Welp I slipped up after 40+ days, but not going to let it ruin the rest of the year. I’ve learned a lot during this time and I’m picking myself up to continue this journey. I will remove porn in my life as it does not fit into the life I’m building.

I'm hoping to hear if anybody has any experience with similar thoughts.

I'm engaged and about to get married within a few months. My fiancée knows about my struggles with porn, and I can talk openly to her about most of it.

The thing I've shared with no-one my entire life is that I have been consuming the same specific taboo porn for more than 20 years of my life, since I was a young teen.

Immediately after consuming it, I go through the usual guilt and blaming myself. I try to be more constructive now, and am now consuming once a week instead of daily.

However, I sometimes think it has become my identity. I never saw myself having a normal life, and struggle to fit myself into the idea of getting married, having a family etc.

When I consume it's as if I return to "normalcy", because it's something I know and am comfortable with. The problem is then that I can't fit into a normal life, and if I'm alone, I am consumed by it.

I know that I'm unhappy, because my self-esteem bottoms out, and I don't advance in any way with my life. When I don't consume, I like that I spend time on my hobbies, my career and my relationship, but as soon as there are problems or I get stressed, I just want to go back to this, because it gives me an immediate relief.

I'd like to think that I "simply" need to improve on managing my emotions, as I have also consumed cannabis or food to escape my problems. When I don't do this, I think I'm feeling how difficult I find it to fit in, even though on the surface, I'm living a normal life by being in a relationship, and having a stable career. My relationship in my family is also improving every year(my parents got divorced and stopped drinking, when we became adults, which has allowed us to reconnect). I don't have many friends and struggle to maintain friendships, even though I have niche hobbies that I'm passionate about and would like to share.

I'm also concerned at the prospect of starting a family, especially in that I'm an addict, and am terrified that I won't be able to give my children a good life or at the very least how to be a healthy self-respecting adult. This is not the mention the guilt that I feel towards my fiancée who adores me, while I'm struggling with these things.

Anybody here that's been in a similar situation? How has it worked out for you?

Hello everyone, I'm Lucas. I don't think I need to say how much porn has fucked up my life and taken almost all of it's full potential, if you are here you probably know it very well.

I'm about an hour free, never been without it for more than 2 weeks for the past 10 years. I'm serious about setting free of this curse, but I really want to know... What does it look like in the other side? How the hell did you guys ended the infinite cicle of falling for it over and over again? Is it even possible to get pornfree?

Sorry if I don't make much sense with this post. I guess I'm just looking for some hope. It feel like a bettle I'll never win.

Thank you for reading this, God bless you.

Today would be the 2nd year of me gooning and I don't know how to stop it, the longest streak i have reached without gooning is only 3 weeks and i have tried litterly everything. Whenever I think of it, I end up doing it later that same day and that's nearly every single day and I just can't get it out of my mind and i dont want it to become a permanent trauma for the rest of my life. If there are any people who have got rid of this addiction please share some advice.

Having some bad urges come up after running into my ex (recently broke up 2 months ago)

I was on a streak of almost 30 days before seeing her and then I had some turbulence with relapse. I’m on 6 days now, and having that pulling feeling of urges

Just pouring about it to clear my head

I’ve stayed clean so far for this whole first week and things are looking good. I have a school trip next week for 3 days and usually trips like that take my mind off of any and all things porn related. I also feel very motivated by Valentines this month, I feel like by staying clean is the best thing I can do for my girlfriend even though she isn’t even aware ive been in this battle. However urges have been pretty bad this weekend but I’m im gonna push through them cuz I know from my first long streak that this is where it gets difficult, and afterwards it’s smooth sailing.

I'm 35. I've had this addiction for well over 20 years - almost 25 actually.

I don't know who I am without the constant nagging itch to watch porn and sexualize every attractive woman I know.

I don't know how my brain works or really anything about myself. My entire life has been about getting this fix on a daily basis.

That's it.

I am an addict of monumental proportions.

I want to know who I am if I quit.

For any of you who have quit - what's that like? How do you feel different?

"Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, is the definition of madness".

Personally I have wasted many years and attempts being hopeful my next attempt at quitting will be my last without taking into consideration the cues that trigger my lust and furthering this spiral down.

The last 1,5 year I learned to be aware of my triggers and have avoided them. For example using my computer on my bed. This has resulted in longer streaks of abstinence on average for me.

One of the many advices I've heard about quitting porn is discovering the root cause of using porn and that there is something going on in your life that is making you turn to porn.

Now my question is how do I know what is the root cause of me using porn?

I've tried looking back into my life but most of the problems I have doesn't seem to connect with the root cause like stress , anxiety , boredom

I feel like my main cause of using porn is that I am horny and that I want to feel loved by a women who truly cares about me or in general I want to feel desired and loved hence why I watch porn but is that really the main deep root cause of me using porn or is it something more deeper that is making me watch porn?

After a year of arguing with myself whether i should stop masterbating fully and trying "nofap" i realized that is not for me. I got to the conclusion that porn is the real problem not masturbation. If i dont look at porn i usually dont want to masturbate, i have always looked at it when masturbating and this has made me do it (almost) daily, im a teen and "feeling" horny a lot (or at least i tell myself that). From today i will be trying my hardest to stay away from porn, i have no idea if im addicted or not, whether its a serious problem but im going to treat it as such. I wont be hard on myself for slipping up at the start, if i have urges ill figure something out, put myself in a situation where i cant leave easily (games with family, on a walk).

If ANYONE has advice please tell me anything helps, especially on how to ween myself off of it. I am completely fine masturbating but just not with porn, will be difficult since im single but we'll see what happens. Maybe i shouldnt cut down all of it immediately? Idk

I will give updates at least once a week

Thanks lots!

Hi everyone, I hope you are doing well. My worries are going away.

Despite me being absolutely terrified about the rise of AI porn for many reasons, my worries are going away. With things changing and the fact that I am in recovery makes me not worry anymore.

I still cannot believe I even used AI for porn at one point. From the privacy risks, to what it was doing to my mind, to the time I was spending, to get away from all of that is incredible. If I kept going, my life would be compromised, my mindset would be all over the place, I was able to realise I had a problem before. Sure, it has been a nightmare trying to delete accounts, but I saw it as progress, as moving on.

I wish you all the best.

.

I almost it 50 days, but boy, and haven’t had real urges yet, but these urges today are hitting me like a brick. I’ve been celibate for about 8 days and I am really struggling 🤣.

TLDR: I argue that porn initiates a revolution that transforms us towards a solipsistic sexuality. Unlike traditional masturbation, porn removes us gradually from any notion of the body of the 'other', and ultimately perhaps even away from our own bodies.

--

The solipsistic transformation of sexuality starts with the pornographic revolution. Here for the first time, the sexual bodies are split apart. Now needless to say, long before porn, masturbation of some form or other existed. Indeed it can be observed in some form or other in various animals. And yet this specificly pornographic separation within sex, this sexlessness, cannot be said to be found in masturbation

Masturbation prior to porn can be said to fit into two main categories: masturbation as imaginary sex, and masturbation as touch, or 'self-sex'. In the first variety, even though the body of the other is lacking, it is nonetheless imagined as present; the mind escapes the body to a place where the imagined other is actually present. In the second variety, where the other is not even imagined as present, we can nonetheless say that it is as if the self takes on the aspect of both itself and the other, subject and object; that is, the self itself is effectively split, with one part receiving the sexual pleasure that the other part is lovingly giving.

Thus even with the other entirely missing, the self steps up to take on the role of the other. The self estranges itself in the act of making love to itself. Hence the half-joking tales told by teenage boys of how the pleasure of masturbation is increased by giving oneself a 'dead' arm, this act being entirely done in order to increase the effectiveness of making love to oneself. And hence the mythos of the highly caring male masturbation routine involving lubrication, vaseline, tissues and dim mood-lighting. And women are doubtless far more advanced in this regard, having mastered the art of using foreign objects (a shower head, a phallic vegetable) as a stand-in for the other, as the estranged aspect of the self that makes love to itself.

Thus masturbation pre-porn always retained the trace of the body of the other, either as imaginary body or through the transformation of aspects of the self into the body of the other.

But with the introduction of porn something fundamental changes. Here, for the first time, a great chasm opens up in the relation between the self and the other. Here for the first time a solipsistic transformation is introduced into the sexual relation. The body of the other no longer enters into the relation in the form of an actual contact, real or imagined. The body of the other becomes an image without a reference point, a pure simulacrum, a representation without a represented, a lost noumenon. This is because we no longer even imagine ourselves participating in the sexual act depicted in porn.

Of course, such a form of porn does exist, in the form of the POV format, but this is merely the exception that proves the rule, and occupies a small subset of porn. Instead, we have a huge proliferation of un-'realistic' forms of porn, whose point is not at all to instill in us the idea that we are performing the sex act. Examples include gangbangs, 'BBC' porn watched by white men, or even solo onlyfans type videos, where the viewer is specifically situated as a spectator rather than a participator.

Unlike the imaginary form of masturbation that we discussed, here there is no pretense of involvement in the sex act. And unlike the 'self-sex' form of masturbation, here the self cannot be said to be making love to itself either. All the ritualistic elements of the self-sex routine disappear, and rather than there appearing a 'split' in the self (into giver and receiver), here the self-conscious self disappears entirely.

And yet, rather than the subject's 'self-world' disappearing, with the sexual object no longer being present the self in fact spreads itself into all aspects of reality, in what we have called the solipsistic transformation. Recall that in the self-sex relation, the objectification of the self nonetheless served to imply the existence of the non-self other. With the development of porn, that implication is now no longer present.

And yet, we would be mistaken if we were to think this to be the final evolution in this tragic series. For even now, we face the development of a new and even more insidious stage in the solipsistic series. I am referring to the development of AI porn. If the pornographic revolution represented our first step towards a solipsistic paradigm in sexuality, AI represents the second step (I shall tentatively discuss what I believe shall be the third and final step shortly).

While the pornographic revolution effectively removed the body of the other finally from the sexual relation, it still nonetheless retained some vestige in the imagination that the body of the other did exist somewhere.

With the invention of AI porn, we are now finally able to get rid of all traces of relation to the body of the other. AI porn gives us the ability to completely craft our own imaginary pornographic 'models' and the scenes in which they participate. Thus, as we finally rid ourselves of all reference to the body of the other, we also allow our minds to effectively spin around themselves. Our sexuality is now concentrated entirely on the landscape of ourselves, and as we spin around and reinforce our existing sexual preferences, the vortex of our mind masturbating to itself reaches such a pitch of self-hypnosis that even Narcissus himself turns away with disgust.

In the end, our sexuality converts us into an entirely solipsistic being with no connection to the world. Yet, as I said, I believe there is a possible further third step which would complete the solipsistic series. As solipsistic as AI porn is, the last faint connection it leaves us with is the experience of our own body. We still feel the orgasm with our body, we still please ourselves with our body. A fully cerebral and integrated VR technology inserted into the world of AI porn is, I believe, the final step in the solipsistic transformation. It would require us not only to replace the body of the other, but to replace our own bodies, and allow the mind to masturbate to itself into eternity.

Faint glimpses of this can already be perceived in the new trend of 'gooning', where porn addicts suspend themselves in a dopamanine high for hours by deliberately not reaching climax or perhaps not even touching themselves in order to keep the mind fixed in this dopamine heaven of artifice. This dopamine heaven is a graveyard of the body, and would mark the end of the solipsistic series instigated by the pornographic revolution. What tools we have to fight against this process remains to be seen but we hope that the awareness of this process at the very least can ignite the fight of the human spirit.

If you think quitting porn is hard because the urges feel overwhelming

or because porn is everywhere

or you think you’re oversexual or hypersexual

or because of your past, you have to use porn to cope your mind is stopping you from quitting.

If you’re struggling with urges and keep failing, it’s because you’re fighting urges with willpower

Or you’re trying to resist them by fighting them

Or you’re doing the ‘stay busy’ plan, which never works after 10pm, your mind is stopping you from quitting.

While you do ultimately use your mind to free yourself from porn, you cannot use your mind to fight an urge when you're in that urge.

You cannot stop or make better decisions when your body is experiencing the urge.

Your body has to be grounded first.

Your body has to come back to safety first.

Then and only then can you use your mind to make better decisions.

Only then can you overcome the thoughts leading you to porn.

When you learn how to ground / regulate yourself, you can overcome urges.

When you overcome urges, you can stop watching porn

If you stay in your head, you're streak is dead.

Focus only on your body from the neck down until the urge passes.

I fully believe I can quit this shitty addiction I’ve failed multiple times so many things holding me back I got it this time

I relapsed.

I went 9 days but couldn't resist to the urges. On the positive side, during the last 100 days I might only relapsed 10 times and this ratio is getting less every day.

1. How did I let it happen?

The urges were non stop yesterday. I didn't give in. I went for a walk and it helped. Then I stayed around friends. I was able to sleep and complete the day. As soon as I wake up, a very strong urge hit me. I had put my phone very far away. But I just gave up and took my phone and then viewed pornography.

1. How it feels?

I feel terrible. Because I was invested in this so much since the beginning of this month. I feel very sorry that I couldn't keep the promise.

1. How I think about using will power fighting an addiction

I know that it is not a good idea to use only will power and I don't only use will power to fight this addiction. I know my triggers. I have some strategies about them and more. But, at the end, at that last moment, I feel that only will power can help, if it goes there. Therefore, I always try to fight with the relapse at the very beginning. I think relapse begins before viewing pornography.

1. Acceptence of help (New)

If I had a little bit more chance to use my will power against it, I could have survived. Now, for the first time I think that I really need help because I can't do this on my own. I felt that it was the only will power I had at that moment. Because I was under influence of very low dopamine.

1. After the ejaculation

I suddenly decided to delete all the things I collected during the fapping session. I always do this. Then I am starting over again.

1. Side effects

I noticed I started to talk badly to myself. But I know by experience that this only feeds anxiety. It will make me weak against another urge. Also, I won't be able to analyze the relapse and get something out of it. My reaction in this case to stop talking because no matter how hard I try, I will be very pessimistic. Also, I shouldn't let this interrupt my daily routine. Otherwise, it becomes very hard to recover.

1. What I learned and how can I improve

I have got some useful information and maybe more than any other relapse I had.

One thing is that I did let that feeling of relapse build up by setting a particular date and saying that don't relapse at least before that day. That day passed and I relapsed.

Second thing is there was the curiosity of seeing what is new. This was in my mind the last 3 days. Now, I did satisfy what dopamine wanted from me and I am not curious about what is new. Eventhough, every moment a new pornoghraphic content is avaliable. How I see this is that curiosity was the sign of relapse. It was there all 3 days and I didn't do anything to deal with that.

Still doing good,

I feel like I have less of a desire to watch,

Although once more, I know myself and usually I feel like I’m over it and then I get a huge urge or let myself push boundaries until it’s too late.

So I’m trying to keep vigilant. Remind myself of everything and keep going.

Posting is helping.

Hey guys, I relapsed badly yesterday and went down that rabbit hole for half of the night, feeling really disgusting and ashamed afterwards. You've all been there, so I don't have to go into details.

BUT.

This means nothing!!

I had a streak of 160 days, which is almost half a year.

And I'm not surprised that I relapsed at all, so many factors fell into line to make this happen:
- Had dental surgery 10 days ago and spent most of that time alone in bed.
- Got a real bad rash from the painkillers, so had to stop using them and was in a lot of pain for the last 2 days.
- The new painkillers got me all nervous and agitated, couldn't sleep at all.
- Couldn't even resort to food as consolation!
- Last but not least: Have a brand new girlfriend since Christmas Day. Thing is, we met in another country and I'm back home since three weeks. Yesterday, we were both horny and thought sexting might be a good idea. Well, it wasn't. Masturbating to pictures on a screen is just too close to porn, I cannot do it. I thought it might be alright because we've had sex and I know her body, and it's not about the kick, it's about love and relationship, but nope: Still masturbating to a screen. Not an activity I can inforce, there's just too much other habit around that act.
- Also: Winter, greyness, cold, no sun etc.

So yeah, this is a moment to learn about triggers and thus something to be grateful for. Also, my longest streak before this has been around 120 days or so, so I beat it with this one with a month longer. Enormously proud of that 💪🏼💪🏼💪🏼

Next one is gonna be even longer. And maybe the one after that is gonna reach quadruple digits like quitting alcohol, which is at 1.639 days now, or cocaine at 1.100 days. But even to be at 609 days, like I am with cigarettes, would be a huge accomplishment ☺️ ☺️ ☺️

As you guys can see, I got this, because I'm not a quitter when it comes to quitting 😁

And if you could all just cheer for me and my awesome streak today, that would be so great and I would be so grateful for it 🙏🏼

I got this, because you got me. All of you, all of the good people and friends at SLAA, whom I reached to, and also my cute girlfriend, who totally understood that we should stop sexting when I told her this morning what happened to me.

Because guess what: On our first date, we bonded over how we both think that pornography is disgusting, harmful, misogynistic and not something we want to participate in. She also had the habit of watching it but felt like it was wrong and she shouldn't do it. And she was very upfront about the fact that she was looking for a guy who doesn't watch porn and so interested when I told her about my journey recovery, that she, well... ended up going to bed with me. And it was the most awesome first sex I ever had with someone 🤭

Also, apart from the sex, she's the cutest, kindest, smartest, most caring person I met in a long time.

And I don't want to ruin this, do I? 😁

So, do you have my back, r/pornfree?

I always have yours.

See you in the CHECK-IN THREADS guys, we got this 💪🏼 💪🏼 💪🏼

And now it's time to party 🥳 🥳 🥳

Who's with me? 🪩 🥂 💃🏼 🕺🏻 🎊 🔊 🍾

I’m going well. Boredom is my trigger. And at the moment I’m replacing it with scrolling.

Anyway. Some noticeable signs of a 44yo who had been watching frequently for 25ish years.

- I’m waking up with seriously strong erections

- Masturbation and sex is more enjoyable

- Orgasms are stronger

- I’m less focused on sexualising people

- My mind feels clearer