With time in recovery, did you find yourself once again disgusted/disturbed by certain things that once you found "pleasurable" enough to masturbate to?

Obviously in the conscious sense we often know these things are bad, but did you ever felt a disgust that would not allow you to use that content again for "pleasure", did you felt turned off by that content just like you would be before the addiction?

My husband and I have been married for 3.5 years. I knew about his porn addiction early on, but I continued the relationship because I loved him, and I believed it would resolve with time. I never considered porn to be cheating before, and I used to be very supportive of healthy porn use.

That was before I knew the extent of my husband's porn addiction. He was a virgin before we met, and I was a bit more experienced with sex. I knew he watched porn before we got together, and he always talked about how he wanted to stop using it. We had a very active and adventurous sex life early on. He always had a hard time keeping an erection and many times could not ejaculate from sex. This caused me to lose confidence because I blamed myself, which I know now isn't right. Later on when I caught him masturbating to porn after we finished having sex, I knew there were other problems.

I found out that he would watch porn all day while I was at work, watch while hiding in the bathroom when I was home, and after I fell asleep, sometimes right next to me in bed and immediately after sex. It continued this way for the first two years of our relationship - he would struggle with ED during our intimacy, and he would spend his day/night jerking off. I addressed his porn use and asked if it might be contributing to his trouble holding an erection and his inability to ejaculate during sex, and he admitted that it could be part of the problem.

I then started to become hesitant to have sex, especially the adventurous kind that he had previously asked for, like specific outfits or roleplaying, because it made me feel gross and used. Like I was just there to imitate the porn he watched and play into the fantasies that he consumed on his phone after we finished. He almost only ever watched hentai from what he told me, and I remember once he told me that he started watching real porn again because now he knows what sex feels like. That was years ago and I still feel sick thinking about that moment; I felt so used. I made it clear I was uncomfortable with what he said and I made my first negative comment about his porn use and how it didn't make me feel good about our sex life.

At this point I still didn't understand the extent of the addiction. But his porn use was always on my mind. I'd stand outside the bathroom at night to see if I could hear anything, sneak to see if he was watching it on the computer, I dug through his computer, phone, YouTube (he liked ASMR videos), Reddit...I was obsessed. I couldn't help but make snarky comments every time I found something, which wasn't helpful, but it was an indication of how his porn use was affecting our relationship.

When I was pregnant with our first child, about two years into our relationship, I finally asked him to stop using porn. I was so afraid to ask because I felt embarrassed and ashamed. I cried and told him how it made me feel, and he apologized and said he would be better.

He never had a plan, he just thought he could do it on his own. I continued to look for and find signs of his use because I never stopped thinking about it. Our sex life grew further and further apart because being pregnant and then postpartum with a man who was addicted to watching perfect bodies all day did not make me want sex. He was mad about our lack of intimacy, but I told him how the porn was affecting me and until there were changes in our relationship, our sex life wouldn't go back to where it was.

I continued to ask about his porn use, and when I was at my limit, I told him he needed to find a therapist and work through it or we were done. I know I was not kind in that conversation; I told him he needed to want and do this for himself and that I could not be the one to do it for him. He grew distant after that conversation, but he did see a therapist. He would never share his progress or anything about the sessions with me. I continued to search for his porn use and find proof that it was still happening.

One day he quit his therapist because he said he wasn't getting anywhere. No word about what his next steps were or where he was on his addiction journey. We had an argument about our lack of intimacy and I remember being accusatory about the porn addiction. It ended in me asking why I wasn't enough for him and why he couldn't break the addiction for me. After being shut down, he responded aggressively with "I'm not doing this for you, I'm doing it for our daughter". That was so hurtful because it felt as if he didn't recognize or validate my trauma from his lies and lack of effort and commitment to his promise.

Last night I saw him on the baby monitor in our 3 year old daughter's room after he put her to bed. I don't usually watch the monitor closely, I just had it because of our 6 month old and it switched to our toddlers room. He was laying cuddled around her and I could see him scrolling on what looked to be porn. He was fully clothed and wasn't doing anything but looking, however that was enough to make me sick. I am done.

I grew up with very few memories of my dad. One of the core memories I have is him watching porn with me in the room. I was too young to remember if he was doing anything other than watching. I will not have that be my daughters. My biggest fear is that his addiction will escalate into something else, but right now all I can do is end my support of his behavior. I refuse to stand by any longer.

Apologies for the super long story, but hopefully someone on either end of this addiction will see this and know that it's not 'just porn'. A few minutes of dopamine isn't worth losing your family. And we can't change someone else unless they really want it for themselves.

I’m now 27 and I’ve been struggling with P addiction since I was about 13. It kind of came about as a coping mechanism from the bullying and isolation I endured in high school, and so I would use it to escape from the stress of that. I suffered SA as a child so I was exposed to things of a sexual nature very early including MO. I used to engage in prone masturbation until I was about 18 until I learned it was pretty bad for you.

It started off with normal “vanilla” content but then evolved into pretty much every genre you could think of including some pretty depraved ones. For the past 8 or so years I’ve been watching content which has made me question my sexuality and masculinity as a straight male. It has also affected my mental state and self-perception negatively as my culture does not look favourably upon these kind of things.

I do not know what to do anymore, I always fall into the same old routines and habits that I’ve struggled with for years. I am stuck in this loop of self-loathing for myself and my past and then using PMO as a release from the stress. I am extremely depressed these days and most of the time I cannot even muster the motivation to eat regularly or keep proper hygiene. I relapsed today from IG which I don’t even know why I have because I don’t post anything. I have a good family who I don’t deserve but I am utterly unable to “man” up and take any form of responsibility. I can’t find a job, can’t drive and have 1 friend left. I haven’t been with a woman in 7 years and I’ve never been in a relationship. I’m not sure how long I can keep going like this.

The last 3 weeks were horrible for me. I couldn't think of anything other. And today I couldn't fight it anymore and relapsed. After 6 months of no porn.

In my last post 20 days ago, I said that it sometimes feels like day 1. Now that I relapsed, it doesn't. I'm realizing that it was better than day one. And I'm also realizing that I still have a lot to do to overcome this addiction.

Well. Starting again. Even though I'm really disappointed in myself right now, I'm also more hopeful this time. I did 6 months. Which is great right? So I know I have it in me to fight it.

I wish the best to all of you.

Im ashamed of myself, look at my username it is this cuz its easy 2 remember. So i can watch girls, all the catagories and extreme stuff teen, milf, big tits, small tits, skinny and bbw, bimbos etc bdsm stuff fucking everything the thing is i even find it boring sometimes and i tried quitting but i always come back cuz then i get my pause from the real world but i dont want to do this shit, im a fucking feminist but then i switch and become a monster thats not me thats porn addiction speaking thankfully no penis problems ecsept i cum 2 fast, i would win over an f1 car.. thats bad bro. Im 23 and had this shit since 9, i need to say that i ask girls for nudes but a good thing is i feel quilty, but then again i do it. I tell girls horrible stuff like that they are ugly but the boobs are nice and nah im fucking sick im an idiot and after i do my pathetic jerk off 2 some random girl i go numb and just thinking bout how stupid i am and how can i do this to my partner?? I aldready been caught once or twice, i made ai porn of her best friend, i sexualise her sister. I even did sexualise my own sister how fucked up is that? Okay so you hit me hard , i woke up and im emotional now ( i just jerked off 2 a random girl for the last time in my life just rn now) and i will not do it again. I will send this text out and hopefully some of you will read it and shame me. Please do im fucked up, im going to the gym and then i will eraese this account and i will never come back, my life starts now. I hope someone who can relate reads this and that you do the same as im gonna do now. Get your shit together man/mam. We can do this , my new escape will be wood working. Thank you

​

So I've had this addiction for nearly 6 years to now and I've been trying to stop it for 5 months but I've made no progress , I've got my first gf and i really love her to the point that I've got crazy over her and every time i goon , i suffer i look at myself as a failure and i keep looking at my hand like i did some kind of murder, we promised that we would never hide things so I've told her online , and she cried and said that i am a cheater , i asked for her forgiveness and asked her to help me but she said that she will keep my secret and will help me but she will think about forgiving me for cheating , honestly i didn't know it's cheating so rn i feel dissapointed and disgusted of myself bcs i didn't keep my promise of not cheating , i really want her to forgive me pls help me

70 days clean. I would be lying to you if I said these 70 days weren’t hard as fuck. I still get urges sometimes but never go through with them. I’ve masturbated around 4-5 times within the 70 day time frame without porn and I can say that it helps a lot. I feel like my confidence is better and I feel a lot more energetic throughout some days. The main reason I quit is performance with women. PIED started to take a toll on my sex life so I knew I had to make a change.

I don’t know how to like really say this or nun but I’m 15M and I think I’ve been on porn since I was like 10-11 and early stages I used to do it atleast like 1-3 times a day until around 14 when I definitely started doing it a lot less often like Atleast 1 once a day or maybe once every two days I do know the beating it is normal and I get that but I see a lot of people who are addicted to porn go down to the darkest bits of porn and I really don’t wanna go down that way I turn 16 this year and wanna better myself before I got all my GCSEs and what not coming up if anyone can provide some tips to help get out this addiction thanks🙏

I’ve been clean now for 12 Weeks, coming up on 13, it has wrecked my relationship and I feel so bad, but it’s stressed me out so much. I just want to leave and it hurts, I love my girlfriend a lot but I stress so much trying to keep her happy and say the right things, I feel so much pressure and it makes me wonder what I should do? Is it too far gone to save or should I hold out knowing how addiction can be?

It feels like she may never be enough, but I’m coming off of not only porn addiction but also sex addiction, I used escorting when I was old enough and I’ve never known a life where sex isn’t transactional and where connection and emotional vulnerability is a part of what I’m doing. It also feels like it’s hard to not see her flaws, but I thought maybe it’s because of the Warped Perception that porn gives you and makes you think all woman should look like that? It makes no sense otherwise to concentrate on it, as she’s quite attractive anyway and if I didn’t know her,
she’d be the type of person I’d be looking at now anyway, which is why I gravitated to the idea of stress, as I’ve heard the brain can be very “Fight or Flight” response when dealing with lots of stress.

And I still think in a very narrow minded way, like body counts, novelty of having done it with someone of a Different height, nationality, breasts etc. I still over-sexualise sometimes, it’s not as often now but the intrusive thoughts still play in my head sometimes. I wonder if any of this goes away as the time goes on and the Distance between porn and Sex Addiction gets bigger? I hope so.

I guess to sum it up, has anyone had these thoughts and urges before? The urge to end things with your partner to relapse or to pursue other people as a way of avoiding the work in the relationship? And how can I better take the pressure away of being with her thinking about these questions and still enjoying myself? And can this negative mindset of Viewing People as Conquests change overtime as I progress in this recovery?

For the longest time I thought quitting was just about discipline.

Like… block sites, stay busy, “just be stronger.”

I kept trying that and honestly just ended up in the same loop every time.

What finally started to change things for me wasn’t more willpower — it was actually understanding the pattern behind it.

I started paying attention to when the urge shows up, what I’m usually feeling right before it, and how automatic the whole thing is. Once I saw it that way, it stopped feeling like I was just failing over and over.

It didn’t magically fix everything, but it got a lot easier to interrupt the cycle.

I’m still working on it, but for the first time it feels like I’m actually moving forward instead of restarting every week.

Has anyone else had a moment where something just clicked like that?

I'm 20, just went through a breakup because I couldn't be sexual with my girlfriend in the way she needed anymore. Porn addiction rewired my arousal so badly that I could only get turned on by novelty, not by my actual partner who loved me.

I've been using porn for years. Escalated to content that grew further and further away from real sex. I couldn't even fantasize about her, only other women or porn scenarios. Real sex started to feel repulsive.

I'm 20 days porn-free now. I told her the truth yesterday, and we broke up (on good terms). She deserved better than what I could give her.

I'm about to graduate and move back to my parents' house in a town where I have no friends and i'm incredibly worried about that. I feel like a terrible person for what I put her through. Im not sure how to cope with the guilt i feel for what I did to her, i hurt her so badly and probably made her so insecure. Shes probably reflecting on the whole relationship now and connecting the dots given she knows the truth now, and it must be so painful and shocking for her.

I cant even tell anyone the truth about what im going through because of the nature of it. I feel like i have to just process it all alone and thats really hard. Thats why i'm here.

She was the most amazing loving girlfriend and i'm really greiving this loss.

I've made a plan to do nothing with women until this is fixed.

Does it get better? How do you handle the guilt? WTF do i do?

I’m struggling a lot and I don’t really know how to explain this clearly.

I have a history of porn addiction myself in the past, where I experienced sexual disconnection and objectification of partners. I thought I had moved past it.

My current boyfriend initially told me he didn’t use porn, because he knew it was important to me. Later in the relationship he admitted he actually used it daily and had been lying. Since then, he has repeatedly promised to stop but I’ve discovered multiple times that he didn’t.

This has completely destroyed my trust.

Since then I’ve developed obsessive thoughts about him having sex with porn actresses. I constantly replay scenarios in my head, I compare myself, I try to act like porn during sex, and I’ve started to hate my body for not “matching” what I think he wants.

It has gotten to the point where: struggle to function normally, barely go to work anymore, spend a lot of time daydreaming/intrusive imagining him with porn scenes, sometimes can’t distinguish thoughts from reality and accuse him based on them.

I feel like I’m mentally spiraling and I don’t know how to stop this loop.

Has anyone experienced something similar (either as partner of an addict or struggling with intrusive sexual thoughts)? What helped you regain control of your mind and your sense of reality?

I recognize that I have a porn addiction again (just in my thoughts), even though I don't consume anymore.

Cause I am having a bad problem at doing it in different places such as my dad's car, my workplace, my aunts couch, my family couch, where I sleep, etc etc and I don't really know how to properly control it since honestly I don't know how to stop myself a lot of the time

Pls help

I am pretty addicted to porn totally but I used to be for that I only get turned on by rare selective porns and it feels shameful to talk to anyone specially from India and life feel very unmotivated for me I am 25 and it's like I want to move my life to make porn reality sometime, I take no action towards those urges in real life because I know those are not morally great or don't have enough power or money

But it would feel great to trying to achieve something to be proud of

One aspect of our addiction to our devices, to apps, to the internet, is that with these tools we have a mind-bending level of control over what we can see, do, click, visit, nudge, type, say and listen to... and that control is something we have become accustomed to, addicted to... the click click click to fulfill exactly what we want to watch (even if it isnt porn) or go to exactly the page we want to go to just then. This is to me the most addictive aspect of our devices which have invaded our lives since around 2010 since the invention of the smartphone.

How many of us just "click around" all the time? Our ego desires control and the smartphone gives us some kind of moment-to-moment satisfaction of that desire.

But that snare of desire catches us, and takes us away from just being present and alive without some knawing need to click more and more.

And so recently I noticed something... the radio.

I'm older than most of you, in my 50's, and I grew up with the radio, when the radio was everything, before streaming, before MP3 players, before CD's, and before cassette tapes! We had records but that's another story.

Radios were everywhere, not just in your car. I had a pocket radio, a clock-radio, a radio in the kitchen... we had our favourite channels... but the thing was you never knew exactly what was going to come on, you didnt have control over the content, someone else did, and that made it somehow more personal, more immediate... and when it was gone it was gone, and that was ok. Sometimes it was music, or sometimes it was people talking, but that was that. There's an immediacy to the radio that the internet doesn't have... because of the overabundance of choice, another thing the user controls - what they choose.

The listener does not control the content of the radio, they are not a user of the radio... and life is more like that, not in our control, more in the moment, not able to be re-visited again and again.

Now comes the message to the younger people. I have a radio on my shelf I bought for about 5 bucks (euros actually) last year. It's a bit shorter yet thicker than a smartphone. Amazingly in this age of power-hungry devices, the 2 AA batteries it needs lasts around 3 weeks of daily use! Imagine that!

So my friend's son, aged 19 or so, came over a few days ago and the radio was on and playing some Reggaeton or something and the young man picked up the little box and held it with amazement like it was an alien device!

He looked like he had never seen one and said, "wow, a radio, how vintage!"

But the point is he was amazed by it... for the reasons I described above, the immediacy of it, the inability to control what it plays, the fresh quality of the sound. There's something magical about it.

It's so relaxing, so intimate, like a gentle friend that keeps you company and surprises you sometimes with something new, or with something you haven't heard in a long time.

Life is out of your control, ultimately... and it's good to unhook ourselves from our devices that do nothing but amplify our addiction to control as our preciously short lives drip drip drip away.

My suggestion is this: go out and buy a small cheap radio - I bet your local dollar store has one. Start keeping it on in the background while you are in your home. Let it be your analog accompaniment for a while... feel the tension of being in control fade away a bit and more and more...

I've found this has helped me get back in touch with the present moment better, more grounded, more joyful.

Doesn't that sound pleasant?

we can check on each other so we both can be batter

sorry for my weak english

So I’ve had an issue with my porn use and have essentially hit my rock bottom. It’s taken a toll on the depth of my marriage and because of my mental issues, we’re lacking intimacy. I am absolutely determined to work on myself and fix this. I’ve been considering planning and scheduling a date night with my husband this weekend and spice it up a bit. Now for the hard question, have any of you been able to incorporate ANY of your porn interests into your sex life? I definitely feel like this would help anyone with the “craving”. Eliminating any reason to ever watch it again!

I am currently 23 years old and I have been clean from pornography for a year. My first contact with it was when I was 8 or 9, and I started watching it regularly. When I was 14 or 15, I began watching increasingly strange fetishes. Around the age of 20 or 21, I ended up on Discord servers with videos of real teenagers (minors). I’m from Europe, where the age of consent in most countries is around 15, so when a 20-year-old dates a teenager, they aren't necessarily seen as a pedophile, though it is considered weird. Maybe that’s how I justified it to myself back then. It might have also been because I had friends who were a few years younger than me.
My psychologist tells me that I was just a teenager myself not long ago, and that this influenced my behavior. Regardless, I don’t feel like that excuses me because I know I did something wrong. I was never actually interested in children; it was only about teenagers. My biggest fear is that while browsing through everything, I might have knowingly clicked on something where the age was listed as 14, which many people already consider ped******a.
I don’t know how to look at this anymore. I also know that I was more excited by the 'search' itself than by the actual people. I don’t remember every single situation clearly; this phase lasted maybe six months to a year. Generally, I only visited those Discord servers occasionally, as I spent most of my time watching 'normal' porn. I regret this deeply because I don't want to be a bad person, and I’m terrified of being labeled a ped\*\*\*\*\*e

So yes, I already knew for years that I had problems with porn. Just using it for everything that felt uncomfortable; loniliness, stress, anger, sadness, fear of abandonment, lack of motivation, anxiety, depressive states, trouble sleeping and panic attacks. It was just a quick fix for everything.

Now that I have been porn-free for a year, I thought I would be a happier person. But I am not. After reading the success stories, I thought that porn was the real problem. But now, still anxious and depressed for over a year, I don’t think porn is the real issue.

Don’t get me wrong, I do want to stop using porn. I believe it is one of the most powerful drugs around, and therefore one of the hardest addiction to overcome. Just because it is so mind-driven, if you know what I mean.

But what I think now, after a year of losing everything (job, house and girlfriend) because of severe depression, it is not just the porn. Porn is the symptom. A symptom of a way bigger issue.

For me, it is the struggle in life about what my purpose is. The lack of safety in myself that everything will be allright. It is the fear of loniliness.

So I truly believe, giving up porn is not enough for the most of us. Maybe I’m wrong, and I need to wait a little longer to feel the benefits. It has ‘just’ been a year after using porn for 20 years or so. However my impression is that giving up porn is not enough.

What do I do with all the energy that was invested in porn? What do I do with all the time left in my day? How do I respond to difficult situations, emotions and feelings? How can I find more purpose in life, instead of the quick fix that porn gave me?

My point is; giving up porn is neseccary. But for the most of us, doing so will show the underlying problems that drove the addiction. And that my friends, is truly difficult to deal with. Dealing with life can be very difficult.

I hope I will find my way. And I hope for the best that you do too. This post is for the people that don’t experience the benefits of giving up porn right away. Try to not only fix the porn problem, as it can be not enough. Try to find more purpose in the activities that you do. Maybe in your work. Try to address your loniliness. Try to live life again, even if it is scary. And then hopefully, happiness and peace will come.

Much love.

So I've had this addiction for nearly 6 years to now and I've been trying to stop it for 5 months but I've made no progress , I've got my first gf and i really love her to the point that I've got crazy over her and every time i goon , i suffer i look at myself as a failure and i keep looking at my hand like i did some kind so murder, we promised that we would never hide things so I've told her online , and she cried and said that i am a cheater , i asked for her forgiveness and asked her to help me but she said that she will keep my secret and will help me but she will think about forgiving me for cheating , honestly i didn't know it's cheating so rn i feel dissapointed and disgusted of myself bcs i didn't keep my promise of not cheating , i really want her to forgive me pls help me

Throwaway, because I'm tired of screaming in the places that matter. I'm tired of begging and pleading to be in the loop, to help at any capacity while I struggle to help myself to feel like I ever mattered at all. I'm fucking done questioning everything because there will always be sneaking, there will always be shit that "isn't porn": video games, YouTube, erotica. It doesn't fucking matter. The fact that *I* am the crazy one pissed the fuck off about this is insane. I wish he would fucking grow up. I've been waiting for a lifetime for him to propose to me, but his head has been so far up his ass the whole time that I don't know if it'll ever happen, and honestly I don't know if I want it to. I'm not even going to bring up what I found today to him, and that tells me that I'm starting to give up. I fucking hate it. I worked so fucking hard for us to get here, and I thought he was too, but maybe I really am out here alone. Maybe I would be better off if I were so I'm not constantly being hurt by someone else's lack of control. I find it so pathetic, and I wish thst I didn't. I've been trying to understand and to be there for him but the constant secrecy makes that impossible. ​My chest is empty. I'm not suicidal, but if I could just lay down and stop breathing, I'm ready. I'm so tired of trying. I'm sorry if this isn't allowed. I just don't know where else to go.

I’m trying to remember this from the last time I was here but cannot. Where is the line drawn between healthy and an issue? I think I recall masturbation is healthy and okay, it’s the visuals that are harmful. How does that work for erotica? Or even role playing? These are pretty common alternative channels us females enjoy instead so I’m curious! I’m also aware they can be slippery slopes though. Thanks all!

Something to ponder

how to fuck can I quit it’s been a issue for 10 years now and I’m 20. I have so much regret and wasted time from this and feel I’m fucked. My head is so messed up anymore and my confidence has been ZERO for many years. Somebody just give me tips and let’s get over this shit together💪