Hey Reboot Nation peeps,
Hope you are all well. I was on this site about 4 years back and decided to start tracking my progress again and reconnecting with the community here.
My porn & sex issues date back to when I was around 12 years old and I'm now 35 years of age. My first exposure to porn was finding porn magazines in my dad's room - it was a Playboy. Around the same time I happened to find a porn magazine close to my house which was just laying on the ground. Intrigued, I quickly grabbed it, took it home and masturbated to the pictures in it. Also around the same time, I also got an internet connection even though it was a dial-up modem connection at the time. I vividly recall searching for nude photos with a buddy of mine even though the connection was really slow and the pictures were taking a long time to load. Even then, the anticipation/desire to watch was really strong.
Little did I know at the time that this porn-watching would grow into a habit and that it would lead to numerous hours wasted when I could've spent it on doing more productive things. With internet speeds getting increasingly faster, and as I went into my teen years, I remember having an on & off connection to porn and wasn't really addicted as in watching daily, as I was a social teenager and had a good group of friends. I was quite at ease talking to girls and making new friends. I unfortunately had 2 negative experiences in high school which really hurt my self-esteem: 1 was being jumped by a group of bullies and being beaten-up, and the 2nd incident was in grade 11/12 where I got rejected by a girl that I asked out on a date. It is after these 2 incidents where porn or watching porn started to become more appealing and I didn't really want to make an effort to make friends or ask a girl out on a date.
As time passed, I remember consistently watching porn in my college years as the stress/anxiety of school assignments/exams was too much to bear. Around the same time (I think I was 22 or 23) my libido got the better of me and I started seeking prostitutes which I really just see as an escalation from porn-watching as I started to seek the "real" thing. After I realized that most prostitutes were on drugs, I never actually had sex with one and instead opted for massage parlours as it seemed like a safer bet. At this point the addiction turned or warped into a porn addiction plus sex addiction. It got to the point where sometimes I was going to massage parlours or seeing escorts twice a day!
I happened to be working in a finance job at the time, so while I wasn't making a lot of money, I would sometimes spend around $700-$800 per day on escorts! While this was bad for my finances, this activity was quite infrequent but nevertheless still bad for my dignity, self-esteem and my own self image. I guess I was always seeking the easy way out and since I was doing all of this in a hidden manner no one and not even my own family suspected what I was doing.
I am now married and have a beautiful daughter and wife. I wanted to reconnect with the community and start tracking my progress again as I realize that I can't fight this battle alone! I thought that my porn/sex addiction would go away after getting married but it turned out that I was still watching more porn almost every day and have also visited escorts while being married, which I am not entirely proud of!
Sorry this post is a bit long, but I hope to start my recovery process again and get back on the band wagon as I know this is not something that can be fixed overnight. Look forward to reconnecting with you all!
Cheers!
Hope you are all well. I was on this site about 4 years back and decided to start tracking my progress again and reconnecting with the community here.
My porn & sex issues date back to when I was around 12 years old and I'm now 35 years of age. My first exposure to porn was finding porn magazines in my dad's room - it was a Playboy. Around the same time I happened to find a porn magazine close to my house which was just laying on the ground. Intrigued, I quickly grabbed it, took it home and masturbated to the pictures in it. Also around the same time, I also got an internet connection even though it was a dial-up modem connection at the time. I vividly recall searching for nude photos with a buddy of mine even though the connection was really slow and the pictures were taking a long time to load. Even then, the anticipation/desire to watch was really strong.
Little did I know at the time that this porn-watching would grow into a habit and that it would lead to numerous hours wasted when I could've spent it on doing more productive things. With internet speeds getting increasingly faster, and as I went into my teen years, I remember having an on & off connection to porn and wasn't really addicted as in watching daily, as I was a social teenager and had a good group of friends. I was quite at ease talking to girls and making new friends. I unfortunately had 2 negative experiences in high school which really hurt my self-esteem: 1 was being jumped by a group of bullies and being beaten-up, and the 2nd incident was in grade 11/12 where I got rejected by a girl that I asked out on a date. It is after these 2 incidents where porn or watching porn started to become more appealing and I didn't really want to make an effort to make friends or ask a girl out on a date.
As time passed, I remember consistently watching porn in my college years as the stress/anxiety of school assignments/exams was too much to bear. Around the same time (I think I was 22 or 23) my libido got the better of me and I started seeking prostitutes which I really just see as an escalation from porn-watching as I started to seek the "real" thing. After I realized that most prostitutes were on drugs, I never actually had sex with one and instead opted for massage parlours as it seemed like a safer bet. At this point the addiction turned or warped into a porn addiction plus sex addiction. It got to the point where sometimes I was going to massage parlours or seeing escorts twice a day!
I happened to be working in a finance job at the time, so while I wasn't making a lot of money, I would sometimes spend around $700-$800 per day on escorts! While this was bad for my finances, this activity was quite infrequent but nevertheless still bad for my dignity, self-esteem and my own self image. I guess I was always seeking the easy way out and since I was doing all of this in a hidden manner no one and not even my own family suspected what I was doing.
I am now married and have a beautiful daughter and wife. I wanted to reconnect with the community and start tracking my progress again as I realize that I can't fight this battle alone! I thought that my porn/sex addiction would go away after getting married but it turned out that I was still watching more porn almost every day and have also visited escorts while being married, which I am not entirely proud of!
Sorry this post is a bit long, but I hope to start my recovery process again and get back on the band wagon as I know this is not something that can be fixed overnight. Look forward to reconnecting with you all!
Cheers!