Chatrooms are my nemesis as well. They are insidious not just cause they feed my porn addiction, but because they suck up so much time. Doubly bad for me!
Honestly when I first came to this site, chatrooms were my biggest problem. I can't remember the last time I got on the internet to just look at pics of porn. Nope- my porn was always chatroom sex. And it IS porn. Porn isn't just pics or videos online. There are so many forms porn can take, and chatrooms are definitely one of them. If you are trying to quit PMO, i highly recommend that you quit all chatrooms with sexual content as well.
Chatrooms are my weakness too. That and Skype voice calls. Chat in one browser window, porn in the other. As soon as I'd hear my wife leave in the morning, I'd jump on the computer. Going on 14 days without now, but was very tempted today when she went shopping. Me being alone in the house for a long period of time is a big temptation. Still hanging strong, but the urges are killing me.
This is my biggest trigger too. I work from home a few days a week. There is almost a thrill I feel when my wife leaves and I know I will be alone for hours.
I'm in agreement with you all. Chatrooms add a whole new dimension to porn. You can interact with a live person on the other side of the screen, so to speak. It adds the thrill of no longer just being in your imagination anymore. For that reason, I hate them. They're my weakness too.
I resolved at the start of my reboot never to close the blinds, to go outside right after getting up (so you could say right after your wife leaving the house), and to do something productive (e.g. empty and reload the dishwasher, vacuum the living room) within two hours of waking up. The last two I need to get back to making a point of, I think. Anyway, those helped get me on a good track when alone in the house. My wife left, so I was alone all the time.
And the hours wasted finding the "right" partner ... and on the ones that you thought were going to get you there, but didn't feed the need for novellty, sending you back to the start of the search all over again, before you finally, and almost invariably unsatisfactorily, finish and "oh shit ... it's Tuesday now!?" Wow I was a sad excuse for man.
I agree. It is important to identify those triggering moments -- for me, when my wife leaves for work -- and have a specific plan for what one is going to do instead. Mine involves prayer, writing my journal on here, then showering and dressing by a specific time. Jumping right into the plan makes it less likely I will lapse immediately. And getting past that trigger time in the morning makes it much less likely I will lapse later in the day.
House cleaning has been a good substitute for me as well. It will come in handy with the holidays coming up.
By chatrooms. Do you mean rooms where you chat with random people seeking out girls/guys? Or something else?