Hello Reboot Nation! I'm writing with an eleven-month update and will likely write again for my one-year anniversary (October 30th). For those who have never read my thread, I am 43 years old, have used porn on/off for almost 20 years, was married (now divorced), and have three kids. I initially used pornography to explore my closeted homosexuality but am now out to both friends and family. Porn almost killed me back in December 2013 when I very seriously contemplated suicide. I am now 333 days porn-free and will never use/view it again. As I've often written: porn is not an option, and is no longer part of my life. September was quite easily the most challenging month of my reboot because I finally figured myself out...and it wasn't pretty my friends. You see, porn was simply a habit that quickly became an all-consuming addiction. In my case, I used porn to try to drug (or perhaps fill) a burning self-hatred because of my homosexuality. I've known I was gay since the age of five and yet always thought I was a deviant/freak. Now out and happy, I no longer needed the addiction and have spent most of this year rebuilding my self-esteem. But enough of the psychology, I'd prefer to share a brief roadmap to recovery.
STEP ONE: Find a mirror, look at yourself, and repeat: "I am a porn addict and my addiction is out of control." Keep repeating this until it evokes an emotion. Once it does, have a good look at your masturbation hand. [This 'hand' technique is thanks to a post by William.] Really take a long look at your hand and then imagine yourself walking down the aisle with a giant hand, exchanging rings with a giant hand, raising children with your hand, and sharing a lifetime of memories with your jerking hand. Accept that unless you kill your porn addiction, your masturbation hand will be your only friend in life. Ask yourself: "Is this what I want?" If the hand isn't working, imagine spending an entire life with a computer screen, or jizz rag, or dirty magazine. The point is I had to be mentally ready to move on and to do so I needed to be fully conscious of the wasted life I'd lead as a porn addict.
STEP TWO: Get ready for the hell that will be step three. This won't be a walk in the park. This will be a heroin-withdrawal-like experience. Read "Your Brain on Porn" by Gary Wilson. Knowledge is power.
STEP THREE: Do the hard 90. Keep repeating: "Porn is not an option." This means 90 days without porn/masturbation/orgasm. It's not going to kill you but it will be one of the hardest things you'll ever do.
STEP FOUR: Post hard 90, determine whether you're simply ending a bad habit (like a bad diet), or battling a lifelong addiction similar to alcoholism/drug abuse. These are two completely different creatures. If you're battling a bad habit, after about 120-180 days porn-free, your life should be returning to normal and you probably won't need to keep posting on this website. So how do we determine if porn is an addiction? After your hard 90, here are some signs you're battling an addiction:
1. You continue to relapse.
2. You're still stuck in depression, guilt or shame.
3. You're using porn substitutes like Youtube, fleshy TV, dating sites/apps, constantly masturbating, or you edge "but not to orgasm."
4. You've changed your counter several times in an attempt to rationalize yourself out of a relapse.
The above isn't an exhaustive list, but you get my point. If you've stopped the porn, but still feel like sh*t and aren't really seeing an improvement in your life, your porn habit was an addiction and you now need to undertake an emotional reboot. If however you're feeling better and feel like you can move on, you've beaten a nasty habit and probably don't need this website anymore.
STEP FIVE: Prepare yourself for an emotional reboot. This will be longer, harder, and more torturous than your 90-day porn reboot. This means fully accepting that porn was not the root cause of all your problems. It was simply a means to hide from the root cause. Emotional reboots like mine meant accepting that something deeper caused me to act this way. Now you need to identify and deal with the real problem. Start by reading "Breaking the Cycle" by George Collins. This will go a long way to help you identify the problem or "original wound" as Collins calls it.
STEP SIX: As an addict, you've surrounded yourself with people who somehow feed your addiction - including coworkers, your spouse and/or children. You need to accept that you've built an entire existence around hiding from something (bad memories, abusive parents, fears, guilt, shame etc). This means you'll need something or someone outside of your self-constructed 'comfort zone' to help you break free of it. You now have to accept that you can't overcome your problems alone, nor can you do so by blaming/abusing or being abused/used those around you.
STEP SEVEN: Get a reboot buddy, sobriety partner, or sponsor and tell them everything. Every secret, every lie, every bad habit, every bad memory, EVERTYHING. If you're holding on to secrets, they'll just result in relapses so it's best to be honest/thorough so you can start healing. If you need more structure, try joining a 12-step programme like www.pornaddictsanonymous.org. If that porn-itch starts again, it's simply because you haven't exorcised the root cause of your porn habit so you need to keep digging. This may also require professional help.
STEP EIGHT: Stay proactive. The minute you stop going forward in recovery, you slide back towards addiction. Using myself as an example, I've read over 25 books (and counting) about pornography addiction, addiction, addiction recovery, long-term recovery, self-esteem, and I could go on. The point is I spent over 20 years getting myself into this hole so I had to accept it would take years to dig myself out again. Some other things you can do to remain proactive: exercise; learning; socializing...just balls out living again! You have to get out of the habit of feeling like sh*t in front of screens which requires both mental and physical movement. There will be aches and pains like when you start exercising again, but it's worth it.
The above is a brief roadmap to recovery based on my experiences so far. Please feel free to add to my list as many people on this website have more time porn-free than me. In closing, what started for me as a porn reboot truly became a life reboot. Now eleven months porn-free, I am not the same person I was when I last watched porn on October 29, 2014. Life is so much better without porn my friends so I can only encourage you to stay hungry in recovery...hungry for life really. Life is too beautiful to live it virtually. PORN IS NOT AN OPTION.