7 points towards self-help release – by Alan
2009 January 27
Since I started this website and blog, Alan has been a great source of support and insight. He knows well the stumbling blocks and the victories of overcoming a porn habit. Here, he reflects on some very beneficial states of mind:
I’d like to share some thoughts on how to win through, break a negative pattern and overcome your porn urges. I view porn use as an obsession and NOT as an addiction. A form of behaviour that requires healing, and that healing can be self healing too. I’m talking about self-help.
- No matter who you are, you use porn “for a reason”. You may or may not know what that reason is.
- OK! If you use porn, try NOT to beat yourself up about it. Why? Because beating yourself up and hating yourself won’t help heal the problem. Some forgiveness of yourself might prove more worthwhile.
- Try if you can to work out why you use porn. This can be potentially very useful; it can provide valuable pointers to healing the pattern.
- Porn use IS a habit, a pattern, or becomes an obsession. I really don’t think talking about porn as an addiction is helpful or useful. ALL patterns of human behaviour have a starting point, a middle and an ending.
- Try to create a space, a gap, a distance from your use of porn. Try to simply let yourself “feel” what that is like. Don’t judge yourself here. Just allow yourself to experience what that space or gap from porn is like. Nothing more – just allow and don’t judge it.
- In order to release yourself from your porn pattern, I would strongly suggest that we (you & me) have to pass through a period of “inner emptiness”. This is NOT a painful or distressing kind of experience, but a positive one. A quiet place inside yourself. It is a form of re-focussing somehow.
- From awareness of the inner emptiness, slowly a new sense of inner calmness, of peacefulness, of healing our own inner sexual self develops. It is a healing of body and mind. It is a learning to love yourself again. A letting go of the guilt and self shame of no longer feeling the need of indulging in the use of internet porn. You will know when you have dissolved or broken your porn pattern when you have no desire to use the internet primarily for the purposes of looking for and using porn. When the web is no longer so incredibly important to you. When it’s not a big deal any more.
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Thank you. I’m having quite a battle against porn obsession (you are right – it is different to an addiction) but reading this today has really given me just the inspiration I need. I hope a lot of people read these points and feel a lot calmer like I do.
Using porn or ending up having a porn obsession can often be a way (method) to cover over or cover up our disappointments with real life.
Porn might seem like a comfort blanket if you already feel you have failed in some way. It could be a sense of failure with work or career, a sense of failure with a partner, relationship, or with your wife. The truth is you probably haven’t really failed but you “feel” you have and the using porn only makes things feel worse not better. Using porn is like taking an anesthetic it is a really effective way to numb out & not face the pain of reality. I know I have done plenty of that myself. But ultimately I’ve realized that I’d rather face my pain than add more to it from porn. I forgave myself and am now recovering and learning that I don’t have to feel bad any more but I had to decide to face my pain & feelings though.
**Some people drink alcohol & get blathered in the process thats their kind of escape (and more people are getting more blathered more frequently than ever), some people like to smoke dope or take E’s or other drugs, and some of us end up using porn. Porn is no different from any other form of diversion it serves the purpose of escapism from facing the realities of life.
Alan
Times are becoming increasingly tough at the moment with us facing a world wide crisis of expic proportions in global capitalism and so more & more people (more & more boys & men) will be attracted or drawn moth like to the flame of escapism that is internet porn. Access to porn or adult material is just so incredibly easy, way to easy really. Its only a few simple mouse clicks away. We all potentially have access to our favourite method of digital escapism but sadly it will never bring us any real lasting comfort or consolations for lifes difficulties. We must face lifes realities sooner or later its inevitable but porn wont help.
i live with my boyfriend who has always had a thing for internet pornography. i dont like it that much but have never made it a big issue because it didnt seem to affect our relationship together and hes still very loving and nice.
but he lost his job just before christmas and is quite depressed about it, but instead of doing something about it hes just watching more and more porn. i come home from work and hes on the computer saying that hes been searching jobs and courses. but i read a post he made on a forum (i know his forum names) and it said ‘i lost my job and all i want to do is watch extreme porn’. so he actually knows the problem!
im going to get him to read this page and the rest of this site.
Claire,
What your saying about your boyfriend makes complete sense. I know I’ve been there too and got the T shirt so too speak. Being unemployed and having access to the internet & falling into the porn trap WONT solve your BF’s problems nor will it get him a job back. Becoming depressed is also totally understandable in the present climate, your BF needs even more kindness, even more of your love, even more forgiveness from you right now. Even more positive encouragement to see himself NOT as a failure, I think ALOT of men turn to porn because its an easy escape from feelings of failure. When you are made redundant or loose your job its far to easy to take it hard and personally but as companies cut back to stay afloat in the recession its real people who are hit hardest. Its almost inevitable that we as men feel we have failed (even if its not true).
Alan.
i have been struggling with porn obsession, even after giving my life 2 christ. what should i do