Giving up cannabis is easier than giving up porn - R's story

Submitted by a reader on Tue, 17/08/2010 - 10:17

a reader's picture

I stumbled across this site yesterday and boy what an eye opener. I spent the best part of 4 hours tonight reading through posts and opinions and (clearly) identifying that I have a problem with porn and think its time to do something about it.

I am 29 and single, I was recently in a serious relationship but because I lost sexual interest in my partner I initiated that we split up. At the time I really wished I wasn't losing interest but I can clearly put it down to porn addiction. It's becoming almost the cliché case but as soon as I was home alone it would be porn the whole time, followed by the usual bad feelings after and the worry of what excuse to use later not to have sex.

It all started when I was 14, a computer whizz and an early adopter of the internet. I'm sure I don't need to go into specifics but simply put it was so easily obtainable, I knew how to hide it from friends and family and I was hitting puberty. Recipe for only one outcome, and 15 years later and god knows how many gigabytes it has led me to here.

To be quite honest the penny dropped when I found this site yesterday. Before this I thought everyone watched porn, I know my mates do, and their mates do but you never quite know to what extent. I watch it every time I masturbate, and have done for god knows how many years. The only relationship it affected was the last one where I preferred porn to sex which I knew was wrong at the time but never identified it as porn addiction. Almost feel stupid looking back now but as usual with these things it's not a problem until someone tells you it is.

So to attack this head on how do you go about it? I have dealt with addiction before in the form of cannabis so I am no stranger to what's required and what pitfalls lie ahead, but this addiction is slightly different. With cannabis it was simple, stop smoking it!

This is a completely different paradigm, as in it is controlling how you satisfy natural urges. I need to break this habit to get my intimacy back and become a better person. I have no trouble acquiring women but sex at the moment just lacks intimacy, this is because of me not wanting to get close to someone for fear of a repeat of the last relationship.

One of the questions I have is at what point does porn become porn? For example if I stop watching hardcore porn on the internet but I am sitting watching a television programme with an attractive woman and start masturbating over that, is that not fuelling the same fire? But in that case does that mean refrain from ALL mental stimulation when masturbating? I am guessing while writing this that there is more to this than stop watching porn, but more about controlling ones libido better. As in to give up porn but then have meaningless sexual encounters would be counter productive? Both leave you with negative feelings so to tackle one problem of porn addiction is actually tackling something far greater, well for me anyway.

All advice/opinions welcome and I will join in the debate myself as I have more questions that need answers.

Hi R,

Thank you for sharing your experience here and raising some excellent questions. I'll do my best to answer them!

It can be difficult to get perspective on our own porn behaviour when it seems that everyone else is doing it. According to recent statistics, 70% of men between 18 and 24 visit porn sites in a typical month, so we certainly aren't alone in having an appetite for the stuff. But just like eating fast food or drinking alcohol, there's a distinction between doing these things in moderation and using them compulsively.

When we masturbate to porn to the extent that it overrides our interest in having sex with our partners, that's a clear indication that things are out of control. You have probably seen the discussions on this site about how a porn habit operates at a neurological level, linking the physical sensation of masturbation and orgasm to the visual stimulation of watching porn. It can reach a point where just thinking about sexual intimacy without any porn feels awkward and unappetising, and this doesn't make for happy relationships. So to move forward, we need to get our natural urges and expectations back into balance.

In answer to your question, most people find that a clean break from porn is necessary in order to reverse the 'porn reflex'. Typically this means no porn for 3-4 weeks minimum. It's a time for building self-awareness, noticing the triggers, dealing with urges, learning what porn was actually doing for us and how to meet our needs in more positive ways. There's quite a lot of work there, and some of it will inevitably lead us to examine our sexual desires. It's not about trying to deny or shut out our sexual urges, or necessarily going masturbation cold-turkey. It's about reconnecting with our sexuality without reliance on porn, and how this pans out will very much depend on the individual and their habit template.

I'd like to emphasise that all habits (even destructive ones) have some positive intent. They distract us, numb bad feelings and help us to manage our unmet emotional needs. As you say, this is tackling the issue at a deeper level. This is how we avoid transferring the issue to new rituals, such as compulsive sexual encounters.

I hope this is helpful, and please feel welcome to discuss any of these points and ask further questions.

Hello R,

OK! I'm going to make a value judgment which is something I usually try & refrain from doing under these circumstances. I've read your story & something strong jumps out at me very clearly. I would like to suggest that the problem here is NOT porn, your use of porn is only symptomatic of a much deeper issue. That issue I would suggest to you is your fear of real intimacy. Your use of porn creates a numbing effect, its a form of pain killer, an anesthetic it is a way to block the feelings of anxiety or fear, or distress. Whatever the emotions might be but the effect is the same, you avoid being truly vulnerable.

**Its NOT possible to be intimate with a porn image, or porn movie. Intimacy can only take place between two flesh & blood people, intimacy requires a very intense level of trust.

NOTE:- What does intimacy really mean? Intimacy = In Too Me See !!

**What makes Sexual intercourse so powerful, so profound an experience with another person is love, intimacy & tenderness, closeness & trusting & friendship. If sex with another person has non of these elements it ends up being an empty, meaningless & valueless experience. This is why paying money in exchange for sex is so sad, we confuse ourselves precisely because you cannot buy love, cannot buy intimacy. Actually sex with someone you really love is not something that can be reduced to a form of barter, sex at its best comes out of love itself. And love itself at its best in unconditional you cannot fix a price on the unconditional, its not for sale. Its beyond conditionality.

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Love. In my opinion love sucks. Love hurts. For every bit of good love brings, there is equal pain. But love is also something you can't go with out no matter how much it has hurt you. trust me I tried. And I had as good a reason as any for hatting love. I've learned that something worse than love is loneliness.

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Love what is it? Its a complex experience which includes being open & highly vulnerable to & with another human being, on an emotional & mental level. Love also includes the unspoken process of meeting another persons deep emotional & psychological needs. So when this mutual experience (which is quite tenuous anyway) is lost or broken then it is often felt as a kind of bereavement. And YES! Because love & relationships involve attachment when that attachment is broken its felt as pain. Love itself is NOT painful, love itself does not always logically lead to pain when love no longer exists. The loss & pain associated with the ending of a relationship very much depends upon the individual circumstances & conditions. To love therefore doesn't always mean you will be hurt it doesn't always follow, that is to misunderstand the nature of love.

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PORN & HOW WE WOUND OURSELVES?!!
One of my fundamental beliefs about the use of porn. Is that using porn & having a porn habit is a symptom of how we "don't love ourselves enough". When we don't love ourselves enough we have a broken relationship with our healthy self love, sadly the more porn you use the more we brake or wound our healthy narcissism. Having a healthy self love means because we love ourselves we can also love others, this is the very bed rock on which intimacy, trust, & loving relationships can be built (including sexual relationships). The problem is that using porn wounds this healthy narcissism, wounds our self esteem, wounds our self respect. This is why when you have a porn habit you are highly unlikely to be in a position to form a happy relationship with another person.

**Porn can also have a corrosive effect on an existing relationship. Porn can undermine the bed rock on which that relationship was originally founded (built). Many relationships have & do fall apart as a consequence of one person having a chronic porn habit.

**Yet another symptom that results as a consequence of having a porn habit, is that porn & compulsive masturbation wreaks havoc on a persons healthy libido. The more porn you consume the less likely you are to have actual sex with your wife, girlfriend or partner and the quality & frequency of that sex is likely to suffer too (go down).

**The paradox is that if you want more loving, more intimacy & more sex then DON'T USE PORN!!

**Yet another paradox is that porn is almost completely the opposite of what you think it is superficially.

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I'm sorry alex but love, in my experiences, hurts. Every time you see a loved one in pain and know deep down that there is absolutely nothing you can do to help them. That is painful. When you know a loved one is going to die, because everyone does. That is painful. And finally when you cause them pain. There are few pains greater than hurting a loved one. So love is painful.

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Thanks for your comments Jason, Alex and Z. Alex in response to your first comment about my fear of real intimacy, that has only really come about since after my last relationship. My fear of getting close to anyone now is because of what happened in that last relationship and where it ended up. It started out as love, not finding anyone else or porn an attraction, then due to finding out certain characteristics about this person it slowly faded along with my intimacy and I found myself turning to porn and not wanting sex with her any more. Sometimes I struggle to nail down whether it was solely the porn that did this or whether I was slightly pushed but too answer that would mean going into the very specifics of the relationship which is slightly off topic. The point is where I am now and where I want to be.

Although in no rush I want to love again, knowing that entails both good and bad things but that's life. I am single now and in a position to overcome this problem and get myself primed for when it does happen. Proving difficult already as after day 4 I buckled, I certainly feel I have no guidance so think I will invest in Jason's book. Switching back on the porn felt like sleeping with an ex girlfriend, just a bad idea all round but was the self control there? No! I need to know what to do when those urges come, do I satisfy them without porn? But then in the heat of the moment all those favourite porn clips will no doubt run through my mind, so I don't know if that's still fuelling the fire.

A lot of the posts on this site deal with people in relationships so to give up porn is to get back on track sexually with your loved one. When your single it feels like to give up porn is to switch off sexually until someone comes along. I know this is not the case but that's how it feels at the moment.

So is Jason's book the guidance I am looking for? I am not a religious person so it sounds ideal. It seems the golden answer I am looking for will probably not come from a post but from something that carries a little more weight.

Just as a closing thought and slightly (completely) off topic from the original post, but if porn presents a problem in today's society in its current form e.g. low quality videos on sites like youporn, I can only see this problem being of greater concern when technology advances to a point where it immerses the viewer completely. At the current rate of technology I don't think it is unreasonable to think that in our lifetime people could put on a headset and get a full "virtual reality" but live video of adult material, where the user can walk around as if they were in the room. In my previous train of thought I always thought this would be a wonderful thing but with the rut I have found myself in along with others on this site, my views have flipped and I can only foresee this being a nightmare of problem for generations to come. Worse still if you strapped something to yourself and the virtual video got interactive... purely speculating but food for thought!

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Hello R,

I understand what your saying about the struggle for intimacy being linked to a past relationship that didn't work out. But I sense that's not entirely the whole story when it comes to getting your intimacy needs met. Certainly I would suggest that using porn on a regular frequent basis does nothing to help you overcome any anxieties or fears around intimacy.

**YES! In my experience I found that a) abstinence from on-line porn by using web content filtering using something like OpenDNS was a massive help. Helps reduce he chances of stumbling across porn unintentionally, also helped reduce the potential triggers that set off the old habits. b) OpenDNS filtering puts you in control c) having firm boundaries in place helps create a distance between yourself & the porn content this is valuable.

**When the old pattern comes alive again & you get the urge or lust comes up. YES! Masturbation WITHOUT porn is a big help. Yes! please but no pain no guilt, no regret, no feeling like I let myself down and after all self pleasuring is entirely OK and normal for the body too.

**If your interested see the links (top right) & see my guide "Don't let porn get the better of you!"

I wish you every success in the future

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Dear R
You seem like a very bright and smart person so I have a question for you. What is the point of life? Why do we exist? Why do you exist? I once thought I knew the answer to those questions but I'm not really sure of anything right now and I'm curious what your answer is. I hope it's not too personal of a question.

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R asked "at what point does porn become porn?". I think this is the wrong question to ask. The right question is "which images trigger a desire for porn?". I imagine the answer to that is different for everyone, but for me, I have to avoid all scantily clad women on the computer screen or print, because they all trigger me. This means even avoiding images or video of women in bikinis or underwear. Interestingly, seeing women in bikinis in real life does not trigger me, nor does viewing my wife in various states of nudity. Not that they don't turn me on, but they don't make me want porn.

I know you're single, and that complicates things a bit, but I would encourage you to build up a new "spank bank", not based on inanimate imagery, but based upon imagination and memories of real people.

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Dear Z,

The answer to your question what is the purpose of life & existence?

ANS:- My answer answer to your question is: Life is for living & loving & for giving & for pleasure.

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Living includes learning which I missed out!

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Is that it? Is that all there is to life? Just living? What about death? And isn't porn pleasurable at first? No I think there must be more. I once thought it was God. But since I've tried to find something else to live for and am unable I guess the answer really is God. Trust me I've tried for about 6 years now to disprove that and I can't. I'll also keep believing that until i find a better answer.

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Either way I still want to hear R's answer

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Replying to Z,

If you read my reply carefully I think you will see that I said "this is my own opinion based on my own experience & the conclusions I've come to after 51 years of life" I'm NOT saying the value of your existence will have the same answer as mine. Z you have to find your own answers as to what means for you.

**As for death you wont know its meaning until it happens to you!!

**NOP! Porn has little or nothing to do with actual real pleasure, porn is overwhelmingly about pain & the denial of pain. Using porn often only adds more pain on top of existing emotional distress. YES! porn is extremely paradoxical & very confusing because it has little or nothing to do with what it superficially appears to be about.

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Thanks for comments everyone, B your answer is something I was looking for. It seems it is a personal thing what triggers it but yes it only takes a small picture of some woman, even in a harmless advertisement and the next thing I know I am where I don't want to be.

In response to Z, your questions attack the very fabric of life and move into the realms of existentialism and philosophy. I don't believe there is a right or wrong answer to this, which is why although I don't believe or practice any religion I respect those that do as it is merely someone's way of making sense of it all and providing some guidance. Believing that 'a' god is responsible for all this is just as ludicrous as the theory that we are actually beings of an alternative world that do not live or die but have created this thing called life to add mortality and value to our existence and when its all over we move onto the next. But ludicrous or not it is the most popular theory that provides many with a backbone to there life.

The point of life for me is to enjoy as much as possible without inflicting harm or pain on others. Alex is right in that love is the most intense emotion one can feel in a good way. So to meet a soul mate is next for me and to have children is certainly something that's on the cards. When that's all said and done I don't know yet how my views will change.

Why do we exist? Well to me you might not exist, you might be a figment of my imagination. But that's another theory. I don't have a concrete answer to this. The sun that makes this world habitable and for life to exist will eventually burn out. But yet humans strive to progress, everyday we get up and go to work, why are we not programmed to just sit back and relax. It's like we get up everyday to go and row on this massive ship to keep it moving forward yet we don't know where we are going. We just know we need to keep rowing.

Why do I exist? Somewhere I must fit into natures plan, somehow I must be a small cog in what is a massive and complex machine. I would rather think that than think I am just some randomness going on. Perhaps my existence now has some knock on effect 500 years down the line that influences the birth of some genius who helps invent a way of travelling through space to another planet that the human race can move to. Lets face it nature doesn't have much problem getting rid of what it doesn't need.

I think your questions are never going to be answered, some things I think we are not meant to know. You can sit there alone and think and think and think and then just as you almost reach an answer that is so profound it just vanishes before your very minds eyes, or something will distract you such as hunger, a toilet break or more annoyingly the phone rings.

Which brings me back to what is the point of life. After pondering over these things for far too long in various states of consciousness I came to the conclusion that we are not meant to know. Like a goldfish is unaware of its massive surroundings outside of its bowl and even how it got there, yet it just enjoys what existence it has. The point of life for me was to simply enjoy as much as I could, as your not promised tomorrow. This view is changing for me as it leads to over indulgence whether it be a substance or porn. Even to love someone too much can have a negative impact. So I changed that view to enjoy in moderation, but as I get older I am changing that to enjoy the right things while shaking off the bad habits I picked up along the way. Life is so finely balanced that no matter how financially wealthy you are or gifted from the onset, you still experience the motions like someone who is poor and born with a defect. You can both derive some kind of happiness and you both will experience the more unpleasant side to life such as grief, death of a loved one, fear of your own death etc.

So after waffling on like some stoner, my immediate concerns at the moment are to break this porn addiction. Not going well at the moment if I'm honest but if I keep at it I know I will get there. I do see Z's point that "porn is pleasurable at first", but so are drugs but the destination you finally reach are not. But then the argument could be is it not better to live a rollercoaster of a life rather than doing a steady 30 all the way. I say that's more an individual choice, but from my experience if you dance with one devil your more inclined to dance with another, as in drugs, porn, gambling... all the activities that are pleasurable at first but get you into trouble. As I get older and more guided I think the real pleasures are a deep love for someone, a deep love for an offspring (not that I know yet but I can imagine), helping people in there hour of need, helping someone not expecting anything in return, being a true friend. Basically those activities that have been there since the dawn of time and not created by money hungry individuals that prey on peoples weaknesses.

Z I recommend you watch the films Waking Life and even Ghost in the Shell, both very good philosophical films.

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I will try. However, I won't promise you i will abandon my quest for an answer. Anyway how can anyone figure out the point of life by thinking about it alone and shutting everything else out? Its like trying to guess what an apple tastes like without ever even holding one. I think in order to find my answer i need to experience life. I know most likely my experiences won't all be good but they are experiences none the less. At the very least i can help people not make my mistakes.

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