Hi everyone,
I have never really been one for journaling my thoughts, but as I sit here on the morning of Day 62 of my streak, my temptation has never felt higher. So I?m putting my energy into typing this, in the hope that I can channel some of it. I will try to update this as much as possible with my journey. It is the first time that I have ever written or spoken about this at length, sorry if it is a bit long!
Background
I?m a 28 year old man from the UK. I would now consider myself a ?high-functioning? porn addict (if there is even such a thing). I have no health issues, eat well, play sports, exercise several times a week and have a good career.
However I now realise that I have definitely been affected by my use of porn. I have viewed it almost every day since I was 12 years old and learnt to masturbate when I was 15, incorporating that into my daily porn viewing ever since. For as long as I can remember (since very early childhood), I have always had a foot fetish. I have always viewed ?softcore? images of feet, browsed social media profiles etc, I have never been in to anything featuring actual intercourse or even nakedness, if anything, it disgusts me a bit!
This hasn?t helped me in the few real life sexual encounters I have had. I have had 4 in my life, all happening between the ages of 19 and 22. I never came once and couldn?t get it up at all in two of them. At the time I put this down to lots of other reasons (being drunk, girls not being attractive enough, girls being too heavy etc). Because all I had to go from was the limited softcore foot stuff I had always PMOed to, I just assumed that actual sex would come naturally once I met the right person, I had no idea what to actually do.
My last encounter was with my current girlfriend, who shortly after I learned was asexual and didn?t like sex at all. In my addicted state, this worked for me and gave my brain free license to tell me to PMO all I wanted (I had tried to limit MO at least as I thought it was death grip that was causing issues later on, but kept viewing porn).
In the 6 years since, I have kept escalating, progressing to hand fetish, incest, furry stuff, different genders and finally, paying for many different subscriptions on paid sites (though I could afford it). I knew in myself that something was very wrong, but just couldn?t stop my daily viewing.
Last January, I can?t remember how, but I discovered this site and other resources like YBOP. Nothing had ever resonated with me more. For the first time, I could understand why my sexual encounters had gone the way they had and why I couldn?t stop looking at porn every day.
I resolved to quit, but it proved very hard throughout 2020. I didn?t reach a streak of longer than 7 days. I went 30 days without MOing, but was still looking at porn every day. The lockdowns over here and the move to remote working gave my brain all it needed to tell me to stop fighting and give in to my urges to look at porn, as what else would I be doing? No one else would be looking?
I made a conscious effort to start again in January this year and made it 3 days before I relapsed again, on a work conference call. I thought I saw my work colleague?s feet briefly appear on screen as she sat down, then excused myself from the call, turned my audio and camera off and MOed to her hand play on the screen while the call was still going on. I think it shows how horrible this addiction really is that I felt humiliated, but really aroused thinking back to it whilst typing that sentence.
It was after that moment that I realised what I needed to do to stay clean. Previous reasons I gave myself for doing it (it?s not fair on the GF, I need to prepare myself if I ever have sex in the future) did not work in the slightest, because as you probably all realise, the addicted brain does not care about the rational mind!
I realised that I needed to do it for myself, to make myself a free man and be free of anything controlling me, rather than do it for anyone, or anything, else. For me, I have been better off for focusing on this and it has helped me to get to my current streak. Withdrawal symptoms are hitting me hard though, so I need something else to focus on, which is why I am starting this journal.
I have never really been one for journaling my thoughts, but as I sit here on the morning of Day 62 of my streak, my temptation has never felt higher. So I?m putting my energy into typing this, in the hope that I can channel some of it. I will try to update this as much as possible with my journey. It is the first time that I have ever written or spoken about this at length, sorry if it is a bit long!
Background
I?m a 28 year old man from the UK. I would now consider myself a ?high-functioning? porn addict (if there is even such a thing). I have no health issues, eat well, play sports, exercise several times a week and have a good career.
However I now realise that I have definitely been affected by my use of porn. I have viewed it almost every day since I was 12 years old and learnt to masturbate when I was 15, incorporating that into my daily porn viewing ever since. For as long as I can remember (since very early childhood), I have always had a foot fetish. I have always viewed ?softcore? images of feet, browsed social media profiles etc, I have never been in to anything featuring actual intercourse or even nakedness, if anything, it disgusts me a bit!
This hasn?t helped me in the few real life sexual encounters I have had. I have had 4 in my life, all happening between the ages of 19 and 22. I never came once and couldn?t get it up at all in two of them. At the time I put this down to lots of other reasons (being drunk, girls not being attractive enough, girls being too heavy etc). Because all I had to go from was the limited softcore foot stuff I had always PMOed to, I just assumed that actual sex would come naturally once I met the right person, I had no idea what to actually do.
My last encounter was with my current girlfriend, who shortly after I learned was asexual and didn?t like sex at all. In my addicted state, this worked for me and gave my brain free license to tell me to PMO all I wanted (I had tried to limit MO at least as I thought it was death grip that was causing issues later on, but kept viewing porn).
In the 6 years since, I have kept escalating, progressing to hand fetish, incest, furry stuff, different genders and finally, paying for many different subscriptions on paid sites (though I could afford it). I knew in myself that something was very wrong, but just couldn?t stop my daily viewing.
Last January, I can?t remember how, but I discovered this site and other resources like YBOP. Nothing had ever resonated with me more. For the first time, I could understand why my sexual encounters had gone the way they had and why I couldn?t stop looking at porn every day.
I resolved to quit, but it proved very hard throughout 2020. I didn?t reach a streak of longer than 7 days. I went 30 days without MOing, but was still looking at porn every day. The lockdowns over here and the move to remote working gave my brain all it needed to tell me to stop fighting and give in to my urges to look at porn, as what else would I be doing? No one else would be looking?
I made a conscious effort to start again in January this year and made it 3 days before I relapsed again, on a work conference call. I thought I saw my work colleague?s feet briefly appear on screen as she sat down, then excused myself from the call, turned my audio and camera off and MOed to her hand play on the screen while the call was still going on. I think it shows how horrible this addiction really is that I felt humiliated, but really aroused thinking back to it whilst typing that sentence.
It was after that moment that I realised what I needed to do to stay clean. Previous reasons I gave myself for doing it (it?s not fair on the GF, I need to prepare myself if I ever have sex in the future) did not work in the slightest, because as you probably all realise, the addicted brain does not care about the rational mind!
I realised that I needed to do it for myself, to make myself a free man and be free of anything controlling me, rather than do it for anyone, or anything, else. For me, I have been better off for focusing on this and it has helped me to get to my current streak. Withdrawal symptoms are hitting me hard though, so I need something else to focus on, which is why I am starting this journal.