My Diary

Loving_Mary

Active Member
1994, I was 14. Very excited to have my new computer. I think it was a 386. One of the first words I looked up on the internet was ?sex?.

The first images that I saw were girls in bikinis and such. I couldn?t suspect that that curiosity would lead me to a life time addiction.

I?m starting this diary in December 2015, I?m 35.

I don?t regret myself. I was just a kid. Would I have known the consequences of that search, I don?t know if I would have done it or not, but at least I would have made an informed decision.

I would like to coach people out of porn, but first I want to quit myself. That way, it will be an honest help.

At school I was informed about drugs. But nobody told me about porn. I don?t regret them, they didn?t know either. 

I think that we have more tools to quit porn than in those days, but I also think that we are just beginning to learn how to leave porn. I feel that there must be an easier and more effective way than today?s ?common trend?.

But I am grateful that this Community exists. I?m sure it will help me. And I?m sure that I will help other people too, cause wright now I?m much better than some years ago. I could help people who are more addicted than me, people who still haven?t had the experience of partial recovery.

I started to recover when I stopped going down, down, down. I thought I reached the bottom several times but I didn?t. But one day, it was for real: I started to recover.

Going back to the 90?s, when did I realize that I had a ?problem?? It was in 1997, I was 17, three years after I started. I usually watched porn. It was a major habit, but it was that particular day I realized I was screwed.

I ?went to sleep? at 10 or 11 and when I stopped it was like 6 or 7 in the morning. 8 hours straight. All night.

?I have a problem.? I told to myself.

I still had my street clothes on from the day before and it was late cause I had class at 8, so I headed my bathroom and washed my face.

I?m glad I realized. That way I could start to recover. But I didn?t realize that I could recover at that particular moment.

The first time I did something actually effective to recover from this addiction was in 2007 or so.

I went to a psiquiatrist.

That same year I bought a book called ?PGO Porn Game Over? I don?t recall the author. It was a pdf file I bought from this author?s website.

It taught me some basic steps to recovery but the most important thing I learned was that I was not alone; there were many people like me, starting with the author itself, who had already recovered from porn.

The sessions with the psychiatrist helped me cause he gave me some advice and prescribed me with some pills. It was good. I took them for over 2 years. I believe it?s important to be monitored by a professional when it comes to pills, some of them are dangerously addictive.

One of the main things I learned from this psychiatrist is that I suffered from insomnia. It?s a major problem and I believe it made my addiction worse.

Once I was able to sleep 8 hours a day, that was lifechanging.

Where I am at know, 8 years later? I feel much better, I don?t crave porn so much, but I still use it.

Focus Me Software is helping me, but I?m using it gradually.

I don?t believe in cold turkey. I?ve tried it many times but I couldn?t stand the pain.

I?m doing things that I enjoy. There?s life out of porn and it?s great.

I guess that if other people have quitted I will too.
 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Last time I really tried to quit I managed to watch softcore only for a while through Focus me Software but it got so painful that I quited..quitting. Shit.

This time I feel it can be different. Why? There's been two major changes in my life since then:

1) Work and money are much better. My ansiety levels are lower.

2) This Forum. I knew that many other people had the same problem. The possibility of reading and sharing is reliefing.

I started my own personal research and happily found out that there are good tips out there.

And the people who share them have not only been through this, but have been successful.

When I read their comments I can tell they're for real. They clearly know what they're talking about.

There's a lot of stuff on you tube that comes from people who never went through this and it doesn't work cause it's not useful. It might be true, but not useful.

So this Forum's external expertise will give me  strenght and know-how.

I am a little bit scared of the pain, but I want to go through the less pain as possible.

Am I a weak person? Not at all. The thing with pain is as follows: I can stand it but what drives me crazy is the constance of the pain. It's always there, and when it's not, it's kind of hiding.

That's why I took a one year rest, cause I couldn't stand the pain.

If I had to stand pain for 10 minutes, 1 hour or 1 day it would probably ok. But every second is too much for me.

That's why I gave up cold turkey long time ago.

At list with the gradual approach I'm much better than before.

It's funny cause the other day I read about "flashbacks" in this Forum and I was surprised.

It's been so long since my flashbacks were gone... It was horrible.

I'm much better but I want to be clean. Clean.

I want to live my life without porn. I know I would be much happier, cause I would be much less ansious.

Another thing about "stopping" and quality stopping..recovery:

When I travelled to the States for the first time in 2001, I didn't have access to the Internet.

So I was "clean" for 6 weeks or so. Lie.

Why? because I was tremendously ansious and when I got back to my country, guess what was the first thing I did when I got home...for hours.

I believe it's key to be aware of the quality of the experience, not so much the quantity.

I'm dreaming of 3 weeks of real cleaness. It would be awesome. Cause I know porn feeds my ansiety and my bad emotions. So if I stop for 3 weeks and feel good, I think that I'll be more than close to recovery.

Today I'm excited cause I've blocked more words on Focus Me. The difference between now and last time I got to the same level is this: in that occasion I lived it as a censourship, now I live it as a relief.

I slipped with weird stuff a few times and I realised that I was seriosuly losing control again after years. I found a new fetish that gave me a very strong hit.

At the same time I realised that I was getting worse at work, and my ansiety was going up at a dangerous speed.

I noticed that I was scared when watching those images and, as I learned in this forum, some emotions increase the shot. So it was good to discover that about me.

I needed to stop watching this new stuff so what I did was erase the Browser I usually use for that stuff.

I know I can install it again in an urge, but at least it won't be handy and I am pretty lazy when in temptation, so I might just use softer stuff.

Apart from those slips, focus me has helped me and today I'm starting on another level.

I'm planning to make blocks of 3 weeks.

A thing that has helped me for the past few days is a tip I got from this Forum: writing a letter to my adiction.

It helped me. I insulted her, said that I didn't want her in my life, etc. It was really relieving.



 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Last 3 weeks were good. I was off the most extreme stuff and also off other stuff which would be considered as normal but a bit nasty for my taste.

I used videos of "normal sex".

Slipped into the weird stuff two times.

I'm happy about these last weeks.

I had a problem lately which I will explain in my next post.

 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
The problem that I had lately was that I wanted to downgrade the level of the porn I watch again.

I did really well for the last few weaks, so I thought I would not have any significant problems.

So I banned more words through focus me, in particular the idea is to watch only really softcore stuff.

It was then when I had a heavy (I don't rememeber the word in English). It means when you screw up again in the addiction.

It has been several months since I last had such a bad moment, meaning yesterday I was many hours in front of the computer and totally lost control.

What do I think it happened? I believe that in general I am in a semi-flat line. When I switched to the softcore I realised that I was not aroused by it and the craving came.

At that point I stopped focus me software and was alone without the net covering the fall, so obviously I screwed up.

Before that as the arousal didn't come, I was watching softcore for a long time, until I obviously slipped into the weird stuff. We all know that softcore leads to hardcore and on.

The thing is: it is the first time in many months, where I actually found a point where the challenge was greater than me.

Seriously at this point I am not worried about slipping a few times in 3 weeks.

But yesterday wasn't a slip, it was a real screwing up as it's hard for me to remember in  a lot of time. For two reasons: for the time I was watching porn yesterday and for the intensity of the ansiety at that moment. I could manage to do breathing exercises and I believe it helped me not to go even further, not to fall even worse.

So what happened is that I broke the statuo quo and lost the batlle. Not really worried about yesterday, what worries me is the future. Today I used porn again without any sofware, so I got aroused again, I didn't use it a lot of time.

The thing is that I think I have issues with the flat line, the arousal and withdrawal.

Last time I really tried quiting a year and half ago, as I explained in the beggining of the diary, I was 1 week in the flat line. A complete one. It was in the seventh day or so that I started doubting about really having the possibility of having an erection and it was then when I slipped.

This time it's different, because I have read about the matter.

But what I wasn't prepared for is for the craving and the impossibility of realiving myself without porn (because softcore didn't work).

So I decided to leave my software open until I really want to start again from where I left it. Why? Because I am fed up of fooling myself. Obviusly the first impulse when I was finished was to activate the software again, but I know that it's very easy to activate rigth after watching porn. The difficult thing is obviously to keep it active through withdrawal.

So I will activate it again when I'm really prepared. Meanwhile I want to do 2 things. One: I bought sleeping pills for tonight. Sleeping at night will help me.

Two: I want to reinforce the reason why I want to quit porn and live a happy life.

In the next post I will work on this last issue.
 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Why do I want to quit porn?

Seriosly, I'm much better than many years ago, when I had flashbacks, depression and had hours of very intense withrawal.

But even so, I think that I am only a shadow of what I could be without porn. This is only a supposition, because I have been doing it nearly all my life.

When I was 12 I was a brilliant, smart hardworking boy. When I was 13 I started masturbating without porn. Porn started at 14.

So: did masturbation screw me, even without porn? Maybe, who knows.

But porn and the addiction to it made things really difficult for me in terms of study and a couple of years after, with work.

I nearly never have used porn at work. Only one year I used it a little.

But I believe it has defocusing me from chasing my professional goals. It has drained my energy to work too.

And in a personal level, it has made me unhappier and more sad.

It also has had a negative influence in my relationship with women.

I want to quit porn because I want to succeed in my job, I want to meet new and interesting people, including women.

I want to improve the relationship with my friends and my family.

I want to succeed in eating better and doing some exercise, which  I do; but I want to have more energy to practice sport and enjoy my health.

I want to quit because I want to change fear and sadness into happiness. I want to be happy and fullfilled.

And last but not least, I want to quit because at the moment it's a barrier for enjoying my religion. I want to tell God that I love him and that I am happy. I want to fully enjoy sacraments.

I think this thoughts are helping me to realise that I really want to quit. I really want to do many other things.

Right now I'll have some water, some exercise and then I'll go for a walk.
 
I can relate. Many of the reasons you want to quit are similar to mine.

In recent times I minimized the amount of porn I was watching and was able to attract my soul mate and get married.

Keep going brother, a life of abundance and joy awaits you on the other side  :)
 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
BetterLife said:
I can relate. Many of the reasons you want to quit are similar to mine.

In recent times I minimized the amount of porn I was watching and was able to attract my soul mate and get married.

Keep going brother, a life of abundance and joy awaits you on the other side  :)

wow, thanks very much :)))
 
Loving_Mary said:
Why do I want to quit porn?

I believe it has defocusing me from chasing my professional goals. It has drained my energy to work too.

And in a personal level, it has made me unhappier and more sad.

It also has had a negative influence in my relationship with women.

I want to quit porn because I want to succeed in my job, I want to meet new and interesting people, including women.

I want to improve the relationship with my friends and my family.

I want to succeed in eating better and doing some exercise, which  I do; but I want to have more energy to practice sport and enjoy my health.

I want to quit because I want to change fear and sadness into happiness. I want to be happy and fullfilled.

And last but not least, I want to quit because at the moment it's a barrier for enjoying my religion. I want to tell God that I love him and that I am happy. I want to fully enjoy sacraments.

I think this thoughts are helping me to realise that I really want to quit. I really want to do many other things.

Right now I'll have some water, some exercise and then I'll go for a walk.

Amen Brother!
 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Last 3 weeks were pretty good in general. I managed to stick to what I wanted to avoid. Slipped 1 or 2 times maybe. Overall, better than my previous period.

I slept well during the 3 weeks; sleeping pills are working. Taking less pills than at the beggining.


It was hard for me to accept that I suffer from PIED (Porn Induced Erectile Disfunction) I gradually cut the expliciticy of the content, sadly realising that I couldn't have an erection whith that milder porn.

The information that I read about the issue helped me to to identify, calm down and realise what was happening.

It's a tricky subject, cause it seams that my masculinity is in doubt, etc. But PIED hopefully it will go away.

I tried one thing which worked: instead of touching myself straight away and starting switching from vid to vid, I just watched one sole video without touching myself. And it was then, when I learned to enjoy the beauty of a woman, and had an erection.

I know no one recommends watching porn to recover, but as I said in another post, I never was able to handle cold turkey.

So, now what? This day had to come: the next few weeks I'm starting to actually quitting porn. My first milestone is nearly over: 24H. After that, 2 days, then 3 and so on. So in the next 3 weeks I want to achieve a 5 days milestone without Porn.

It really scares me. All the times where I tried to quit I failed. But this time is different: I've got more tools and more knowledge, and less external problems.

Today has been weird. It's the first time in 1 year and a half where I am officially supposed to stop myself from doing it. 

If I make it, what about the 2 days milestone? It seams quite a big deal to me, honestly. It might seem ridiculous, but it is what it is. I'm not ashamed of trying to find a way out.

Right now I'm remembering a story about Jesus, when he was helping people in a house, which was so packed that the friends of a person who couldn't walk, got him into the house through the roof (Mark: 2). I don't care if I make it through the door, the back door or the roof...as long as I recover.

One step at a time.

When I started my last recovery period, a few months ago, I was excited. I looked at the milestones with the relief of making porn smaller. Know that I feel more pain, I'm not living it like that. It's normal: withdrawal means that I'm actually healing. But I'm not going to throw a party.

Today I went roller skating. It felt good.

Right now I stopped writing for a moment just to do some breathing exercises, it went good: I assume that that withdrawal is ansiety, so anything that calms ansiety might calm my withdrawal.

Right now I'm going to continue watching "Falling in Love" (1984) with Robert de Niro and Meril Strip. Nice movie.
 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Hi guys, last 3 weeks were pretty good, actually.

I was really scared of actually starting the no porn milestones.

Day one was the worst, maybe because I didn't try for the last year and a half, and I was scared of withdrawal.

And feeling it again was revealing, I actually wasn't aware that I was that sick. But facing this and withdrawal itself was useful.

I became more humble and also I started learning how to manage withdrawal.

The good news is that I can stand this intensity. I didn't expierence the pain I used to expierence a some years ago. I actually doubt I could stand that pain for more than a few hours, but that was long ago and I have built a lot of stuff in my life during the last few years.

Yes, building my life has been awesome, fun and now I'm a happier person.

So I kept sticking to my milestones.

Relapsed once on my way to day 5.

Now I'm cool on my way to day 6... and I nearly can't believe it.

It has improved my self esteem and there are some seconds or minutes where I can feel a glimps of what might be total recovery.

It's like if my brain is actually trully rewiring

Those seconds help me to remember why I am doing this.

But even if I don't experience them at all in many days, I know why I am doing it.

I want to heal, recover.

To me 5, 6 days was inimaginable a few weeks ago.

Now it's a reality :)))



 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Hi guys,

these last weeks were pretty good. In general I feel better. I'm realising that porn makes me sick.

I relapsed on my way to day 6 and then made it. Made it too to my day 7 and now I'm on my way to day 9...pretty awesome actually.

Honestly I didn't think I'd made it to that far. Sometimes I feel more focused in my work and I'm stopping to feel desoriented as I used to feel.

My brain is healling, hopelfully, and my confidence is growing.

It's the first time in my life where I actually quited porn for one week feeling as good as I feel right now.

I know I have a lot to improve, but I am patient.

Money is improving a bit too.

Who knows maybe this time my prayers have been effective?

 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Hi, I'm on my way to day 15 and it feels pretty good to acomplish all that.

I'm going out with some girls and in general my erections are better than ever. Better than when I was 20!

It's amazing that no one told us abour ED...but I'm experiencing it as a fact. The less porn, the harder I get. Awesome.

I don't feel at 100% in general , but I guess it's a matter of time.

 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Hi guys,

these last 3 weeks have not been very good.

I relapsed heavily. I just have been some days without doing it but today I feel weak.

Just finished watching "The Perks of Being a Wallflower" an awesome movie that made me sad. I believe it's good to connect with feelings.  I wasn't particularly unpopular at highschool but porn made my life so much worse.

It's difficult for me to connect emotionally to people. I believe porn is both cause and effect of that. Both cause and effect of many problems in my life.

I remember some girls who went away. The people who I lost. I'm sad.

I also realise that I'm much better than a few years ago, in many levels if not in all of them. But this year I'm turning 36, on my way to my 40's...I never thought I would be like this at this age.

I was such a bright kid.

The other day I saw a clip on the universe and how we attract what's on our vibration. It made me think about my addiction, about what's inside of me that connects with it. What part of me feeds of that poison.

I wouldn't like to end my days with this addiction, trully, but it's so hard. I'm improving, though. It's amazing that I recently accomplished 13 days.

But it still so small. The other day I watched a youtube video of a minor pic up artist. He was so kind to make fun of people who are addicted to porn that I trully realised he doesn't know what he's talking about.

This addiction not only destroys marriages and families, but it destroys people from the inside. And it's free. The amount of evil in this world can be deducted by the amount and how easy it's to get to it.

I'm more dilligent with my phisical training lately. I thought that would help, as when I relapsed I was working out very little.

I heard one of the toughest periods is the 2 week millestone. In my case it's been kind of a wall, yes.

But there's one thing no one can take away from me: it's the hope of recovery.

And by the way: totally proven that erection or lack of it is linked to porn.

Looking forward to better days.

 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Hi guys,

these 3 weeks my morale has improved, but I'm still stuck in my aim to the 15 days.

I've tidied my room and this seems to have helped me with my mental cleanness.

Sport is better.

I've put my software to "enforced mode", but sneeked into another room with another computer.

Now it's more difficult woth other people in the house.

Anyways I've confirmed that ansiety goes up proportionally to the amount of time I'm watching Porn.

 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
hi guys,

these 3 weeks have been a vane struggle. Very poor performance.

I didn't have my computer so enforced moved didn't work, I used another one and my cell phone.

Throwing the towel for a while, I think I just cant't right now.

Will focus on improving other parts of my life and re try when I'm stronger.

One thing I learned: a few months ago I managed to stay clean for nearly 2 weeks  think, something that seemed impossible not long ago.

 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Hi guys,

I'm back.

I needed some time to recover, was failing and failing.

A few weeks ago I decided I would give it another shot and here I am.

I've been succeeding for the last weeks and right now I'm on my way to day 9.

These last three weeks I had vacation and I rested and slept a lot.

Money is better.

I met a woman a few weeks ago and she helps me to being a better man, without knowing it.  It's like (regardless of if this will get serious or not) that I am connecting with my masculinity, with my masculine core.

Porn has damaged me a lot, it took my teenage and youth away from me.

Maybe I'll be able to trully live my thirties. That would be awesome.

The situation with my family is better than one year ago, too. So that might help as well.

I'm working out 6 days a weak and I've developed more muscle than in my whole life. Funny. Great.

I'm experiencing ansiety and it's funny because it doesn't appear to be linked to porn. It doesn't reveal itself through craving. It's just there.

Obviously if I'm still not recovered, Porn must create ansiety to me. But my brain is starting to shift. Luckily it doesn't associate porn to releaf so much as before. If that was true, I would be successfuly rewiring my brain.

But I know the path of recovery is long.

Just wanted to share with you guys.

Thanks for reading.
 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Hi guys,

everything allright, on my way to day 11.

It appears I have a new job opportunity, so that might ease things a little bit.

Having a nice time with friends every now and then.

Dating a woman.

Working out regularly.

Started reading a really interesting classic about sex addiction: Out of the Shadows, by Patrick Carnes. Lots of triggers but it's worth it: explains the cycle of addiction and how self image and relationships such as family, can affect a person and may cause addiction.

It is helping me to understand some of my issues.

Watched this interview to him too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1pQfGD_MQI&index=67&list=PLEVuN6_FDGFlgsztgeIEGBYn5mKlNk2d3

Praying as usual.

Everything fine, wishing recovery comes sonner than later.


 

Loving_Mary

Active Member
Hi guys,

everything good, on my way to week 2.

I got the new job so hopelfully income will boost in the short and mid term. Yeah!

That will help me a lot.

And also: I love my new job, so it will help me too.

Still dating the woman, she's pretty awesome.

I celebrated my nephew's birthday, I had fun.

Keeping my room tidy, by the way I used Marie Kondo's  "The life Changing Magic of Tyding"it really works.

My finances are soo much better. It's the Economy, stupid haha

Buying some new clothes every now and then.

Working out regularly. Never was so huge.

Reading, meditating and praying, as usual.

I got Stephen Covey's "7 habits of Highly Effective People". Pretty cool.

I know I have got a long way to go, but never felt so close.

Thanks God and thanks to you guys, for listening.

 
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