So that's what rock bottom feels like!

This is my first post - a bit about myself, where I'm at, how I got here and what my goals and plans are going forward. Out of respect for others as well as myself, most of my posts will go out of their way to avoid any triggers and if they are needed, will be specifically warned and indicated.

This will be one exception, so readers, please know that this posting will contain triggers, and they won't be specifically indicated.

I appreciate in advance anyone who reads this or who has contributed to YBOP. I have found what I've read in the last two days to be helpful beyond measure - I'm not alone, others have been exactly where I am and have recovered. I'm not a sick freak, I'm not a worthless man - I have addiction that I can and WILL overcome.  A sincere thank you to all of you.

I'm a professional in my early 30s - well educated, successful in my chosen career. I'm married to the love of my life, who doesn't have much of a clue about this issue.

I started MO when I was about 12 - I remember thinking I had somehow injured myself when I had my first climax. My parents weren't poster children for great parenting, and they were splitting up about then. Sex is something you didn't discuss beyond not getting a girl pregnant.

I was bullied severely during primary and junior high school, ending up on heavy doses of anti-depressants to get through the day. Most of the ridicule was centered around calling me gay, or the much more derogatory forms thereof.

I saw my first porn when I was about that same age - bad printed stuff. I had no idea what those parts of a woman were.

By high school I was in a much better place, but had started fapping about once a day at that time. High speed internet was just coming around, so the only real exposure I had to porn was on the adult channels we got "on the side" late at night. Even then, I didn't take much interest.

In college though, things changed.  I had my own PC and access to high speed internet, along with a roommate that was rarely around. At that time I was also trying to figure out if I was gay, straight or someplace in the middle - I'd dated women and found them attractive, but I also found guys attractive too starting in high school.

That was the beginning of the rationalizations. I was clearly using PMO to "explore my sexuality" and "help define my sexual orientation". I started as many do with vanilla hetero porn, but I also used vanilla gay porn as well on my "journey of self discovery".

I spent time studying abroad which was terrible for this addiction - I had unfettered access to porn shops in cities where I knew no one, and a lot of free time on my hands. This is when the turn to femdom porn as well as gay maledom porn started to increase.  CBT worked its way in, as well as electro, but I figured this was all just new, exciting stuff.

I was a virgin until my senior year, when I met my now wife.  Our sex life was pretty hot, and I didn't have any performance issues, accept for periods of DE, which I attributed to SSRIs I was taking and that we had to use condoms. Never dawned on my I was still managing to get off when I PMO'd. I once left up a phone sex website and my wife, who wanted to surprise me with a sexy new outfit, found a blond woman in a corset staring back at her declaring that she would "treat me like the sissy bitch I was". I somehow talked my way out of that and back into my girl's pants.  How I'll never know.

Once we were married and until last Sunday, things have gradually gotten more extreme. Sissy, forced fem, CBT, along with super rough, gagging, slapping, choking porn. I have been late for work, missed meetings, calls, found myself wishing my wife would just get the hell out of the house so I could PMO. I surfed in the bathroom at work, in the car in traffic.

I would look at every person who walked by or passed me in traffic to see if they were "hot", easy since I was looking at both sides of the fence. I've nearly gotten in accidents doing this - all for that little rush - that push. Everyone became an object for my lust to be thrust upon without them even knowing it.

I talked my wife into letting me degrade her in bed, spank her, yank her hair, buy a latex dress and a corset. I got off on degrading the person I love more than anything in the world. The shame was continuing to build.

Then on Sunday, it happened. I couldn't finish while with my wife, again, so I faked it, and she bought it. We've always prided ourselves on being the couple that communicates in bed, and she's never faked one unless I've asked her to (there's that PMO brain training again - my woman needs to scream like a banshee for me to get off). The quality of my erection, which used to get hammer hard of she even touched my arm, was about 70% of what it should have been in any case.

That was the moment I realized I was out of control, and came upon YBOP. I committed again (this is attempt number 4) to  reboot, giving up PMO and P altogether, as well as eliminating as much of my old objectifying behavior as I can.

This posting comes at the 48 hour mark - two days. No real withdrawal symptoms yet, other than having the explicit, disgusting scenes I've watched over the last decade pop into my head anytime they want for no real reason - so far, I can just shake them away. When I'm tempted to check someone out besides my wife, I immediately shift my gaze to the sky.

I plan to do a 90 - 180 day reboot, and while it will include sex with my wife, that sex won't have any of the degrading behavior I used to resort to involved anymore, and I will hold myself responsible for being totally present - not fantasizing about some porn scene while I'm with her. I already told her I'm not worried about climaxing when we have sex - just restarted SSRIs, so that gives me a good "excuse". She's cool with it.

I've gotten back in the gym to relieve the stress and hopefully some of the symptoms (a gym with very few people I find attractive, PMO or not, so I shouldn't have triggers to deal with there). I've got a list of things I need to work on instead of PMOingm and if it's really bad, I will find a place to blast my recovery theme song - "Survivor" by Destiny's Child.

Hopefully the first of 180 postings.

All the best to all of you.

Hey bud, I'm much in the same boat as you but the similarities end with not informing the wife. I approached her with a "babe, there is something I've been wanting to share with you". Then I showed her a video of the science behind porn addiction. This was exactly one week into reboot and she was incredibly receptive. Its our sex life not mine that's affected so I wanted her on board.

A little about me: I developed ed in my late twenties early thirties. I scoured the internet for herbal remedies and tried them all. Nothing worked so I went to, embarrassed to admit, cock rings but got to the point that they wouldn't work either. So back to the net I went trying to get aroused and realized that didn't help either, only made my brain feel good but no reaction in my pants. Red flag!

I stumbled across your brain on porn and I started putting the pieces together. I'm only two weeks in and I already have far better erections and occasional morning wood. I still have cravings and the head ache every now and then but our sex life is worth it.

new leaf, I think at some point I'll share it with my wife, but at the moment, I think given many other significant things in our life, now is not the time to add another to her already full and devoted plate. But I hear you - and I do plan to bring her into the loop.

I hope you're on a successful road to recovery - being raised by a 12-stepper, I know that we're never actually "cured". I hope to speak with you again as things progress.

Thanks!

Morning of day 3. I'm not sleeping very well, and the random images and sexual thoughts that suddenly pop into my bead are getting harder to shake right away, especially in the morning and laying in bed at night.

Focusing on touching my wife in a non sexual way more, and I'm happy to say that I feel a little turned on by that.

I appreciate those who read this, and apologize in advance for the length of my posts - I'm not known for brevity.

After 3 days of reboot and spending a fair amount of time reading the stories of others, I have to thank all of you. As much as I wish no one else ever had to deal with this, each of you make me realize I'm not alone, that there is hope, and that I can again be the man I want to be.

There will be some content that some may find triggering

I have a habit when something new comes to be that I think it to death, especially when it involves self discovery. At the moment I've exchanged P and PMO for this website and YBOP.  One addiction for another, but honestly, this one I can both stop when I want to, and I figure I'm in my "give me all the knowledge possible stage of figuring out a newly defined problem

Looking at my sex life with my girl (my first and my only), I'm starting to see what PMO has done to us. I was using when we got together, but in college all we did was screw, so my usage was far less than it has been since we graduated about a decade ago. I never had performance issues in college, and I remember being embarrassed when she would take my hand, since I would immediately get a raging hard-on. Up until about 5 years ago, just looking at her if we were out with friends and she was all dressed up would have me ready to rip her clothes off.

About 5 years ago, as the genres of porn I was using started to get gradually more extreme, that immediate reaction in my pants began to fade so slowly I never noticed until I started my reboot 3 days ago. Like a frog in a pot of water that is slowly being brought to a boil, can't sense the change, and cooks to death.

Over the years, I've been off and on SSRI anti-depressants, and any of you who have been on them know that they can murder your sex drive and performance. It was easy to blame my PDE (Permanently Delayed Ejaculation) on the drugs - nice way of putting you're never gonna bust, isn't it? When I was off of them, I blamed stress, booze, work, I think even the temperature of the room once.

Now I look at my wife *TRIGGER* walking around naked, lying on the bed naked with her legs open, and nothing happens. *END TRIGGER* I manually work myself into getting hard but can feel myself going soft in the middle of doing it.

Holding hands? Having her legs/head in my lap on the couch? Cuddling up to her in bed? Seeing her in sexy stuff from Frederick's? All of it used to have me so hard I could pound nails with my dick and to the point I had to keep from busting the minute I got inside her.

Now? Not a damned thing 80% of the time. I used to pride myself on being a caring, passionate, gentle guy when it came to affection.  Now I want to choke the love of my life while I fuck her into tears? Christ, it feels awful. I take every opportunity I can to touch her now - even if it's just her arm, kissing her head, taking her hand, trying to rewire that part of my brain away from the porn and back to her.

And I also have started to feel guilt about watching porn at all, even aside from the addiction. The extreme shit I was into - those actors had to be truly and seriously traumatized at some point in their lives to allow themselves to be put through that kind of abuse at all, let alone to have it filmed. Empathy is something I've been known to have too much of, but for those men and women, I had none. These are people's kids, siblings, parents. Beyond that they have an intrinsic value as PEOPLE. I'm not saying all porn actors are screwed up in the head - for some I'm sure it's just making a living with what they believe to be their best asset - but the people making the *TRIGGER* extreme femdom, forced-bi, forced-fem, gay bondage, hitting/slapping/choking/torture *END TRIGGER* porn I was using MUST have something that's not all there between their ears.

All the best.

So, its been a few days since I posted. All the accounts I've heard and read about withdrawal being a rollercoaster were no fucking joke. Tuesday I woke up before my 5 am alarm rested, alert and ready to take on the day- something I've not experienced since resetting from 7 time zones of jet lag a dozen years ago. Energy lasted all day, used my former PMO time to get shit done around the house.

That night I also told my best friend about my addition and reboot, and he's being really supportive of it, and is acting as my accountability partnter.

Wednesday was OK, less energy and far less well rested. More distracted by mild urges, but the porn flashes in my head seem to be subsiding. Yesterday also went OK, though I spent more time than I should have checking in here and on YBOP. Still, had a passionate vision for a global releif project for a non-profit i work with- what a rush!  Ive not been able to feel that intensly all these years of PMO. Overall, feeling more confident, less distracted, more present in day to day life. I've started to find some of the fetishes I once thought I was into to be gross, (they are things you see every day in non sexual contexts) touching my wife in q non sexual way has already started to stir things below the waist again, which I welcome!

Today I could sleep all day- off from work thank God. Didn't relapse in full, but did MO with no porn or fantasy, with a condom, and with a really, really loose grip. I've been trying to get my girl interested in sex all week, and  she's been too tired for it, and we're heading into "no fly" week for her. Call it rationalization, or bullshit. We will see what I think once I get some time and perspective.

I'm not resetting my counter- maybe that's foolish of me. But knowing I can O without porn, fantasy, the death grip, and with a condom gives me hope. For now, in going to limit MO go once a week with the same conditions as today. I also will continue touching my wife as much as possible, and avoiding the constant search for hotness in every situation.

Its been a week now, and so far, surprising results. My mood is both more stable and a lot better. I love music again, which had been a huge part of my life before PMO. I've got way more energy, and I've Ben able to cut back on my ADHD meds. After a week!

I did learn the hard way how easy it is to trigger. I was bored, alone and looking for a movie to watch on On Demand cable. Selected "all movies" and before I knew it I was browsing titles and descriptions in the adult section. The titles were enough to get me wanting to use.

It made me remember parts of my addiction not related to porn videos, but to online erotic stories. When my addiction had gotten to the point the most extreme porn I could find wasn't enough, I turned to sex stories, since people would write things that no one would ever physically put themselves through. In retrospect, they were really, really disturbing topics and genres, and I can see now how disgusting they were.

Best to all of you. Your stories make recovery possible for me.

7 days. Made love to my girl (didn't have sex, didn't fuck her, made love.)

He shoots, he scores! Went a little soft in the process, but had the most intense O of the last decade.

Guys, we can do this, and the results are worth it. I feel like a fuckin rock star.  8)

The roller coaster continues. After yesterdays success with my wife, I spent the rest of the day feeling 10 feet tall and bullet proof. Today I was able to stay continually focused at work for 4 hours, which I think is some kind of record.

Then my wife calls, in the throws of PMS, and pisses me off over something stupid. Got more work done, but when I left work I could already feel the urges to find some porn to PMO to and "get back at her". I've been working on dropping the urge for an hour now reading success stories, and at least I have to leave for the gym soon.

She works late this time of year so for the next few months I will have 3 hours a day alone. One week in there she will be traveling. God this is going to be harder than it looked this time yesterday.

Hi Anon,

I've been reading your thread and taken great interest in it. I too have just started no PMO so can identify with what you're going through. I also feel encouraged by your early positive results so far.

One question I have is - has your wife commented on your change in behaviour? It seems like quite a drastic change to how you were previously so she must have seen a notable difference? Has she responded positively?

Bumblerino,

I think she knows something is different, and at this point I think she's relieved. I was the guy who always wanted sex, and she didn't have quite as high a drive as I did after the first few years we were together. Now I'm back to touching her, kissing her, being more affectionate in general like I used to be.

We had a period of time where we weren't using condoms, then had to start again recently. She wrote off my inability to finish with the transition, and without knowing how much of really means to me, she's ramped up the foreplay to warp factor 9. Its made a huge difference. Oddly she's never needed much, if any foreplay, so this is a big give on her part.

I'm glad you've found the no PMO nation. You've taken the most important step there is in admitting you have a problem. With everyone's support, we can recover.

May I ask what inspired you to quit?

Your wife actually sounds like she's really understanding and I'm pleased for her as well that you're giving her more of what she needs. How come the foreplay has gone up? Is this just a natural by-product of your change in behaviour or did you ask for it?

I suspect that the main factor behind my decision to quit is the ED. Although that said, I've had ED for 8 years or so and yet I continued with the PMO. Perhaps I'm wrong - maybe I've just had enough of being completely unfulfilled with porn. It's been 4 days of reboot now and I'm not missing anything, although my behaviour is cyclical so can go for long periods without.

I'm not even confident that this will fix my ED but the medical industry has no solution and I've nothing left to lose. Rebooting is quite extreme, the hardest part for me is not looking at women - especially at work. That will be a tough habit to break.

No significant other for me - at the moment I don't feel like i'm in a good enough state to even start looking. Don't get me wrong - I'm not complete doom and gloom - I have a job and I'm fairly content within reason. But I believe that the P has skewed my view of women in general - for example the leering.

Plus if my equipment doesn't work - even if I met some one and it got to that stage, I doubt they would want to stick around. I just can't see it. I only hope that this works - if it doesn't I'll have nothing left to try.

Bumblerino, if half of what I've read and started to experience is right, you have every right to expect a recovery from your ED, and to discover a well of self confidence you never knew you had.

That said, as Budda said "what we think, we become".

I've been spending too much time here and on YBRB for my own good, as I'm both using this as a replacement for using P and that I've started using those venues to let my addiction feed itself through reading stories of others that contain what I know is triggering language.

So, I started a semi-hard reboot on 8/15 (no pun intended). The only O I will have going forward is with my wife. This is day 5 of my MO reboot and day 10 of my PMO reboot.

I will be absent from the boards for 30 days, unless I relapse before that. I need to focus on life and not just not being a PMO addict.

God willing, see you in 30 days still on the wagons.

All the best.

So... I'm back early. Not resetting the counter, thank God. Just passed the 3.5 week mark with no porn. I've been keeping a journal apart from this site so as not to bore you all with my every thought.

A few things I've figured out:

• It's much easier for me to give up porn, fantasy and objectifying women than it is to give up MO and leering at men
• I'm bisexual. It's not HOCD - I'm not afraid I'm not straight. I've been attracted to both women and men since long before I used porn. I told my wife and a few others this over the years since college with no real shock. Not that one can quantify this stuff, but I'd say 60/40 straight.
• Being with my wife since the beginning of the "worst part" of my addiction has prevented me ending up as deep in the hole as some - no PIED, still got hard when with my wife, etc.
• HOWEVER, to both document it here and give hope to those rebooting: it works. I've had successful sex with my wife 3 times since I quite porn. My head is clearer, I can focus better, I get turned on by a kiss from my wife.
• Oddly, music sounds better, like way better. I loved it for a long time, and it was a big part of my life that has come back.

The no porn thing is great. The MO thing is tough.  I've determined I don't need to go total hardmode (and with a wife it would be hard). But I can feel the MO urges coming over me like when I was quitting smoking. Getting through the craving is really hard. I'm going to try and limit myself to once per week, but would love to cut it off to nothing.

Right now, I have about 3 hours a day alone in my house, which is already clean, laundry done, ironing done, shoes polished,......Its now I realize my only real hobby for the last 15 years has been PMO. Looks like I need to find some new ones again. I have a gym in the basement I never use - time to get back to it it seems.

Spent probably too much time on things that are on the edge of porn if I'm honest. Read a few real stories of former porn stars - a bit dangerous but I will say it gave me a harsh perspective on the people I was using for my own pleasure. The slope is very gradual and slippery.

My best to all.

To borrow a turn of phrase from AA - it works if you work it!

31 days boys. Cravings have dropped to almost nothing now. We can do this guys!

Thanks for sharing your story. This helped me as I am in a similar place.  I am however struggling with whether it's HOCD or bisexuality.  I too am married and until recently my wife never knew of my addiction to PMO. If you don't mind me asking ...how is your partner with the 40% attraction to the opposite sex  in your 60/40 ratio?  Have you acted on that or have you remained 100% Hetero and faithful? 

I struggle with the realization that maybe it's not HOCD - i I am sexually  attracted to my wife however  find the same-sex attractive as well. I've illuminated P from my life for at least nine months now. I do M occasionally. I am not interested in intimacy with the same-sex / kissing hugging etc.  i've been looking at it as being faithful versus not being faithful regardless of whether it's a man or a woman.  This has been getting me through it however I have concerns for my partner that I will never be 100% hetero.  I don't know how other people get through this when their partner knows that they are bisexual.  I like to think it's HOCD but just not ready yet to commit that this is what it is. 

Gottochange,

I was lucky, I told my girl within a few months of starting to date. She was/is OK with it, as long as I hadn't been with any men, which I hadn't. For her, it's about being faithful. We can even talk casually about hot guys.

I've not been totally honest with her- she doesn't know about my PMO issues.

I couldn't imagine intimacy with another man beyond sex while I was using, but now I can see the idea of being with one long term. I'm happy with my marriage, and will be faithful and loving until death, but I can imagine it.

In my opinion, sexual orientation is a continuum, with almost no one at either far end. I know someone who is quite likely gay, but is married to a woman and has two kids, and while he looks happy on the surface, I know him well enough to know he's miserable, using his religious beliefs to convince himself he's straight.

Being honest with yourself and your spouse are the most important things  you can do. Acceptance takes work but feels amazing.

:-\

Well I really didn't see that coming. Counter is reset as of yesterday.

No more than the usual pressures in my life, and a spectacular, reignited sex life with my girl. She even noted that I was like a horny teenager again, which she seems to be enjoying.

And then, it built.  In retrospect, it looked like a bell curve. Lust, then lust and non-porn but arousing images, then open and close a tube site, then use the tube site 4 times in 2 days (right back to the extreme shit I was into) then MO with no P, then no MO.

So I'm back here. 51 days sober and 7 days off the wagon. Sucks but I'm clawing back.

Guys, we all end up here at least once. I really thought it wouldn't happen to me, and that's when it happened.

Had to admit this "out loud" so I can come back to sobriety.

Best to all.