Shouldn't have strayed from the site so soon...

Submitted by Philip on Tue, 14/06/2011 - 23:54

Philip's picture

It had felt so good when I found this site, and made a goal of self control and to not shy away from my any anxieties in my life that were driving me to hide away in this addiction. It felt even better when I conquered my first step of clearing my hard-drive.

I had managed a few weeks of keeping to a strict schedule twice a week (without material), but I'm embarrassed to say that after I stopped visiting here I got cocky, and even though I started small, I was only a month away from having a "new site".

I soon made myself a loop-hole: If I'm deleting periodically then there's no collecting aspect and I can stretching my muscles for self control. That too went out the window. Now, I look at my hard-drive and already see the building blocks of the old me.

But if it was done once, it can be done again. Time to get back on the horse!

Your story sounds so much like mine. I too got "cocky" and thought that 6 months was great going, not that I was counting, but stress seems to be my trigger.
The sad thing about this site, at the moment, is that it is a little slow or that those on it are busy? That is certainly true for me as I work hard and long hours. However I admire your resolve and was really glad for your kind words.
I am now coping with the shame of all of my good work being undone in one week, I dare say it will pass, I hope so much to return to my normal self.
Have decided to start jogging by the way !

Littlebear

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Hi Philip,

Thanks for sharing your story. This is a very classic symptom that a person experiences when attempting to change a habit - ex-drinkers, smokers and gamblers will all attest to this.

The problem for many of us is that the habit is a comfort. Observe an individual entering a room full of strangers or standing on stage waiting to walk to the podium to deliver a speech. You will observe a number of reassurance behaviours - stroking the back of their hands, touching their face etc.

In life we take a surprising amount of reassurance from habits and old routines, and for many compulsive porn users, porn is a comfort, a distraction, a way to forget about our troubles for a period of time.

It follows that when we attempt to change our behaviour we put ourselves into a state of anxiety. It's no longer clear what to do when we feel stressed and what our new reassurance behaviours are. We have to learn these again, but the process of learning can be a stress in itself. We subconsciously reach for what we know, which unfortunately for us can be the very behaviour we're trying to change.

In these cases our habit develops a kind of voice. In Rick Carson's classic 'Taming Your Gremlin', he describes this voice as its own entity, an internal gremlin who seeks to stop you from achieving your higher ambitions. There are parallels with Freud's 'Id', the conceptual part of the mind which attempts to drive us to safety through inaction.

In any case, you can't do anything to stop this feeling. However you can learn to recognise it as the desire for reassurance manifested in an unhelpful 'confidence' that you can somehow return to old habits without the negative consequences.

Remember that from the moment you try to make any change, there is an internal inertia back to what is comfortable and known. At the beginning you might think "this is pointless, I'll never stop" or "porn is my hobby, why should I give it up?". Once you start to succeed, the voice changes tactic "great, you've succeeded now, you can look at porn like normal people" or "you've done well, so why not treat yourself to a quick session". Recognise these as the same voice.

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Nathan, you put it particularly well. Even if it is still early days of the second attempt, I know that if I can bear what you've said in mind I can learn from this and go further.

Thank you Little Bear, and Nathan!

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