My porn addiction despair - J's story

Submitted by a reader on Sun, 23/08/2009 - 14:03

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I'm 30 yrs of age. I discovered porn at around 12/13. I found a series of hardcore movies that has evolved to dvds, now web based content. I am hooked, I watch porn in all my spare time and feel I know the adult performers that appear in them.

I have never had a girlfriend or an encounter of intimacy with a women other than an escort. As what I feel is a result of my addiction? This has now resulted into something of a huge problem and issue for me specifically mentally.

I have reached a time in my life that I am at despair with this crisis and am unsure how to improve my unhappy situation. I am unsure how to stop these problems so I have taken this time to contact you for advice on how to do this. Many thanks, I hope you can help and look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you J for sharing your story here with such openness. You are certainly not alone here.

Many of us discovered porn at around that same age, and it became a regular routine in our lives. Why did it become so precious and significant in our live? The possible explanations are many:

Porn was a source of enlightenment and learning about sex. In many ways, it was our first sexual relationship.
It made us feel like one of the boys. If we're prone to shyness or introspection, this is an especially valuable feeling.
If sex is an awkward topic at home, porn provides an antidote. Porn says that it's OK to be sexual.
Watching sexual material has a mesmerising effect. It distracts us from our teenage anxieties and insecurities.

It could be argued that this isn't all bad for us. But the problems begin when we become too attached to the stuff. We begin to depend upon the numbing escapism of porn; it becomes our coping mechanism.

And porn begins to influence our outlook towards relationships with the opposite sex. If porn says that casual and anonymous sex is the way to go, a part of us begins to believe. Already, our porn habit is working against our chances of enjoying intimate relationships.

This trap has been discussed at length in a previous blog post. Right now, you are reaching outside of your habit and positively seeking options for change. And even after so many years of feeling hooked on porn, the options for breaking this habit are very much available to you.

There are no quick fixes, but you can choose to begin helping yourself today. I recommend reading up on all the various methods for changing your daily routines and perspective towards pornography. This will help you to formulate a long-term plan, and there are some great resources listed on the side of this page.

It's a tough trip and setbacks are inevitable. But begin to understand that just like any other issue in our personal lives, porn addiction has a beginning, a middle and an end. You are somewhere in that process, so keep moving forward.

Jason said it there. My porn addiction reached a crisis and I've been where you are now. It is healthy to think back to where your addiction started and the reasons why you might have gotten hooked up on it. Like parents attitudes to sex making you feel bad and being uncomfortable with girls and stuff. I had all those things going on.

Don't spend too much time on it though - do the work and move on. I think that beating this addiction is 20% looking inward and 80% looking out - getting some new habits and interests in life. But you have to put in the groundwork and show commitment.

2 things that helped me are the Porn Gameover book and another book called the Porn Trap. I recommend both of these.

Peace and be lucky

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Hello J,

Gosh!! I can really relate strongly to your story & your situation. I discovered porn one day when I was only 14 years old and I too have had a long struggle with porn over many many years. The amount to which a person (any person) uses porn or feels compelled to use porn is only a sign or symptom of a deeper problem. In your case I would like to suggest that your porn use is probably covering up a very strong inner sense of neediness & or need (need & neediness are different things!), a power desire for & an intense yearning for love, closeness i.e. intimacy. Its love & intimacy that sounds like its missing in your life. My heart really goes out to you too because that's what was missing in my life. Sadly, the porn only gets in the way of you receiving what you really really need deep down. What I am talking about may sound a little odd perhaps but this is because these needs are often numbed out by the porn, therefore paradoxically only by letting go of the use of porn can the healing you need take place, until we stop using porn and start feeling our pain & needs can we start to move towards getting those needs met. First I have to love myself & find intimacy with myself before I can give & receive love & intimacy with a girlfriend or women partner. I hope this makes sense to you?

**YES! Thank You for your sharing your situation. I found your comments very very moving it reminded me so much of my past self.

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Sadly, when we have unmet emotional needs, or have needs that we are unaware of. The problem remains that those needs DON'T GO AWAY!! they remain un-fulfilled and unsatisfied. Thus un-satisfied needs and unmet needs turn into distress, & pain, & deep frustrations. I firmly believe that this is the real cause of why so many men (people) turn to porn and use porn because the pain of those unmet needs is just so intense and unbearable, we reach for an easy solution. Some men turn to alcohol, some turn to various drugs and some turn to the internet & online porn to numb out the pain of those deeper unmet needs. Why? because without the numbing effect of porn we would be forced to face our deep sense of insecurities & along with these our vulnerability and all those feelings of hurt & pain, in short why might have to face our loss, face our grief or what ever the feelings are. Many men find facing there own vulnerability extreme hard to do as we have been culturally conditioned from an early age NOT to show or allow our emotions out. Yet it is our feelings that make us whole human beings, without our emotions we become lesser human beings.

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Using or viewing porn is NEVER ever just about the porn itself. Porn is NOT the core problem here. Porn use is only a symptom of some other inner distress which we are attempting to avoid either knowingly or unknowingly (are unconscious of ?). Many many of us turn to using porn without really consciously understanding why we are so drawn to explicit images or websites, or movies (we are just drawn to them like a moth to a candle flame) but the reason is that we don't know why we are so drawn in auto-mode because we are unconscious of "the why".

The Why? we use porn is because we are drawn to numbing out are inner distress, our inner pain. Thus porn wont solve or heal our real, our deeper wounds porn only adds further distress to those wounds and gets in the way to ultimately healing them. Its a paradoxical situation, one prevents the other from taking place. Porn keeps us locked into or attached to our pain & sense of wounded-ness.

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