New Here. Obviously...

The fact that you acknowledge you are PMO addicted is huge. A lot of guys, myself included, went years thinking porn was just an amusing little habit, a stress reliever, but harmless. Until we understand the seriousness of the problem it is hard to quit it because we do not understand that to quit porn we have to actually totally QUIT it. To beat PMO we have to quit playing with porn; porn is something that has to be put down completely, walked away from, and never played with again. Porn is seeing it, watching it, imagining it, remembering it, fantasizing about it, and using porn substitutes. A friend of mine once accused me of living a "porn lifestyle" which I thought was ridiculous until I took a serious look at my life and realized how much porn, viewing porn, thinking of porn, and PMOing were integrated into my life. Your experience is not unique. I think that in the years to come our society will realize that porn addiction is everywhere, and that a lot more guys have it than currently know it or even accept the concept. I don't know how educated you are on the topic of porn addiction, but a video I found helped me, and so I post it here alot:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_RIm9ZMN1I

It helped me to understand my brain's chemical reward center had come to reward porn over real sex by the repeated release of dopamine. Porn, unlike real sex, represents, to my brain's reward center, and endless, limitless, array of sexual partners, and thus an endless reward of dopamine. That's how and why we become addicted. Our brain, at that level, is rewarding something that is not real but endlessly rewardable because it cannot tell truth from fiction. Sure, you and I know the difference, but the circuits in that part of our brain see porn exactly the same as sex, and sex is to be rewarded as a means of promoting the species. It is a very powerful drug, dopamine. The thing is, our brains did not evolve in the presence of high speed internet porn and consequently rewards it the same as sex.

Your words on porn getting "darker and more dirty all the time" are explained in the video. We love the experience of dopamine release. Once our brains become addicted to it, however, just regular pornography is not enough. Our brains get used to it, and it wants something darker and more dirty. Some guys even experience HODC, meaning they actually start to need to watch porn that is other than their own sexual identity. Others start to watch porn that involves images that are not even actually sexual, but trigger that dopamine release. There is a reason the porn sites have "categories"; each category represents a trigger for various porn abusers. I don't know what your category was, but I assure you that at the time I quit it was not "two people making love."

It took me about 16 months to quit porn. It took me that long because I was not where you are now. I denied the addiction. In that time I cut back alot, I broke the P from the MO, and consequently only MOed about twice a month. But, I kept viewing P almost daily, and PMOed once every couple of months. I told myself P was just a crutch I used to help me get through life, rather than acknowledging P was using me. Once I understood the cure was not within myself completely, that I had to go outside of myself and find tools to make it stop, that was huge. You have taken that first step, congratulations.

Don't worry about information overload. Information is helpful. I always say get educated and get tools. The education part helped me understand that my problem was above the belt, not below it. I had a brain problem. That helped because understanding it helped me also understand it could be fixed. The brain is like a computer, a cpu. If it has downloaded bad software, or malware, it can be adjusted to go back to a time before the bad software had been downloaded. I have done that. Takes time and effort, but it can be done, and understanding you must do that is helpful; better than just blindly swinging and hoping to fix it. Sure, the itch still sometimes wants to be scratched, but I don't scratch it. If the thought that the itch will always want to be scratched is a deterrent to you, you are not ready to quit. To quit you have to accept the idea the itch will always a little (and maybe sometimes a lot), want to be scratched, but you are not going to scratch it. Also, tools were very helpful for me. I post a lot on this forum. Reading stories and replying are part of my recovery, so thank you for posting, it is helping me help myself. Also, when I say getting porn out of your brain is required, it is. Many guys in the reboot stage say not even imagining sex, thinking about it, is helpful. I agree. Don't let yourself linger on sexual thoughts, don't let yourself think indulging in porn substitutes, bikini pics, softcore (you get the idea) is allowable. Some guys don't watch R rated movies, and I would certainly advise against watching one that was primarily sexually oriented. I even find myself looking away from sex scenes in PG 13 movies. The point is your brain needs some time NOT to release dopamine in response to sexual stimulation. Where you are now is your brain loves to release dopamine to porn, darker and dirtier porn. Where you want to be at the end of your journey is no release of dopamine to porn, but only the release of dopamine with actual sex. This is hard for us because we love dopamine, and at the end of your journey you will be experiencing much less of those type of highs. But, you have to want that, you have to want to be not high. That is a thought you must consciously have: "I don't want the dopamine high." There are a lot of things in the world, in reality, that can be exciting to you, but to truly break the PMO cycle, you have to accept that porn cannot and will not be one of them. It cannot be played with, it has to be totally given up.

Hope this helped a bit. Good luck on your journey. Getting porn blockers and taking the time to block certain sites and certain word searches was helpful for me, and I suggest you do it too. Sure, we can get around the blockers, but they give me a pause in getting to the problem, which serves to remind me what and why I am quitting. Peace.

 

You are welcome. Remember, it you are serious, you gotta get all the porn out of that brain. It is difficult, but it can be done. Good luck.