Taking back my life

[silvereagle]

I'm a 17 year old guy, smart, funny, fairly attractive, and I have a huge porn habit. The reason I refer to it as a habit rather than an addiction is because of this article I read, which actually inspired me to fight porn.

http://www.artofmanliness.com/2014/10/08/the-possible-pitfalls-of-too-much-porn/

I'm attracted by facts, and reading about what porn does to my brain was pretty damn disturbing and shocked me into rebooting. Before then, I hadn't really cared (or had told myself that) but hearing my exact issues laid out like that made me realize exactly how destructive this habit really is. Sometimes I can't even believe that it's something that I do, but it is, and I'm going to fight it! I'm going to find new ways to be healthy in my life aside from non-PMO, and I can't wait to start and see how things change. I have never told anybody that I PMO before, and it feels great just to know how many other people there are that struggle with this problem, that I am not alone, and that other people have succeeded! I would appreciate anything that you guys have to say to me to help 

 

[silvereagle]

Looking back on that first chipper, shallow, optimistic post, I can hardly believe that was me that wrote it. I'm a pretty optimistic person, which I suppose is good cause I've got a lot of things going on where a healthy dose of silver-linings don't hurt. All the same, I'm gonna say something that's like 'duh' obvious: quitting porn is damn hard.

It feels like I haven't PMOed in weeks and my brain is trying to convince me that its about time for a relapse and after that long it can't hurt that much. Then I realized, my last time was yesterday morning (Merry Christmas indeed). Wow, thanks a lot brain, you really had me there for a second.

Despite how difficult it is, I'm actually noticing a few easy ways that I can make a simple choice and significantly reduce temptation. I watched TV in the family room, not in my bedroom. One of my triggers is spending too much time wasting time online, and after a few minutes, I suddenly felt myself want to PMO even stronger than usual. It was actually a little frightening. I hadn't realized that I automatically associated an act like checking my facebook with imminent masturbation/dopamine. Yikes. So I've decided to automatically make the choice, not to give up facebook, but to check it when I'm around people if I want to check it, and the same goes for other web-surfing that's not productive. I'm not giving it up cause the true trigger is not the time wasting, just the bored state I'm usually in when I resort to doing so. \

I'm serious about reading that article I posted in my first entry if you're curious about what porn does to your brain. That entire website, The Art of Manliness, is pretty excellent too, and if you've got to waste time on the internet with anything, do that. All of that to say that my main goal in quitting porn is to fix my brain. I've been having a kinda bad year for a lot of reasons, and I'm having to try harder and harder to keep optimistic about it. Reading that article was like a description of my problems, and the fix is obvious, though easier said than done. Quit Porn. Well, that's the goal, and so far, I'm one day without. But like with all things, I'm gonna err on the side of hope. One day will become two. Hopefully days will become weeks. It's wonderful to be able to admit this to anybody because I'm so used to pretending it doesn't exist, even to myself, but I have a problem and with your help I'm gonna fix it!