Hit bottom and finally admitted I have a problem

After almost 40 years as a fapper I've finally admitted to myself that I genuinely have a problem.
My girlfriend recently left me after 3 years together. She left me on my 50th birthday. We had been planning a whole life together, kids in a few years - and then she just out of the blue told me she didn't feel the same way about me any more.
I can't entirely blame her. While she didn't explicitly name my porn use and it's side effects (inability to maintain an erection with her) as one of the causes, I'm pretty darned sure it was a factor. My girlfriend was some 20 years younger than me with more than a passing resemblance to Kiera Knightley, and seriously into kink so up for anything I wanted - yet I was still going back to porn.
I work from home and my job gives me huge amounts of flexibility so it's not uncommon for me to lose 4 or 5 hours a day fapping. I always just put it down to being a habit, but of course my tastes in porn have got increasingly extreme over the years.
And if I'm honest with myself this isn't the first time my porn use has caused me relationship or life problems.
Twice - at two different companies - I've been cautioned due to porn being found on my work computer - fortunately I never lost my job but it was a close-run thing.
5 years ago escalation of porn use to Webcam girls was the final nail in the coffin of my marriage of 12 years. Again, I am certain it wasn't the only issue but it brought everything else to a head.
At that point I was already in therapy having just gotten over testicular cancer, and while my therapist suggested a porn/sex addiction issue, rather than take that seriously and address it I chose not to fight for my marriage. Instead, got divorced, quit therapy and exploded into what I can only describe as a full on sex addiction binge, seeing dozens of escorts over the following year or two. I calculated that I spent more than £12k on prostitutes during that period.
Eventually, I ended up having a 9 month relationship with one of my regular escorts who I gradually got to know as we seemed to genuinely hit it off. I found out that she'd been pushed into prostitution because of ill health and financial hardship and I gave her a way out. I met her family who already called me "son-in-law", and we talked about having kids. After 6 months she moved in with me, but then the problems started.
I was obviously still sex addicted, but for her - after two years of having sex with guys she really didn't want to - it should have come as no surprise that she had a few hangups about sex. So when the sex slowed down to what would have probably been healthy for a normal couple - once or twice a week - rather than sympathising I felt rejected.
If that had been the only issue maybe we'd have stuck at it - but she was dealing with her problems by drinking heavily and refused to seek help. I guess I can see the irony of it now - I was addicted to sex and she was addicted to booze, we both needed help and wouldn't admit it. I just couldn't see it at the time.
So instead, we split up - we remain friends and she's now happily settled down with a daughter of her own. Still, I can't help but look at her daughter and think of another life that could have been.
Anyway - how did I get here? I've been depressed and struggling to deal with the breakup from my last girlfriend, and as ever fapping every day. Then I started seeing escorts again - I had lined up to see a former regular this afternoon, and another girl next weekend, but on Thursday this week I went to an escort for the first time since the breakup and couldn't maintain an erection. This was a very sexy young woman but I just couldn't stay hard.
As I mentioned - this isn't the first time this has happened - I'm a 50-year-old guy and had just put my occasional ED down to my age. I'd never really made the connection to my porn use.
I have a supply of ED medication and I'd taken one before meeting this girl "just in case". But even with ED medication, I couldn't stay hard. I ended up having to wank to finish. I could have stayed home and saved myself £150.
When I left and got to the elevator I just started crying.
I'd been talking about all of this with my best friend - and he mentioned this book "Your Brain On Porn". I started reading it last night and the penny dropped. I finally realised that I had a serious porn addiction and could suddenly see the connection between all of these strands in previous relationships and other problems that I've had over the years.
I've been in denial. It might be a bit harsh to say that porn has ruined my life, but it's certainly contributed to some pretty bad situations and to ending some very important relationships. At 50, this last relationship may have been the last chance I could have had to have kids - so yeah, maybe it has ruined my life. Time will tell.
Anyway - that was it, last night I guess I hit bottom. I deleted the 5 terabytes of porn off my home PC, cancelled the two escort bookings I had lined up, signed up here and am now in recovery.
Sorry for the long introduction, once I got started I couldn't stop!
Wish me luck!

 

Thanks!

The irony for me is that I'm no stranger to addiction - I've dealt with addictions of one form or another all my life. When I think about it I can trace a chronology of being addicted first to food, then video games, porn was my third addiction, then I went on to cigarettes, booze, pot, and dabbled with a lot of other drugs (LSD, ecstasy, coke, magic mushrooms) - fortunately none of the harder drugs were really addictive to me.

Video games was the first / easiest to lose, but it took me 10 years to quit cigarettes and pot. That was 20 years ago now. 2 years ago I quit booze, and last May I broke my addiction to food thanks to Intermittent Fasting - lost 50lbs so far and still 50 to go.

But while I've been busy patting myself on my back for breaking all of these addictions what I hadn't realised is that in reality, all I've ever done is switch from one addiction to the next. As I've dropped one addiction it's just meant I rely more on the others.

So the good news is I'm no stranger to dealing with addiction, and I'm quietly confident I can deal with this just as I did the others, and I dealt with those one day at a time - hopefully this will be no different.

But I guess the scary thing is that porn is the last one on the list and finally it means I'll have to find healthier ways to deal with the underlying issues that caused me to get addicted in the first place. Whenever I feel anxious or depressed my addictions were a key part of my coping mechanism, and now I'll have to cope without any of them.

Oh and just to say - 69 is the year I was born so it's honestly just a habit for me to put it as a suffix on user names when the original name is taken. I didn't even think about it! But yes I have always been a fan of the 69 for other reasons, which I can see is inappropriate in this context!

 

Thanks for the warm welcome!

The good news for me is - as I mentioned above - I'm not entirely a stranger to addictions - I guess I'm just frustrated that for so long I was aware of my other addictions and even a bit smug about how easily I dealt with them once I became aware of them. And yet I had a complete blind spot for this one which has been causing me bigger problems.

But like you, I haven't been very good at loving myself - so I need to cut myself some slack and stop being so hard on myself!

The good thing is we're aware of it now. And I like what you say about reconstructing yourself. For a long time I haven't liked myself so now is my opportunity to say "who do you want to be?", and reconstruct myself as someone I actually do like and can be proud of.

Like you say, having some healthy habits to replace the unhealthy ones will be critical. I do have a lot of healthy habits that I can focus on, many of which I've let fall by the wayside even though I've always wanted to spend more time on them.

I used to do a lot of exercise and set myself personal fitness challenges. This last week to take my mind off my breakup I'd already started back up with a body weight strength training regime, and restarted yoga. I also love to swim and cycle so will be getting back into those. I just have to watch out as exercise can become an unhealthy addiction for me as well. In the past, I've often trained myself right into injury!

I used to draw a lot and that's something I've just started to get back into.

And I've been improving my French - I've had a bucket list goal to learn another language fluently and I spend most of my vacations in France so this is definitely a healthy habit that I can focus on.

But I'll tell you what has been the biggest help for me so far has been getting into meditation. I've wanted to get into this for a long time but always found excuses not to make the time. I started practising just last Monday and it's been a real eye-opener. Just becoming aware of my own thoughts has really taught me a lot about myself, and helped me to start to ignore the negative chatter in my head. When I feel stressed and anxious it helps me calm down a lot.

So right now I'm feeling quite positive, I have lots of positive things to focus on - of course, it's easy to talk the talk, and now I just have to keep walking the walk, one day at a time.

 

Hi Jake, thanks.
And yes, I think meditation is really helpful in lots of situations.

3 months sounds a long time - I genuinely have no idea what the longest is that I've not fapped before - I think maybe a couple of weeks when I had surgery one time!

But given how long I've been fapping and porn-addicted I have a suspicion it will take me quite some time to fully recover - I'm anticipating at least 6 months to really see the benefits based on what I've been reading. But I'll just take it one day at a time.

 

Thanks Jim,

I'm genuinely very positive - I've dealt with addictions before and so I know I have the tools to overcome this, no matter what.

So far I'm finding reading other people's stories very inspiring and encouraging and it definitely helps to have some support as you say - so I just put my first post in the 40+ journal section a minute ago.

I am someone who likes to think and reflect and writing about what I'm thinking and feeling always helps me. Even if I can be a bit long winded!!

 

Thanks - and congratulations on 95 days! You Are Awesome!!

That's a good point - if it takes me 6 months to get over the worst when compared to the years I've spent (mis-spent) fapping - then that's really just a drop in the ocean.

I took exactly that view when I finally beat my food addiction last year - I had 100lbs to lose, but gave myself a year. I knew a year was a manageable amount of time, and would only mean I have to lose on average 2lbs a week which I was confident of doing. And I also knew that after that year I'd have the rest of my life to enjoy the benefits. I lost the first 50lbs bang on target in 6 months, but then hit a few bumps in the road - Christmas proved challenging, and then I started having problems in my relationship, but all that has done is delayed things - I haven't moved forwards but also I haven't stepped backwards. This week is the first week I've been back on track properly and I lost 6lbs this week! When I'm focused on something I want to achieve I know I'll always get there, even if not always in the timeline I originally set!

And thanks for the compliment abut self-insight - I do generally consider myself to be someone who's insightful - but at the same time I know from experience I can be dumb as a brick and have obviously had a total blindspot around my porn addiction. I definitely won't start patting myself on the back too hard just yet.

It has certainly been eye-opening to examine my relationship to addiction over the years - something I just did (at tedious length) in my first post over in my journal. I always knew I had some addictive tendencies, but when I really look at my life through that lens it's brought everything into sharp focus.

Anyway, it's still very early days for me, I'm literally just two days in and haven't had any fap cravings to deal with at all yet. So far so good but I'm sure there are some challenges ahead and I look forward to discovering them and figuring out how to deal with them. I'm genuinely excited about this because now that I've seen the pattern I have around addiction, and understand the origin of that, I can see that I can finally get past all of those patterns and addictions and be fully healthy. That's certainly something worth fighting for.

 

Thanks David,

It's been very good writing this down - it's really helped me put things in perspective and hepled me understand how I got here - because without understanding how I got here it will be harder figuring out where I want to go.

The YBOP book led me here and I'm still working through that - just over half way through now. But today I've spent most of my time reading the websites and forums which has definitely given me some insight, and of course writing my first posts which has been really cathartic.

One thing I've always been really good at is setting myself challenges and achieving them. Regardless of how hard things get I hate to quit at anything I set my mind to so I'm confident I'll get there.

This is still all new to me though in that - I've NEVER had a nofap period before other than medically enforced! I think the longest I've ever gone without fapping is a couple of weeks, maybe a month - probably in the very early stages of a new partner moving in with me when we've been shagging so much there hasn't been time to fap!

But this time there'll be no fapping or sex. As I'm single (and still kinda heartbroken about that) I've decided I'm just going to go completely cold turkey and see what happens.

I think the longest I've ever gone without either sex or fapping is 2 1/2 weeks when I had surgery for my testicular cancer so this could be an interesting experiment for sure.

 

Well, it's been a slow process - figuring out and dropping each of my addictions one by one. This last one is clearly the most insidious as it completely blind sided me. I used all the same arguments that I'm sure everyone here does - it's perfectly natural, even healthy to masturbate, and to have a healthy "fantasy life" through porn. Completely ignoring the escalation through soft porn, to harder, working up through various fetishes to the more extreme / taboo stuff and then for me going on to live webcam girls and escorts. All the while calling it normal and healthy!

When I finally admitted to myself this was no different to my past problems with cigarettes, booze, drugs and food - then suddenly I was able to see the links between past relationships and recognise where PMO has really messed up things for me.

It's a bitter pill to swallow - at 50 I kinda feel that I've wasted the best years of my life lost in addiction. But what fills me with hope is that - despite being lost in addiction I've managed to build an amazing career and form some amazing relationships.

So there's no point in dwelling on things that can't be changed, just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and hope that - once I finally get the last of these damned monkeys off my back and get clear of addiction and compulsion - there are still even better opportunities out there waiting.