I have been reading posts on this forum for a long time and it has helped me on my journey tremendously so I want to say thank you to all of you.
I decided to create an account just to have a rant about my experience cause it’s something that I never told anyone before.
I am 25 year old male and I was addicted to porn for a long time since I was maybe 10 years old. I discovered that porn was causing me problems in my life few years ago and since than I was trying to quit. I had no idea that it will be this hard and I learned so much about my self trying to conquer my addiction . On 30th November last year was the last time that I watched porn and after that session I fell into the deepest depression that I ever felt in my life. I was laying in my bad at 2am and I felt that I betrayed myself and the pain that I felt was unbearable. I couldn’t sleep whole night. It was the time that I felt depressed, suicidal , nihilistic and everything felt dark in my life . I came to realization that I created a hell for myself. There was no one else to blame except me .
I think that experiencing those feelings was necessary for me to finally make a final decision to stop with this filth completely in my life . I figured that if I created this situation for myself that I also have the power to change it. And it was up to me if I want to create a life that I want to live or if I want to create a hell for myself. I decided to live. I decided to get rid of this filth once and for all . And that was a game changer for me . Seeing my moral responsibility in creating heaven or hell was like a religious awakening . Either I watch porn and do the things I know to be wrong or I create the life for me worth living. Decision was up to me and I was the agent deciding between heaven and hell. I chose heaven.
It’s been almost two months and I’ve been completely abstinent from porn and masturbation. I’ve had periods before where I didn’t watch porn for a long time but I fell back to my addiction again. This time I know it’s different due to the reasons above I described. I finally feel that I am in control of the addiction and not my addiction over me .
Benefits that I am experiencing:
Social benefits – Most benefits that I noticed are definitely social. When I was deep into my addiction I was a shell of a person. Afraid of social situations, afraid of women, afraid to state my opinion, extremely socially anxious. Since I stopped this habit I noticed the improvement in this area every day. Every day I am experiencing more social benefits. I am more charismatic, I am a lot funnier, a lot calmer in social situations, talking to women is much easier every day that goes by . I am more assertive and confident in social situations. I am finally starting to feel aligned with my true self when I talk.
I don’t really know the science behind this. If somebody has a scientific explanation I would like to hear it. I can only guess. Watching porn and masturbating is a shameful act. Nobody is proud of it . Nobody goes out and talks with friends and family how much porn they watch and how many times they masturbate . We are all ashamed of that act. That’s why we feel post nut clarity. It’s our higher self telling us that what we shouldn’t be doing this. I am not really sure but my guess is that that’s the reason why we feel socially anxious and not confident. How can we be confident knowing what we are doing when we are alone and carrying so much shame ? We can’t fake the confidence. It has to come from within and it has to be real. When we carry so much shame that confidence can’t be real. Even if we try to act confident we know that we are lying , we are not being true to our selves. We can’t just have better self esteem faking it. If we are miserable and we are betraying ourselves watching pornography we can’t just decide to feel good about it and have a good self esteem and confidence. It’s just not real. When we finally stop and the time goes by, and we really feel that we got a grip on this addiction that’s when we can start feeling really confident. That’s when the shame is starting to disappear. I feel much better about myself and much more confident because I know that the person that was watching the porn last year is not me anymore. That person is dead. I am not going to betray myself. I am not going back there never in my life.
Anxiety and depression lifted- I feel a lot better since I stopped with this filth. Anxiety and depression is a complicated subject and I don’t want to say that porn and masturbation was 100% the reason for it . But it definitely played a big part in that .
More motivation, desire and drive – I am feeling much more motivated and ambitious. We all know how porn addiction can deplete our dopamine and we lose a lot of motivation and drive to achieve other things in life. Since I stopped I feel that returning. I also stopped other cheap dopamine activities like passively scrolling through Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, I stopped eating sugar. I am doing a dopamine detox and it’s really helping me. I am much more motivated to pursue things in my life.
I am feeling emotions more deeply – I will consider this a benefit even though maybe not everyone will agree . I said that this addiction taught me a lot about myself. One more thing I realized is that I was numbing my feelings with pleasure and addiction . Whenever I felt any emotional pain I would numb it with porn. Once I stopped, those emotions came back full force. Life can hurt us and with some life experiences I experienced sadness, frustration, anger, jealousy, heartbreak and those emotions are not pleasant but that’s what it means to be a human being. I would never trade it for emotional numbness that I was feeling. Because of that when good things happen, I am able to experience joy and happiness on a much deeper level as well.
I know that I am only 55 days in and I have a long way to go to conquer this addiction but as I said I know that I am not coming back . I have a moral responsibility to get rid of this . So I am looking forward to a lifelong journey.
Life is hard and tough and it can hurt us . But we should accept it as such and not hide away from it with porn and cheap pleasures.
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