I've done it before... It's high time I did it again.

Hey all. I'm Erboinq, an engineer, 26, from Canada. I've struggled with PMOing all my life. As alluded to in the title, I did once successfully quit porn, but I have since relapsed. I've signed up here because I'm fed up and need to give it up for good. People used to say I had a "spark". A natural love of life that was impossible to hide. Well, I haven't felt that spark in a long time. And much of the reason why comes down to PMOing.

Long story short, before I stopped doing porn, my life was shit. Then I stopped, and lo-and-behold I was happy and life was perfect. Then I relapsed and now life is shit again.

And now here's the long story long. You don't need to read it. It's guaranteed to be the epitomy of TL;DR. But it's something I've never talked to anyone about and I think it'll be huge help to me if I just put it out there.

So here it is...

I was first exposed to porn at the age of 12, and it wasn't long before it became a daily habit. I was a shy guy, basically afraid of girls, and porn was my outlet. In my late teens I was PMOing up to several times a day. And with huge sessions as well. Hours and hours of every day dedicated to PMOing. I would go home at lunch, PMO, then go back to school. I wasn't unhappy at this time, but I wasn't happy either. Nor did I realise the effect PMO was having on me. I did feel as though I should quit, but I really didn't care enough to put an effort into doing so. I felt like a failure and didn't expect to amount to much. I could be allowed this one pleas

After a decade of regular porn use, I finally quit porn in March of 2009, at the age of 21. It wasn't something I planned or even intended to do. It sort of happened without me realising it. There was a catalyst, of course: a girl. I never did date her, but I was head over heels in love with her none-the-less. For the first time I was obsessed with a real human rather than the pictures on my screen. Naturally, I wanted to impress her, and I took up new hobbies and interests in order to do so, which I believe was the key ingredient. Slowly the porn dropped away without me even realising it.

Without my PMO time, I had a lot more time, and so much more interest in spending that time trying new things, learning, enjoying life. I grew up a huge amount in this period. I was still shy, but in a short period of time I became more talkative, more approachable, less irritable, and far kinder. Friends and family universally remarked how much I was changed, though they didn't know the reasons why. My circle of friends grew, people seemed to enjoy being around me more, and naturally gravitated towards me. I started talking to girls, something I had never been able to do up to this point. At 22 I dated a girl for the first time. She was even more amazing than the other girl. Friendly, outgoing, extraordinarily intelligent, and, naturally, dropdead gorgeous. The kind of girl I would swear doesn't exist if I hadn't met her. I was soon in love, and the few months I spent with her were the happiest of my life. Porn couldn't have been further from my mind, and I rarely bothered to masturbate. I did realise though just how beneficial it was to me to not have porn in my life. With nearly a decade of porn use under my belt, I felt like I was now a free man. I vowed never to go back to porn.

But things changed. She lost interested in me, and I grew frustrated. Disappointed. A moment of weakness and my streak was snapped in July of 2010. I think everyone here knows what it feels like to have a streak snapped. Especially a long one. Well after 16 months, that was one gigantic feeling of failure, let me tell you.

Angry at myself, I tried to get back on track. I had streaks of five days here, seventeen days there, a month every so often, but I never managed to return to my previous porn-free lifestyle that I had so much enjoyed and during which I felt so complete and happy. For a year or two I continued this way, sometimes having good spells, sometimes bad. I probably averaged 1 or 2 PMOs a week during this time. I tried all sorts of things during this period, setting up timers, posting notes around my computer, installing porn filters on my computer, but nothing led to a permanent return to that wonderful pornfree lifestyle. At this point, I was working at a job that I didn't really enjoy all that much, and as I increasingly felt down about it, my PMOs increased to 3, 4 times a week.

I switched jobs in June 2013, but my new job was even less enjoyable than the previous one. In August 2013, I snapped and spiralled into depression. My PMOs started to become daily, often more than once a day. But it wasn't just the frequency. It was the time. What had been half-hour sessions a month earlier suddenly lengthened to 2-, 3-, even 4-hour sessions. I stopped doing the things I enjoyed. My typical evening consisted of a 2-hour PMO session followed by an hour or two of television (at my best I barely watched an hour or two of television a week, let alone a day). I stopped running, I stopped reading, I stopped living my life. I was simply no longer engaged in my life. This, of course, resulted in me sinking even further into depression. I felt dead inside. Nothing had a purpose, everything was a chore. I didn't even want to PMO, but I did anyway because it filled a void. It was a way to tick away the moments that made up the dull days. I simply had no motivation to do anything else. This only reinforced the problem. Man, I was in a bad spot last fall, trust me.

Things did improve, though. I started to begin the climb out of depression after Chistmas. I took up the guitar, which cut into my PMO time. In April I decided that my life needed a major shake-up. I quit my job and I'm currently travelling with the aim of settling in a different country. Travelling is a good way of reducing those PMOs. With so much to see and do, your mind doesn't get a lot of time to stray. And not being in your own home makes it difficult to find the privacy to PMO (I don't have a data phone specifically so I can't bring it into the toilet with me). I'm down to 1 or 2 PMOs a week, which is not great, but a definite improvement over before. I'm already feeling happier. I'm exploring a new country and new interests.

But I know I can do better -- that I can feel far, far better than I do now. Which is why I want to return to my porn-free lifestyle. I also want to cut out masturbation, perhaps not permanently, but definitely until I feel alive again. I'm hoping to properly settle down again soon, and give things a fresh start. When I do, I'm seriously inclined to not have Internet in my home -- it's a time waster, and where there's Internet, there's porn.

I know how to do it, but I have to put it in action. So here I am. Wish me luck.

 

Thanks FNM!

You're very right how it can be so tempting during a down period. It's amazing how different your point of view can be when your down compared to when your happy and engaged. I find a lot of the time when I turn to porn in moments of weakness, I start to think "it's not such a big deal", "just once won't hurt", "I'm a man, this is perfectly natural", even "I don't care". Even though I'm fully aware of how disappointed I will be afterwards.