I’m 25 years old and have been struggling with a porn addiction for the past few years. I’d say the hardest being from around 20- now. I’ve watched porn, looked at and save Instagram models pictures, and sexted with random people online. 6 months ago I got into a relationship with an amazing girl. But I’m ruining our relationship with my bad habits. She’s caught me numerous times and has forgiven me before but this time I think I really messed it up for good. I keep end up repeating the cycle. I think it stems from my depression. Growing up not feeling good enough and being called fat and a loser (mostly by my dad) destroyed my confidence and self esteem all through out my high school and early 20s. I’ve worked very hard to get to a point of not being severely depressed, I’ll be it with medication. But I can’t seem to stop the porn. My medication makes it difficult for me to finish during sex with my partner and even with mastarbation sometimes. It makes me frustrated and feel like I’m not enough of a man because I can’t cum for her. So I end up going down that dark tunnel and turn towards porn to try and get that dopamine hit. I don’t want to lose her. I’ve deleted my Instagram and started this for a try. But I don’t know if it’s enough. I know I deserve this but it still hurts so bad.
Thank you. Do you know of any other active forums or just places that I could to others like me. I tried the reboot forum and it’s not accepting new members. I’m willing to do anything to fix myself and earn her back. But truthfully I don’t know if I’ll fix my porn problem until I fix my self esteem issues. And that’s a scary thought. I’m terrified that I’ll never get better and I’ll never find someone else and I’ll just die alone. I’m sorry it’s still very fresh. We had a huge discussion about it and and she says she loves me still but doesn’t know if she can be with me through this. I’m sorry for giving so much info, I’m just spilling my heart out in this. I love her so much
@M.R. Recovery Welcome. It sounds as if you are very depressed, and many guys who join this site were in a similar state when they joined. As you say, you have good reason, given how your Dad treated you.. Why don't you take the Beck depression scale which you can find online. The highest score is 36 (very severely depressed). Your score will be an indication of how bad your mood is. If you post what your score is, I will try to comment. I strongly recommend reading Feeling Good by David Burns. It is all about the negative thoughts we have, and in particular about ourselves, and it tells you how to think sensibly about them. You are 25 and of a generation brought up with mobiles and thus starting watching porn from an early age. But don't despair. I started watching porn 13 years ago when I was put on a medication that increases dopamine in the brain and that can cause sexual addiction. So though I didn't start from an early age, I probably watched porn for roughly as many years as you. And so far I'm doing ok, in great part because I found another guy on the site to act as a recovery or accountability partner. We write to each other daily, sometimes more than once, using the conversation tool which you can find under your account. Keep posting, and read other posts and in particular the success stories which guys have written to say how they beat porn. All the best.
Hi MRR, welcome to the forum. The community here is quite small but I have had a lot of supportive comments on here, so I hope it helps somewhat. Your comments strike a chord with me, as I've also struggled with similar issues of ruining my relationship because of this addiction. I have sexted and snapchatted strangers online for a couple of years now. I have been very good at covering my tracks so my boyfriend has never found out but for sure it has affected the levels of intimacy in our relationship and my ability to perform sexually. I am sorry to hear about your severe depression. I would highly recommend listening to Dr. Anna Lembke - she has lots of amazing insight on the link between addiction and depression. It sounds like what you're going through might be more serious than what she says, but essentially her message is that addictions cause severe depression as they take up so much of our dopamine, which means we then don't have dopamine for any 'normal' life activities. So if you are somehow able to break the addiction, that might help a lot with the depression in and of itself. Hope things work out in your relationship. At least you are being honest and open with your partner and trying to be better. Hopefully they can accept your mistakes and look past that to the person you truly are.
I’m on day 2 of zero porn. And on probably about 3-4 days back on my medication. To be honest with you all, I stopped taking my meds for almost 1 and a half or 2 months. I did it bc I thought I would be ok (even though I’ve gone off them before and had bad experiences) and wanted to cum easier for my gf. Well it was ok until it wasn’t. It seemed like I just woke up on day with a big drop in mood. I was more depressed and irritable and moody. My mom/gf convinced me to get back on my meds. but after going cold Turkey for over a month and then getting back on them, my mind was in a frenzy. I fell back into my old ways and started to look at porn again. I’m depressed and It’s sometimes hard to talk with her because I feel like I’ve been bringing my gf down with me when she try’s to comfort/support me, so I tried to hold some things back which isn’t good. It’s a nasty idea in my head that no one cares, but in reality I have a great supportive friends, a mom, and had a gf. Anyway, I found myself at work on my breaks looking at Instagram girls again and doing it at home more. I actually redownloaded Twitter and made an entire new account just for more porn. I tried changing the “safe search settings” so I could look at porn on Twitter. Thankfully it didn’t work and I realized I was doing something wrong and deleted the account and Twitter again. But I still went to the Instagram girls. After being confronted by my gf again I did log out and delete the ig app. Im working on writing her a letter explaining everything. How I had a bad childhood experience with my dad and how it really messed up my head. He was my biggest bully growing up and hearing bad things from your own dad hits hard. That and just years and years of it. I’ve gone through a long process of meds and a few failed therapists but I think I can accept that what happened. But the lasting effects are still here (low self esteem, negative self talk, body image issues, anxiety). And how I was single and desperate for a long time and didn’t think I could or would ever meet a girl, so I just used porn to feel better and sexting to try and get that female attention I craved. And it turned into a hourly daily habit. When we first started dating I’ll admit I kept all my old apps/pics of my porn. But after it got more serious I deleted my accounts and deleted all the pics. But I still followed girls and had pics saved on Instagram. She found those and I deleted them. I was good for maybe 2 weeks before searching them up again and her finding out again.
If the medication is SSRI antidepressants they can make it impossible to reach O and also cause ED. About a third of people on this suffer this side effect.
It’s Prozac so it is an SSRI. It does make it harder to reach O but not impossible I found. I am still able to get hard and feel pleasure, but it’s like I get to the doors of finishing and can’t open them. It’s incredibly frustrating for me. My parter says she doesn’t mind and understands but i know she feels some type of way about it. I’m continuing no P or MO and trying to stay busy. Me and my partner went to the zoo yesterday and had fun. We then had a big talk about feelings and I kinda trauma dumped on here. I’ve reached out to a therapist so hopefully they can help me navigate my head. Best wishes to you all. Stay strong
@M.R. Recovery Yes, Prozac can cause ED, loss of libido and DE. I have to take Tramadol to stop restless legs from severe kidney disease, and the DE is so bad that you never reach O. A bummer. In fact SSRIs are sometimes given to guys with sexual addiction, as well as to guy with PE. So it may help you in your recovery from porn, even though it is not good for you and your partner. It's a tough situation for you, but it may help you beat porn.
It’s been a little over 2 months and for the most part I’ve been clean. I relapsed some last Friday. No P but I looked up a Facebook model. I told my girlfriend and she was pretty upset. Her and my mom talked and we ended up talking about it later that night, ultimately making up. I’m finding myself think about it more. It’s on my mind to almost “test myself” by seeing but not clicking on the actual picture’s. It’s the same thing for real. I don’t want to continue this and hurting myself and my partner. I still have instagram deleted and will keep it that way. I’m seeing more inappropriate profiles popping up on my feed and I’m hitting ignore content. I almost relapsed this morning again. I looked up women’s of porn addict support group to see if I could read things my gf wrote (private group so I couldn’t see anything) and the very first profile under the support groups was an adult model of some sort. The profile pic of them in a bikini made me want to click and honestly I did. I went to photos and saw the photo grid but never clicked on an actual picture. Did I relapse by doing this. What are your opinions on this and if you have any advice please let me know.
Hi! Nope, I don't think it counts. But this game of brinkmanship will be the death of us, I am the same (albeit not for porn, mainly edging and fantasies since I am trying monk mode). Good luck and stay strong!
agree with the friend above. You are too harsh on yourself. looking up FB model doesnt count as relapse, only porn does. it would be absurd to think mere beach photo can cause PIED. Also, i wouldnt report it to GF, as it is not remotely cheating. If you need to report this to GF, than in your future relationship, your GF would expect you to report everything, and you will completely lose privacy. PS: quiting porn completely does 95% of the work. other dopamine detox thing does little from my personal experience. excercise is helpful for physical benefit, and is great for other health aspect wish you best luck.
I’m gonna have to agree to disagree with the guy above. Looking at bikini pics is a problem when you’re in a committed relationship. Especially when you’re in active P addiction recovery. I took time to read through your situation, and it seems like the Instagram/Facebook models were the origin of the problem and a trigger for you, so you should absolutely disclose this with your gf if it happens again. It seems like they are a gateway into relapsing. Not a full relapse this time around, but still not a good thing to be doing, as it could lead to a full relapse in the future. My gf expects full honesty and it’s the only way our relationship has been able to work. Hope this helps.
Most rebooters find that looking up these kinds of images (P-substitutes or P-subs) isn't a good idea as it may be a slippery slope to worse things. They could also be fairly addictive in their own right even if it's not quite the same as looking at "actual" P.
I fear my relationship is over now. A few months ago when I was still actively involved in my P addiction, I sent a message to a sexual instagram girl asking “how deep is your throat”. I know it was stupid and I didn’t expect a message or for them to even see it. I deleted it right after. Well like a month and half ago my girlfriend went through my phone and downloaded instagram to look at my stuff. She found the old message and said it was cheating. Now I know it wasn’t right for me to do, but I don’t necessarily define that as cheating. She said she needed space on Thursday but I miss her a lot. I’ve started going to therapy once a week starting last week, I’ve added a new medication to help with my mental health, I’ve stopped all P, and I even downloaded an addiction tracker with her to help keep on track. But I feel she’s not doing as much as she could to fix the relationship. I strongly believe she needs therapy also but I don’t think she’ll get it yet. My work is shit, my relationship is going to shit, and I don’t have the finances to move out from my moms. We have a good enough relationship but I still want to move out as a grown man at now 26. I feel so stuck and the one thing that was good is probably going to leave. I don’t want to be alone forever and I fear that is what’s going to happen. Dating is hard. Especially if you aren’t a 10/10. I don’t think I ugly but I’m kinda fat (230lbs at 5’11”, lowest weight at 198lbs for a BJJ comp).
I am sorry to hear this. Unfortunately, sometimes the damage we do cannot be undone. Especially with this addiction, as it affects our partners directly. Me and my girl broke up for a bit and took time to heal, but we eventually made things work. Maybe you guys will work things out in the future. Or maybe you will find someone else. Either way, make peace with yourself man. Best of luck.
