But Im tired of it. And desensitization is a huge sign that Im addicted to it. I think I just miss how fun PMO was the first couple of years, now I'm an emotional numb wreck. Damn. Ive never escalated to harder stuff, so I feel I just need to quit while Im ahead. It doesn't make my life better, that's for sure.
If you don't feel ready to "give up porn for the rest of your life", then the least you could do is try to reduce the frequency of relapses as much as you can. Once you've managed to reduce your orgasm frequency to less than 5 per month, you can then take it to the next level and try to quit for good. The idea that PIED can only be eliminated after a long period of complete abstinence is false. That is the ideal way, but not the only way. If you spend a whole year masturbating less than 5 times per month, you will regain a LOT of sensitivity. FACT.
one day you watch a certain genre of porn the next your searching for illegal stuff on the streets and you wont care cause you just wanna get your fix w/e that may be. then when you are sittin in a jail cell you will give anything to be able to turn the clock back and quit this filth
At the end of the day, you can take two guys and put a crack pipe right in front of them. The first guy is a successful business man, has a wife and 2 kids, and is relatively financially secure and never done drugs. The second guy is a long time user (10 year addict) who is 2 years clean, going back to community college, working at KFC, living paycheck to paycheck trying to get his life back on track. The first guy takes his hit, and says "wow that was weird, definitly never experienced anything like that..." and goes on with his life. The second guy takes his hit, and thinks "wow, I have missed you so much, it's been so long, and all those feelings I had for you are now coming back to my memory with clear vision..." and gives up his hard work of 2 years clean and stays in the pit of addiction for 6 months. Whats the difference? The second guy has a history with this substance in the form of an addiction, the first guy doesn't. Some people can watch porn a couple times a month with their partner, and be just fine. We are addicts to porn, this will never be us. Our brains have abused this drug constantly, forcefully, just to get high. We can never go back to being the casual user. We are porn addicts, and we have paved the way of being porn addicts from abusing porn. That fun that you had when you first used porn, you will never experience it again. Your tolerance has built up to much, and your addictive tendencies have been developed. Even if you do quit for a good while, you might get that initial rush at first, but your tolerance will build up again so much faster than it did when you first started using porn.
It's strange how the addicted mind works. On one hand, we hate our addiction and desperatly-even obsessivly-want more than anything else to rid it from our lives completely. However... The thought of giving up porn entirely is a scary thought at the same time. Why? It's because an addiction is the result of a failure to manage one's life and manage one's emtions. Porn has become a source of emotional stimulation that provides us with a very temporary emotional balance. When the negative feelings of stress, anxiety, depression, guilt, rejection or boredom reappear, addicts use porn as a temporary escape instead of confronting those negative emotions. Our addicted mind has come to depend on porn - which is the only (or most familiar) source of emotional stimulation. That's why it is essential to replace porn with other, more healthy forms of emotional stimulation. We cannot quit our addiction and transition immediately into health. Porn has become a major part of my life. It is essential that I replace porn and fill that void that porn used to fill. This whole forum has been missing the mark. The members here are not considering these important issues. They are not discussing how they are improving their entire life or the need to develop an emotional management strategy. People here are grasping at straws every time they overthink issues like "do wet dreams set me back" or "why do I only get a 25% erection with my girlfriend?" The the main point I want to make is this - I think everyone on this forum (myself included) places too much emphasis on the brain. You are more than a brain. You are a body and a spirit. Our problems are much deeper than just a neurochemical disfunction. We need to address our entire life and the management of all our emotions.
