What really scares me is that I remember every picture - JJ's story

Submitted by a reader on Mon, 27/07/2009 - 20:27

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I first started using mb at around 13 years old. i didnt know what i was doing but it felt good. I was a christian at the time so there was some shame attached to the act.

I think i first started looking at porn at around 15. Me and a mate would break into factories and steal the porn on the walls and in the lockers. I would steal porn from shops as well. I remember at 15 a cool kid nastily told me i was ugly and i pretty much accepted what he said to me. Im a shame based person so i never felt good enough for a girlfriend.

I was a virgin until i was 19 and after a drunken night at the pub i started seeing a girl for about two years, but i was so emotionally wound up that the sex was bad and the experience didnt motivate me to find a new girl fast. At 21 i found drugs and escaped life for a couple of years moving to other countries. I was always coming in and out of porn addiction, but my main focus was drugs for a while.

I came back home broken from the drugs and moved back in with my parents. I lived with them for a year and a half, becoming very sick from the effects of the drugs. During this time my porn addiction came alive again, it became my main feel-good.

It was my fathers computer, but some of the material i was looking at didnt feel right. the pull to go to dark places was strong but i knew my father was monitoring the computer. Later I ended up fortunately in recovery, rehabilitation and Narcotics anonymous. I met some women in recovery and had some relationships, neither working out.

Porn was always there when i was not in a relationship. I had subscribed to six video shops all with large amounts of porn dvds. Then i bought my own computer, broadband etc. However after a few years in recovery i was no longer blind. I saw it coming and used the tools in recovery to break the denial and to accept my addiction and the truth. Im at every line (done some damage with unhealthy fantasies) and have found porn to be extremely hard to get off. Its free easy and quickly available.

Ive just started reading other peoples stories and some are very sad. Even though im in recovery it is unspoken in NA. I have a good sponser and others who have gone before me. My secret came out however as im an open book and feel that this is going to follow me round for some time. I have acceptance from some in the group, but it has been hard with people suspecting and people can be cruel, specially addicts.

However i believe the 12 steps will work for porn addiction, i got six months up first time, have relapsed a few times but with this forum and other peoples experiences i feel a little more confident that i may get relief from this demon and not do further damage. What i didnt realise and what really scares me is that i remember every picture. i feel for those that have gone down further and what that does to the psyche. Hope this helps someone.

Thank you JJ for sharing this insightful account of your experiences.

Your story illustrates how recovery is a long-term process of learning and change, often with inevitable setbacks. It also highlights the impact of our shame and low self-esteem. These feelings contribute so much to our unwanted habits, and then keep us feeling trapped and despondent.

But your story is also one of positive self-awareness and hope. I wish you every success in your ongoing recovery.

Hello JJ,

GOSH!! I can really relate to so many elements of your story. I started using porn at only 14years old myself. I was a fat school boy & I was quite shy, I had zero self confidence especially were girls were concerned. I had a very poor opinion of myself at that time. Porn was too easy because it was safe, you didn't have to show your real emotions to anyone because it was behind closed doors so too speak. You didn't have to get involved in messy relationships & the porn models didn't burp or fart or reject your desires (there was no risk involved only safe fantasies).

I also used many drugs during my teens & twenties because I was deep down terribly insecure as a person & extremely unhappy & very confused by my life at the time. I came from a very dysfunctional family background but it was only many many years later and after years of therapy that I have finally come to understand what happened to me and why I responded the way I did back then. I have also forgiven myself because most of what happened to me was not my fault (even though I blamed myself for years).

JJ this is a wonderful website, and I have found this site the most helpful I have come across because people who come to this site are far less judgmental, the level of authenticity in what people share is extraordinary and I find very touching and moving. I think that the sharing of these often very sad or painful stories is very important as a part or start of a healing process.

Take good care of yourself, use that good self awareness to help yourself move away from needing porn. You've already started you just need to take a few more steps forwards when you are ready. You can and will do it I'm sure, in your own time and at your own pace.

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JJ, I'm sorry to hear that some of the folks in NA haven't been very understanding about your porn addiction. I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but there are 12-step programs for sex addiction where you'll find understanding and a wealth of support. Check out SA (Sexaholics Anonymous), SAA (Sex Addicts Anonymous) or SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous). Each are slightly different in their approaches, but all follow the basic 12-step model you're already familiar with, but in a setting where everyone there will know exactly what you're going through.

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JJ - it scares me too. After such a long time absorbing pornographic images and film clips, it troubles me that I can close my eyes and recall so much of it. Favourite porn stars, random women.. even magazine images that I looked at 10+ years ago.

It troubles me because if I can consciously recall all this stuff so vividly, what impression has it left on my subconscious. How does it affect my thoughts and attitudes moment by moment? I know that porn made/makes me see things so much more sexually, and to a very unhealthy extent.

I have a great deal of respect for your 6 months victory over the habit. That proves that you can do another 6 months, a year and onwards. One thing that I've picked up from this website is that a slip isn't always a step right back to square one. It depends on how you choose to look at it and react with your feelings.

Peace.

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Hi,

I think Anthony's comments are very interesting. This raises another aspect of having a porn problem (porn obsession), porn images can and do have a very powerful effect on some people. This is because we react to porn images directly through our eyes, and our eyes & visual processing is connected directly to our brains through the optic nerve, coupled with our hormonal system i.e. this is how our bodies react to sexual stimulous but with porn the responses are hyper stimulated (like thrown into over drive). If you couple together the visual impact of porn images viewed, plus arousal this is the way such images get almost imprinted into the psyche. The only way to become free of these imprinting effets is through a long slow gradule process of healing, and this means being free from porn as far as possible.

These mental & visual imprinting effects are difficult to talk about as they can be quite upsetting and yet again this imprinting is another thing that can hold the user a prisoner of porn. To be free from this mental effect the only way is not too continue to use porn, to allow a healing process, to allow the mind (pysche) space from porn and then these effects slowly wain or melt away. If you continue to use porn then this mental imprinting only makes matters worse and YES! it can & does have a dreadful effects on the pysche that much I can confirm. The mental imprinting is another part of what keeps a person stuck with their porn habit. But there again healing is always possible if a person only allows there mind & body the chance to be free from this, the body-mind will come back into balance if we allow it.

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To put it another way (to look at the problem from a slightly different perspective) from an evolutionary perspective. Human beings including the human psyche were never intended to have to deal with the concentrated effects of being exposed to porn and porn images. We were never designed to have to cope with viewing porn or to have to deal with the powerful effects that explicit images have on us. Little wonder then why such exposure to explicit content can & does have such corrosive after effects.

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