PUMPED To Finally Quit This Bad Habit!

My name is Matthew.  I'm here because of ED caused by porn, like a lot of you.  But more importantly, lately I've noticed my confidence around women is TERRIBLE.  Really bad.  Just can't maintain good eye contact, can barely make an approach in a bar.  Sheepish on the dancefloor, not talking to girls in my day to day life, only at bars. And just overall bad self esteem around women.  For no reason! 

There's no other root cause for it, except porn use. ....and subconscious SHAME about that porn use.

What I really want from this is for my ED to go away, and my confidence around women to go way up.

I was happily single living abroad in Europe, and before that happily single in Arizona with enough girls in my life in both places.  But now I am miserably single in California.  I am in the throes of a horrific 5 MONTH dryspell!  I don't know WTF is causing this.

This dryspell is what is causing my porn use.  i'm lonely.  I go out "hunting" in the bars, unsuccessfully, come home frustrated and USE.

A little history: I have done this before.  I have quit just porn before, and I have quit PMO before.  Quitting PMO was a disaster.  It was brutally difficult, just using up willpower, I think i actually bailed on day 29, I can't remember, it was 5 years ago. And it KILLED MY LIBIDO.  It took me a month of regular whacking to get back to normal.

Don't give me the 'that's just the flatline bro' I'm not buying it.  If I stopped going to the gym, I couldn't reasonably expect to stay strong past a week or two.  Use it, or lose it man!

Quitting just porn though was great!  I can't remember how long it took, but I got my mojo back.  I THINK I remember more random women checking me out and even smiling and saying hi to me.  And for sure 100% I got my boners back.  I can clearly remember bringing home a BIIIIIIIG Girl.  I mean BIG guys.  Not hot.  Nice boobies but the rest was not pretty. And I had a great erection for her.

I don't know what happened? Life?  Lonliness? Underestimating how addictive this shit is?  But I lost my way, and got back into porn.

I have been half ass quitting for the past couple years.  Like I'll quit on Monday, I don't tell anyone, after an unsuccessful hunt on Saturday night, i go back to porn and binge on it for the rest of the weekend.

I think I've been lying to myself saying I've mostly quit with some relapses... but all I'm doing is powering through the work week, I'm 100% still using. Just in binges on weekends.  If I followed that pattern with alcohol I wouldn't say I'd quit booze, lol.

Speaking of which, August 1st I did quit booze. August 15th I quit sugar. Sept 1st, I quit fast food, cleaned up my diet and lost 14 pounds.  So I am on a ROLL! Which is maybe why I'm so positive about this.  And because I've done it before and - I KNOW IT WORKS.

For me masturbation is not the problem.  Masturbation is not the supra-stimulus highly addictive behavior. PORN is the problem!

I know people will disagree with the choice to leave out the MO part, but for this journal my goal is to quit porn forever.  That's it.

I fully believe in the 'use it or lose it' principle.  But a 45 year old man without a girlfriend, does not NEED to come every single day, 1-2X / week is fine. If you're horny outside of that - GOOD!  Let it build, maybe it will encourage you to meet an actual female.

I'm posting here mainly for ACCOUNTABILITY.  I had quit drinking before years ago and had ok success with it for a while.  This time when I quit I wanted support.  I wanted accountability.  So I go to meetings every couple of weeks.  I know if I use alcohol, I'd have to tell everyone at my group.  It keeps me motivated.

My plan is to continue doing things I enjoy that cause a healthy release of dopamine:
 

• Take more salsa classes.
• Surf.
• Dance.
• Karaoke.
• Ride my bicycle or Vespa.
• Go out and talk to girls.

I'm naturally funny, and can make my friends laugh.  I can write a joke.  But I've never been able to make music, or compose a song.  I have ALWAYS wanted to learn to do that.  This seems like a great time to do that. That can be a big replacement activity for the hours wasted looking at porn.

Anyway, thanks for listening, I'm really STOKED to be here.  Looking forward to getting rid of this addiction once and for all.

Well..... last night should have been a fun night, but it was another tough one.  I went out to a club, found my buddy on the dancefloor, and kinda of half-ass danced with his group - lots of girls!

But I just couldn't get out of my shell and get into it.  I was super self conscious about who I imagined was watching me - No one is watching me, they are watching the girls dance.

And then on top of that I had this crippling lower back pain hit, and had to sit down for 1/2 hour when the club was at fever pitch.  :

I did try talking to 4 different girls.  And I danced with one, but she had a boyfriend.

I have only been 3 months sober, and "liquid courage" on the dancefloor is THE #1 thing I used booze for (like a lot of men). So I can't expect to be FEARLESS.  But it's frustrating that this fear of.... of what?  Of who's looking at me? is keeping me from living the life I want to live.

Also I'm 45 years old!  When is this nervousness around girls going to end??  lol.  I feel ridiculous even posting this story, it's something a 21 year old should be dealing with not me.  But I'm just trying to keep this journal authentic. And I AM dealing with it.

This is not a "picking up girls" forum it's a recovery from porn addiction forum. But I truly believe my porn use is the #1 contributing factor to this lack of confidence around women I'm experiencing. 

I'm hoping after a month or 2 porn free, I will be back to myself.  I don't have to be the most confident guy in the room, but right now, I'm living in fear.  I'm being held back because of that fear, and that's not the life I want.

So that's the bad part of the night.  The good part is - I came home extremely frustrated and did not look at porn!  To be honest I didn't even consider it.  Just the act of writing that (extremely long, lol) first journal post yesterday, put me in the right frame of mind.  It made the decision real and accountable, not something done in private I could easily go back on.

I hope I have way LESS nights like this in the future.  But I feel like I passed a big test last night.

Well done Mattoondah for avoiding porn after a frustrating evening. That?s a really good victory. I hope the next evening out is more successful!

Thanks BigMog!  Well no big news to report.  Just sticking with my plan the past couple days.

I don't want to not masturbate at all, because when I've done that in the past, it KILLED my libido.  But.... when you first give up porn, masturbating can be a trigger to look at porn.  (Much more so for the younger guys who never spanked it without porn.  I have plenty of experience using my imagination.) But still, I don't want to tempt fate.

So what I've decided to try this first week, is to masturbate once a week.  On Sundays.  So I'm most horny/motivated to talk to real girls on Friday/Saturday when I have time to go out to the bars. And then I can at least take some pressure off the valve sunday.  Then I'm good for the upcoming week.

Other than that... I unfollowed some girls on Instagram whose primary goal in life seems to be full time attention-whore. They are basically posting soft-core porn pics of themselves.  I don't need that to be a trigger.  And it felt good! I feel like a loser following girls I don't know in real life.  It's pathetic.

And I unfollowed some nightclubs on FB for the same reason.  I still "like" them, so I can go to their page and see what's up if I'm planning a night out there, but I'm not being bombarded by boobs and butts in my newsfeed. 

Well I chose to spank it on Wednesday.  Relax, no porn!  ;D  And, I think I just confirmed why I definitely need to be doing this.  And that once a week is probably enough.  I was thinking Wednesday/Sunday.  But I think next week I'll try just Sunday per the original plan.

I had a weak, bendy erection.  :-\  I had a hard time using my imagination!  ...which is sad.  The tells me my mind has changed for the worse by using porn for so long.  BUT... I'm confident that given time it will change back. 

It's also worth noting I imagined girls I had met in real life.  I was not imaging porn, or instagram girls.  Real life memories only.  I think that's a better option.

Nothign else really to report.  I had very MILD, fleeting cravings once or twice when I was alone in my room.  But really minor.  I think I've just decided to do this.  Decided to keep this journal and that's that.  If I find myself suuuuuuper horny I can always MO to my imagination.  So what really am I giving up that's so difficult?  Nothing. 

This weekend I went out on Friday. After a slow start I finally worked up some nerve and talked to this cute older blonde girl, and she was all about it. This was at the edge of the dancefloor. We start grinding immediately and I'm getting really turned on.  I start getting wood on the dancefloor! 

This happens to me all the time, no matter how much porn I've looked at.  And I think it's because psychologically, you're not supposed to get hard on the dancefloor!  lol. You don't need a boner, you're not worried about whether it's going to survive your next awkward sex position, you're not worried about beating-the-clock on the boner timer while you struggle with a condom. 

This is what my sex life would be like with no performance anxiety!

Anyway she's there on a date - scandalous! so I do the next best thing and get a phone number.

The next day we txt back and forth a bit, and she ends up saying, "Hey I'm 5 minutes away from you at a pool hall if you're down?"

I'm torn between playing it cool, and telling her I have plans (I do, but not for 4 hours) and meting up. I decide better to strike while the irons hot.  So I say "What's the place called I could come meet up for a bit" and....

Nothing!

Radio silence!

I text her the eyebrow raised emojii and NA-DA.

Now keep in mind we were grinding the night before on the dancefloor.  It's Saturday now I haven't whacked it since Wednesday, I am READY to F this girl.

I go on with my night, it's just an awful night, massive frustration trying to talk to uppity girls at a fancy nightclub that I wouldn't normally go to.

Sunday morning, I am SO sexually frustrated now. 3 hours the night before of getting rejected, and this fucking chick who can't text back.

I'm 45 years old, I know better.  A woman will never, ever, ever respond to you getting upset with her over her shitty behavior - Like BAITING me with "I'm nearby if you're down" then ghosting. 

If that's your girlfriend, absolutely, call her out on that behavior, have a backbone, stand up for yourself.  But a brand new girl who isn't invested in you at all? No. You'll just kill the vibe.

I KNOW THIS.  And I can't help myself. 

I made a conscious decision, I'm like "you're throwing this pussy away if you do this" But I do it anyway.

I txt her "What the hell happened last night?!" Or something like that. She says her gf wanted to have a girls night.  I'm like fine no prob! But you couldn't text me that?

I'm right. But it doesn't matter, now she's in a pissy mood, and anything playful I text is taken as a personal attack on her.  :  So I stop texting her and say fuck it, I didn't know this chick before Friday, I can meet another one next weekend.

Here's the rub.

Had I simply effen' jerked off Saturday morning and taken the pressure off the valve after 2 frustrating nights in a row (grinding with her friday, then atomic-bitches night saturday) I would have been FINE. 

I wouldn't have cared that she baited and ghosted.  I'd be annoyed sure, but not so much that I can't effen' help myself and have to call her out on it sabotaging the whole thing in the process.

So instead of ending the 5 month sex droubt, I did saturday afternoon what I SHOULD have done friday night, and jerked off.

So.  The lesson is - If jerking off is going to HELP YOU with a real life woman then freakin' do it man! 

I want to free myself from porn.  But I shouldn't have been so rigid with my rules of Sunday/Wednesday are the only days I can whack it.  In this situation it would 100% have helped me.  I would have had a clear head in dealing with her Saturday. 

Clear headed, I simply wouldn't have said anything!  I'd not txt her, blow it off, then 2 days later ping her again, say NOTHING about her ghosting on me and go for the next date.

Anyway, I whacked it again Sunday, then waited till Wednesday.  Twice a week is I think what I need.  ...obviously unless the circumstance dictates I need to take some damn pressure off the valve.

I'm dissappointed that I threw away what was practically a sure-thing, but I'm really happy to still be 100% porn free 2 weeks in!  ;D

Well.  I whacked it on Sunday.  (No porn) and to be honest, it was kinda' difficult to concentrate and imagine some girl I'd seen over the weekend. Before I'd started this journal, that would have been a BIG trigger.  Like

"Oh man i can't even get turned on, maybe I should just use porn."

But thanks to the accountability built in here that was just a passing thought.  I eventually focused in one one girl I'd met over the weekend and was good to go.

I actually had an opportunity to have sex on Friday.  ...but I just couldn't bring myself to do it!  ;D  It was this girl I met near the dancefloor at my favorite spot.  pretty ENOUGH face, GREAT boobs!  And READY to come home with me. 

I got her to come out with me on the dancefloor.  But when I put my hands on her waist, she was just sooooooo BIG.  I'm 5'10" 175 pounds, and her waist was like 2 of me.  Easy.  I was just grossed out.  I spent the next hour trying to get away from her.  And cockblockd myself from her hot friends. 

I COULD have f'd her just to break the dryspell.

But apart from her size, another part of me was like "Fuck I don't know if I'm going to be able to get a boner!"  I bought some Cialis pills as a backup plan a couple months back, until my body heals from this stupid porn abuse. Sometimes I take one on a Friday night - just in case.  So I'm ready.  But I don't want to make that a habit.  And I hadn't taken one this night.

The last time I was with a girl... 6 MONTHS ago - sheeezus.  I had bad ED.  I mean BAD. I'm sure porn was a big part of it, but there was definitely a psychological component to it.  Because I was worried about it, from the time before that!  It's a vicious cycle.

I plan on using pills the next time I have an opportunity so I can have a good sexual experience with a great erection and break that cycle. 

The pills are a band-aid solution.  The root cause is porn use (I HOPE!) but I'm happy to have the band-aid for the next few girls, until I'm over the transition. 

I also started thinking... isn't it maybe NORMAL to have some difficulty getting it up at 45?  I mean how would you know nowadays?  I feel like this porn use is so widespread there is no "control" group left.  And even if there was, guys don't talk about this.

I do know that the last time I had quit porn for real - like several months clean, I did get my mojo back and have great erections with some very average looking women. without any pills.

I've also ran 3 steroid cycles in my life. That could be fucking things up to.  ??  I don't know though, the last one was over a year and a half ago, and it was just testosterone.  I'll have to do bloodwork and find out where my Total T is at. 

It's POSSIBLE that is causing or contributing to ED.  But I feel like what is far more LIKELY is the Porn use that I quit only 18 days ago.  I will eventually get my T tested, I just feel like - quit the porn FIRST, before you start blaming other things.  If I'm porn free for 6 months and still having problems, then maybe I go see a urologist.

The only other thing to report, is I am starting to get some CRAZY hard morning wood!  So that's a good sign I think!  ;D

Well Wednesday was my "Spank it if you need to" day. I'm hoping at some point in the near future to not need to because I'll have a real woman! lol.  But for now it is what it is. 

And this time was... a marked improvement! My pIED had gotten so bad, that even masturbating i had a bendy, weak erection.  But this time was much better!  Not 100%, but 90% for sure.  A lot harder erection than in the past couple months.

I'm pretty stoked on this because it's only been 22 days since I quit!  what's really sad, is in the past several years, that's the longest I've gone.

I'm telling you, quitting addiction quietly is not the way to do it.  You've got to join a group of some sort, real life, online, and tell people about it.  This group is great for that.

I also had some great morning wood last night.  So that's another good sign.

The real test will be next time I'm with a woman!   

mattoondah said:

Well Wednesday was my "Spank it if you need to" day. I'm hoping at some point in the near future to not need to because I'll have a real woman! lol.  But for now it is what it is. 

And this time was... a marked improvement! My pIED had gotten so bad, that even masturbating i had a bendy, weak erection.  But this time was much better!  Not 100%, but 90% for sure.  A lot harder erection than in the past couple months.

I'm pretty stoked on this because it's only been 22 days since I quit!  what's really sad, is in the past several years, that's the longest I've gone.

I'm telling you, quitting addiction quietly is not the way to do it.  You've got to join a group of some sort, real life, online, and tell people about it.  This group is great for that.

I also had some great morning wood last night.  So that's another good sign.

The real test will be next time I'm with a woman! 

Click to expand...

Glad to hear your recovery is going well, man!  Good on you!  I agree 100% that having a community like this is KEY to a successful recovery.  TBH I had no idea so many guys were suffering from PIED.  I literally thought I was the only one, and that I was basically fucked because I'd never again be able to get a woody with my wife without using viagra.  Seeing Gabe Deem's and Noah Church's videos gave me hope that the damage I've done to my brain is reversible, and I can go back to how it was before, where I could have sex with my wife anytime we want to do it.  I took it for granted for so long, now I'm praying I can have that back again.

Keep up the good work!

Elvis on Velvet said:

Glad to hear your recovery is going well, man! 

Click to expand...

Thanks man!

Well yesterday I hit 1 full month porn free! Woot-woot!  I'm pretty stoked on that.  I've been bitching and moaning a lot about not having much of a dating life right now.  But honestly... if there's ever going to be a good time for a drought, now is as good a time as any.  I can recover without any pressure to perform.

The last 2 times I spanked it were very different.  ???  Last post I said how there was like a 90% improvement.  Well the time AFTER that is was another so-so, bendy erection.  But the next time, was probably the best erection I've had in years (with myself and no porn)

So it's a little up and down.  But to be honest that's kind of what I expected.  It's not a straight line recovery, but overall it's trending much much better.

And I'm still getting lots of nighttime and morning wood.  Also a very good sign!  ;D

The real test will be next time I'm with a woman.  But a really SOLID erection by myself I think is a great step in the right direction.  A really, really good sign!  I'm happy about this.  I can seen signs of true recovery.

Well, last night I went out to the bars and talked to a couple girls.  It wasn't going badly, but it wasn't going great.  So I switched locations and went to a different bar and met a girl just off the dancefloor.  She's from argentina, has good rhythm. It's HOT, like slow sexy dancing.  There's a wall nearby I throw her against, hand behind her neck, resting our foreheads on each other.  But... she won't kiss! 

After a couple attempts I keep dancing with her but stop trying to kiss her.  Eventually she says "I can't kiss you i don't even know your first name." So I introduce herself and eventually she kisses.  And kisses good!

End of the night, we go outside, I offer her a ride home, but she won't take it - understandable I'm still a stranger more or less. But we fool around outside my car for a while.

I start to get hard fooling around with her! ...you know like how a NORMAL non-porn-wrecked body is supposed to react! lol.  She can feel it pressing against her and at one point grabs it, and says - i should go.  I should let go of your hard dick and go home - or something like that.

And it just kind of dawned on me I was thinking "Oh yeah it is hard!  How cool!" lol

We traded numbers, she went home, I didn't have sex.  BUT... this was the first time I've even fooled around with a girl since quitting porn a little over a month ago.  And - IT MOVED! lol. It definitely moved, and started getting hard.  I did make out with a girl a couple months back before I quit, and I don't remember getting turned on with her.

I was never iimpotent from PIED, I just had DIFFICULTY.  Like a bendy erection, at times not good enough for sex.  It's not like he was dead.  BUT... I don't remember him being this reactive. 

So, once again the real test will be actually having sex, but this was another really good sign!  And a good night! 

Big news! After a 5 MONTH sex drought, I quit porn, and in less than 2 months close the deal!  ;D  Now to be fair, I recycled a girl from the past.  I took a trip out to Arizona, and hit up the 2 girls I knew out there with a text and 1 took the bait.

I was on a mission, so Friday night I took a Cialis, cause I don't know if the PIED is gone or not, and I wanted a positive sexual experience, since ED can also be mental - particularly if one bad experience gets stuck in your mind and snowballs into another.

The end goal of course, is to not need any ED meds, but right now I consider myself in a transition period, and I'm happy to have the pills.

I took the Cialis Friday - went out friday and saturday night, but just couldn't make SHIT happen. then met up with this girl Sunday night.  Cialis lasts 36 hours, by the time I got in bed with her, it was 50+ hours.  So I don?t even think it was in my system at that point.

Anyway, everything worked!  ;D  This girl has a ROCKIN? body, but she doesn?t do a lot to help.  There were no BJ?s, she didn?t use her hands.  I made out with her, then laid her on the bed, and played with the boobies.  That?s all it took to get hard. My body did what it?s SUPPOSED to do and responded to the first naked woman I?d seen in 2 months. I?m stoked on that!

When we were done, maybe 30 minutes later she wants to go again.  I get hard enough to get up and IN, but it won?t stay hard.  I can?t complain AT ALL at not being ready for round two, 30 minutes later at 45 years old.  I think that?s normal.

Anyway, she?s like - ?I have something if you need help? lol!  I?m like I have something!  So I pop the last pill I brought on the trip, a viagra.  We went back out the the party she was having in her house! lol ...and waited an hour or so then went at it again.

The second time doesn?t prove much because I was on ED meds.  EXCEPT that I have a ?control? in this situation.  2 years ago I hooked up with this same girl, when I was a heavy porn user, and I had to use Viagra just to get it up, and even with that, it was an?. OK, bendy boner, not super hard.  And half the time I couldn?t cum! 

This time 2 months, porn-free the viagra made me crazy hard, and I didn?t have to try to cum, it was inevitable!  I had to try to hold off. Lol.

The ultimate test, and when I will truly feel healed from PIED is a sex experience with no ED pills.  But this was a fahhhking GREAT start!  ;D

And also, man how BAD had it gotten that before even with the pills, sex was BARELY working.  :-\  I?m so glad to be getting this TOXIC internet porn out of my life.