Hey everyone. I’m Dan, 21, male, in my final year of college. I started the process of rebooting back in summer of 2017 when I watched a YouTube video about NoFap. I had never connected that all the porn I was watching left me feeling empty and was affecting my life and relationships. Since then, I’ve been an on-off fapstronaut with my longest streak being 45 days completely clean. I got back on the hype early last month because I’ve been dating a girl for 4 months and don’t want to keep this away from her and have it affect our life together. I had an amazing 10 day streak and I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed sex as much as during those 10 days. Then I relapsed and haven’t been able to have a streak longer than 3 days for the past two weeks. The other night I had a four-PMO binge and tried to have sex with my girl the following night but couldn’t get or stay hard. We ended up powering through but we both knew that it was a terrible experience. Now I’m starting this thread because I know I’m better than my relationship with porn and this forum will be evidence of that. To start, I want to talk about my journey because I’ve never actually written out the entire story about my relationship with porn. Here goes.
Early Years:
My first exposure to internet porn was when I was in second grade, around 9 years old. My mom gave me the hand-me-down family laptop so I could use it for writing and games. Instead, one night while I was under a blanket, I looked up boobs. It was a landslide from there. I remember sitting under that blanket with my family in the room for HOURS just clicking through pictures. I would look up so many different things on Google. Eventually, that graduated to me finding hardcore videos. I remember vividly finding Brazzers and thinking it was the most incredible site ever. One night when I had friends over for a sleepover, I showed them the discovery but they thought it was disgusting - that was fine though, more for me. So I became a full blown porn addict at a really early age. Eventually, my brother and cousin found my hundreds of searches and made fun of me all night. It’s still an inside joke today, but it’s actually tragic in hindsight.
Middle School:
Then I got to sixth grade and actually didn’t abuse porn as much. It wasn’t until a friend told me that porn is the best that I embarked on my porn searches again. When that happened, everything flooded back. I also knew how to M at that point but wasn’t developed enough to fully MO. I M’d for the whole year, finding all sorts of sites and outlets like Tumblr and 4chan. It’s crazy because I can actually pinpoint exactly when I felt porn starting to affect me. I was a really good student all throughout elementary school. I’ve always been quick to pick things up. That didn’t change when I got to sixth grade. I got straight A’s my first semester. It was around that time that I got into porn and would start watching it really late at night instead of doing HW. At the end of the year, my home room teacher called my mom into school to discuss my decline in grades. My mom had no idea I wasn’t doing HW. It was because I’d stay up to all hours of the night PM and wouldn’t do my work. This continued into high school.
High School:
Interestingly enough, porn didn’t really affect my sociability. I was lucky to always be popular and have a lot of friends. It was around the summer before 9th grade that my friends and I started having big parties and drinking. This meant girls would always be down to hook up too. Since I was popular, had lost a bunch of weight, and was seen as pretty attractive, I started hooking up with some girls at parties. Nothing too insane initially, just making out and fingering. Then when we started getting into them to touching my dick, something weird would happen - I wouldn’t be able to finish. At this point, I’d graduated to the full blown addict we know and hate: PMO 2-3 times a day, addicted to my phone, procrastination, stayed up all night. The girls would walk away disappointed, I would assure them that I just don’t like head, blah blah blah. I knew deep down that it was porn though. By the time the summer going into senior year rolled around, I was addicted to everything: I was a bad alcoholic (routinely blacking out on weekends), stoner, nicotine, chasing women, social media, and, of course, porn. Then I found out about NoFap. I tried it for a few days, realized how hard it was but wanted to keep going. Then I went away from home for five weeks to a precollege course and it was such formative experience. I was sober for the five weeks and decided to stay sober indefinitely (haven’t smoked or drank in 4.5 years). I was on a good streak and actually met a girl that I really liked. I ended up falling in love with her soon after, all while on a 15 day streak. I was on top of the world. Then I relapsed. But I knew I was on the right track. From there, I decided to change everything in my life. Did long distance with the girlfriend, cut out all my old party friends and made smart new ones, started killing school. I did that all in the first month of senior year. I was a difficult time but I got through it with love and my 30 day streak. Then I took a flight down to Atlanta to see my long distance girlfriend and we hooked up again…. But this time, I finished. It was the most intense, satisfying experience I had ever had with a girl. We looked at eachother with wonder in our eyes. I’d never felt anything like that, it was insane. When I got back home, I don’t know what happened but I eventually relapsed. This happened on and off for months and eventually I told my gf about it. She was supportive and loving but wanted me to stop. I couldn’t. I would tell her if she asked and would be really shut off from her. She started spiraling and would pray so hard for me to stop PMO but I just couldn’t do it. Then, after 8 months of dating, I broke up with her. It was because I didn’t know how to look at her anymore. Porn had killed our relationship. It was so sad but I was so emotionally stunted that I couldn’t even cry when it happened. From there, I couldn’t ever put a streak together that was longer than 10 days. The second half of my senior year wasn’t even close to as fun as the first half.
College:
university came around and it was an amazing time, probably because I wasn’t comfortable enough to PMO in my dorm room with two other roommates. I met so many people, was so open and excited. I solidified myself again as a nice, popular person but was more true to myself. I met another girl who I would eventually fall in love with. Then, once again, PMO would come into our relationship and ruin it. I would finish too quickly, think about porn while were doing it, would lie so I could sleep alone and PMO. Classic addict behavior. We eventually broke up. I decided to take the time over the past two years to work on myself and be a new man without a girl in my life. At one point, I went 45 days without PMO. It was actually pretty rough on me and I went through a pretty dark funk. I eventually relapsed the beginning of COVID. I fell off the NoFap train since then, not really putting too much thought into quitting. I became passive about it. I learned to control the urges a bit better, setting goals for myself based on upcoming events like, “oh I have this thing next week, so I won’t watch porn for week” and then I’d do the thing and reward myself with a binge. But, here’s why I’m back. I am back together with the girl from the beginning of college. I love her so much and she deserves someone that isn’t going to devote their life to porn. I recently went on a 10 day streak and swear to god I had the best sex of my life with her on the 10th day. A small gust of wind would get me hard. Then I relapsed as I said earlier and couldn’t get it up. The experience was night and day and opened my eyes to just how serious this problem is. I’m not letting porn kill another beautiful relationship.
That was my journey with porn. I can’t wait to kill the dirty secret that has robbed me of so much joy.
Early Years:
My first exposure to internet porn was when I was in second grade, around 9 years old. My mom gave me the hand-me-down family laptop so I could use it for writing and games. Instead, one night while I was under a blanket, I looked up boobs. It was a landslide from there. I remember sitting under that blanket with my family in the room for HOURS just clicking through pictures. I would look up so many different things on Google. Eventually, that graduated to me finding hardcore videos. I remember vividly finding Brazzers and thinking it was the most incredible site ever. One night when I had friends over for a sleepover, I showed them the discovery but they thought it was disgusting - that was fine though, more for me. So I became a full blown porn addict at a really early age. Eventually, my brother and cousin found my hundreds of searches and made fun of me all night. It’s still an inside joke today, but it’s actually tragic in hindsight.
Middle School:
Then I got to sixth grade and actually didn’t abuse porn as much. It wasn’t until a friend told me that porn is the best that I embarked on my porn searches again. When that happened, everything flooded back. I also knew how to M at that point but wasn’t developed enough to fully MO. I M’d for the whole year, finding all sorts of sites and outlets like Tumblr and 4chan. It’s crazy because I can actually pinpoint exactly when I felt porn starting to affect me. I was a really good student all throughout elementary school. I’ve always been quick to pick things up. That didn’t change when I got to sixth grade. I got straight A’s my first semester. It was around that time that I got into porn and would start watching it really late at night instead of doing HW. At the end of the year, my home room teacher called my mom into school to discuss my decline in grades. My mom had no idea I wasn’t doing HW. It was because I’d stay up to all hours of the night PM and wouldn’t do my work. This continued into high school.
High School:
Interestingly enough, porn didn’t really affect my sociability. I was lucky to always be popular and have a lot of friends. It was around the summer before 9th grade that my friends and I started having big parties and drinking. This meant girls would always be down to hook up too. Since I was popular, had lost a bunch of weight, and was seen as pretty attractive, I started hooking up with some girls at parties. Nothing too insane initially, just making out and fingering. Then when we started getting into them to touching my dick, something weird would happen - I wouldn’t be able to finish. At this point, I’d graduated to the full blown addict we know and hate: PMO 2-3 times a day, addicted to my phone, procrastination, stayed up all night. The girls would walk away disappointed, I would assure them that I just don’t like head, blah blah blah. I knew deep down that it was porn though. By the time the summer going into senior year rolled around, I was addicted to everything: I was a bad alcoholic (routinely blacking out on weekends), stoner, nicotine, chasing women, social media, and, of course, porn. Then I found out about NoFap. I tried it for a few days, realized how hard it was but wanted to keep going. Then I went away from home for five weeks to a precollege course and it was such formative experience. I was sober for the five weeks and decided to stay sober indefinitely (haven’t smoked or drank in 4.5 years). I was on a good streak and actually met a girl that I really liked. I ended up falling in love with her soon after, all while on a 15 day streak. I was on top of the world. Then I relapsed. But I knew I was on the right track. From there, I decided to change everything in my life. Did long distance with the girlfriend, cut out all my old party friends and made smart new ones, started killing school. I did that all in the first month of senior year. I was a difficult time but I got through it with love and my 30 day streak. Then I took a flight down to Atlanta to see my long distance girlfriend and we hooked up again…. But this time, I finished. It was the most intense, satisfying experience I had ever had with a girl. We looked at eachother with wonder in our eyes. I’d never felt anything like that, it was insane. When I got back home, I don’t know what happened but I eventually relapsed. This happened on and off for months and eventually I told my gf about it. She was supportive and loving but wanted me to stop. I couldn’t. I would tell her if she asked and would be really shut off from her. She started spiraling and would pray so hard for me to stop PMO but I just couldn’t do it. Then, after 8 months of dating, I broke up with her. It was because I didn’t know how to look at her anymore. Porn had killed our relationship. It was so sad but I was so emotionally stunted that I couldn’t even cry when it happened. From there, I couldn’t ever put a streak together that was longer than 10 days. The second half of my senior year wasn’t even close to as fun as the first half.
College:
university came around and it was an amazing time, probably because I wasn’t comfortable enough to PMO in my dorm room with two other roommates. I met so many people, was so open and excited. I solidified myself again as a nice, popular person but was more true to myself. I met another girl who I would eventually fall in love with. Then, once again, PMO would come into our relationship and ruin it. I would finish too quickly, think about porn while were doing it, would lie so I could sleep alone and PMO. Classic addict behavior. We eventually broke up. I decided to take the time over the past two years to work on myself and be a new man without a girl in my life. At one point, I went 45 days without PMO. It was actually pretty rough on me and I went through a pretty dark funk. I eventually relapsed the beginning of COVID. I fell off the NoFap train since then, not really putting too much thought into quitting. I became passive about it. I learned to control the urges a bit better, setting goals for myself based on upcoming events like, “oh I have this thing next week, so I won’t watch porn for week” and then I’d do the thing and reward myself with a binge. But, here’s why I’m back. I am back together with the girl from the beginning of college. I love her so much and she deserves someone that isn’t going to devote their life to porn. I recently went on a 10 day streak and swear to god I had the best sex of my life with her on the 10th day. A small gust of wind would get me hard. Then I relapsed as I said earlier and couldn’t get it up. The experience was night and day and opened my eyes to just how serious this problem is. I’m not letting porn kill another beautiful relationship.
That was my journey with porn. I can’t wait to kill the dirty secret that has robbed me of so much joy.