Two years ago I came across Nofap. I was searching for a cure to an unfulfilling emotional life. I craved the short term rush of pornography and one night stands. I was clueless about building real emotional relationships. Drinking and smoking were a tool to masquerade my true self. I had no idea the impact porn had on my life.
I don’t want to say all my symptoms were porn induced, in fact I am pretty sure that many were due to circumstances of age (19), and family issues. Still many of my problems were in a sense related to Porn addiction, or at least a domino effect of numbing my emotions and draining my creative drive.
I soon learned that wanting to quit porn, was not synonymous with actually quitting. Porn had a physical and psychological grasp on me, luckily this only reinforced my idea of having to quit. Initially abstaining from the urge lead to more energy than I had in awhile. I began meditating, working out, and joined an acting class as a hobby. I was stepping outside my comfort zone and it felt fantastic. For the next couple months I would fap every week or two, followed by the terrible lows of relapse and the drive to never go back to my old habit. I eventually reached 20 days of nofap, and met a girl which soon became my first real relationship. 1.5 years later, after having a wild ride of a relationship, my girlfriend and I decided to take a break. She went home to Australia, I continued pursuing my college degree. Times were difficult and I spent a lot of time alone when she left. I was clean from porn for 1.5 years but I fell back into the habit. For the next 6 months I battled my addiction and lost consistently. It was puzzling because when I was with my girlfriend I was sure that I was done with porn for good, I had absolutely no cravings. At this point I wrote it off to the fact that I could have sex with her frequently. Looking back I have a feeling it was not just the sex but something else. An idea that may not be talked enough on this subreddit
My girlfriend and I had broken up while she was away, but she was coming back to California and I offered that she could stay with me until she finds her grounding. Our break up was a mutual decision and we stayed close friends. Spending time with her was lovely, I knew that we could not be in a traditional relationship anymore, but I just felt much happier being with her. Now I could have jumped on the love train, maybe it was, but I think its something different. We were not having sex but we were sleeping in the same bed, cuddling, hanging out, embracing, and something crazy happened. The craving for pornography that I had, the perpetual need to ejaculate had vanished and before I knew it I was 1 month clean again. This time there was no sex involved I simply stopped craving pornography. I craved her quite badly and I occasionally fapped without porn. My now ex-girlfriend and I were adamant about not having sex and although we occasionally slipped up for a hook up, we were predominantly abstaining.
I started to look into what might be going on. Here is my guess. Although we do crave sex, our addiction to pornography is not directly due to lack of sex. For many, I believe that porn is used as a substitute for lack of physical affection and intimacy in life. In other words, we are lonely and we numb ourselves with porn.Which subsequently leads us to spending more time alone without physical and emotional intimacy. At least for me, spending time alone studying for exams was my biggest trigger, yet when I spent time with others the triggers faded away. When I had the affection, and touch of a female I looked at porn as something that would only ruin my current state. Is this it, do we have a massive pornography addiction because we lack connection in our lives. Burdened by the stress of our society many feel that they must sacrifice there relationships for work, and prioritize the material over the spiritual, or career success over healthy relationships. I am not saying this is why everyone watches porn, although I am proposing that for many it is not sex or ejaculation that is being craved, instead it is affection and connection.
Please let me know you thoughts on this. Have anyone of you had similar experiences?
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