine or beer. This means one slip to watch it, and I can be hooked again for days, weeks or months.
As I write this, I get a sensation in my brain as it's realizing what I'm talking about.
This is really easy at the moment, although I still have occasionally some powerful thoughts about other women. Each night I get busy with something else.
I'm struggling at the moment, still haven't come in the last week, so that's probably part of it. But it is tough, I'm thinking about sex a lot at the moment, and last night, v. nearly went to a porn site. I killed it by reading a book and going to bed early. A close one.
I realize that this is not the solution. I'm having strong feelings towards my wife at the moment, which is really good. I've not been this sexually attracted to her in ages.
I think my feelings last night were increased with imminent work. I'm not enjoying my job at the moment, and use thoughts of porn to escape thoughts of job / difficulties. I need to think of happy times instead
Today was tough, it's been many days since I jerked off, and I want to a party with lots of nice looking girls. Tonight I feel like checking out porn sites, but I'm off to bed now to kill the idea. I need to hang in there.
Tonight was a bit difficult, I slowed down at about 9:30 and didn't really know what I was going to do, the idea of visiting a porn site came into my head. I said ok, but decided to come to this site instead.
It's exactly as I predicted and have experienced before. The further away from the last time you do this, the less power it has over you. I'm hardly thinking about having sex with other women at the moment. The names of sites are slipping from my mind, and the constant images that used to excite my brain are fading.
stayed up late, didn't even think about it. Great results so far. Also feeling much closer to my wife. I can look my children in the eye without regret.
again, stayed up late biffing around. Went to bed with my wife and had a good chat with her. We're getting closer and I feel more attracted to her, and physically connected. I'm also feeling much better about myself, amazing.
stayed up late, it did cross my mind as a thought, but I just accepted the though was there, and moved on to something else. I don't have to act on the thought.
I find myself thinking about sex when nothing else to do. I think about having sex with the pornstars I know. Need to start thinking more about my wife.
That seems to happen in the "animal" domain. =) You are either animal, vegetable or mineral. Animals in the zoo tend to do it also, mainly even more out of stress from being caged up.
The hardest thing is thinking that I'll never see it again. The easiest thing is to say that the longer I leave it the more amazing it'll be when I see it again. The rush would be awesome
today it's really difficult, since I looked at porn for the last 3 days. I find that if I looked yesterday, it's harder the next day, and the habit just gets tougher to beat.
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Discussion
Every night I am getting twinges, compulsions if you like. When I'm left alone I have a twinge, but I just live with the twinge and acknowledge it. 85 days to go! Let's look at the issues below one by one, starting with some awareness around escapism.
What does success look like: 90 days of not intentionally looking at naked women, bikini shots, and porn. However, one slip and you add 30 days onto the target. You might slip, the point is to get back up again, and reduce the frequency of slips to zero. You practically did 90 days below without any slips, so this time, let's do 90 days with zero slips, let's make it happen.
I think the deep seated issues are: escapism (when stressed or life is tough), self worth (I've made mistakes in the past: I'm a bad person), being with one woman for the rest of my life.
I need to redefine my character, and want to be my new creation. It starts by sensing a purpose to my life, and I contend that the most valuable thing you can have for yourself as a human being is self worth, self pride.
Porn alters your mind, makes you think differently about your wife and family. Makes you literally sick of yourself. How do I feel now? Worthless, low-life, angry, bitter, sad, lazy-slob, and unhealthy. All this is compounded massively by my porn addiction. The below and what I've experienced in the last year, show me to be a serial porn addict. This addiction will not go away for the rest of my life, it will stay with me. I need to become a recovering pornoholic.
There was a part of me that wanted to test how I'd feel, and I can say that yes just one shot of this stuff and I'm back on the band wagon. OK you might not classify this as an addiction but now tonight I'm feeling the urge, the compulsion to just do it again, since you did it yesterday. I'll resist tonight.
Why? For what? I don't know. Part of me did this to test how I would feel, part of me to stop being so perfect, part of me because I didn't replace the habit and needed this "chocolate" in my life. Part of me couldn't face the fact that I'd never lay eyes on a fresh piece of ass again. It's over, [foul language] ys of hunting are done. But that's the porn talking. I remember after 100 days I felt so good.
So let today May 2nd be the start of another 100 days, and give this a go again. Let's stop being lazy, a couch potato and put the energy in to break the worst habit in my life by far.
Why did I need to escape last night? Again it's like chocolate. But last night was a violation of looking. I did look at porn. I didn't do anything with it, but I did look. I was the alcoholic, looking at and holding a bottle of whiskey. I opened the lid and I took a sniff. Dangerous behavior, and for what?
porn, random surfing of the web, TV (excluding certain documentaries, e.g. TED), computer games, writing lists of things, playing around with iTunes, reading news more than once per day, oversleeping, surfing Apps Store, eating junk food, eating chocolate every night, spending too much time "reading the manual" versus getting out there.
Even worst than my BS, is BS I don't enjoy e.g.: hanging around in the house with my wife and kids on the weekend, reading a book i don't enjoy, my current job, being with people that I don't enjoy being with, going to shopping malls frequently.
I just need to get through this pain barrier, by taking the extra effort most of the time.
Something that comes easy, even for free. It only provides in the moment pleasure and gives no satisfaction after you've done it. If it's something that's bad for you, and you do it often, it's an addiction.
So, i still don't have a new habit for this old one, and i now see my life for what it really is. If you take out of your life all the bullshit you fill it with e.g. TV, porn, smoking, alcohol, drugs, whatever, you end up facing the truth about your life. It's painful, what i face is the fact that my life just isn't that interesting. It wouldn't make a half decent television show.
I think what Tim Ferris says is right: success is excitement, failure is boredom. I don't think my life has enough excitement in it, adventure. I don't feel the company i work for is doing worthwhile work. But with porn out of the way i now see that, i truly feel the pain of that, for the first time.
Pain is good, it creates change. I can get through this.
"She has had the unhappy distinction of being cheated on repeatedly by her husbands — two out of four of them were unfaithful to her, with the last one throwing in a mortifying addiction to internet porn and an affair with the teenage daughter of a neighbour."
Also it says of Billy Joel "He had the most beautiful woman in the world, and he threw her away."
I'm scared that just 1 look at this stuff again will drag me back into the addiction. I'm saddened by this fact, since it means that I can't take just 1 look.
I agree with what AudioVirtus said about getting rid of a bad habit by replacing it with a good one, especially if you can do something to help other people or a good cause. It's true what they say: Nature abhors a vacuum.
How do I feel? Well I've got to say that I don't feel any of the twinges I use to feel. I'm still missing a way to escape, so that puts me in a bad spot. At the moment it's chocolate at night, but at least that's better than porn. My next task is to go for physical fitness, and to keep reading what I've written here not to forget this lesson. There'll always be a chance that I slip back into this personal poison.
How do I feel about women? I still think that beautiful women are beautiful. I still think certain women would be lovely to go to bed with. So I still have thoughts of cheating on my wife, but I don't have the time draining, and bad feelings associated with porn. My mind is not poisoned with images, videos, or magnetic feelings around porn. That's all gone. I guess what they say about 90 days is true. I feel as normal as any other healthy guy.
I wonder if my drive to have sex with other women will go down as I get older? Or will I hit my 70s and still look at women in their 20s and wish I could go to bed with them.
Another bigger question to me is what am I trying to prove by wanting sex with so many different women? Maybe it's just like a chocolate addiction. You enjoy every taste that you get, but it never satisfies in the long term. Each taste is a new experience, each session ending in short lived satisfaction. Within days your hunger is back again.
Thanks for all who are following this, and thanks for caring about me as I start to love myself again.
Whatever, it's the thought that counts.
If you're doing porn, you just feel like a hypocrite if you ever criticize someone for a weakness or a mistake.
APRIL 02, 2011, the date I hit 90 days without porn, for the first time in 24 years. Now that will be amazing. May there be many years ahead of freedom, so that I can look back and say this was a phase of my youth, when I didn't realize the effects of this, my personal poison.
Let's keep rolling to the 2nd. Let's keep a grip on it. Let's remember how devastating porn is to your self esteem, your opinion of others' opinions of you, and how it makes you lie. It's just like a mind changing drug.
Can you say you're better without it, absolutely YES!
1) stressful period when I feel the need to escape into a pleasure zone
2) feeling so normal about porn (like a non addicted person) that I think it won't hurt to take 1 look.
3) forgetting about the negative side of porn, besides which, if you only look once, a lot of the negative stuff isn't applicable.
These are my 3 evils of the future.
The danger now is that your mind feels quite normal. You don't feel any strong compulsions for porn, you don't get late evening twinges. This could lead to you thinking that your cured, or even worse you persuade yourself that you can sip this stuff now, like everyone else. Wrong, that's a big trap. You should never forget that just one taste of this stuff can hook you, and will send your self esteem plummeting. One dose and you're finished.
There's something inside me that really wants to look at porn at the moment, and each day is nearly driving me to look at porn sites. I'm escaping by the skin of my teeth each time. Maybe it's because I'm starting a new job tomorrow? Maybe it's because my wife is stressed at work at the moment, but my need for an escape must be huge.
If you life is good, you don't need an escape.
I've also read a book recently that I should apply. It talks about setting up yourself for success. e.g. building towns without MacDonald's (fast foods) drive throughs, building more pavements for pedestrians and cyclists, living near nature.
Applying that to my porn habit, I should avoid ending up with the computer on my lap at the end of the night. I should avoid ending up alone at the end of the night. Why do I stay up, vs. reading in bed with my wife? I should avoid thinking about women at the end of the night.
March is to be my month of fitness. I think getting out of the house and into the gym once or twice a week will also help me feel better about myself.
When I have more cerebral time, I'll dig into the reasons why I'm using women as an escape. But boy are they a beautiful escape. I need to work hard to get my life in a position where I don't need to escape.
How about making your life more interesting that TV?
It's been really tough, really tough. I can't understand why after over 50 days, but I've never been this close to failure since the start. That's how bad it is, I so am hungry for it. But tonight I'm going to keep myself busy, and enjoy some YouTube or something else to distract me.
Just hang in there!
Maybe I need a new hobby to reinvent myself?
I think this is the first time in 24 years that I've gotten this far, even if you just make that statement today. Absolutely awesome! And I can say with certainty that 90 days without is definitely an achievement never before had in 24 years. 24 [foul language] ing years!!
To stress again: one shot of porn and you're v. close to addiction, with 80% probability of looking again the next day. If you do look again the next day, then it's 99% likely you'll look the following day. Within a few short days "Bam!" you're back on the wagon, like a pig searching for truffles. That's your personality, it's a pattern you've seen many, many times. Then you're addicted for months, even years and suffering the negative consequences listed below.
I even remember a depressed period where you started dreaming of being a porn star, and started questioning your marriage.
THIS STUFF ALTERS YOUR BRAIN, JUST LIKE DRUGS. Regarding relationships and women, you're not your normal self when on this stuff
a) when you do it, you do it to the extent that it's bad for you or others
b) you do it frequently, i.e. once per day, or once every other day.
Likewise, people who can sip porn, like I do alcohol, can do it once per week, or twice per week, with 1 hour of viewing, and not feel compelled to bend it to 3 hours, or compelled to do it again the next day with a surge of lust.
After 90 days I want to see the same way about porn as I do about alcohol.. I want to feel nothing for it, that I can live without it. I want to feel nothing, indifference.
But since we haven't had sex in a while (1 or 2 weeks), I'm craving it. This makes me remember all the other women I've had sex with, and fantasize about that. So my mind is wandering at the moment.
I need to remember though that my personality and make up means that porn is a highly addictive substance for me. Just like heroine for some personalities, once shot and you're hooked, addicted. Whereas for other people they can sip porn periodically, like I can wine or beer. This means one slip to watch it, and I can be hooked again for days, weeks or months.
Basically what this says is that your brain can return to normal (typically after 90 days), with porn only triggering the same response as a regular person. However, your make up / history / disposition means that the road to addiction will be much faster. So as with AA members, they go years, even a life time without even touching the stuff again.
i.e. the compulsion goes back to normal. But just like heroine, porn to you can addict extremely fast, if you follow through with a compulsion. But the good news is that the compulsion will be weak / normal.
Know your weaknesses and avoid them.
So you need 90 days of doing this, and even then you need to relook at this stuff every month to keep it alive. The other thing will be that your most challenging times, and times that are most likely for a relapse are the stressful times, when life is not going well and you want to escape quickly and frequently. You need to acknowledge that.
as 12-step recovery programs have emphasized for decades, never lose their vulnerability to their drug of choice, no matter how healthy their brains might eventually look.
This is all from a TIME article "How we get Addicted" in 2007.
So a compulsion, yes I've felt that. But addiction is only called so when the consequences are negative. This is easy to discuss with drugs or alcohol, because they impair your brain, and have a real effect on driving machinery or talking to people. If you're drunk in the morning then you can't perform at work. But if you jerk off to porn in the morning you can still go to work. In fact you can be to all intense and purposes a "normal" person.
So what is the negative consequence of porn. I would say:
1) it absorbs a huge amount of time -fact
2) it makes you want to cheat on your wife -fact
3) it is a compulsion that grows stronger the more you do it. The more you look, the more you want.
4) it makes you lie about your time
5) it distances you from your family, and especially your wife
6) it makes you look at women as meat
7) most of all it makes you feel bad about yourself, since you create a 1 or 2 hour part of your life each day that cannot be shared with anyone else, a secret life.
8) you can't look at yourself in the mirror and admire yourself for this act.
9) you believe everyone else doesn't know the real you. And they don't
So yes it does have negative consequences. I'm much more happier now than when I do porn. So doing porn means you sacrifice day to day happiness, and possibly your marriage and family for the sake of a few hours of escapism behavior and moments of pleasure with yourself.
I need to remember though that my personality and make up means that porn is a highly addictive substance for me. Just like heroine for some personalities, once shot and you're hooked, addicted. Whereas for other people they can sip porn periodically, like I can wine or beer. This means one slip to watch it, and I can be hooked again for days, weeks or months.
As I write this, I get a sensation in my brain as it's realizing what I'm talking about.
I realize that this is not the solution. I'm having strong feelings towards my wife at the moment, which is really good. I've not been this sexually attracted to her in ages.