Finding My Centerline

Hugh Jian

Member
One of my earliest memories is of pornography.

I was in Kindergarten and we had gone to a friend of my fathers for a typical weekend evening of adults drinking while the kids played. My normal playmate was not home for some reason and I found myself downstairs in the lining room with the men. I remember my father’s friend saying “watch this” and then turning on the television to a shot of a giant (maybe fake?) penis penetrating a woman. My father’s hand shot out almost immediately to cover my eyes but I could see through the fingers. I don’t remember how I felt a the time, (maybe confused?) but I think of it now and my heart speeds up a bit and this in my chest.

In the early years of grade school my friend would steal his father’s magazines and we’d sit behind the local 7-11 convenience store feeling like mature men though we were only tiny boys. By sixth or seventh grade, my friends and I had a stash of hustlers and others magazines down near these abandoned train tracks, and we’d go down almost every day in the summer and look through them. There was no masturbation. I didn’t even know how to do it.

In the summer of seventh grade my best friend and his sister found some videos of his father’s and we watched them throughout the summer and took turns reading stories out of Penthouse. One was an I Dream of Jeanie parody that I can still picture scenes from today. I learned to jerk off that summer, and spent a lot of time doing it. We used to find a lot of porn and I had a good collection hidden in a secret spot behind the loose trim of my basement bathroom by the time Highschool started.

I was very insecure by Highschool. Some of it was part of the normal growing up process, but I’m sure a large part was the result of me comparing myself to the men I’d been looking at in porn all those years. I had no shortage of girlfriends as a drummer in some local bands, but could never make the move towards sex due to insecurity. The longer it went, the more I turned to porn or whatever salacious stuff I could find on MTV or cable. The videos of College Girls are Easy, Put ‘em on the Glass, and HBO’s Real Sex were favorites. I had an early curfew and my own room, and I could goon for hours.

I got my first computer with a modem in 96 or 97, and used to wait forever for grainy videos to download in the browser while I trolled sites for pictures to download. It was pretty vanilla stuff, but I used to purge my hard drive in shame from time to time. I would get up early before school to look at porn, lose track of time looking for the perfect clip or pic, and never make it to my college classes. I eventually dropped out.

I lost my virginity at 19 and performed well enough that she thought I was lying about it being my first time. I could have sex several time in a day and still want to masturbate to porn when I was alone. I’d jerk off till there was nothing left, and try to keep going.

I joined the Army in 2000 and had half a year porn free while I was in training. I didn’t think anything of it at the time because I never considered the idea that porn could be an addiction, but I now look back at the clarity I had and know that it was from being rebooted. I returned home feeling like Superman, and things went well for a while.

Porn gradually crept back in, and I didn’t see it as problematic because I was having constant sex with a serious of girlfriends, and had it mostly under control. Things went downhill when I was in Iraq. I had a private office that I could lock and a bunch of videos on a personal laptop I carried around. I spent most of my Sunday morning’s off gooning to videos.

I got married more than a decade ago, and have looked at porn almost every day during that time, outside of a few half hearted attempts to quit. As I got older, I didn’t have the libido anymore to jerk to porn everyday and have sex with my wife, and I chose porn more than I should have. I made a commitment some time ago to not jerk off Thursday/Friday/Saturday to make sure that I ready for my wife on the weekend, but I haven’t always keep that commitment to myself.

I have anxiety, self esteem, focus, and depression issues that I know come from corruption of my dopamine system. I skip workouts getting lost in a quick session before work that burns through all my available time. I sometimes wake in the middle of the night and start a porn session that goes way too long. I worry about my daughters overhearing, finding a browser I forgot to clear, or even catching me. I worry about accidentally leaving a tab open on my device and connecting to my work network. I worry about the porn I see. The sites are full of fake incest videos, rough anal, gagging blowjobs, and tranny videos. I don’t want to develop a fetish for any of that.

I’m stopping, for real this time. I downloaded PornBlock+, blocked Reddit, Scroller, and adult sites, and locked it from a list of random screen time passwords that’s physically locked in my office desk drawer. If I remember it by the time I’m done writing this, I’ll change it until I don’t. I enabled OpenDNS on my home network and locked a long secure password in that same desk drawer. I listened to the Porn Reboot podcast in the car today and am going to keep listening to it, and then I’m going to listed to every Audiobook on porn addiction I can find. I am going to start meditating, and holding my morning workout time as a sacred obligation, not an optional one if I have time after porn.

I am going to strive to be porn free. I will block everything that needs to be blocked, even if it cripples my devices. I will get rid of my phone and iPad if needed. I will review every setback and put a plan in place to avoid each relapse. I am going to own my body and my mind.

-Hugh Jian
 
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Simon2

Well-Known Member
Welcome man! It's not easy to break the old habits but especially with the support of others we CAN do it. You seem to have a solid plan in place! I look forward to following your journey and supporting each other!
 

Nico

Active Member
Hi, welcome - its great to journal regularly on here for accountability and fellowship. I can relate to your story and can see that you are determined. I would recommend, although I am also in fairly early days, making a list of triggers and strategies :)
 

Hugh Jian

Member
A successful morning. Having everything blocked goes a long way, though I‘m sure I could find away around it if I really tried. I saw a pic while I was looking at the news that I quickly shut down, and avoided the urge to “just see whats on tv. Started listening to Quit Porn and Get Rich, which is good so far despite the title.
 

Hugh Jian

Member
Another successful morning. I had the fleeting thought that maybe pictures were ok, and only videos are the problem, but I know that’s not true. It is the constant search for more that is my problem, and I’m realizing that I do the same thing online shopping or researching things.
 

Hugh Jian

Member
Day 4, all good on the PMO front. Quit Porn and Get Rich quickly turned into a business book once it past a few chapters talking about addiction so I stopped listening. I am now listening to The Craving Mind which talks about mindfullness to battle addiction, not specifically P, but good.
 

TakeActionNow

Respected Member
@Hugh Jian

Have a read here.
Hope it helps!


Here are 2 pages for you to study and understand clearly the biological impacts of addictions and post PMO.
This knowledge will arm you with correct expectations how the next few weeks will be like.


In these few weeks you'd need to:
1. Rest significantly to reduce biological stress
2. Do things you can be proud of
3. Recognize and record all of your efforts as a feel good replacement
4. Journal daily of your thoughts and experiences so that you recognize what you are going through and stay motivated and on track.
5. Go out, do things, get more sun, help people, stay away from Internet

Stay focused on healing.
You got this.
 
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