not wanting to sound dramatic but f*** it

You are not back to day 1 after such a long period of living free from PMO. Those 265 days on your counter DO matter. Consider that there will be 265 more from here on in, and when you get to that next 265th day you will be better placed to just keep on going.
Many people here [myself included] did not succeed at the first attempt.
You have made a mistake, that is all. People have done a lot worse.
Now remember the proverb: Fall down seven times. Get up eight.

Up you get.

 

Relapses are virtually inevitable in this addiction. You will have failures. But that's different than being a failure.

A common saying among the 12-step fellowships is "progress, not perfection."

This is a brutally hard addiction. Give yourself some grace. Slips and relapses are inevitable. But the other thing that's inevitable--if you stay committed to a program of recovery and honesty--is that your relapses will get further and further apart, and they will diminish in severity.

A few days ago I had a relapse due to mental fantasy and masturbation ...

... but 18 months ago, my relapse was being sexually unfaithful to my wife. 18 months ago, I would have pulled off the side of the road to masturbate if the urge hit me. 18 months ago, I was compulsively looking at, replying to, and posting personal ads on Craigslist. 18 months ago I had a secret e-mail address that I would check about 30x a day. I don't do those things anymore. I still struggle, but when I look at the big picture, I can see that I've come quite a ways in my recovery.

It gets better. Just stick with it.

 

Super, did you have any physical problems, like PIED?

 

I never had PIED, no ... if anything, I've suffered from some PE, but I'm not sure how much of that is due to my addiction. Unfortunately I've never allowed myself enough sexual sobriety to really know if that's the cause or not.

People get addicted to porn for the same brain-chemistry reasons, but the things that originally drive them to porn can be very different.

Some people are driven to porn because they have anxiety or insecurities about being with a real partner, so porn becomes an alternative for them. I suspect those guys are more likely to suffer from PIED because now they've got that part of their psychology combined with the jacked-up desensitization from porn.

But for me, I worshiped women. I would take a real life woman over porn every single time. So I think my problem was more that I was too excited to be with a woman, know what I mean?

 

You just need to focus up. If some things are causing you grief perhaps it's best not to think about those things.

Forget trying to go 90 days or whatever for now. Just focus on once a day. And when you do watch porn you have to limit the amount of stimulation you get - easier said than done I know but it is the key to success. Pick one video, and get it over with quick. Oh and be gentle.

Even if you limit yourself to once per day that's already huge progress. And then once you've got that down you can start extending to once every two days and so on until you're making it a few weeks of abstinence and you're ready for a GF.

 

I gotcha, brother, thank you. I was always nervous about sex. Terrified. I was so, so nervous around girls. I didn't get laid until I was 21, but everything worked fine. (44 now) At that time, I started to drink more often and was still very nervous around girls. Once I started to jerk off, it's like you said, it pretty much became a substitute for the sex I was so terrified of having. (I condensed the shit outta this, I don't wanna bore you with details, or lack thereof. Hahaha). I too, LOVE women, but after years of PMO, I've done quite a number on my brain. Thank you for your response, man! I'm back at day 0 after 5 days. Ugh....