Sharing my story to help hold myself accountable

Hey everyone,

21m here. Had a porn addiction for over ten years now & I have noticed more and more negative impacts that I suspect are coming from excessive porn use. For context I have an extremely addictive personality, and maybe 5 years ago I was addicted to it all. Never really got into hard drugs but just about everything else (weed, smoking, drinking, excessive screen time, etc.) had completely taken over my life. Slowly over the years I have quit all of these things, and I now do not smoke anything, only drink very occasionally, got rid of my smartphone, have become very athletic & successful in various sports, relatively sociable, and am overall quite happy with my life.

The one addiction I never overcame was porn & masturbation.

I had successfully quit everything else by around two years ago, however the porn addiction remained. I suspect it caused some issues in my past relationships, yet it was never overly problematic to the point I felt the need to dramatically change my behavior. Then about a year ago my sexual interests and activity began to change, and it all sort of became a big mess in my head, with unwanted sexual desires sort of digging at me constantly. I felt as though I was masturbating an unusually high amount, and felt a desire to reduce it. At the time I did not see masturbation as negative, only porn. My attempts to quit porn were moderately successful; I was still masturbating, but I was able to abstain from porn for periods of around a month at a time before I would relapse. The relapses were typically short, and I believe the longest duration I went entirely without porn is around 80 days or so.

Hard porn (on actual porn websites) specifically has been a small part of my life in the last year, however when I relapse I relapse hard and I haven't noticed huge improvement in any areas by only abstaining from porn. With PIED issues & unwanted sexual desires worsening in the past few months, as well as my (now ex) girlfriend telling me she cheated on me (which heavily compounded the existing issues) my mental state regarding sexuality has declined even further. I had heard about this community for some time but never actually looked into it, however with my issues worsening I went on a full deep dive of the forums over the last week. This led me to the decision a day or two ago that this is it, and I am going to finally destroy my final addiction. It is abundantly clear to me that my relationship with masturbation, not just porn, is unhealthy and I am in need of a reset. My goal is to complete 90 days of PM abstinence (I believe I would benefit from maintaining some healthy sexual relationships, hence why I am not going for 90 days no PMO). Although my current goal is 90 days, the ultimate goal is to never watch porn again, and if I ever return to masturbation I would not like to ever exceed once a week. I hope even just attaining the 90 day goal can help reset my view of sex in general, as right now it is all such a mess in my head.

Posting all this here to hold myself accountable, as well as to interact with the community & to try and build supports for myself. I think what you guys are all doing here is absolutely amazing, you're quite literally saving lives & making the world a better place. The popular narrative on porn and masturbation in today's society is honestly disgusting, and seeing such a vibrant community of people who have beaten the odds and bested their addictions makes me so happy, and it makes me incredibly hopeful that I will be able to beat my own addiction & join the ranks. Porn is a hell of a drug, everything else I've ever quit pales in comparison, but you are all a testament to the strength of human willpower & you serve as a huge source of inspiration for me (and I'm sure many others)

Wish me luck!