Glad to be here and have the opportunity to share my story, as well as help and encourage others.
I honestly don't know how many days I've been porn free, since porn hasn't been working for me much lately, so I think it's been about a week. I'm 62, and I think this whole PIED started about 20 years ago. Not necessarily with porn, but with internet chat rooms, AOL, online affairs, and eventually realtime affairs. I was spending many hours a day doing this, even though I was happily married. It was such a rush (yeah, that dopamine!). While the affairs dwindled off, I think that's when plain old porn filled in the gaps. And alcohol. Btw, I'm in AA and alcohol free for over 10 years now. But it's clear that I have addiction issues. I don't do one of anything, unless it's good for me, such as exercise. But alcohol, drugs, sex, cigarettes, food, you name it, if a little is good, more is better.
I don't think my sex life has been totally shot, but it seems to have it's up and downs, but mostly downs as of late. For a while, it did seem as though porn was the only thing that would get me off, but even that became evasive. More time on porn sites, different genres, more extreme genres, gay genres, I even started back into the internet chat for a little while. Meanwhile, in the bedroom, rarely did I have success. And I can't help but wonder, on those rare successful occasions, how long had I been porn-free? I never kept track, but I would go days (or weeks?) without the time for porn.
I've tried a few of the drugs, without much success. I've actually been considering the injections and/or vacuum pumps, at the suggestion of a new doctor. But it never occurred to me that my frequent use of porn might be contributing to my ED. After everything I've read the past few days, and having every one of the symptoms described, I'm convinced this is at least a huge part of my problem.
I'm reasonably healthy, exercise, don't smoke or drink anymore, and my doctors don't see any physical issues causing my ED. My wife is sexy, a little plump, but loves sex more than I do, to be honest. I think I've actually been using porn to increase my libido and sex drive, but it has, in fact, had the opposite effect. As many others have exclaimed, I'm so happy to discover a real reason for my ED, something that is fixable, and that I can fix. And similar to my alcoholism, why not just make life simpler by NOT doing something? Think of all the increase time on my hands (pun intended). I used my experience with AA to help stop smoking too.
So, I've just added porn to my list of addictions, and hopefully to my list of EX-addictions. Time will tell if this has really been my problem, but based on the anecdotal evidence I've seen, I'm very optimistic. Thanks to all for being here and sharing so willingly.
I honestly don't know how many days I've been porn free, since porn hasn't been working for me much lately, so I think it's been about a week. I'm 62, and I think this whole PIED started about 20 years ago. Not necessarily with porn, but with internet chat rooms, AOL, online affairs, and eventually realtime affairs. I was spending many hours a day doing this, even though I was happily married. It was such a rush (yeah, that dopamine!). While the affairs dwindled off, I think that's when plain old porn filled in the gaps. And alcohol. Btw, I'm in AA and alcohol free for over 10 years now. But it's clear that I have addiction issues. I don't do one of anything, unless it's good for me, such as exercise. But alcohol, drugs, sex, cigarettes, food, you name it, if a little is good, more is better.
I don't think my sex life has been totally shot, but it seems to have it's up and downs, but mostly downs as of late. For a while, it did seem as though porn was the only thing that would get me off, but even that became evasive. More time on porn sites, different genres, more extreme genres, gay genres, I even started back into the internet chat for a little while. Meanwhile, in the bedroom, rarely did I have success. And I can't help but wonder, on those rare successful occasions, how long had I been porn-free? I never kept track, but I would go days (or weeks?) without the time for porn.
I've tried a few of the drugs, without much success. I've actually been considering the injections and/or vacuum pumps, at the suggestion of a new doctor. But it never occurred to me that my frequent use of porn might be contributing to my ED. After everything I've read the past few days, and having every one of the symptoms described, I'm convinced this is at least a huge part of my problem.
I'm reasonably healthy, exercise, don't smoke or drink anymore, and my doctors don't see any physical issues causing my ED. My wife is sexy, a little plump, but loves sex more than I do, to be honest. I think I've actually been using porn to increase my libido and sex drive, but it has, in fact, had the opposite effect. As many others have exclaimed, I'm so happy to discover a real reason for my ED, something that is fixable, and that I can fix. And similar to my alcoholism, why not just make life simpler by NOT doing something? Think of all the increase time on my hands (pun intended). I used my experience with AA to help stop smoking too.
So, I've just added porn to my list of addictions, and hopefully to my list of EX-addictions. Time will tell if this has really been my problem, but based on the anecdotal evidence I've seen, I'm very optimistic. Thanks to all for being here and sharing so willingly.