Age 14 – Met a girl, reconnected with my friends, picked up the guitar

I was 11 the first time I saw porn, and immediately was hooked. I didn’t even start masturbating until I was 12, I would just watch video after video, saying “Oh I’ll stop after this one, I can stop any time I want.”

I didn’t realize that I had a problem until it was about a year later, and that anytime I was bored, or didn’t know anything to do I would immediately revert to porn.

I fell into a depressive spiral, and shut out my family and friends, all I wanted to do was watch porn, or look at pictures of it.

Eventually about a year ago, I made the decision to cut out all “real” porn, only looking at drawn things, or animations.

I rationalized that since they weren’t real, it was fine, that it didn’t matter as much as real porn did.

But that was just a lie that I told myself to feel better about it.

About seven months ago, I found this subreddit from a news article, and read through so many stories of how much stuff it can do to you, how it can fuck up your life.

I thought that well, if these people can do it, I can too

I had a few false starts, a relapse here and there, but then I decided to double down on my efforts.

I downloaded extensions to block erotic websites, I put time limits on things like Instagram and didn’t just scroll endlessly through suggestive pictures, I deleted my reddit account that I had just for porn.

I met a girl, and now we’re together, I reconnected with some of my friends, and made some new ones.

I hang out with my family more often, and have a better relationship with them.

Picked up the guitar, and am currently saving up for a electric one.

I feel so much happier, and that my life is so much fuller now.

Thank you to everybody here for sharing your stories, for helping people through this, and for everybody trying to do this, you can. Don’t doubt yourself, you can do it.