Soul searching

I have been a porn addict for a long time, looking back I can't think of any reason how or why it started or continued as it did. I remember friends were watching porn and it was the cool thing, depraved but still cool among guys. Why though would I become an addict and not my friends? Am I just weaker than them or is there something more.

I often think this to myself the truth is how do we know 100% they also don't suffer to the extent that we do. Pornography is a silent addiction it very rarely shows in our everyday lives as it's done when we are alone. There are other predispositions to becoming an addict, sometimes it could be an environmental, experiential, heridetary etc. For porn addicts a large correlation is seen in the usage of electronics, a lot of time being alone, depression and anxiety can even be triggers as the user will use porn to feel better. Hang in there and keep fighting for Love!

Maybe your consumption has just been higher. Also, edging and binging might have something to do with it for a lot of us. I don't think it's uncommon that people get affected by it, but they might not be "addicts" per se. That being said, it seems that different issues with human connection are quite common for addicts.

I think you are right about the human connection thing. Even though I am married I still don't feel like I have ever really fully connected with anyone. I fact I find it incredibly difficult to connect to anyone. Throughout school I was pretty much a loner, I had very negative feelings about myself and others. I never thought I would find love. Against all odds I did but it appears my self loathing has destroyed that too.

There could be may reasons why you became a porn addict, and I wonder the same thing about myself. I thinks its a mix of biological, psychological and environmental factors. I think in many ways I was using porn as a coping mechanism to hide away from life so that I wouldn't have to deal with its harsh realities. I don't really know the exact reason why I became an addict, but I did, everyone on reboot did. The biggest thing, however is that we all focus on moving forward and not using. Make a list of things that trigger your cravings and try to avoid them. Don't feel so down that your an addict but your friends are not, you never know some of them might be. They will have their own battles just as you, I and everybody else on this website has ours. Stay strong and try to stay positive in this difficult time, I know it is not easy but we can do this.

I remember before porn became so easy to access I used to collect images of female celebrities and stick them maticulously in a scrap back. I would cut them out of news papers and magazines. I have OCD to a degree and I think I did this to forfil that part of my character as well as use the pictures for wank material. Anyhow i was wondering whether OCD is a flaw of many porn addicts, because OCD is almost an addiction in itself, so maybe it made me more susceptible to becoming an addict. Then maybe is was only a matter of time before I escalated to hard core porn. I remember being completely repulsed by porn as a teenager at school so the celebrity thing was maybe a gateway to porn. I wonder if the Internet hadn't made porn basically free and instantly accessible whether I would be porn addict. I think probably not, because I was always socially awkward and very shy so I definitely wouldn,t have bought any mags I would have been too scared and feared what people think. It strange because I never really viewed myself as a pervert, when I was growing up it was the guys that went into the shops to buy the mags were perverts. Those that when to the adult section of the video rental store. Now it's so easy to obtain porn I must be an awesome pervert, without it I would have been just a pervert waiting to happen. It,s disgusting to think I have become everything I thought I wasn't, a liar a cheat a pervert, I can't blame the addiction for all of that surely, I must have some deep character flaw in me somewhere.

I think it's good that you can see your own personal choices in this but also realize that addiction really changes the way we think and do things so a lot of this is the addiction. Hang in there bro, i know for me dealing with anxiety and depression porn helped calm me the sad thing is i was feeding a never ending cycle of feeling down then good etc.

How do we empathise, I understand we need to feel what the other is feeling, but how. I have no idea. It like a foriegn language to me. I can't seem to grasp what others are feeling. Especially my wife, because the feelings are so strong and complicated I find it hard to put into words anything that mignt help her understand that I know what it's like. The truth is I don't know what it's like and if I say how I think she feels and get it wrong then that hurts her again.