What are your reasons for quitting P? What kind of a man do you envision yourself being? It helped me to be very specific, maybe it would help you too!
Hi Jinx, I’ll try to answer your questions:
My reasons for quitting:
When I think about it with a clear head, I see porn as evil. Even if the porn industry weren’t a haven of sex trafficking, and destroys the lives of many of its performers to substance addictions, or even if it weren’t engineered to hook people and strengthen our addiction to it over time and destroy many porn addicts lives through escalating and morally reprehensible behavior, that is, even if it were merely what the mainstream pretends it is, just a harmless way to “deal with” our lustful thoughts by engaging in mental simulated sex activities with some external stimuli, even that alone is evil. It’s the act of viewing a human being as nothing but a vessel for our lust and sexual gratification. I’m very familiar with my lustful thoughts, and they’re not good. At best, they’re casually dehumanizing. You look at a woman and instead of wishing the best for her, you degrade her in your mind, you wish her to be dirty and slutty for your pleasure. You wish to fornicate with her, to have her abandon her higher purpose to serve your fantasy. It’s a bad headspace. I’ve been dipping my toe into Christianity lately, and as it’s well known, Christ says that merely looking at a woman with lust in your heart is an equal sin to carrying out that act of lust. In a civic sense, that seems crazy. I didn’t do anything wrong, I only thought a dirty thought. But that’s what a sin is. It’s letting evil into your heart. And that’s what I believe I’m doing every time I look at porn.
So to be honest, that’s my main reason. I can’t deny that I am willfully sinning when I do it. Let alone fear of hell. I don’t
like thinking evil thoughts like that. It makes me feel dirty and like I’m too close to losing my soul. I purposely turn away from The Good, toward filth and trash.
I’m also very concerned about what it’s doing to my sexual health, my general mental ability to concentrate, to have goals, to develop myself. I’m also deeply concerned that one day I could take it just a little too far and destroy my marriage, my career, my reputation amongst everyone I know. It has happened to people before and they were just like me, following this addiction down one step at a time. But to be honest, all those things are gifts from God, and I can never be fully in control of what happens to them even if I do try. Those things could be taken from me despite my best efforts, due to any sort of random occurrence. I do fear losing them very much, and I need to fully understand that I am jeopardizing them in a very serious way every time I go back to this stuff. But I fear losing my soul more.
The kind of man I envision myself being? It’s hard to say. I guess I feel like I’ve compromised that vision so often throughout my life already, but still ended up in a somewhat comfortable, even blessed existence. I used to play violin at a semi-serious level. Maybe I had the talent to do it for a living, but I didn’t have the motivation to practice enough. I went to college, and excelled in some areas, but couldn’t get myself to do all the schoolwork and studying to really set myself apart and see how far I could take myself with that. Now, I have a decent enough office job and wife who really loves me and I love her too. In spite of never seriously hustling, I’ve never completely fallen apart either and I’ve ended up very lucky in many ways. But trying to figure out my real goals at this stage is confusing. The worst thing is that I feel acutely aware of my limitations. I was looking into taking the LSAT a few years ago (that’s the exam to get into law school in the US). I tried a practice test, and I didn’t do too bad. But eventually I kind of dropped the idea and looking back I think, “ah, I would’ve never made it through law school, I despised doing the reading and work even in college!” I found a higher paying job and decided that was good enough. So I guess the thing I must wish to see in myself is
drive. You hear about guys who had one goal in mind, and put their all into it, for years, sacrificing a lot of easy pleasures and even relationships along the way, and then they achieved something amazing. I want to believe in myself. I’m overweight and not in great shape. I want to be one of those guys who really did turn it around and got in good shape, through self discipline and self denial. I don’t need an big cushy office job. The exciting thing about law school was the idea that I could prove myself capable of the complex thought and dedication it requires. I want to develop myself intellectually throughout my life. I want to have formidable intellect, to understand systems, and history, and philosophy and literature and the arts at a high level. And I want to be a good man. I want to be honorable and dependable, and honest. I want to be a faithful husband and a present, loving father who is a good role model to his family, by being strong, honest, and a leader. And I want to honor God in every thing I do, be full-throated and steadfast in my faith, and to compromise it for nothing, least of all some degrading images of naked ladies on the internet (just to tie it all back together).
I relapsed again today, only about an hour ago. All that I just wrote was the so called “post nut clarity” coursing through my veins. But will it stick? My goal for the very short term is to not let this get me off my overall goals. I need to get back on my grind immediately and reclaim my focus. I need to get back into the habit of posting here daily (they don’t all have to be novels like this) for daily accountability. And I need to exercise still today. And be present and loving for my wife.
PMO/Edging last week: 2?
PMO/Edging this week: 3
Current streak: 0 days
