I have been trying to quit porn for at least 3 years now. I am so tired of relapsing over and over again. It's not even about morality or sexual health anymore, I simply can't afford to spend more money on camgirls.
A year and a half ago I thought I was at rock bottom when I had to take out a loan to pay off debt I had accrued from the cam addiction. Then six months from that things got worse because I had blown whatever breathing room I'd gotten from the loan and had to consult a debt settlement company to manage my debt, ruining my credit score.
Now I am finally on the brink of turning things around financially. I am going to be making a substantial dent on my debt this summer and if all goes well I should be debt free this time next year. This summer, for the first time in two years, I will finally have enough money leftover to help out my loved ones, which is something I desperately want to do.
But none of that will happen if I don't stop relapsing. Just this afternoon I blew $200 I did not HAVE on camgirls. It started like it often does. A very stressful day. The stress lifted in the afternoon and I came up to my room to read a novel I am really enjoying but my head full of thoughts of porn. I unblocked the porn sites from my phone, looked around a bit, but nothing interested me. And then I was off to the cam site.
I am terrified that if this continues I'll find myself in an even deeper pit.
My professional life has been extremely stressful recently. A series of projects I had hoped to be done with months ago keep getting delayed and I get stuck in a loop of not putting in enough effort and then hating myself for it. The recent set of relapses are at least somewhat linked to this stress.
I tried seeing a therapist on BetterHelp last month and we continued for a few weeks, and while I had told him about my issues with PMO and camgirls but for the most part we talked about stress and anxiety and all that, partly because he felt it would be best to work through that first, presumably since that's the underlying illness leading to the PMO symptoms, and partly because I didn't really bring up the topic of PMO often myself because I was embarrassed to talk to someone about it face to face. I had to pause therapy a couple of weeks ago because I didn't have enough money, because I had kept relapsing. But my financial situation will look a lot better in a couple of weeks and I plan to go back to BetterHelp and perhaps find a different therapist, one who will be more proactive about my PMO issues.
Anyway, this was all a vomit of thoughts whirling around my head at the moment. I have always believed that trying the same set of things and expecting new results is the surest sign of insanity. So this time, instead of simply telling myself I am not going to relapse anymore, I am going to make changes. I am moving to a new place and a new job next week. I am hoping this will be the impetus I needed to finally give up on this horrible habit. This thread, as well as a commitment to therapy, are going to be parts of that new life.
I will try to post every day, or when I am feeling triggered. Hopefully it will serve as an anchor for my reboot.
A year and a half ago I thought I was at rock bottom when I had to take out a loan to pay off debt I had accrued from the cam addiction. Then six months from that things got worse because I had blown whatever breathing room I'd gotten from the loan and had to consult a debt settlement company to manage my debt, ruining my credit score.
Now I am finally on the brink of turning things around financially. I am going to be making a substantial dent on my debt this summer and if all goes well I should be debt free this time next year. This summer, for the first time in two years, I will finally have enough money leftover to help out my loved ones, which is something I desperately want to do.
But none of that will happen if I don't stop relapsing. Just this afternoon I blew $200 I did not HAVE on camgirls. It started like it often does. A very stressful day. The stress lifted in the afternoon and I came up to my room to read a novel I am really enjoying but my head full of thoughts of porn. I unblocked the porn sites from my phone, looked around a bit, but nothing interested me. And then I was off to the cam site.
I am terrified that if this continues I'll find myself in an even deeper pit.
My professional life has been extremely stressful recently. A series of projects I had hoped to be done with months ago keep getting delayed and I get stuck in a loop of not putting in enough effort and then hating myself for it. The recent set of relapses are at least somewhat linked to this stress.
I tried seeing a therapist on BetterHelp last month and we continued for a few weeks, and while I had told him about my issues with PMO and camgirls but for the most part we talked about stress and anxiety and all that, partly because he felt it would be best to work through that first, presumably since that's the underlying illness leading to the PMO symptoms, and partly because I didn't really bring up the topic of PMO often myself because I was embarrassed to talk to someone about it face to face. I had to pause therapy a couple of weeks ago because I didn't have enough money, because I had kept relapsing. But my financial situation will look a lot better in a couple of weeks and I plan to go back to BetterHelp and perhaps find a different therapist, one who will be more proactive about my PMO issues.
Anyway, this was all a vomit of thoughts whirling around my head at the moment. I have always believed that trying the same set of things and expecting new results is the surest sign of insanity. So this time, instead of simply telling myself I am not going to relapse anymore, I am going to make changes. I am moving to a new place and a new job next week. I am hoping this will be the impetus I needed to finally give up on this horrible habit. This thread, as well as a commitment to therapy, are going to be parts of that new life.
I will try to post every day, or when I am feeling triggered. Hopefully it will serve as an anchor for my reboot.
