How long does it take to be free of porn?
I have been addicted to porn since I was around 10 years old. I have tried hundreds of times to quit. I am now 24 and I have been married for 6 months. My wife does not know about my addiction, I have kept it a secret from her all of this time. My addiction is affecting my sex life and I desperately want that to change. I am way too quick in bed, and because of it my wife and I often look at sex as "not worth it". The one time in my life I managed to not masturbate for a month (because I was backpacking), I came back and had the best sex of my life.
The past couple of months, I have taken my most serious attempts to quit. The furthest I got was about 2 and a half weeks. Each time I give up on quitting, everything goes back to normal: I masturbate every time my wife is not home (a few times a week). My most recent excuse was "I'll wait until New Years and make it a New Years resolution." Well, that time is here. It has been about 5 days now, and it is constantly running through my head when I am home alone.
After reading through this site, I think I will continue to occasionally masturbate without porn for the month of January. I think this is more realistic for me than going completely cold turkey. After January, I will quit masturbating as well.
I would like to know from the people who have been successful at quitting, how long does it take until the addiction finally goes away? How long does it take to you stop constantly thinking about wanting to watch porn and masturbating? I hate this feeling I have and I would love reassurance that it will go away.
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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Breaking the reflex
Hi onmyway,
Welcome! I think that for most people, successfully kicking this habit means noticing old urges to reach for the porn, and not letting them get to you. After so many years of building a kind of porn reflex, it inevitably takes some time to reprogram our reward systems. We might be talking months, maybe even longer.
But it gets better sooner. With a bit of practice, you can learn to simply notice the urges without feeling like you have to act on them (view porn or masturbate) for them to go away. When urges do occur, it doesn't mean you're 'still addicted' or weak, it's just inevitably going to happen sometimes. By letting porn thoughts float by on their own, you score a victory every time and weaken the reflex a little bit more. And the urges get less and less, and masturbation becomes a natural pleasure again.
For things to start to feel more balanced, it seems to be any time between 2-8 weeks. But most guys need to pick up a technique or two to manage urges ('urge surfing' is useful). Just going cold turkey often backfires within weeks - we've all been there!
A lot of guys will relate to being too quick in bed too; porn addiction can do that. And then it's easy to conclude that sex isn't worth it, or too awkard or disappointing for her. So we resort to more porn and get into a behaviour loop. Your backpacking experience speaks volumes!
Hope this helps, and good luck!
Hi onmyway I would say it
Hi onmyway
I would say it took me about a month to stop constantly thinking about porn. It felt like I was mourning for something, like a hole in my life. That is how serious this feels.
Like Jason said I still get urges sometimes or find I'm telling myself that I'm over the addiction now and can watch a little bit. While I do feel a lot better now I know those are just old cravings. I don't need porn in my life and don't really miss it now.
Good luck to you.
Thank you for the feedback!
It really make me stronger to hear your support. This is the first timeI have spoken about this problem to anyone. Having an outlet to speak and hearing feedback makes things so much easier. I had not heard of urge surfing, and it is something I'll be reading more into to help. Honestly, I found this site yesterday when I was looking for a way to distract myself from looking at porn. I found it so helpful, and I am sure I will be back as the weeks go by. Thanks again for the help. I'll be sure to post my progress in a few weeks.
it helps
hey good on you onmyway, and i can recommend the urge surfing method aswell. i use this site as a distraction from wanting to look at porn. i kind of come on here and read peoples stories and comment on a few things and it flips me back into reality and how i want to spend my time.
good luck and post your progress :)
pornography addiction
Hi Onmyway,
We go where our minds go. When we focus on trying to stop or prevent something, we are actually bring it to mind in the process. This is the loop many people find themselves in with something they understand to be an addiction.
In my work with men who are struggling with porn use, I often find that other interests and passions have dropped away over time. Conversations with a therapist can be helpful in recovering aspects of your identity that have been forgotten or perhaps not previously known. Some people might call this distraction, but in my experience it is far more than that. Those other interests deserve our attention as well, and we deserve to have access to them.
Duncans comments about the 'hole' in his life intrigued me. When I talk with guys who want to stop drinking or using drugs it is a similar thing. Trying to remove something from our lives can be quite difficult if we don't have somewhere to take our attention instead. Guys end up thinking they have failed when they return to drinking or using porn. But it is a significant question: what are you going to be doing with your time if you are not watching porn? And what is it about these other activities that is important to you? Having this kind of conversation with a skilled counsellor is something that many men find helpful.
Great advice here - thanks
Great advice here - thanks Duncan, Kirel and Ash. Welcome Ash too - input from another professional is always very welcome around here!
I'd definitely agree about uncovering interests and aspects of our identity. Sometimes recovering from porn addiction can feel like the Weight Watcher model; a lot gets taken away and we don't feel like we are getting much back. This isn't very motivating! But by exploring and understanding more about our desires and values, it can help us to get our perspective back. Then even if the desire to look at porn now and again doesn't completely go away, it no longer feels like the be all and end all!
Treatment for Pornography Addiction
Thanks Jason. It is important that men who are concerned about porn addiction have access to a choice of approaches for responding to these concerns. Biomedical models are just one of these approaches but they appear to be quite dominant currently. Helping men to apply their own skills and knowledge to responding to concerns about sex addiction has them back in the driver's seat, rather than at the mercy of science or drugs or understandings that take the problem out of their control. I don't use an addiction model myself when responding to problems associated with sex or pornography use, but I do value any approaches that support men in their quest to do something themselves and that respect that we are all experts in our own lives. Thanks for making this forum available!
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