Age 39 – How meditation helped wean me from online chat + porn

The heading sounds a bit cliche right? I know it does and there are several stories on internet on how meditation has helped people get off all kinds of addictions in the world and my story might be just one of those but the addiction here is p*rn of course – so I thought I will share my story.

I won’t be exaggerating if I say I was a pervert and I did things online which I shouldn’t have and consumed p*rn in industrial quantities. My fantasy world was really messed up with all kind of evil things in there. I consumed porn for over 13 years and it was pretty regular. I do feel terrible about the time I wasted but I feel even more sad about things I did online for the chat ‘partners’. I am married man and my wife doesn’t know about this. She is definitely the most amazing woman I know and I lied to her so much in the past because of my addiction. I tried several times to quit though but I always failed and in the past six months this got me worried about my love life (with wife) and also my career because I was spending so much time online on p*rn.

In June 2019, I went for a 10 Day Vipassana Meditation course. This was my second 10 day course btw and the first one did not help me much with quitting p*rn. TBH I wasn’t even serious about quitting when I did my first course. The desire to quit p*rn was definitely there in the second course. There are lots of articles online about this Meditation so I will not go into more details.

After the 10 day course I was back at home and I made it a point to practice Vipassana Meditation two-hours everyday – it was really hard in the beginning but now I am able to do it. During the course, the teacher said:
“An addict takes a drug because he wishes to experience the pleasurable sensation the drug produces in him, even though he knows that by taking the drug he reinforces the addiction.” and therefore through meditation I learnt:

  1. To be aware of my cravings for p*rn and not react to it – so no chance of relapse anymore
  2. How to observe these sensations and train my mind to not react
  3. Observe the triggers and not react to them

This has been a winning formula for me. I didn’t have to go for a run and say to myself “I am a strong man” because that is only at a conscious level, so there is a possibility of relapse. In my case – I was training the subconscious mind (through everyday meditation) to not react to cravings or triggers. Most of the past two months – I have been at home (alone), with high speed internet and all the access to p*rn I always had but now there is no going back.

In case this interests or inspires anyone, feel free to get in touch and we can chat. I wish you all the best.

Be Happy.

LINK – How I used Meditation to end my addiction…

By Lookinwards