Ive Swornoff
Member
**** UPDATE ***** Day 109 **** I renamed my journal. It had a rambling title that I came up with when I was just introducing myself with this post ... how I got here. How gradually this addiction can get you. I wasn't addicted at first. I'm not even 100% sure "addicted" is the right term considering the relative lack of trouble I've had avoiding porn entirely once I decided to do it. But if addiction means I became dependent on it to be aroused, then it applies in spades.
I've since found this forum to be a help to me and I want to be a help to others. One of the ways I've tried to help is to share how I deal with temptation. With a big, mentally loud, resounding "NO! GO AWAY!!!!"
And in a couple of comment threads I likened it to fighting an old demon, an adversary so big and so destructive and so intertwined in my history ... it is like the Balrog from Lord of the Rings that Gandalf doesn't want to fight but knows he must. And that decision he made when he put his foot .... er ... staff down and shouted, with conviction, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!!!!!"
That is what I do in my head when these temptations come up. Because I know the consequences of letting it pass. Failure. A waste of the time and effort I've put into this so far. And that much longer before I come out the other end, hopefully "cured" (which to me means able to have normal sex again, even most of the times I try. Right now, it is flatline zero)
Of course after Gandalf made that proclamation the demon snagged him with his tail in a last ditch effort, pulling Gandalf down through the pit of hell where a terrible battle ensued.
But in the end, Gandalf wins. He defeats the Balrog. He defeats him because he fought long and vigorously and did not let up until the job was done.
But it all started with him drawing a line in the sand ... on that stone bridge, with his staff.
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also ... for those of you looking for somewhere to start replacing how you've spent your idle time for something more constructive, I cannot recommend this site enough: https://www.artofmanliness.com/
================== Original First Journal Entry =========
It doesn't happen right away .... how I got here.
Here is my story, with a lot of background.
I like women. Always have, since I was very young. Just extremely drawn to the feminine. I remember, and this was right around 1970 (I was 5/6) thinking one of my mom's friends was just so pretty there in her dress and hose ... the housewives in the neighborhood dressed like that a lot.
It wasn't a sexual thing. But it has always been "moth to a flame" fascination (that burned me later in life but that's really off-topic).
I never understood the whole "cooties" thing. I couldn't grasp why the other boys acted like they didn't want girls to touch them. "Are you kidding me?" I would think to myself.
First porn I came in contact with was walking home from school, a few folded up magazine pages. Really tame stuff by later standards. Nude women on the phone ... doing kind of daily tasks. Wow! My little 13-year-old hormones got jumpstarted.
I hadn't thought of masturbating. I didn't know what that was. I led a pretty sheltered life, which I'm thankful for.
A year or two later I'd had my first wet dream -- I didn't know what that was about, either. I was chasing two neighborhood girls down the road and they were stripping their clothes off, giggling. I caught up with one, we won't go into graphic detail ... and bam! I woke up. With strangely wet PJ's.
Still, I was unaware you could actually MAKE this happen. That came a year or two later when I accidentally noticed how good two layers of these satin PJ's we'd all just gotten felt when rubbed together over my ... well, you know. I'd been doing it for a while one night after going to bed and all of those pre-orgasmic sensations we all know about came upon me for the first time. I kept doing it ... but not much longer. Same wonderful messy end as the dream I'd had a few years before (and a couple more times since). And then I understood what was going on.
Needless to say, this became a habit for me for the next 40+ years. A LOT. As I got older I collected a few magazines along the way. Even saw a few porn films in college. I could do it with or without the magazines... but we're talking probably a few times a week ... for years. And when I did get into relationships, none of this affected my performance at all. I had some pretty good stamina, and it was ... um ... appreciated out loud, shall we say, by the few partners I had before getting married. I was convinced it *helped*. I'm actually not sure even today that it didn't back then.
My wife and I had LOTS of sex for several years. She actually wore ME out (again??? really???) Looking back on those days ... that was awesome. Eventually her appetite waned. She is significantly older than I am. And though I had never stopped masturbating, it picked up more as and more a side activity. Still, I was having zero issues until about 20 years of marriage.
I work with computers as a career and I use them for two of my hobbies (for editing, and no, I'm not a porn video editor ). The temptation of internet ... video ... porn crept in more and more. It was just too easy. Get bored, go get a little cheap thrill entertainment. Looking back, I had probably watched quite a bit of it for years before the next significant event.
There was a disaster that befell us about 10 years ago. A traumatic event (nothing to do with our relationship, I just don't want to give away too many identifiable details here) and right about that time, I found I could get aroused when we got intimate, but couldn't keep it up for long. Not even long enough to orgasm.
It came on rather quickly. Like within the span of a couple of months. And I've never been able to keep it up since without help. I assumed it had something to do with the traumatic event and that it must be stress-related (don't worry, nobody died or even got injured ... everything on that front was cleared up in under 6 months).
So we stopped. She'd hit menopause, so it may even have been a little bit of a relief to her, but she also thought it was because I didn't find her attractive anymore. Not a good thing. She hadn't been nearly as "into" it as she had the first several years.
We'd try occasionally. Every few months, then longer, then a year.
She suggested I try TRT. Mine was found to be low, on the order of a 70 year old man. I wasn't close to that. So I went on TRT. Made me feel great, but did not fix the problem. I had ED. I accepted it. I tried Viagra. Didn't seem to help. I did what I've heard a coach or two talk about when I finally found this community ... I kept doing it just to make sure it still functioned properly. Invariably using internet porn. And video -- I think it's the worst. It's what eventually did me in.
Here's the thing... it DID still function properly with the porn for another good 7 or 8 years ... and then ... slowly ... even porn couldn't keep it up.
Tried Trimix along the way. Which works as long as you can get aroused ... which is no longer a guarantee. Then when it works it often works too well and you have to work at getting rid of it which involves 30 minutes of vigorous exercise (and no, sex doesn't cut it).
The last 6 years I worked on a project for one of my hobbies. But it was easy to get sidetracked and start looking at porn instead... first for just a bit, but as time went on for hours ... and hours ... and many times a week. Often almost every night. I wasn't getting my project done. It probably put me 2 years behind, truth be told.
As my addiction grew and I got into more and more "out there" porn, and in the last year or so onto the quick cut compilations almost exclusively ... I first couldn't even keep it up for porn. And then porn no longer even worked to get it up. End stage.
It was 10 years ago I told my doctor about it (to get the Viagra). My doctor said my symptoms suggested it was a psychosomatic case (but offered no guidance on that - no referral, nothing). I didn't know what to make of that or what to do about it (I wish I had realized what was truly the cause 10 years ago -- I'd be in a better place now). But here it is 10 years later and I'm completely broken. On the upside, I'm very motivated. If you can describe being completely broken as having an "upside".
I can't remember how long it’s been since I turned off the porn, but I did it cold turkey ... I want to say 2.5 months ago, but it may only be 1.5 (was it June 1 or July 1? I thought June 1 but I'm not exactly sure anymore). I have ... relieved myself ... without porn a few times during this period, but from what I'm understanding this needs to stop, too, at least for a good long while. Shouldn't be a big deal, I really don't get that much out of it anymore and frankly it's difficult to do. Which is depressing, but it is what it is.
I had read about PIED a few years ago, and thought "maybe"? Tried going a month without it. Nothing changed (well I HAD to test it, right? And I had no clue how long it might take), so I went back to it. I also read that it really isn't a "thing". But the more I've read and the couple of vlogs about it I watched on the topic ... yeah, I think it's definitely a thing and it's a thing I suffer from. It's what caused the problem.
I'm afraid I'm in for a long haul before I get better. I've removed any porn I had from my computers. The voice said oh, you could take one little look at one, and I told it it needed to go to hell. I definitely felt the awakening of whatever hope my lizard brain had when I went to select the folder it was in ... that was enough to convince me the dopamine theory is right.
Anyway, so far, so good. I understand the problem, and I really have a visceral hate for what it's done to me. That should help. We'll see how this goes.
I've since found this forum to be a help to me and I want to be a help to others. One of the ways I've tried to help is to share how I deal with temptation. With a big, mentally loud, resounding "NO! GO AWAY!!!!"
And in a couple of comment threads I likened it to fighting an old demon, an adversary so big and so destructive and so intertwined in my history ... it is like the Balrog from Lord of the Rings that Gandalf doesn't want to fight but knows he must. And that decision he made when he put his foot .... er ... staff down and shouted, with conviction, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!!!!!"
That is what I do in my head when these temptations come up. Because I know the consequences of letting it pass. Failure. A waste of the time and effort I've put into this so far. And that much longer before I come out the other end, hopefully "cured" (which to me means able to have normal sex again, even most of the times I try. Right now, it is flatline zero)
Of course after Gandalf made that proclamation the demon snagged him with his tail in a last ditch effort, pulling Gandalf down through the pit of hell where a terrible battle ensued.
But in the end, Gandalf wins. He defeats the Balrog. He defeats him because he fought long and vigorously and did not let up until the job was done.
But it all started with him drawing a line in the sand ... on that stone bridge, with his staff.
YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Also ... for those of you looking for somewhere to start replacing how you've spent your idle time for something more constructive, I cannot recommend this site enough: https://www.artofmanliness.com/
================== Original First Journal Entry =========
It doesn't happen right away .... how I got here.
Here is my story, with a lot of background.
I like women. Always have, since I was very young. Just extremely drawn to the feminine. I remember, and this was right around 1970 (I was 5/6) thinking one of my mom's friends was just so pretty there in her dress and hose ... the housewives in the neighborhood dressed like that a lot.
It wasn't a sexual thing. But it has always been "moth to a flame" fascination (that burned me later in life but that's really off-topic).
I never understood the whole "cooties" thing. I couldn't grasp why the other boys acted like they didn't want girls to touch them. "Are you kidding me?" I would think to myself.
First porn I came in contact with was walking home from school, a few folded up magazine pages. Really tame stuff by later standards. Nude women on the phone ... doing kind of daily tasks. Wow! My little 13-year-old hormones got jumpstarted.
I hadn't thought of masturbating. I didn't know what that was. I led a pretty sheltered life, which I'm thankful for.
A year or two later I'd had my first wet dream -- I didn't know what that was about, either. I was chasing two neighborhood girls down the road and they were stripping their clothes off, giggling. I caught up with one, we won't go into graphic detail ... and bam! I woke up. With strangely wet PJ's.
Still, I was unaware you could actually MAKE this happen. That came a year or two later when I accidentally noticed how good two layers of these satin PJ's we'd all just gotten felt when rubbed together over my ... well, you know. I'd been doing it for a while one night after going to bed and all of those pre-orgasmic sensations we all know about came upon me for the first time. I kept doing it ... but not much longer. Same wonderful messy end as the dream I'd had a few years before (and a couple more times since). And then I understood what was going on.
Needless to say, this became a habit for me for the next 40+ years. A LOT. As I got older I collected a few magazines along the way. Even saw a few porn films in college. I could do it with or without the magazines... but we're talking probably a few times a week ... for years. And when I did get into relationships, none of this affected my performance at all. I had some pretty good stamina, and it was ... um ... appreciated out loud, shall we say, by the few partners I had before getting married. I was convinced it *helped*. I'm actually not sure even today that it didn't back then.
My wife and I had LOTS of sex for several years. She actually wore ME out (again??? really???) Looking back on those days ... that was awesome. Eventually her appetite waned. She is significantly older than I am. And though I had never stopped masturbating, it picked up more as and more a side activity. Still, I was having zero issues until about 20 years of marriage.
I work with computers as a career and I use them for two of my hobbies (for editing, and no, I'm not a porn video editor ). The temptation of internet ... video ... porn crept in more and more. It was just too easy. Get bored, go get a little cheap thrill entertainment. Looking back, I had probably watched quite a bit of it for years before the next significant event.
There was a disaster that befell us about 10 years ago. A traumatic event (nothing to do with our relationship, I just don't want to give away too many identifiable details here) and right about that time, I found I could get aroused when we got intimate, but couldn't keep it up for long. Not even long enough to orgasm.
It came on rather quickly. Like within the span of a couple of months. And I've never been able to keep it up since without help. I assumed it had something to do with the traumatic event and that it must be stress-related (don't worry, nobody died or even got injured ... everything on that front was cleared up in under 6 months).
So we stopped. She'd hit menopause, so it may even have been a little bit of a relief to her, but she also thought it was because I didn't find her attractive anymore. Not a good thing. She hadn't been nearly as "into" it as she had the first several years.
We'd try occasionally. Every few months, then longer, then a year.
She suggested I try TRT. Mine was found to be low, on the order of a 70 year old man. I wasn't close to that. So I went on TRT. Made me feel great, but did not fix the problem. I had ED. I accepted it. I tried Viagra. Didn't seem to help. I did what I've heard a coach or two talk about when I finally found this community ... I kept doing it just to make sure it still functioned properly. Invariably using internet porn. And video -- I think it's the worst. It's what eventually did me in.
Here's the thing... it DID still function properly with the porn for another good 7 or 8 years ... and then ... slowly ... even porn couldn't keep it up.
Tried Trimix along the way. Which works as long as you can get aroused ... which is no longer a guarantee. Then when it works it often works too well and you have to work at getting rid of it which involves 30 minutes of vigorous exercise (and no, sex doesn't cut it).
The last 6 years I worked on a project for one of my hobbies. But it was easy to get sidetracked and start looking at porn instead... first for just a bit, but as time went on for hours ... and hours ... and many times a week. Often almost every night. I wasn't getting my project done. It probably put me 2 years behind, truth be told.
As my addiction grew and I got into more and more "out there" porn, and in the last year or so onto the quick cut compilations almost exclusively ... I first couldn't even keep it up for porn. And then porn no longer even worked to get it up. End stage.
It was 10 years ago I told my doctor about it (to get the Viagra). My doctor said my symptoms suggested it was a psychosomatic case (but offered no guidance on that - no referral, nothing). I didn't know what to make of that or what to do about it (I wish I had realized what was truly the cause 10 years ago -- I'd be in a better place now). But here it is 10 years later and I'm completely broken. On the upside, I'm very motivated. If you can describe being completely broken as having an "upside".
I can't remember how long it’s been since I turned off the porn, but I did it cold turkey ... I want to say 2.5 months ago, but it may only be 1.5 (was it June 1 or July 1? I thought June 1 but I'm not exactly sure anymore). I have ... relieved myself ... without porn a few times during this period, but from what I'm understanding this needs to stop, too, at least for a good long while. Shouldn't be a big deal, I really don't get that much out of it anymore and frankly it's difficult to do. Which is depressing, but it is what it is.
I had read about PIED a few years ago, and thought "maybe"? Tried going a month without it. Nothing changed (well I HAD to test it, right? And I had no clue how long it might take), so I went back to it. I also read that it really isn't a "thing". But the more I've read and the couple of vlogs about it I watched on the topic ... yeah, I think it's definitely a thing and it's a thing I suffer from. It's what caused the problem.
I'm afraid I'm in for a long haul before I get better. I've removed any porn I had from my computers. The voice said oh, you could take one little look at one, and I told it it needed to go to hell. I definitely felt the awakening of whatever hope my lizard brain had when I went to select the folder it was in ... that was enough to convince me the dopamine theory is right.
Anyway, so far, so good. I understand the problem, and I really have a visceral hate for what it's done to me. That should help. We'll see how this goes.
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