A way back to the light

46and2

Active Member
I'm grateful that I was able to make it through this day without using. Thank you Brothers for the kind words and support! I want my life back so badly!!
 

46and2

Active Member
Hey brothers! So my accountability partner asked me 'Why?' I wanted to reboot....and you know it's a simple yet effective method of bringing into Being our reasons to recover. So as a thought experiment today I thought maybe anyone who reads this might add their why to the list....doesnt have to be a novel....one reason and though I'm not making rules to your answer let's go deeper than just being able to be intimate again....i think a lot of us want that back but go deeper If you can. Here's one of my whys; I'm beginning a volunteer position and I feel that my porn addiction would most certainly stand in my way of being a reliable and optimal volunteer. Who's next :)
 

yogi

Active Member
My "why" includes several things
Excelling in my studies and exams.
But most importantly, develop into a strong person, who knows himself, has the ability to say "NO" to anything that trespasses into my life or career. A person who can face adversities, not be tired of working because I am fapping and depleting my energies.

I want to develop a confident personality and I know porn is a roadblock for that.
 

46and2

Active Member
Day 2 Hard mode or monk mode (love that label)! After staying clean one more day and one day at a time is all I need. No future and no past. Just a day clean. My mood hasn't been great but no urges. Need to being my meditation practice and exercise again to bring about a positive spirit. But I'm doing ok today and that's enough. Hope you're all staying strong and going well guys!!! Keep up the faith
 

King Leer

Active Member
It´s funny the ways in which we can deceive ourselves. I´ve known for a long time that my relationship with sex and pornography has been a compulsive addictive one with all the hallmarks; guilt, shame, depression, erectile dysfunction, frequent escort use, fear of intimacy, lack of ambition, self-imposed isolation, low confidence, self-loathing, lying to and deceiving others.....the list is inexhaustible and utterly exhausting. And yet the one thing I´ve refused to do, in the 10 years or so I´ve understood I have a problem, is admit to myself that I´m powerless against my addiction. That I can´t hope to ever have control of it and that I cannot hope to be able to remain clean without the support of peers. I need to accept that not only do I need help but that it´s ok......more than ok to seek it. I turn 34 years old this Saturday; I can´t keep putting my recovery on hold because I fall time and time again by myself. I want to find a way to build meaning into my life; find a partner to share a loving relationship with, have a family, give something back to my community....lead a good life where I can have respect for the person I see when I look in the mirror. That´s something I don´t have. But I´m not so far gone that I don´t see how much potential there is to be lived out if I could get my act together. So my only goal today is to get through the rest of the day without using as I have three times today. I could go big with my bio, hopes, dreams, goals etc. but I would rather build up that stuff over time. Right now it´s a day by day approach. So yes I´m a porn addict. I´m powerless to find a place of recovery by myself and so ask for your support. I will do my best to offer support to other forum users. Right now I don´t know if I have a belief that I can change, I´ve burnt myself far too many times not to be wary of the flames.....but I do believe that if I could change and get my act together, then life would truly begin to open up to me in ways profound and exhilarating! Shall we try get there together?
It took me a long time to really think of it and treat it as an addiction. I just always assumed I was some depraved pervert, that did a lot for my ego(sarcasm).
 

46and2

Active Member
I hear you Lear! I felt the same for years and it's still something I contend with. I even struggle with the word addiction at times.....but hey it's all just language and labels man. Maybe the best way to think of it is as simple as we have come to recognise we have a problem and that our lives are disrupted by this problem and in an effort to resolve our problem we have embarked on a journey to get clean and find peace.
 

46and2

Active Member
Its not been a good week; relapsed again last night. Time to reset the counter but not my progress. Each fail brings me closer to figuring out how to succeed
 

yogi

Active Member
Rise and continue the fight my friend.
These addictions are like that by nature, tend to resurface whenever we let our guard down.

Keep progressing.
 

yogi

Active Member
Instead of waiting to read that book, I suggest everytime you open your computer, instead of clicking on a porn website, go to the YBOP website and start reading there.
There's so much stuff on the website, you will not need to make reading the book some sort of " I will do it one day" activity. In fact any urge you get to watch porn will pass off while reading the material online, and you will be pleasantly surprised realising it!
 
Instead of waiting to read that book, I suggest everytime you open your computer, instead of clicking on a porn website, go to the YBOP website and start reading there.
There's so much stuff on the website, you will not need to make reading the book some sort of " I will do it one day" activity. In fact any urge you get to watch porn will pass off while reading the material online, and you will be pleasantly surprised realising it!
Yes, or even find some of the interviews Gary Wilson has done on youtube. There are some recorded presentations of his as well.
 

46and2

Active Member
Day 1 And so here I am again ready to throw myself into the crucible of recovery for perhaps the 100th time but thankfully still possessing the idea that I can be someone better than a porn addict. That I can be clean!! Unfortunately I had to get here by having a serious relapse and burning myself out on porn and weed. I literally woke up today realising I couldn't do another day of it. I say unfortunate because I'd have much rathered been able to dust myself off a week and a half ago when I first relapsed and get straight back into my reboot recovery but I didn't. I let shame and self-hatred take over and I acted concurrently. But that's in the past and today I choose to be clean. So what NEEDS to be different this time around; what I have I learnt through my own experience but also from the guidance many of you have offered:

- That it is necessary to keep journaling even through a relapse. I would have been the sort of person to delete my profile if I relapsed previously and start all over again as the shame of "failing" would have been too much. Thankfully my view has changed and I now see each fall as necessary to a full recovery. If I erased my profile I'd be erasing my journey which is no good.

- As many of you suggested it's necessary in times of urges that I log onto this site and surrender my urges to the community. I should also look at YBOP which has more that enough information on the negative outcomes of excessive porn consumption and addiction. Reading that stuff always seems like hard work but duh changing my life for the better is hard. If addiction was easy to give up then there would be no such thing as addiction. If I want my life to change than I need to put serious effort time and dedication into it.

- At the start of the year was going through an extremely painful time. Despite the pain i was able to stay away from weed, alcohol and was living a generally wholesome life. Whilst I never kicked porn fully during this time, my use was largely infrequent. I was able to do this through meditation, yoga and by creating the circumstances for a healthy mindset. I let all these things wane since April and it's imperative I integrate them back into my life if I'm to give this reboot my very best effort.

- I must do my very best to process the shame I feel about the person I've become. I have much to be ashamed for; lost opportunities, wasting much of my youth, destroying relationships and creating heartache.....being unreliable and deceitful.....Ive become a person I never thought I would. I remember a therapist I was seeing told me that shame isn't good because it says that there something intrinsically bad about me...that I'm not a good person. Whereas guilt is more preferable because it recognises my actions over the years were bad but that I'm not a bad person. I need to transfer my feelings of shame into something more akin to guilt. A long way down the road, when I have the perspective of an addict who no longer uses, I want to make restitution to anyone I hurt and let down. But long before that I must confront my shame. I believe meditation and the awareness that comes with this will help me. But staying clean will be the biggest threat to my shame.

- I must take care of myself in the best way possible; eat healthily, exercise, sleep well and stay away from my triggers; weed, excessive alcohol consumption. If I feel good then I'm far less likely to relapse in the awful way I did the last week.

- I need to find a way to deal with the intense loneliness I feel at times but in a way that doesn't make me co-dependent on other people. See friends more often, take up a yoga or martial arts class etc. Find wholesome hobbies that help me connect with others that isn't based on sex or romance or to sate my own feelings of insecurity.

- I think, most of all, I need to let go of the old me....i need to find a way to make peace with the person I've become so that I can become someone I have respect for....someone who's worth caring for. I use the word recovery now because I believe that's what I'm trying to do; recover the person I could have become if I'd never allowed my addiction to get in the way.

Finally I'm not going with the big goals of 90 days simply because I believe each moment is all we're gifted with. All that matters is I make the right choice in each moment. The right choice should be obvious to me now and porn is never the right option for me. Sometimes I wish I could be a well adjusted "normal person" who watch some porn or smoke a joint or have a beer and be happy with just a little bit.....without the compulsive behaviours around it.....but I'm not and I guess finding acceptance in who I am is another step I need to take too. Take care everyone and have a blessed day.
 

yogi

Active Member
Buddy, you are right about the journaling part. It's precisely when you relapse that you need this forum more than ever.

Regarding the shame/guilt part, both can be destructive and a hurdle in the path to recovery.

It requires a shift in perspective. You need to first realise that an addiction can happen to anyone. And it has got absolutely nothing to do with you being a good or evil person. That is one of the prime reasons so many addicts struggle, equating addiction vs no addiction as good person vs evil person.

Regarding the last statement about " normal person": such "normal" people do not exist. Meaning there's no "normal" person who watches "just a bit of porn". If you do catch them, and you still find they continue to be successful in life and are happy, it means they were never addicted in the first place.

So what you need urgently right now in your life is how YOU look at YOURSELF. What is your image of your own personality? Unless you introspect on this, guilt/shame will never leave you, and you will continue to relapse, as shame is the feeder to more porn.
 

46and2

Active Member
Thanks Yogi; you're quite right. I've been doing introspection this evening away from phones and T.V. screens where real thinking can happen. One thing I feel intensely is how unhappy and unfulfilled I am and how much I see myself as not good enough......good enough for who or what I don't know. But I do know that no amount of porn has every fulfilled the empty space in side myself. Neither has another person, a job, a new place, drugs, alcohol or anything else for that matter! I'm going to go for a run to clear my head. Thanks Yogi for your message; have a blessed day brother!
 

46and2

Active Member
Day 2- So I saw an interesting post where someone pointed out something important; I think we all have a pretty good idea why we want to recover from our compulsion/addictions but I suppose I've rarely gone deep into what it exactly is that PMO has done for me. What I mean by that was why did I get sucked into the world of porn addiction? I suppose I've asked myself the question over the years but always came up with answers that were surface or ones that demonized myself like I'm weak or a bad person. And so in a real effort to get my hands around this thing I'll extrapolate the why if I can most likely not in one go as I find this kind of introspection difficult and painful. I suppose my first experiences of porn were like most men in my age group; furtive looks at magazines, VHS tapes or DVDs borrowed from friends etc. The usual stuff most young males get up to. Although something of my compulsive nature was even evident then. I remember a period where I began to ring phone sex lines regularly. This of course resulted in a huge phone bill for my Mum and I had to admit it was me. Basic story of a teenager doing something stupid but then it became a chronic compulsion; even though I had been caught out I continued to ring them. This of course caused my Mum great distress but I couldn't stop. It was an indicator of what was to come. I was a very insecure teenager ( most teenagers are I guess but I felt particularly disconnected), I was bullied frequently, and that insecurity and lack of confidence is still something I carry with me to this day. Things changed when I went to college; I still had this feeling that I didn't belong there but then I met my first girlfriend....i suppose it may have been the only true and honest relationship I've ever had. And that gave me a big boost in myself. By the second year of our relationship I guess we stated to drift apart. In retrospect I believe this was my doing....i don't think I thought I could do better, I loved her! But I fell into the trap of not wanting to be committed at such a young age, thinking that I was missing out on the chance to be with other women....i had friends who were doing the one night stand thing and I, in a selfish and jealous manner, wanted that too. I guess I thought that was what made a man, being desirable to numerous women, I thought I was missing out. Comparing myself to others is something I still struggle with that to this day; it's a lack of gratitude for what i had or have in my life. The grass has always been greener on the other side to me.....even as our relationship was coming to a close I remember I would sneak off to watch pornography rather than spend time with her.....she knew what I was doing even though I would make up excuses.....i was bored and unfulfilled; not a valid excuse at all but it's the true one. As I write this now I can see back then that, like now, I had this deep chasm inside me; an empty space that I was trying to fill with external sources. When she could no longer give me that validation (it's selfish, immature and unrealistic to think someone else can make me whole) then I turned to porn. At the time nothing seemed wring with it, it just seemed normal that a man in his late teens would be chasing after sex or porn all the time but I didn't see, as I do now, that something deeper was happening; that i was trying to numb the feelings of failure, lack of self worth, being disconnected, not knowing who I was....all these things. In essence I was trying to address a problem of the soul with external stimuli! That's it for today guys, I've stretched myself to the limits and so I'll add more to my story tomorrow. Have a blessed day my friends!!
 

yogi

Active Member
Went through your post Bro

Your outpouring on this forum is what this journaling practice is essentially about: to serve as catharsis. To clean out the garbage of our minds. To relieve the constipated bowels that our brains have become. To unblock the choked pipes and allow energy and thinking to flow freely.
 

AJM

Active Member
Hey Neil I get you ,
Clarity of WHY, will come with time and
when it is time you will have your ahhha moment,
But you have to stick to no PMOing by hook or crook.
More power to you.
Much love.
 

46and2

Active Member
Day 3 and things are going Well! No major urges as of yet; a few thoughts that went through my mind today but nothing powerful enough that needed to be contended with. Didnt have the best sleep the last two nights; kept waking up feeling highly aroused which is good because it tells me my problems with ED are not physical and very much porn induced.

So to continue my story from yesterday of the how and Why? So yeah the relationship I was in ended in my second year of college. This drove me into a very dark headspace as most break ups do. It sucked all the motivation and confidence I had begun to build up right out of me. This indicates that the motivation was an illusion; I was taking it from someone else and it wasn't something I had earned within myself. After the break up I began watching a lot of porn; I remember the back light on my laptop was broken but this still didn't stop me....if I angled a lamp onto the screen right I could watch away 😂😂 it was around this time that the epidemic of free online porn was taking hold and boy did I go down the rabbit hole. I hadn't become totally desensitized yet so I was still mostly happy with vanilla though I started to navigate towards more hardcore material. Again nothing seemed wrong with this.....I was a young man watching porn and like most of us starting out I was totally unaware of the ramifications. In my 3rd year of college I discovered weed......weed made me feel content like nothing else had at the point. It just made life seem better, I was only smoking now and again at this point but given my compulsive nature it seemed only inevitable that it would become a problem. See drink had never really done anything for me the way smoke did....I guess I had always been somewhat of a deep thinker (maybe an over thinker might be a better description) and in the initial stages weed complimented this aspect of me. But also brought the side effect of making me very horny and so with it came the use of more porn. At this point I wasn't pushing myself whatsoever to meet women, I just didn't have the confidence to put myself out there for the most part. I remember having a date then but I guess it didn't vibe with her and that was that. It's funny: for the first two years of college, because I was in a relationship, i didnt do that much partying but I'm my third year I did a lot even though it was my final year and my most important. I just felt really lost at this stage, the course didn't interest me in the slightest and I was half assing it anyway (another key feature of my personality). The weed and porn were no doubt acting as soothing agents for this feeling of being lost that I was experiencing. And then college was over, I was done and so I returned to my hometown and moved back into my family home without a plan or idea where the hell I was going next. And that's my limit today folks. Hope you're all well my friends and have yourselves a blessed day!!
 
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