I keep on promising myself that I will never do it again - G's story
Hi.... I started watching porn in early teens and have been watching it for over 10 years. I think I started because I was a little shy and did not have many friends, so started seeing porn characters as someone I could be close to.
Now it seems that porn has completely taken over my life. It is stopping me from excelling in any area of my life because I spend so much time on it. I have also started secluding myself from others due to guilt and shame, convincing myself that I can only have a normal life once I have given the habit up. Which in a way is making me more vulnerable to porn. I keep on promising myself that I will never do it again but it always happens.
Hi G,
Watching porn is such an intense experience, we can easily mistake the intensity for feelings of intimacy. This is especially true if we get into the habit at a young age. Porn shows us the things that we're not quite ready for in the real world, and an insatiable appetite develops.
There's also a theory that when we watch porn, our brains actually believe that we are having a sexual experience. Research has shown that the same reward mechanism activates in the brain. If we are masturbating to orgasm at the same time, that's going to feel pretty compelling. Porn rituals and routines take up more and more time, and we can feel totally out of control.
So you promise not to do it again, and the brain responds with "This routine that we've perfected for 10 years is just going to stop overnight? Surely not..!". We've all made these promises before and put ourselves through the cold turkey challenge. We've all experienced the frustrating inner wrangling and disappointment.
My suggestion is to read up some more about proactive quitting. Armed with some simple techniques for managing porn cravings, and a healthy willingness to learn from your mistakes, you'll really be able to move on from the old habit. I wish you every success.
Porn Game Over is Jason's self-help plan for quitting the habit. Click here for a fresh approach to internet pornography addiction...
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Hi G, We're all in the
Hi G,
We're all in the same boat, I can pretty much relate to what you say because I've been through the same. Shyness, introversion, reserved nature are synonymous to people like us and so Porn becomes our only friend because it's a great way to escape and when we like it, it becomes habitual, while the internet keep feeding our hunger with unlimited videos of our favourite models and it becomes a cycle, a vicious one that too.
We all would surely like to beat this overnight but like Jason says, it's practically impossible for the simple reason, it's so deeply ingrained into us now, that's why the frustration and that's why we're all here on this blog sharing our agony with this problem.
Many of us face the same problem today also, I am no different, but I've realised that self loathing and empty promises help us to no avail, we need to be practical and work towards it slowly but steadily. Even if you went up to a priest in the Church and confessed it, he would probably advise you the same , that you can't quit it over night and you will stumble.
So be rational, we're all the same, good amount of research as suggested by Jason will help, you will stumble many more times, but you'll get there in the end.
Good Luck!!!
Hello, No.1 OK! based on
Hello,
No.1 OK! based on my own experience of trying and quitting my porn habit & largely succeeding. I have to say the first thing that's very very important to realize (understand) is that sexual feelings & sexual arousal are NOT RATIONAL, thus our reactions & uses of porn are NOT rational. Our responses to porn are completely irrational which is why trying to quit using porn is such a tough challenge.
No.2 I can tell you as a simple matter of fact that doing (trying) cold turkey as an attempt to quit porn always fails and often ends up in binge sessions which only makes matters worse.
No.3 To quit using porn requires a more subtle "slowly slowly catch the monkey" type of approach. Why? because human behavioral habits & real change, that is lasting permanent change can only work if done slowly over time with sustained effort. Why? because the human psyche (mind, brain) will rebel or back fire if change if forced or imposed quickly this is technically called resistance. i.e. we resist the change process because change is deeply scary & difficult.
No.4 Thus in my opinion to end having a porn habit requires a combination of a) self help and b) some practical tools or methods c) emotional support via professional counseling or therapy. The counseling helps support the process of change, helps loosen the bonds of the porn pattern, help with the adjustment to an increasingly porn free life. Helps a person focus away from reliance on porn & refocus on new or different activities.
No.5 When it comes to getting free from a long standing porn habit there are definitely No! quick fixes.
No.6 I found internet content filtering by choice to be a massive (major) help in keeping me away from porn & porn sites. I can highly recommend the following free tools:- OpenDNS (SEE http://www.opendns.com) which offers a free account, once you have registered which is free you receive your own dashboard, from the dashboards advanced settings, you can select the kind of content you want to filter or exclude. OpenDNS offers 30 categories including things like adult themes, pornography, nudity, bikini/underwear, drugs, violence, hate & racism,etc,etc.
**I can also recommend K9 web protection which offers a very similar content filtering service but comes as a freeware piece of software which is installed on the local computer.
(SEE:- http://www1.k9webprotection.com/index.php ).
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