My journey and what I have found

I wanted to share my journey for getting rid of this addiction, in hopes that some of you will be able to learn from me and find your own answer. I have read many of other people’s accounts that contributed. This is my way of saying thanks to all the people whose posts I have read. I will not delve too deeply into my story, but rather communicate the most important parts. My main goal is to help you reach that next level, which maybe is the light at the end of this tunnel.

A lot of us can relate to the story of starting young by finding some magazines from some adults. Then progressively this escalates to internet pictures and so on. Since your peers also engage in this behavior and people who say it is bad but themselves do it. You think there is nothing wrong with it. Since you are young you do not know any better and with limited self-consciousness you most likely will not realize even why you do it.

At first, I thought that I found the answer when discovering the nofap and ybop community. If I just abstain and do all the good things mentioned. For example, sports, healthy diet, adapting growth mindset, and many more. These things in itself are very good and anyone regardless of addiction or not should participate in. But there was always sort of a gap, I felt something was missing. A lot of people also expressed that this is a first step but not the answer. However, I never got any kind of idea what that could mean from reading these posts.

It took me a long time to find the actual answer. It also required a lot of effort and perseverance. I paid with the most intense emotional pain I have experienced in my life, but in the end it was worth it. The answer finding happened when I was stuck at sort of being okay, but certain behaviors would hold me back from being where I should. Intense craving would not go away no matter how long I have abstained.

I have found the compulsion for this sexual behavior was stemming from my main addiction. Which was about recreating my childhood behavioral dynamics in my adult life. The porn addiction was born when I used it to cope with my emotional issues. Because as a child/teenager I was incapable to cope with what I experience with my family and turned to alcohol, weed and porn. The only addiction that stuck with me was porn. I might have been predisposed to it. But inevitably you would find something to be addicted to in this kind of environment.

Specifically, the problem was addiction to the emotional roller coaster. Where you do not know where you stand in certain close relationships. One moment everything is fine, your expectations are being built, you fantasize about good things happening. Then it all comes crashing down when you get treated like trash. Until I realized this dynamic, I was unconsciously recreating it with people around me, especially girls I was romantically interested in. Everything from choosing a specific kind of girl to enabling certain behaviors in them was all my doing. The crushed dreams would be drowned in my dearest of vices.

To realize this fact I had to see my family for who they were, open up my old emotional wounds and then let them go. Upon realizing this I was able to stop seeking out these dynamics in my social environment. The effect was profound. Urges have seized immediately, on the condition I do not engage with people and scenarios that cause me the emotional roller coaster. In other words, being sexual was not the issue. For example, seeing good looking girls in real life or pictures does not cause this compulsion. I just feel sexual and desire to engage in some way to release it. At the same time, I feel no need to do it so it feels totally fine to just leave it.

I have not figured it out completely, because I still might come home and feel the urge to watch or fap. But by pondering and applying this knowledge I can pinpoint what during the day has caused me to feel this way. It makes it easier to disarm the need, making it look pointless and unworthy of me doing something like this over it. Furthermore, I know next time what is good and bad for me, for example which people and what in their or my behavior caused me to feel this way.

Hope this helps to realize something about yourself that you have been missing, I know finding your own answer is not easy, but I can tell you it is possible, and it is out there. So just keep searching.