I know I can do it. I can feel myself getting closer to success.
- Thread starter jonazo91
- Start date
jonazo91
Active Member
Porn last week: 2
Porn this week: 5
Day 0
Rough week, I've had the place to myself with my wife out of town. It turns out my own internal motivation is very low, so as soon as I have the means to watch porn uninhibited by others in the house, I do it. Talked with my therapist about the possibility of trying a 12-step group. Something about it still makes me nervous/scared? But if it gets me out of this, what do I have to lose?
Porn this week: 5
Day 0
Rough week, I've had the place to myself with my wife out of town. It turns out my own internal motivation is very low, so as soon as I have the means to watch porn uninhibited by others in the house, I do it. Talked with my therapist about the possibility of trying a 12-step group. Something about it still makes me nervous/scared? But if it gets me out of this, what do I have to lose?
jonazo91
Active Member
Porn last week: ? at least 4
Porn this week: 2
Day 0
Rough sequence of days lately, where I've just kept coming back to porn. Friday, I peeked at porn all day long at work until I thought I was sick of it, and then kept peeking. And then I thought I'd had enough, but I've come back to it every night since, as well as this morning.
But I still believe I will overcome this. It seems crazy, but I still have faith. It won't happen just by me doing it all alone, though. I need to be reaching out for help, both from Jesus and from the people close to me in my life. I feel hopeful.
Porn this week: 2
Day 0
Rough sequence of days lately, where I've just kept coming back to porn. Friday, I peeked at porn all day long at work until I thought I was sick of it, and then kept peeking. And then I thought I'd had enough, but I've come back to it every night since, as well as this morning.
But I still believe I will overcome this. It seems crazy, but I still have faith. It won't happen just by me doing it all alone, though. I need to be reaching out for help, both from Jesus and from the people close to me in my life. I feel hopeful.
You have every reason to hope, jonazo, as you stated above.
You're primarily just dealing with habit, and your brain is just doing the best it knows how to help you cope emotionally. It's never really about the sex or porn, it's about the brain trying to help you regulate your emotions, alleviate boredom, or assuage the pains of trauma.
We simply (but not always easily) have to retrain our brains to learn how to 'feel' life, or to find dopamine hits in more healthy ways. Relationships, finding purpose in life, all these are so important.
You got this!
You're primarily just dealing with habit, and your brain is just doing the best it knows how to help you cope emotionally. It's never really about the sex or porn, it's about the brain trying to help you regulate your emotions, alleviate boredom, or assuage the pains of trauma.
We simply (but not always easily) have to retrain our brains to learn how to 'feel' life, or to find dopamine hits in more healthy ways. Relationships, finding purpose in life, all these are so important.
You got this!
jonazo91
Active Member
@Phineas 808 thanks, I appreciate your words and I’ll take them to heart.
Porn last week: ? at least 4
Porn this week: 6?
Day 0
Still in a rough place with it right now, where I feel the slightest trigger gets me going back down the same old road. It’s been just about every day this week.
Shame and beating myself up, (“I’m disgusting, I’ll never change, I’m a dirty pervert, I’m ruining my life on purpose”) are no good and don’t help. But the feelings are there. It’s no good not to acknowledge those feelings at all either.
I’d like to flip a switch, I’d like to one day “get it” and have all the practical knowledge I’ve learned about my addiction suddenly turn into perfect abstinence. But I guess that’s never going to happen. Instead, I have to practice abstinence, or sobriety, and it’s a skill that I need to sharpen and get better at through frequent practice. I guess the good news is even if I fail one day, I can always immediately start practicing this skill again because it’s about staying in the right mindset and doing the positive, healthy thing for myself. The more I stay in the positive, health-focused mindset, the more practice I get at it.
So, I just watched porn, again, in the bathroom at work. Like I did yesterday. I don’t feel good about myself. I have to acknowledge that. I can’t pretend I’m proud of myself right now or that I have no regrets or negative feelings about myself. I feel like shit. But what can I do right now, to have the best mindset and goal-orientation now, and for the rest of this day (and week, and month)?
Porn last week: ? at least 4
Porn this week: 6?
Day 0
Still in a rough place with it right now, where I feel the slightest trigger gets me going back down the same old road. It’s been just about every day this week.
Shame and beating myself up, (“I’m disgusting, I’ll never change, I’m a dirty pervert, I’m ruining my life on purpose”) are no good and don’t help. But the feelings are there. It’s no good not to acknowledge those feelings at all either.
I’d like to flip a switch, I’d like to one day “get it” and have all the practical knowledge I’ve learned about my addiction suddenly turn into perfect abstinence. But I guess that’s never going to happen. Instead, I have to practice abstinence, or sobriety, and it’s a skill that I need to sharpen and get better at through frequent practice. I guess the good news is even if I fail one day, I can always immediately start practicing this skill again because it’s about staying in the right mindset and doing the positive, healthy thing for myself. The more I stay in the positive, health-focused mindset, the more practice I get at it.
So, I just watched porn, again, in the bathroom at work. Like I did yesterday. I don’t feel good about myself. I have to acknowledge that. I can’t pretend I’m proud of myself right now or that I have no regrets or negative feelings about myself. I feel like shit. But what can I do right now, to have the best mindset and goal-orientation now, and for the rest of this day (and week, and month)?
Whatever your plans are, your strategies, these may need to be assessed. Thoughtfully sit down and analyze what your triggers are (emotional, circumstantial), and what are your responses or non-responses to them. Are your techniques and strategies working? What's not working about them? Do they need tweaking, or to be scrapped and replaced with better strategies altogether?
I'll let you discover what will work best for you, but I can and will strongly suggest that you take shame and blame off the table, 100%! I know this is difficult, especially for people of faith. I'm not saying that you won't or shouldn't feel guilt, blame, and shame, that's natural. But you have EVERY reason to be compassionate toward yourself, that is, unless you think you know better than He who said, "There's therefore now NO condemnation to them who..." (Rom 8:1, emphasis added).
I'll add: to do the same old things and yet expect a different result is a form of insanity.
jonazo91
Active Member
Porn last week: 0
Porn this week: 4
Day 0
Was on vacation last week, and didn't even really have strong cravings at any point. Back at home and in my routine, and I'm looking at porn multiple times a day like I'm making up for lost time. The obvious lesson here is that it's not just my porn use, but my routine that needs to change.
What would I feel like if, a year from today, I could say I've been a whole year free of porn? How about how I would feel just one month from now, September 20, if I could say wow, I've gone a whole month with no porn?
I may never know. Or, I will know eventually, but I will have to fail a few more times first. Or, I can know in exactly one month, and in one year!
Lots of changes are coming to my life. I'm looking for a new job, I'm planning on moving cross-country to buy a home and start a family with my wife. Lots of positive upside on the table for me to take. Lots of scary challenges too.
Time to change my routine and find out.
Porn this week: 4
Day 0
Was on vacation last week, and didn't even really have strong cravings at any point. Back at home and in my routine, and I'm looking at porn multiple times a day like I'm making up for lost time. The obvious lesson here is that it's not just my porn use, but my routine that needs to change.
What would I feel like if, a year from today, I could say I've been a whole year free of porn? How about how I would feel just one month from now, September 20, if I could say wow, I've gone a whole month with no porn?
I may never know. Or, I will know eventually, but I will have to fail a few more times first. Or, I can know in exactly one month, and in one year!
Lots of changes are coming to my life. I'm looking for a new job, I'm planning on moving cross-country to buy a home and start a family with my wife. Lots of positive upside on the table for me to take. Lots of scary challenges too.
Time to change my routine and find out.
Make it impossible to happen, but some adult content block on webrouter, your mobilephone and all the equipments. Its much easier to remember when you cant do it. Keep going! We all are free from porn, we just dont notice it yet
jonazo91
Active Member
I’m on my best streak in a while, and I’m at a low point in my life. My wife might leave me.
It ended up not even being about the porn. Or I should say, not exactly, not really. It was online behavior of which the porn was only one symptom or example of. I am a shitty person online. I had a Twitter account where I said nasty jokes, racist, sexist, homophobic jokes, and said nasty things to women while flirting with others. I didn’t really DO anything with these women. But there were certain women I would reply to a lot in hopes of getting their attention. Not even in a sexual way, which almost makes it worse. My wife asked to see my Twitter account and read through months of me behaving in a way she’s never seen me behave before, using words and expressing political views I’ve never said in front of her. And it has absolutely broken her heart. It’s the saddest I’ve ever seen her and she doesn’t even want me to touch her to comfort her.
None of this has to do specifically with porn, but it’s very clear to me that it’s the same instinct in me that drives me to do both behaviors. Letting the “bad guy” out anonymously online while pretending to be a perfect good guy in real life. I’m really ashamed and disgusted with myself, to see all this behavior of mine through her eyes.
I guess it’s an opportunity for me to grow and change, but I worry that change is beyond me, that I’ll take the easy way out any time I get the chance, that if I can make people comfortable around me by being bland and inoffensive, I’ll always do that and get out my evil side in anonymous spaces online.
But yeah, about 8 days clean from porn, with a few minor instances of peeking.
It ended up not even being about the porn. Or I should say, not exactly, not really. It was online behavior of which the porn was only one symptom or example of. I am a shitty person online. I had a Twitter account where I said nasty jokes, racist, sexist, homophobic jokes, and said nasty things to women while flirting with others. I didn’t really DO anything with these women. But there were certain women I would reply to a lot in hopes of getting their attention. Not even in a sexual way, which almost makes it worse. My wife asked to see my Twitter account and read through months of me behaving in a way she’s never seen me behave before, using words and expressing political views I’ve never said in front of her. And it has absolutely broken her heart. It’s the saddest I’ve ever seen her and she doesn’t even want me to touch her to comfort her.
None of this has to do specifically with porn, but it’s very clear to me that it’s the same instinct in me that drives me to do both behaviors. Letting the “bad guy” out anonymously online while pretending to be a perfect good guy in real life. I’m really ashamed and disgusted with myself, to see all this behavior of mine through her eyes.
I guess it’s an opportunity for me to grow and change, but I worry that change is beyond me, that I’ll take the easy way out any time I get the chance, that if I can make people comfortable around me by being bland and inoffensive, I’ll always do that and get out my evil side in anonymous spaces online.
But yeah, about 8 days clean from porn, with a few minor instances of peeking.
jonazo91
Active Member
I am going to try once again to get back into a regular schedule of checking in on this thread. Attended an SAA meeting yesterday, it was pretty cool. Not unlike the experience of being on this forum, actually.
Later that night instead of just getting ready for bed I started browsing porn websites, like I had been earlier in the day as well. Didn’t masturbate but did view a fair amount of porn yesterday.
Porn last week: ? (Probably something like 5)
Porn this week: 1
Day 1
Later that night instead of just getting ready for bed I started browsing porn websites, like I had been earlier in the day as well. Didn’t masturbate but did view a fair amount of porn yesterday.
Porn last week: ? (Probably something like 5)
Porn this week: 1
Day 1
jonazo91
Active Member
And only a few hours later at work I masturbated again in the bathroom. My willpower lately has been in the trash. I know that relying on willpower alone is maybe not the best method, but I do wish I had at least a small amount of it.
My wife and I made plans to have sex later today, and usually I am able to keep that in the back of my kind as a deterrent, but today I wanted to push the limits and see how far I could go, and now here I am. I feel bad, in a word. Ashamed? Hopeless, stuck, pathetic. I don’t want to generalize those feelings into my whole self-image, but that is how I feel at this moment.
Porn last week: ? (Probably something like 5)
Porn this week: 2
Day 0
jonazo91
Active Member
Checking in today, I'm working from home today and reached a problem that will take just a bit of brainpower, and my first instinct was to start searching porn for a while to take my mind off of it for a minute. Which I did. I feel like I can stop now, before going any further than looking for a few minutes, but I still don't like how easy it was for my brain to resort to that. But, what can you do.
Lately it's been occurring to me how rarely I ever delve into my past and think about my life and how I got here. I don't have time to go into it here and now, and not sure if I really want to, just yet. But ultimately I think that my habit of blocking out my childhood and my past is a roadblock to future recovery.
I'm counting the porn-looking slipup as a fail for today, although I'm glad I feel strong enough to stop it here and not go any further.
Porn last week: ? (Probably something like 5)
Porn this week: 3
Day 0
Lately it's been occurring to me how rarely I ever delve into my past and think about my life and how I got here. I don't have time to go into it here and now, and not sure if I really want to, just yet. But ultimately I think that my habit of blocking out my childhood and my past is a roadblock to future recovery.
I'm counting the porn-looking slipup as a fail for today, although I'm glad I feel strong enough to stop it here and not go any further.
Porn last week: ? (Probably something like 5)
Porn this week: 3
Day 0
While this may be important for deeper healing, it's not necessary in order to break our habits. Only determine why, not that you have unresolved issues or trauma, but why you look to porn and related behaviors as any kind of solution. Break this link, and you can end your habits relatively soon, and deal with your deeper issues any time you want, without resorting to the other non-solutions.
And this
right here is the most important thing, but always with non-judgment, and no shame. Replace condemnation with curiosity: "What do these behaviors actually do for me? Did the reward meet my expectations? Etc.."