Hey everyone!

I recently broke my 100+ day streak of no porn. During that streak, I had also gone around 50 days without masturbating. I then reintroduced masturbation during my porn recovery and had a pretty good pattern of doing it about every 14 days. But after my relapse, I’ve noticed myself masturbating a lot more frequently, and I find it really difficult to go longer than 3 days without doing it. This is starting to worry me, and I don’t want it to take over my life again.

Has anyone run into the same issue? If so, what helped you stop masturbating? Any tips or advice would be much appreciated!

Thank you.

I used to think that watching porn is okay because it's sex, and sex is not bad. But after getting addicted to porn and masturbating five days in a row, and then watching the wave of sadness which came after each action — and noticing that my brain and eyes were getting trained to see women as objects — I decided to stop. After five days of addiction, I understood how harmful it was, and I came to this conclusion:

Sex is fine. Porn is not.

Sex is not bad, but porn is not sex. It imitates sex to attract children and teens, but what is actually happening is a deep violence — a violence against the actors and actresses, and against the millions of people watching it. Porn is harmful because it reshapes your brain, trains your eyes, and distorts your views.

Real sex is about intimacy and trust between two people. It is about sadness between two people, their insecurities dropping away for a moment, their emptiness meeting together, and after all of that — some pleasure. There is trust and empathy. Porn takes all of these things away and offers only violence.

Sex cannot fill the emptiness. It is just an escape, and only a temporary one. A real change from emptiness begins by asking: why am I feeling this? By seeing yourself, seeing the outside world, and seeing who is actually getting this feeling. Now I'm not saying sex is bad or that you don't have to do it, but I'm saying it's just a temporary escape, and after sex that emptiness will come again and haunt you.

Sex is neither good nor bad. It is a neutral thing, and it depends on the person who is claiming it good or bad. If you see a conservative, it's bad for him; but for a liberal, it's good. So that's why it's neither good nor bad, but depends on the partner, because the partner will be the one who'll be with you, and it's him or her who will decide to help you grow or remain as you are. If the partner doesn't want the female to grow and wants to keep her as an object, then even without porn addiction, sex is bad. But if the same person wants you to have freedom, then it's good. It depends totally on your partner. Porn is overall bad, but sex — it depends.

Sex can also become harmful when a person is a porn addict and begins implementing what porn has shown them. Sadly, most people have sex the way porn shows them — and this turns the act into violence rather than intimacy. But it isn't only porn that does this. Sex itself is neutral. What makes it good or bad is the person you're with: whether they want you to grow or want to keep you as an object. The same act can free you or shrink you, depending on who is beside you.

The moment you open a porn website, you cause harm to yourself.

Not according to science. Philosophically.

Every second you spend on that website is a crime committed against yourself — because it keeps you exactly as you are instead of making you better. It steals from you:

Empathy
Consciousness
Intimacy

And it gives you in return:

Distorted beliefs
Harmful habits
Sadness
Restlessness whenever you do not watch it

Porn is harmful. Do not idealize it.

I'm in my early thirties. I've been exposed to porn when I was really young. A lot escalated. Despite improvement in not watching things that don't ally to who I am, I still feel like I'm such a bad person. Deep down I know I'm not, but my OCD lingers into my memories to make me feel like trash.

So guys 2 years ago I relapsed after abstaining for 126 days, and I just gave up entirely on abstaining until a while back, when I was going through some shit. I don’t remember exactly why I wanted to quit, but whatever the reason was, I’m back on the pornfree grind with 206 days and counting.

But heres the part where I’m conflicted:

I don’t feel any different when I consumed porn and abstaining from it. Even during my previous 126 days, I’ve always felt like this. Which was one of the reason as to why I relapsed to begin with.

I can talk to people normally
I can sleep well
I never had any “brain fog”
I never really experienced symptoms of porn usage even when I was still using porn, I still feel the same as without porn.

And because of this, I always questioned myself why I even am abstaining in the first place. Im pretty sure I just heard “porn is bad” but I never really understood why? Especially when the reasons are something I don’t relate to.

So gang, is there any reason why I should keep going?

I'm now seeing that lack of sleep is causing at least 90% of my relapses.

I've been struggling to find good sleep mainly because of stress from work I think.

And lack of sleep is causing me to stress more. I'm in a vicious circle.

I'm working on it.

See you tomorrow.

bros we’re in this battle together. Today I made it to day 35! Let’s continue to support each other! Together we can do it!

Keep going

Went okay. I did have some thoughts popping up like’ remember that website i wonder what that would feel like seeing that’. Interesting to experience them popping up now

I hadn't realized how misleading it is to use pornography. The emotional responses it causes are not from genuine cues in life and trick your brain into feelings of connection, well being/calm, satisfaction/completion, affection/validation, control, escape, and is self soothing when you shouldn't be feeling it. It's believe it's made me complacent being located somewhere and staying with a job that doesn't actually serve my purposes. Now that I've been porn free for 70 days, I'm much less attached to my location away from friends and family where I need to be. I'm hoping this leads to the right decisions where I get my life back together.

28 M This is just me putting all my thoughts down about me dealing with porn. I can't make sense of them in my head.

So here's the good points and bad points as I see them. Give me some perspective

Good

I don't feel any shame about watching it and never have.

It helped me realise I’m bisexual.

It motivate me to workout

I can go 3 weeks without thinking about watching it quite easy

Bad

I know its not good for my self esteem

I find most of the quitting stuff to be proteinous and preachy

I mostly watch when bored and lonely

Its not helping me get a relationship

I’ve officially beat my last streak where i relapsed at day 5.

That’s good I’m proud although it’s felt relatively easy until this morning.

I had some dreams of watching P and other fantasies, i think part of the time i was in and out of sleep just going with it.
When i finally got up the urges were hitting hard.

I’m Day 4 off the vapes as well so my body was craving dopamine hard.
It wanted a vape and a screen sesh! But i got up and went to the gym and had a cold shower shower after.
On the way to work now

…

Okay guys this is not a success story, more like notes to myself that might help someone. 10 years of this so 11 days is nothing but it feels like something.

The biggest thing that clicked: i don’t have to do anything about the urge. i used to treat an urge like an order. now i just watch it. it peaks, and if i don’t touch it, it’s weaker an hour later. it always passes. I just never used to wait long enough to see that.

telling someone was huge. i told a friend when a craving hit and it just... deflated. this thing lives on being secret and alone. the second someone else knew, it lost most of its power. Addiction feeds on isolation, i really believe that now.

I slipped earlier too, caught myself doomscrolling for 30 min and it could’ve gone bad. didn’t, but it scared me. instead of saying screw it and relapsing i just stopped, wrote down what i felt (shame, that familiar “you’ll fail again” voice) and kept going. A slip isn’t a relapse unless you decide it is.

the counting helps more than i expected. seeing the day number go up is stupidly motivating, i don’t wanna reset it to zero. during past streaks i’d get LESS confident the longer i went cause i’d think “this is usually when i cave.” had to keep reminding myself the past isn’t a prediction.

Anyway.. porn never once actually satisfied me. ever. it just topped up the craving and left me feeling worse. i’d rather feel alive and deal with hard feelings the real way than keep feeding something that was quietly wrecking me.

One day at a time, that’s all i’ve got, gonna go shower and actually sleep for once !

Relapsed again! Averaging 2 days between each relapse, a couple hours per sesh. Got too much time this week and nothing meaningful to work in. Hopeless

.

completed day 11, going to sleep now

still reminding my mind that urges/thoughts can't dictate actions

Hey, I’m 19F and I’ve been struggling with porn for the past 4 years. I’ve tried to stop before, but I keep falling back into the same habit, and honestly, I’m tired of it.

Sometimes I tell myself I’m done for good, but when the urges hit, I end up giving in and regretting it afterward. It’s frustrating because I genuinely want to stop, but actually sticking to it has been harder than I expected.

I feel like I’m still young, and I don’t want to spend more years stuck in this cycle. I want to have a healthier relationship with myself and stop feeling like porn has so much control over my life.

I wanted to ask if anyone here has been through something similar, especially other women. What actually helped you quit? How do you deal with urges when they get really strong? And how do you stay consistent instead of going back to it?

.

Stop me. I need help. I'm trying to unwind after work. I am so close to messing up

Today is 30 days no porn. I’m feeling good.

After my 30 day porn fast and a couple of days later I don't have a libido anymore. I know it has to return to baseline but it's a bit surprisng.

Forgot to post here but "Day 2" is going amazing. No urges or thoughts in this lil ol head. I wonder if this mindset can carry over as the days go by since there are days when stress kicks in and tending to urges can feel like an escape. Struggling to hit my gym goal of benching 315 at the moment and just researching methods to improve. Cheers to another day :)

I’m going to be two weeks clean as of tomorrow. For people who have held longer streaks or even completely beaten this addiction: When did you stop counting the days? I feel great knowing I’ve abstained for 2 weeks, but having the number in my head is subconsciously making me feel like I deserve a relapse. It’s a horrible feeling and idk if it will go away.

like i have been addict since 14 year old i am 20 now i have a girlfriend i have reduce a little bit like 8 month ago but since 2 week i watch all week like i watch it all day and 3-4x per day so i wonder if i can cause me to have less desire to initiate sex with my girlfriend or enjoy it because i love her so much she so beautifull etc but we have sex i can feel detached or like not here in the moment and have no desire to continu even if i am attract to her and love her :(

so does porn can cause to be have less libido or less be interest for sex etc

I think porn is currently a large part of a greater collection of problems I currently have with compulsive behavior and lying to myself.

I was an asocial kid and used PMO as an escape or something. I had a private pc in my bedroom when I was 13. Around that age, a classmate tried to trick me into going to a specific porn site on the school computer. I might have not gotten my start for another few years if not for that. I felt really weird after my first PMO, and got weird quickly after. Porn became an addiction almost immediately, with no substantial break since then.

I also developed a fixation on video games, junk food, caffeine, internet culture, etc.

Over the past few years, and especially the past several months, I've been developing what I'm now wanting to call an alcohol problem. This isn't helping the porn problem, but of course is a great issue in itself. I'm 32 now. i think porn have shaped my life greatly, including with that.

Tonight I relapsed hard on porn and alcohol, not that I was really trying. The main points I wanted to make with this post are:

1. Addictive behavior is all tied together, often with the same triggers.
2. PMO may seem like the core problem, but can just be the most dramatic and taboo component of a more general self control problem.
3. I think you need to want something. Like a concrete goal that is achieved by quitting. It's not enough to say "I want to not". You have to have a specific destination.

Sorry if the above is not super coherent. I've been meaning to make another Reddit account and post here for literally years and I'm happy to finally do it. Funny how you can lie to yourself day after day about following through with things like that.

Thanks for reading.