The story behind the addiction

Hi

My name is Kris and I am 39, married and from the UK and this is my story behind my journey to NoFap and beyond.

I wouldn't say I had a terrible childhood or a great childhood, I was an only child from a single parent family and I have few memories of my dad visiting me and when he did it just felt like he was a stranger. I had a functioning mother, she would feed me, dress me and take care of the basics but I never felt love towards her nor did I feel loved. To be liked meant to do something that was approved of, to be good, polite, tidy, to play an instrument or get a good school report. When others are close to their folks it seems a weird thing for me to get my head around.

I think I would have been around three years old when I first discovered how good it felt to touch myself, it felt special, almost magical. This carried on until I first M at the age of about nine or ten and then this became more often until it became a daily thing, usually before and after school and I would say this tied in with being bullied and also the fact that my mother moved us in with a new family so I inherited a step father and two half brothers and everything I had been used to, my school, my friends and where I played out were all taken away. I always felt on the outside regardless of what I was doing, hoping someone would invite me in.

Aged eleven I was caught by my mother. This was a very traumatic thing and where I believe my desire to hide things originated. The response I got was terrifying and she was angry, telling me that and how God was watching and he knew and what I was doing was really bad. That scarred me and I made sure I would never be caught doing it again.

My first pornography was the catalogue and I would sneak upstairs with it and flick through the lingerie section. There was always certain pages I liked, certain images or outfits and from here I progressed onto recording things on TV. Shows such as Eurotrash were a good source of free nudity for a teenage addict such as myself. At 15 we got Sky TV so that gave me more to watch, sneaking down to watch or record free clips of the adult channels or some german tv or film. I also was going and buying VHS tapes of films such as 9 1/2 Weeks and Body Of Evidence. All of this was my first primitive porn collection as a teenage boy.

At 16 I got my first girlfriend and things calmed down a lot. When we finally got to have sex it was like OMG wow I am about to do this and yet I could not orgasm and didn't stay erect for long. This plagued all of my relationships from this point on, the damage was done after only 7 years of such intensive masterbation and basic pornography.

The few years that followed weren't too bad, I entered a few relationships but a common theme may have been wanting to re-enact what I had seen on screen. I wanted to recreate that free to view wet t shirt contest I had recorded by asking my girlfriend to stand in the shower and do it and this is where the lines started to get blurred. When there was more than just normal sex then I enjoyed it more and I started to believe that normal was boring and was just for dull people.

In 1996 aged 20 I got internet access and at the time it was dial up and you paid by the minute although it was a lot cheaper in the evening and weekends. I still ran up bills of over 300 pounds a month, if not more. Even later on when a company offered free access at night and weekends I still had to go on it during the day. One night I stayed up all night, didn't sleep and then went to work and did a full day just so that I could look at the images I wanted to and spend time in chatrooms.

In 1999 I got involved in a four year relationship which was toxic for us both. She pretty much did whatever I wanted and I took full advantage of that and my suggestion was for an open relationship and also that she looked at getting involved in the P industry. She did and she enjoyed it and I felt amazing that i had a good looking girlfriend who was a porn star and yet this still was not enough. I was out looking for other girls to talk to, watching P whenever I could and going back to ex partners behind her back.

This came to an end in 2003 when I met my current partner and from summer that year it became more serious. Much like all new relationships at first it was exciting and interesting but then the P use crept back in and as and when I could do it I did. There was never an issue with this as we had a reasonable sex life but then the P became the driving thing for me as well as getting drunk. As I could not O during sex then my interest in it dropped and I could get my sexual release online through watching P.

The more I was challenged about my behaviour the more I withdrew and started to hide. I learned how to cover my tracks, get history erasers and software that did proper clean ups. Sometimes I got caught out unexpectedly and then it blew up into another row and another fight and I would promise to change and for a while I would do but then the old habits crept back in.

I think about 8 years ago my partner bought me a book on sex addiction and internet use, I believe it may have been Patrick Carnes - Out Of The Shadows, of which I arrogantly took one look at it, declared I do not have a problem and threw it across the room. Not having a problem meant that I was staying up late night, getting up early in a morning, watching it as and when I could, building up a collection on an external HD and getting my partner to help me download P, something she did as she saw that when P was involved our sex life was better so we would watch it together. I would trick and manipulate her into doing this, this is important for me, normal sex isn't enough for me and she obliged me as maybe it helped her.

In 2011 I sought help for my excessive drinking and attending an AA meeting helped me slowly sort out my drinking behaviours and set the wheels in motion for this addiction too. In October 2011 we got married yet by February 2013 we separated for a couple of months as I just wasn't a nice person to be around. I was pretty much off the drink and the P use was regular but not as intensive but it still left me, the person behind and I was just a nasty, unkind, uncaring individual who would lie and trick people to get some breathing space and then when there hoped were built up then I would go back to my old ways. It took a few months apart for me to start to see the extent of my behaviours with this stuff and this is where it started to turn. I had been to the doctors a few times to try and get help with why I couldn't function sexually but they just looked at me blankly, even a sexual therapist couldn't quite explain it but she tried.

In 2014 I tried an SA meeting. I found that too hardcore and I wasn't as bad as them and I just didn't relate to it at all. Not long after that I tried SLAA and that I felt more at home with and have attended regularly for over two years, I found a sponsor and am now doing my step ten work at present. It has brought about periods of sobriety from a few days to my best run of sixty two days but again I was not being honest, I was saying I was doing well when I wasn't. I lived in a land of pretend where if I slipped it didn't matter but this thing of honesty kept prodding away at me and was stopping me building up decent time away from the addiction.

The last few years have not been perfect. The porn use was starting to scare me and the point where I felt most concerned was by how much time I was spending on it, the money I wasted and the life I lost, I once worked out that around two and a half years has been spent just on MO and PMO which is around 6% of my life, just on doing that and I can not get that time back. When I wanted to stop I found that I couldn't, I would promise my wife that morning yeah today I am determined, it won't happen and yet before I know it i'm back on the computer or sat there watching it on my phone.

For me the P use fixed a lot of things. It became a habit, a routine. Masterbation helped me in an unhappy home life, being bullied in school, not fitting in but the P use was something else and I remember all the time lost. Get up as soon as I was on my own, dig out the vodka, log in a chatroom, watch some P, download some more stuff to add to the collection. It was a sad, lonely and awful existence and it wasn't living life, it was about being chained to this stuff. What started as something to help me feel better well and truly had its claws in me and would not let go easily, what made me feel good, what alleviated that boredom, stress, fear or that thing that someone had said or done to me - it lifted all of that. Even when I didn't want to do it I still did it, when I promised I wouldn't I would still be back there.

Today is day 37. This is my third best run so far. It is an honest run too. No slips, no relapses. As I write this I do not want to entertain the idea of going back to the P use ever again although a crazy part of my thinking misses it and wishes that I could watch it like a normal guy, you know the one who might do it once in a while and then not bother again for ages but the truth is that is not me. That is not the effect that this has on me and it became something that I needed to do and that scares me.

Sometimes I do get tempted. Today is one of them days so I am careful about what I do, what better a distraction than to write my story and to share it with you all than to go back and do that again. The thoughts that I get are what harm can it do or just this once, you know you don't even have to tell anyone or that well just MO then, that's better than PMO surely. The thinking still gets a bit off track but I just try and guide it back with love and kindness to myself.

Yes the PIED isn't cured but what I have found is that my sexual desires have returned. I enjoy it more, I can do it in a healthy way, we both enjoy it and I have more sensation and feeling than I have ever had. No, the ability to O hasn't returned and hopefully one day it will but I can also see that there is nearly thirty years of MO and PMO to try and unravel and reprogram. I believe it will happen when the time is right but today isn't that day.

In sobriety from this stuff life just feels better. I take good care of myself, I look after my appearance, how I dress, what I eat (though I do like sweet things!) and I have more time for my hobbies and interests such as watching films, going out for the day and photography. My next aspiration is to get my therapy qualifications so I can help others in a professional way. I struggled to get help with this but I can use my background and training to be able to help others get through this.

Life today isn't perfect but I will end on this. At nearly 40 years old this is the happiest and most content I have ever felt. I do feel well, I do more things, I'm more alert, I'm a nicer person and life is just not the mess it once was. I have less fears and anxiety and although I still struggle around people its getting better.

Thank you for reading my story
K

 

Things are a million times better than they have ever been

 

Correct. Still do it now in my home life and in work

 

I'll try my best!