1. Welcome to NoFap! We have disabled new forum accounts from being registered for the time being. In the meantime, you can join our weekly accountability groups.
    Dismiss Notice

Introduce yourself

Go to the Forum section.

  1. NF4L

    NF4L Fapstronaut

    How did you come to NoFap, and what is your story? Why did you join this group, what do you hope to gain from it?

    It was a couple of days before my counter that I had a Discovery Day with my wife. She found a secret stash of digital porn I had collected and amassed over several years. All of it was original content, ten of thousands of images. I had reescalated my porn use at that time to view it any moment I could on my phone, be it on my commute, while waiting for the bus or train, really all day everyday. The novelty was wearing off, I was not finding new stuff, but still couldn’t stop looking for it. She was thorough in her discovery, and was able to sort of understand how I ended up with my collection. It was then I was able to tell her the truth and admit I needed help and was an addict. I think it took a day or two and we decided to join the forums here at NoFap. I want to say she found it and suggested it. It was something, as I distrust psychologists/psychiatrists/counselors, we also were cash strapped from recently moving into a new home, our first home. I symbollically deleted my collection in front of her the next day, a welcomed purge of my obsession, the start of a life unburdened from P and it’s hold on me. A release from its bonds it had on me. I looked into accountability software, and the myriad of blockers, and everything seemed sub par, or expensive and wouldn’t cut it for my technology work. So we decided to just turn on parental controls. It took a few weeks for me to muster the courage to have a disclosure to her about other things in my stash she didn’t want to believe I put there. I spoke the truth, and let her know the depths of my escalation relating to what was there and what it was and what it meant. I have been P free since day one, no relapses, but know I still have recovery to do, and while our marriage is stronger than ever, and our communication has improved, there is still much work to be done to get out from under the crushing rock I drug us under.

    This brings me to this group. I know my addiction thrives in the dark. It relishes in the denial. It still wants to preserve its way of life over me. While my sobriety has allowed me to see many of the ways it has affected me, it also allows me to see new things, new reasons it still has a hold on who I am. There is always more to do in recovery, it must be a way of life, or we instinctively fall back to our same patterns of behavior we relied on as PAs, or what drove us into the throes of addiction to begin with. I choose connection over disconnection, vulnerability over defensiveness, honesty over secrecy, and love over lust. Part of a continual recovery is giving back to those that need our help. I am here to support you, because I also need your help. We cannot do this alone. I know, i’ve Been there in some fashion or sick way. You’ve probably been there too, and can help me find a way out of the dark hole I put myself in, and extend a hand to pull me out. I will reach for you if you will reach for me. Together we can overcome our struggle and help each other.
     
  2. I saw NoFap mentioned on a P site title beckoning members to stray.
    Saw it earlier in the links as I searched for help with my P use.

    As the Sirens tempted Odysseus on the cover of this group...

    That was my last P dive.

    But I knew I was hooked and trapped on this wheel.
    --------------------------------------------------------------------

    Earlier I had bought the book on Fortify, but that didn't work,
    maybe if I had read it through;
    and later had a heart attack watching P.

    Soon enough I was right back at it,
    in slowly increasing amounts.

    At Nofap and YBOP, I got an understanding of P and its effects on us
    and started sobriety late last December.
    Within a week of that and with a plan of recovery,
    I sat my SO down at the table and told her the outlines
    of what was happening with me.

    She was shocked, but mostly understanding
    and supportive of me so much.
    So I spent my vacation working hard to stay busy
    and in recovery. Reading and posting here.

    Within a few weeks, learned that SAA might also help me
    avoid the white knuckle effects of no PMO,
    so I found a meeting in late January
    and a sponsor in February.

    I have since written out a sexual history as part of step one,
    developed a keen interest in developing a better spiritual condition
    with the religion of my birth as a touch stone.

    Currently, I am writing my 4th step which includes resentments to others
    and reading that to my sponsor who gives me input.
    From this I am learning how I am much the cause of my issues.

    I can control myself far more,
    than the world around me...

    My SO supports me and I give her a living amends as best I can,
    as we grow closer and I am more present.

    So I am here in the group
    for what we can learn as a group
    in service and consultation.
    I can learn from your experiences,
    making our lives with our spouses better.
     
    Otello, drewharbour and NF4L like this.
  3. RecoveringLion

    RecoveringLion Fapstronaut

    146
    373
    63
    My summarized story that led me to NoFap.

    Sexually abused by my older sister as a kid Sometime before 7 years old. Didn’t totally understand it, but knew I had to hide it from everyone for the rest of my life. Introduced to P at age 11. Introduced to M not long later. Quickly became my first love. Grew up in a religious and oppressive household with a narcissistic father and enabling mother. Lust, fantasy, P, M all became my self medicating coping mechanism of choice starting in adolescence and all the way into marriage. For my highest moments, needed PM, for my lowest moments, needed PM. Fantasizing about women w/ M was my default. Was comparatively premiscous compared to my peers and background. Pulled it together towards the end of college. Married my dream girl, did better for a short period, and quickly began to decline back into old coping mechanisms. Started with occasional ish M, then started to let myself fantasize about other women at work and M, then moved, found a new gym, became completely obsessed with a girl, fantasized and M about her, and a few others at the gym often. Started getting lazy about what I looked at on IG, then twitter, then discovered you can find blatant P on twitter easily, then started going to my former favorite site, and watching my favorite videos prior to getting clean. Some sort of lust, viewing, M was happening 2-4x a week, then started looking at new stuff. During this progression, was slowly starting to get into riskier and weirder behavior around M and fantasizing. Finally got found out, slept on the couch for a month, then my journey began. Slipped again 8 or so weeks later, and have been clean since, found NoFap, Just over a year of consistent sobriety now.


    Life is weird now. My marriage is either substantially better, or fucking terrible. Not much in between. Joined a group last Monday. I think its going to help, but in the short term it unearthed a lot of BS that I have been dealing with, which is hard on my wife.

    I have used P, M, Lust, and fantasy to deal with my anxiety and depression most of my life. Its been hard to cope without it. There are still days where I would rather leave than deal with being married and the arduous nature of recovering while in a relationship. I am admittedly selfish and have my fathers narcissistic streak.

    Sorry for the negative tone of this. Today is a rough one.
     
  4. Joe1023

    Joe1023 Fapstronaut

    Hey, everyone! I got married when I was 21, saved when I was 22, and I'm now 42. I ran across my dad’s stash of porn in our basement when I was about 9 or 10. Then I found a video with three porn movies on them and looked at some porn magazines with two of my buddies until I was 18. Then I just bought them myself. Then the internet came around and I hit it HARD. I joined the military and when I was in, took enormous risk by finding whatever the firewall wouldn’t block me from. Shortly after I got out, I got a smart phone, which tripled the amount of time I spent indulging my addiction.

    But, by God’s grace, I’ve been in recovery for over a year now. I attend weekly SA meetings, I have a sponsor, a CSAT, and an AP on NoFap. I had my disclosure date shortly before I started going to SA meetings over a year ago, and things are going well with my wife and I right now. She has been very merciful and understanding. That’s not to say she hasn’t gotten upset, and sometimes seriously mad, but we’ve worked things out, and we’re continuing to work on our recovery journeys together.
     
  5. jaclar2

    jaclar2 Fapstronaut

    9
    4
    3
    I’m a 33 year old married father of one. Made some bad mistakes in marriage 2 years ago and after counseling therapy came to realize I had a porn addiction that led to some other bad choices. Last year has been good but I got complacent and started to let myself slip. Ended up watching porn on Sunday for the first time in a year and a half. I’m not trying to abstain from masturbation but just looking to do it in a healthy manner. I’m hoping this place or maybe an accountability partner can help me keep my addiction in perspective and keep from becoming to complacent again
     
    DeepSeaDiver, NF4L and Tannhauser like this.
  6. Al Beback

    Al Beback Fapstronaut

    30
    79
    18
    Long story short, I ended a 30-year porn habit in December of 2018. Saw what it was turning me into and I quit. Cold turkey. Destroyed tens of thousands of images and videos I had been downloading for 10 years. Immediately entered a recovery program, got the blockers for all my devices, joined a support group, started seeing a therapist. Five months in recovery as of this writing. Told my wife about my porn addiction a week after I ended it, and although that was an extremely painful discussion, my wife has been supportive of my recovery. Side note: Five days after ending my porn habit we found out we are pregnant with our first child. I'm excited and scared to death, LOL.
     
  7. fabian-nico

    fabian-nico New Fapstronaut

    4
    16
    3
    I am 36 years old. Watch porn since twenty years. Long time, it was no big deal for me.
    Last year, I married my girlfriend and found out, that I suffer on PIED which is a hard knock in my marriage. Gladly, I have a wonderful wife that is very understanding. But I know, if I don't get the problem fixed, on day it will lose my wife. So, I am very hopeful being here will help me out of my porn addiction.
     
  8. Stargazerdad

    Stargazerdad New Fapstronaut

    1
    3
    3
    I am 27 years old and have been married for 4 years with a total relationship length of 9 year. I was exposed to sexual content from a very young age due to accidentally coming across a P DVD in my stepdads drawer. Since then I have been going down the slippery slope of PMO for the best part of 17 years until last year my wife found some remnants on an open browser on our iPad. She gave a call about it since I wasn’t home at the time and asked me what it was. I could have gotten away with the “it must be a pop up line” but I decided to take some accountability for my actions and admit I was browsing P. We had a long chat when I got home and the flood gates opened. I had never told anyone about my problem before and had lied several times when she had asked me in the past if I watched P during our relationship. Naturally she was devastated and this revelation rocked the trust of our relationship. I explained to her that it had become a huge part of my life and I was ashamed of that and she was actually very understanding.

    We agreed that I should quit the P and so far I have been PMO free for over a year. Albeit with a bit of edging for the first four weeks. This was mostly due to erotic drawings leading me down the garden path on Pinterest of all places. It took a significant amount of effort to cut out all the non porn content out on my life in the beggining but all In all I have been successful so far. Unfortunately quitting such a huge part of my life so fast triggered significant mental health issues for me mostly revolving around guilt And feeling like a failure.

    For the first few months P free I went through a huge amount of guilt, anxiety and depression related to the types of Porn and porn and perverted acts That I had done to get my kicks and this led to a string of confession like conversations with my wife which helped me but I feel only made her life more difficult living with the knowledge of what I had been doing.

    In the middle of my initial recovery my wife became pregnant with our second child and I can safely say I did not feel stable enough to be a good father which on made things worse for me.

    My second is here now and we are living as a normal family with normal problems. But I still have urges to PMO which I handle successfully. But more challenging is the suppressing the constant urge to confess all of my actions past sins to her over and over.

    I Saw This group and have joined in the hope that I can share my story and hear if anyone has had a similar struggle.
     
    Otello, Joe1023 and Tannhauser like this.
  9. lone_sword02

    lone_sword02 Fapstronaut

    27
    44
    13
    I'm 30 and have been married a couple of years now. I was never what you might describe as a heavy P user, but I had discovered it around the age of 12 or 13 through the early internet pop ups. Raging pubescent hormones probably didn't help and I kept looking into. That was back in the day when I had to have my parents sign on to use the dial-up internet! I kept it hidden and eventually I even used my parent's credit cards to sign up for trials to get past all the paywalls. I did not realize they would start charging when the trial period ended. Needless to say my parents found out and I was punished for it. That stopped things for a while but I would still buy less risky material (SI swimsuit issues anyone?) and M on my own after they went to bed.

    In college I was M all the time, sometimes I would get walked in on by roommates and have to quickly cover it up or pretend I was doing something else. I thought it was just normal for what young, single guys did if they weren't getting laid on the weekends.

    Fast forward to the last couple of years. When my wife and I got married I thought I would end my P use. It worked for a couple weeks, then I thought "what's a little M while she's out, it won't affect anything." I didn't know I was addicted. I didn't know that one session would spiral into M at work, airports, family's houses, or just browsing P while pooping. Not only that but the P I was looking at was getting more and more away from "mainstream." Some people might argue it was just a natural exploration of what I was in to, but I think it was more of looking for something new to stimulate me.

    My wife finally confronted me with the fact that I wasn't as into her anymore and seemed disinterested in sex where I was not previously. She was concerned that I didn't find her attractive anymore. A few days after that, after a lot of trepidation, I told her I had a problem with P and M. She was extremely understanding and asked how she could help. I asked her to help keep me accountable. Long story short it didn't work.

    That's why I'm here. I'm here for the counter, the challenges, the journaling, and the support of everyone else going through this ridiculously hard struggle.
     
    Otello and Tannhauser like this.
  10. I have been married for 15 years. PMO has prevented me for being a good husband in my married sex life.

    I am solely responsible for the situation. My wife expresses her frustration at the situation from time to time, since we can be months without doing it.

    Also, I am not quite sure I have told her I have fantasies about either porn videos I saw, or other women, during intercourse.

    Being a member of SA since last week, I really want that aspect of married life to be healthy.
     
  11. Tannhauser

    Tannhauser Fapstronaut

  12. St3v0

    St3v0 Fapstronaut

    55
    183
    33
    Hi

    I am a 34 year old guy who has been trying to quit porn for the last... I can't even remember how long.

    My journey started very early when I would collect cutouts of girls when I was only around 10 years old. Soon after that my best friend introduced me to porn (it was all fun and games at that age) but I can still remember that day as if it was yesterday. I have a very addictive personality and thus wanted more.

    The curiosity drove me and along with raging hormones and I was never able to get out of porn's grip.

    I thank God that he kept me pure in the sense that I was still a virgin when I got married. I thought that as soon as I got married and was able to be with a real women I wouldn't need porn any more. Boy was I wrong.

    I have been married 8 years now and have two beautiful boys. I decided this 12 days ago that I cannot go on like this. My wife has no idea and I am extremely secretive about my addiction.

    Anxiety and guilt is killing me from the inside and is affecting my memory, concentration and both my relationship with my wife and with God.

    Its been more than 20 years and I say enough is enough, I am standing my ground and with the support and encouragement that I see on NoFap I feel that I can do this!!

    It is now 11 days for me ( normally 7 days was my longest)

    Thanks for the support
     
  13. Tannhauser

    Tannhauser Fapstronaut

    Welcome @St3v0 we are here to help however we can!
     
    Huskerjim likes this.
  14. rebootistough

    rebootistough New Fapstronaut

    2
    3
    3
    Heard about NoFAP on CNN's This Is Life this past week. Found the website on Tuesday (10/29). I know I need help; I've been watching/reading/viewing porn since I was a mid teenager (my dad's stash that he encouraged me to explore), and now I'm 52. Married 23 years. I regularly explore all that pornhub has to offer; currently large digital stash of probably 20-50 Gb of movies.

    My wife is gorgeous, and when we first met, we went at it like rabbits. At least once/night. Once we were married, at least 3 or 4 times/week. After the second child, more like 1x/week. Now we're busy, overworked and overscheduled adults. Up until about 2016, we were having sex maybe 10x/year; she had a medical emergency, and after her recovery (when the doctor told us it was ok to re-engage), she admitted her overall lack of interest in sex (coupled with menopause), and we went to like 2x/year. We even sleep in separate rooms because I snore too much and keep her awake at night. The lack of physical proximity has further lowered her libido, I think.

    Because of my background, I've always been a big porn consumer. I would regularly masturbate, but less so when we were having sex more regularly; the last few years, I've PMOed an average of 1x/day (some days 3-4x; some days 1x; some days not at all). PMO has taken the place of normal sex to satisfy my libido whenever it strikes, but also whenever I'm bored (sound familiar?).

    Wow, that was A LOT of private stuff off my chest. I never even talked about these things with my therapist! I think it's the first time I've ever written/said any of that, and it's been a thorn in my proverbial side for years, a hidden shame I've carried.

    As I mentioned, I saw the CNN Report and was intrigued. My first goal in stopping PMO is to be more intimate with my wife, allowing us to engage in meaningful sex once more. I don't want it to be fantasy sex, where I need to fantasize about the sensations in order to reach orgasm (which had become more common).

    I know it has only been a couple days, but that burn in my loins to PMO has been TOUGH! At least once/day now, I've found myself aroused to the point that I want to grab the computer/phone, watch a video, and get off. But I've restrained myself and struggled while the urge passed. And man, is that urge stronger than I ever thought it could be! I admit that I gave in to watching a couple pieces of videos, but stopped myself from masturbating and orgasming; those viewings somehow helped calm a part of the urge each time.

    I guess the end of this incredibly long missive is that I need a lot of help in rewiring my sexual pleasure centers. I have been incredibly careful with my two sons, not exposing them to anything my father did, and I refuse to show/give them any porn; their exposure will be their own decisions (and I'll be there to answer questions/help them if they find they get addicted). I'm convinced that a big part of my addiction is my early exposure and my father facilitating that exposure and access.

    FWIW, over the years my wife has found some physical stashes of VHS movies or magazines and thrown them away. But I always found something different to scratch the itch (DVDs and now mp4s are much easier to hide).
     
    Otello likes this.
  15. St3v0

    St3v0 Fapstronaut

    55
    183
    33
    Hi @rebootistough, welcome to NoFap. I must say it feels great getting such a load off ones chest. The community here is great and everyone is always willing to help you fight this battle.
    My suggestion is to join a group thats active and the challenges has really helped me stay more on track.
    Best of luck and stay strong!
     
  16. Joe1023

    Joe1023 Fapstronaut

    @rebootistough I think its awesome that you've come here and told your story, so to speak! You've definitely taken a huge step in the right direction! I would highly recommend that you look at joining an SA group. You can find one here: https://www.sa.org/meetings/

    Also, it would be a very good idea to get a sponsor at the SA meeting to help you work the 12 steps. I found a meeting, got a sponsor, and also got a CSAT to work with as well. These are all excellent tools to help work the steps and gain more and more sexual sobriety, and as the SA members call it, progressive victory over lust.

    I wish you the best of luck, my friend!
     
  17. OldSofa

    OldSofa Fapstronaut

    25
    21
    3
    How did you come to NoFap, and what is your story? Why did you join this group, what do you hope to gain from it?

    How?
    I have tried everything online - counseling, marital help groups, whatev. Saw NoFap ages ago, finally got onto it after a(nother) fight with wife.

    Why? What to Gain? Searching for accountability, searching for support. I would also, eventually, like to support others. One thing about having no self-esteem is that you don't get to help others, which is something I always, always wanted to do.

    A Story. Emotionally abused from middle school through teenage years, causing me to be emotionally closed off, as well as longing for both unwavering affection and total lack of responsibility. I used to draw my own P since I was 15, and even then is was all D/s or S/M, most often with me as recipient. Emotional distance makes me unsuccessful in relationships, incl with myself. Got married, felt the old abuse triggers but kept at it. Now married 10+ years and haven't had sex since my youngest's conception (4 years ago). Depression kept getting worse and worse, turn to PM as always, and it just got out of hand as my wife's mental illness started getting worse. Lost my job due to P on a company computer, thought I might go to jail for borderline-underage stuff, considered suicide, most of our money gone due to lawyers/counselors/big move/starting over. Can't forget what I did to my family, can't seem to figure any way my marriage will ever be anything but hellish. Just taking it one day at a time.
     
  18. rebootistough

    rebootistough New Fapstronaut

    2
    3
    3
    Quick update to my original post. Since I posted, I've PMOed a few times, much fewer than I would normally. I'm away for work on my own, and usually during times like this I'd PMO 3-4 times per day in my hotel room. Proud to say that even though I'm not 100% perfect, in four days, I've only PMOed twice. Huge difference, and I think learning about NoFap has been a contributor.

    I hope I can keep tapering off until I am P free.
     
    Tannhauser and Healed! like this.

Share This Page