I’ve pretty much hit rock bottom and come to the conclusion that I can’t stay on my current trajectory. It’s already cost me one, if not two, relationships, and I’m tired of dating on hard mode. I’m worried I might be too far gone, so it would be immensely helpful to hear from someone who’s been in the same place and managed to turn things around.
I can manage a week or two with the power of self loathing but once the urges come back I’m really, and I mean really good at coming up with excuses.
With any addiction or habit you want to change the most important part is not expecting it to just be done with, however hard you try. If you want to stop looking at porn all the time, then becoming someone who struggles with porn, and still breaks every couple of weeks is a big step. If you can keep that up for a longer time you might start being someone who breaks every three weeks and so on. What’s tempting is to say “I can’t do it, so why even try” and just give up.
Also, it’s up to you why you want to stop a habit like that. Being conscious of your reasons and motivations can make it a postive step (whcih is easier to motivate) rather than just something you’re preventing yourself from doing. When I was giving up smoking, it was helpful to think about postivies (breathing easier, having more energy, not stinking of smoke) because when I felt stressed and wanted a smoke telling myself “no you shouldn’t” wasn’t motivating.
It can also be helpful to identify the steps that lead up to a difficult decision point. If you’re not wanting to look at porn, but you find yourself thinking “but I’ll just look up some innocent pictures of blahblahblah, that’s not porn, that’s okay” and then suddenly you’re in a situation that requires much more willpower to not fall down the rabbithole.
Good luck!
That’s kind of the point why I made this thread. At this point the upsides are mostly hypothetical. I have good reason to believe there are positive changes down the road but I lack the evidence and that competes with a fatalistic view that I was “born this way” or that I’ve permanently damaged myself through decades of increasingly excessive porn use. I get that too much is too much, and there’s obviously no downside to cutting back other than how difficult it is, but when the tough times hit it would be reassuring to know there’s light at the end of the tunnel.
The porn-seeking is your maladaptive mood-regulator.
So if you want to change your behaviors or the way you feel about them, you need to change the way you think and feel inside.
Which means stop focusing on the behavior, and start focusing on the underlying feelings which provoke the behavior. I do strongly suggest therapy, because it’s an emotional thing that’s happening which leads to your useage.
Yeah, depression and loneliness are two classic culprits. Even if OP went cold turkey and kept it up, without dealing with the root cause they’re prone to abusing something else instead like video games, religion addiction, exercise addiction, or maybe even substances. And I know some people will say religion and exercise aren’t that bad to get addicted to, but much like porn and video games, the dose can make the poison. This is lemmy so I assume people understand how harmful people can be when they’re too into their religion. I have a relative who has to go to the gym to avoid panic attacks, and physical overexertion can lead to serious injury.
Not an expert nor have I got my monkeys off my back but I would like to say watch out for this type of thinking. I have heard that addiction can be genetic but what is empowering is the opposite is true about how our minds can change once we have changed our situations. I’m referring to something called the elasticity of the mind. And I don’t just mean metaphysically. This is a measured change in the brain. So if you are looking for positive affirmations to keep you going this is a difficult one to realize because you do not even yet know how different you can be. But just try to imagine how exciting that is? Good luck.
I’d agree with the other poster that maybe setting moderation goals would be a really good first step. I guess it depends if you’re aiming for less masturbation, less porn, or less specific types of porn. And it depends on what level you currently find problematic.
For some people the problems with the addictivness of porn are linked to the dopamine hits of modern Internet porn, searching for the perfect thing, changing to newer / different stuff frequently. The a first step might be to continue to use porn when you need to, but your only allowed a single fairly tame video that you’ve downloaded. Eventually it’ll feel boring and you’ll it’s not really just porn your craving, it’s the whole dopamine hunt.
It’s why vapes work so well for many people in giving up smoking. Nicotine is physically addictive and hard to resists, but also just getting your nicotine without all the other fun parts of cigarettes quickly makes it feel less tempting. It’s much easier to give up something meh than something you’re obsessed with.
What I believe excessive porn use has done to me is that sex has become uninteresting even when it’s available, and I also have physical problems performing when I “force” myself to it. These bad experiences then further reinforce my negative associations with sex, which in turn makes me even less interested in trying the next time. I don’t feel that “mundane arousal” throughout the day - I don’t even know what it means to be horny without physical stimulation. I’ve always felt this way, but it has gotten worse over time (I’m in my mid-thirties now). I can’t know for sure whether it’s all due to porn or if porn just makes it worse, since my porn use preceded my first sexual experiences with another person. If it’s something I was born with, then there’s simply no fixing it even if I cut out porn entirely, but since I can’t know that, I don’t see any other way forward than to try and change the things I can change and see if there’s any improvement.
And I just want to highlight that when I say excessive porn use, I really mean it. I can literally waste 8 to 12 hours on it and then do the same again the next day. Even if I watched porn for an hour every single day it would still be a massive improvement (but I’m intending to do better than that).
Yeah I think I can relate (late 30s). Once in a while everyone wakes up in the shower questioning wtf they are doing, right? Since you are free to do whatever but that doesn’t make you happy do you have an answers as to why that is? I had a similar but different situation and if I break it down for me it is: no interest in improving who I am because I can just keep going on games, weed and porn. At some point I realized how much time i waste with games, and that broke like a core thing that I used to enjoy. And with porn it is similar. I can see that masturbating 1-2h before starting the day adds up to a lot. Getting out of that took time and if you’ve come to this point I think you are on a good way if you keep working on it. For me part of the solution that I was holding back because I thought my partner wouldn’t be comfortable if I’d be more open about what I’d be willing to try. And that’s fine. But made me miserable for years. Like ‘I don’t hear music in my head anymore’, which is fixed now but was broken for a shockingly long time.
What made the change? I saw an ad for ‘locktober’, and thought ‘for someone not into chastity you sure have an awful lot of uncomfortable cheap cages. Yet you never considered this challenge’. Can I allow myself to do something considered humiliating and dumb, but for ‘fun’? I guess probably maybe. I started to say yes to more things that are good but uncomfortable for me. Like going to the gym. I almost died on the treadmill but very good level of hurt 5/5 👍. I try to use less social media and dgaf about news because I’m not being paid to keep up with all this bullshit. I mostly play chess on my phone these days to kill time. I have one active hobby that’s fuelling my adhd right now(pottery). I fail often and I don’t know for how long I can keep this up.
And now that I’ve written this up I see that it’s a couple of small changes and not just me thinking ‘I can do locktober easy, I’ll start tomorrow’.
I wish you all the best and that you can figure out something drives you. Seeing a therapist certainly accelerated my process and I would recommend it if you’ve never tried it. Just saying
Did you actually go for locktober in the literal sense of the term or is that just what sparked the idea?
I often thought that if my partner had been more into femdom we could’ve easily turned this challenge into play. Like I said, I’m really good at coming up with excuses for myself when things are up to me but I’m equally good at keeping my promises to other people. I would’ve gladly handed the key in both figurative and literal sense to someone else and have them decide for me. It’s too late now unfortunelately but I’m not sure if it would’ve worked on the long run either way. While the source of the issue with our sex life was undoubtly me there’s no denying that an overall sexual incompatibility played a role as well. It’s not easy to be a dominant looking guy who aint one. I can only hope I have better luck with the next one.
I guess I’m training for it. But yeah seeing a listing on fetlife and playing it through my head and then telling my partner that I’ll fuck around and find out. Learning how to communicate and talk about thoughts/needs/wants takes time and is not something that people casually talk about. Which is why so many people are forever unhappy. I think there’s a small redemption bonus in relationships for at least trying to make an effort to not make the situation actively worse ;)
My favorite work on the subject: https://thelastpsychiatrist.com/2011/02/hes_just_not_that_into_anyone.html
That’s a really good article
You’re struggling with moderating dopamine seeking activities. Porn is the specific one, but carelessness can easily lead to others being the target.
Any activity you can’t regulate will have a deleterious effect on your life. So my question is what do you want to do with that time and effort?
I’m no expert in this. Maybe it’s possible to moderate your use without eliminating it entirely. They say you can’t do that with drugs and alcohol (if you’re an addict), but this may be different.
What’s probably most useful is to find other things you like to do instead. Perhaps you just lack other interests, and that’s why you spend so much time on one thing. You could try developing competing interest(s).
People can become addicted to food, too, but clearly can’t stop entirely. There are comparisons.
That said, I’d say this is more like work addiction or shopping addiction where stopping completely for a time is possible while you detox, then see what feels right about reintroducing healthy versions in a safe way.
Probably so. As with anything, the dose makes the poison.
It’s not that I don’t have other interests or things to do. I think porn (and weed) are ways to escape uncomfortable feelings in my life rather than dealing with them. It also kind of numbs me or makes me lethargic/passive, since I go for the quick and easy reward for low effort rather than the other way around. I don’t even get the same enjoyment from it as I used to, so I just keep upping the dose hoping for the same reward, but I don’t get it - yet I keep doing it.
I think it may be easier to do if you mentally frame it as something you’re putting away until you’re in a place to be responsible with it. When you feel you may be ready for it again imagine what responsible use would look like, maybe only when you want sex but its infeasable (partner or you are tired, date went poorly, etc).
You may want to do similarly with weed.
Giving up something you like permanently sucks, its why so often people keep drinking until they absolutely have to quit, when if a few years earlier they’d taken a few months off and set some rules for themselves before starting again they may be able to keep doing it.
Also as you’re learning to deal with boredom and emotions look up some dbt or cbt resources they help control your emotions by being aware of them and by learning distress tolerance
You just described addiction as a mental condition. People can use anything as an unhealthy coping mechanism. It sounds like you’ve probably correctly identified it as an addiction. Now you can treat it like one.
I think I’ve heard addiction described somewhere as a behavior you keep doing even when you stop getting the good feeling from it, so yes - I’d say it’s definitely an addiction/compulsion.