Advice from a 17 year hardMode Veteran..

Fell off the wagon after 17 (lost count, maybe 16 or 18) years. Back on the wagon.
My advice, fwiw:

1) Sexual addiction (SA) is not the problem. Addiction is not the problem. It is what is happening in your head that makes you grab on to things that are, at least short term, going to make you feel better. Problem is, you can't stay high all the time.

2) We are here because in our heads is junk that makes us feel bad, and our sexual addiction is our way out. No different from an alcoholic, meth-head, gambler, etc.

3) Of all the addictions, sexual addiction is the hardest one to break. Why? Because our entire existence is full of triggers: that waitress in the restaurant, that hot babe walking down the street, the flash of flesh in an ad, TV...and, worst of all, the Net. And for most of us, we work 8+ hours a day on a PC where our addiction is about 10 keystrokes away.

This is why I believe that SA is the hardest one to break. The equivalent for alcoholics would be trying to stay sober when you work in a bar. Or for gamblers, trying to go clean while spending 18 hours a day in a casino. Or meth-heads, keeping straight while there is a meth-lab in the next room. This is why it is **insanely** hard to break.

4) Realize that what is happening chemically when you see a trigger is that a trickle of dopamine flows in to your brain. "Man, she looks HOT." Let me just look at this trigger a bit longer. "Feeling better. Why does it matter if do a little humping, fantasizing...." Soon the dopamine has completely overwhelmed your ability to reason, your self-control, then.....ahhhhhh, release. Dopamine recedes, your back to your old head, with all the horrors of being tortured alive with every breath you take.


5) Like all addictions, and most physical ailments, SA is a progressive disease. Why? Because there is something that happens in your brain called habituation, or tolerance. This is a corollary to ED. You need to keep amping things up to get the same high. You will progress to worse and worse things, until you wake up one day and find your life has been wasted in one way or another....alone and naked in a hotel room, deserted by your family and friends, whatever. There is no happy ending.

6) You need to treat SA like any other disease. This means getting help. This forum is a great way to do it. But recognize that there is a reason for your disease, and that this disease is primarily a flaw in chemistry, not character. Whether due to nature or nurture, there is a chemical imbalance in your brain.

7) There are 2 tools that can help. The first is some form of group therapy, such as this forum, or similar addiction forums, cyber or not. Also, talk therapy with someone who knows the agony of SA can be very helpful. The 2nd tool are the drugs that can help balance the chemicals in your brain. These drugs are not a magic fix, but can help facilitate the process of rehabilitation.

I'm up to 14 days of my next 17 year-long hard-mode reboot.
I can tell you that it can be done.
I can also tell you that it will get easier.

My problem was thinking I had overcome it. But you never do completely. It has been proven that recovered alcoholics cannot have "just 1 drink" without eventually completely relapsing. Same with this disease.

I had forgotten this lesson. It started with just a little porn, then a bit more, then amping it up to 4-hour jerk-offs, then avoiding anything social so I could wank, finally amping things up to the point where I was sending thousands of dollars to a webcam girl in the Ukraine.

No contact possible to flesh can cure the fever in our brains.

Thanks for listening.