Ask HN: I am addicted to Porn. Help me quit

Not sure this is the correct forum but I know of others who have gotten help from this org. https://saa-recovery.org Maybe a place to start pulling on the thread to find treatment.

This program might be sponsored by the Church or Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (formerly, colloquially known s the Mormons) but they are very good about focusing on recovery and not conversion or preaching and there are meetings you can phone into or go to in person: https://addictionrecovery.churchofjesuschrist.org/find-a-mee...

As someone who has dealt with the selfsame thing you are going through I found their program helpful in helping me get out of addiction (I wasn’t sure I wanted to share that but if it helps you out then it was worth it).

start here https://www.yourbrainonporn.com/quitting-porn/

Have a wank to your favorite porn, then just walk away from it. Delete your accounts, delete whatever stash you have, and walk away. You need other things in life to keep you occupied.

Get into having fun with your wife - see what gives you some schwing as much as porn. You can find similar goodies, just on a different scale.

One more suggestion is understand yourself better. What the fuck is it in your favorite porn that gets you off? Nine tenths of it is symbolic: what does the porn actually stand for to you? When you know what really makes you tick, how do you integrate or exclude that in life?

Lastly, there is a chance that you may be a total psychopathic degenerate. Be careful, as you could destroy your family or yourself...

I have a professional answer that I can chat about in a different context if you want to message me. Personally for me it was realizing that I was using porn as means of getting dopamine when I was getting stressed out. After realizing this, it was a matter or recognizing this sensation and removing myself from my computer and phone for awhile. You'll end up going to the bathroom or taking walks very often at the beginning. Another thing to keep in mind is that the desire to masturbate can also come from needing to urinate.

I conquered porn 7 years ago after 14 years of addiction, and so will you. The answer is found through prayer, which will lead you to the ultimate problem solver. If you're looking for the specifics you can reach me here https://pastebin.com/7gVgkGBx

The actor Terry Crews was also addicted to porn and he did some videos about quiting that you'll find online. Gist of it is figuring out your current habits and changing them. For example, he knew that he watched on Friday nights when the kids and wife were out for some activity, so he prevented himself from being home alone during that time and worked a system to control his addiction.

Here's a totally different approach, from Keeley Olivia. Not meant as a way to quit, but as a way to create spiritual meaning in the practice.

"Masturbation is the new Meditation" --> find her TED talk or YouTube channel. She has some specific recommendations for men.

Obviously, masturbation is perfectly normal and frankly, to be celebrated. Porn, on the other hand, is much more ethically questionable. Try to dissociate the two, so the one can be celebrated without shame -- emphasizing connection with your own body -- being mindful -- it can strengthen your sex life with your partner and improve your confidence/wellbeing

The use of psilocybin has been found to be extremely effective in helping to break serious addictions, including alcoholism. The exact mechanism through which this occurs isn't known, but it might be worth investigating - especially if you live in a country where clinical trials are taking place.

There is a subreddit [1] about this where you can get a lot of suggestions and help.

As suggested before, breaking out of your bad habits is a great way to get started:

- never find yourself alone in a room with your computer (put the desk in the living room, etc.)

- get an app like Loop habit tracker [2] to track your "porn free" days and keep the streak going!

- do more activities with your loved ones (any kind of activities)

(I'm currently 65 days in. I know how it feels. It gets better with time. The fact that you've reached for help means you're already on the good way! Good luck to you!)

[1] https://reddit.com/r/pornfree/

[2] https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits/

This isn't an end all be all, but it can raise the barrier to entry: route the DNS of all your devices, including your router, through family-filter-dns.cleanbrowsing.org. OpenDNS is another option.

Second, see a therapist who specializes in this. Groups mentioned in this thread are good too. Change your routine and find someone who can hold you accountable. Go to bed at the same time as wife, find an activity/hobby to redirect energy and re-sensitize.

I know a lot of guys who have successfully quit porn, and what they say helps is being really vulnerable with guys who have the same struggle. Part of it is looking at the emotional needs they are trying to fill with porn. Asking themselves questions like what is this doing for me in the moment? (Given that they don't want to be doing it, why are they actually doing it?) They also build habits of sharing how their week was emotionally with a small group of like-minded guys. Generally over the course of about a year they find themselves building habits where they learn what their emotional needs are, ways to meet their needs, and increasing ability to be courageous in things like confronting their wives or not responding in anger when their wife accuses them.

I can't speak from experience on porn, but this same approach has helped me a lot with other unhealthy habits. I've been doing it about a year, and I am much better at identifying what I am feeling and really desiring, and as a result, the unhealthy habits are less appealing because it's clear they won't give me what I'm really looking for. (In my case it's "belonging") I still don't have a solution for my desire to belong yet, but I am now able to sit in the pain and sadness and disappointment instead of trying to numb it.

Go to a library. Find a section of books on psychology or self-help or spirituality, better if it is more distant from where you are now. Go through the books and pick the ones that "look at you" as Russians say. You'll know which ones. Read and see where this takes you.

I myself had a similar issue. I managed to quit for two years and even though now I do watch once in a while, I think I do it in a much healthier frequency.

The suggestions I will give are partly based on experience (even though I had a slightly different situation). I also include some reasoning but it is not necessarily correct.

I assume the main problem is that you need "heavy" eye-candy to get turned on. In general your tolerance has build up and you need to lower it.

1. Focus on lighter forms. For example try to avoid watching videos at all, instead maybe try just reading sexually exciting stories that may or may not contain images at all. This will let your brain fill in the gaps and build the images. Then do what you have to do to get over that urge (i.e. masturbate). I believe this will lower your "turn-on" threshold.

2. Do what you have to do as soon as possible. When you need to masturbate just do it and get over with it. Don't spend 90% of your time trying to excite your brain with content. Try to use your imagination. If you have to get some content try to avoid videos and visual content. Once you are done you will not need the porn as your body did what it had to do.

I think the following two apply to addiction in general:

3. Avoid places that your brain has associated with your addiction (ex. If your addiction kicks-in when you are home alone after work, until your wife comes home, then try going for a coffee and come home later when your wife is home)

4. Avoid activities that your brain has associated with your addiction (ex. if the addiction kicks-in when you are on social media try staying away, if it kicks in when you are in the toilet, try to bring something that will distract your attention)

The next two suggestions depends on the situation

5. It may or may not be a good idea to discus this with your wife. I cannot advice on that but you could consider it. Maybe she is willing to help.

6. Maybe you can discus about spicing things up (whether or not you go into full detail on your "problem").

Some other points that I feel in my case played a role. (They might be completely irrelevant to you and they might even have been for me)

7. Try to stick to a healthy or at least healthy-ish diet (I avoided fast food and sugar products as much as possible). I believe a healthy diet will make it easier for you to get excited with less sexual content.

8. Exercise, this might even distract you from your "bad" habit as it will take some time out of your day for a very good cause of making you healthier in general.

9. Reduce sugar consumption. I think sugar excites the brain in a way that makes it harder to further excite or something (raises the "turn-on" threshold and giving it its dose, I don't know)

10. I don't know about this from experience but since the entire thing is about addiction and brain excitement I am sure staying away from drugs must be absolutely relevant.

I am not a marriage expert or have any kind of expertise on the matter so I am not giving any professional advice. This is just my personal experience and I will not take any responsibility, but you can probably use your judgment on that.

It of course depends on the relationship to your wife, but one of the first steps might be to come clean to her. - Take the steps mentioned in other posts (go to the subreddit, read up on psychology, see a psychologist, change your routine), and then share with your wife. Not only will it make her feel better, she might be able to help you with the necessary steps.

I’d like to stress the importance of exercising. I myself am trying to quit porn addiction, and have seen a lot of folks recommending exercising but wasn’t convinced. Only recently I started running regularly, and I’ve seen a lot of improvement, I feel less the need to watch porn. The thing is that the addiction takes a toll on your self-esteem while exercising increases your confidence, so it helps counter it.

Besides, depending on how tech savvy you are, content filters may or may not be effective. An unpopular but quite effective one for self control is Pluckeye. It works under linux and windows.

You can also seek an accountability partner.

Also, following the subreddit /r/NoFap might keep you motivated. Here are some videos which motivate me personally : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5R-FbmLbpWY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hx-p9Wr6xg0

It is usually easier to get over an addiction by replacing it with something else. So go for a run or take a cold shower.

Another thing that's helpful is to identify when you have your strong moments and capitalize on those to do more preventative measures. You posting this was one of your strong moments, for example. Make it easier by removing the possibility of accessing porn; if you are an alcoholic, get the liquor out of the house. People have already recommended some good solutions - I'd even go as far as to access your router and put a block on your computer's IP address. (Wife might notice if you put a blanket parental policy on everything) But do these changes when you are feeling strong so it will make it easier when you feel weak/low on willpower.

Sam Harris has an pretty good intro to mindfulness. It's a lot easier to deal with any addiction when you can make that little tiny voice louder. The way addiction thrives is when we lie to ourselves. The harder that is to do, the more resistant we are to addiction. Good luck!

As with any addiction there are different flavors of it and each one requires specific approach. For example, if the origins of it are in frustration over your sexual fantasies never get real, all attempts to quit the addiction the same way as quitting a smoking habit will only make things worse. I recommend you visit a doctor who specializes on addictions first.

I've been in (psychodynamic) therapy for around 9 months because I was addicted to porn before my relationship with my current gf. After around 1 year of honeymoon period bliss (and lots of passionate sex) the habit and urges came back stronger than ever. I lost interest in my gf sexually and it led to a lot of problems between us. I then started therapy.

I've not yet "conquered" my porn addiction, but I've realized it may have its roots in repressed anger and unable to deal with anger in a healthy way. So I echo the answer of the other comments that mention emotional displacement as the cause. I think the first step is to realize that you're addicted because subconsciously your mind is looking for relief from some difficult feeling you're unable to confront. This makes it useless to try quit by using "will power". Instead I would look for a good therapist who can help with behavioural addictions and with help and hard work you might be able to overcome it. I'm speaking only from personal experience and of course some of these things may not apply to you. But I hope it helps. Good luck my friend.

If you wish to understand more about emotional displacement, depression and addiction, I found two books particularly enlightening on the subject. One is "The body keeps the score" by Bessel Van Der kolk. The other is "In the realm of hungry ghosts" by Gabor Mate. Highly recommend both. The first is particularly great imo.

I don't think it's the porn. I think there are underlying issues that you haven't mentioned and might not even be aware of. My suggestion is that you start by not buying into the addiction narrative. Instead of telling yourself you're "addicted to porn", tell yourself that you're using porn as a coping mechanism, and that this is counterproductive.

I'd also suggest seeing a therapist who uses cognitive-behavioral therapy and other evidence-based methods, if you can afford to do so or have decent health insurance.

Whatever you do, avoid twelve-step programs. There's almost no evidence for their efficacy, and the success rate is no more than %10.

I'd actually suggest you consider telling your wife for a few reasons:

1) It's really unfair to go on letting her believe an untruth. She should know the reason you have not been intimate with her. She may even be relieved to know that what she thought was the issue, her getting old which is something that she can't change, wasn't actually the issue and the real issue can be changed. 2) You have been hiding this habit for 15 years, surely this will not be a complete surprise to your wife. 3) The most important reason is that once your wife is aware of your struggle she will be a strong motivation to quit and potentially even a supportive person who you can be vulnerable with (as opposed to strangers on HN).

It might help to picture yourself five years from now. If you don't quit (the trend for the past 15 years) then your relationship with your wife will only have become worse, your wife will continue to believe that she is undesirable, you will continue to have this part of your life that you are scared to share with your family, etc. If you come clean with her then you will (likely) be forced to change and hopefully your relationship is improved and you no longer have this baggage in your life. If she loves you (which it sounds like she does) she will probably be more understanding than you picture in your head.

To share my (religious) experience, I struggled with porn for several years and became extremely frustrated because I felt like I became a slave to the urge, no matter what I tried I couldn't seem to quit. Eventually, in my frustration, I prayed to God and begged for help to break the habit and in that moment I got a calm feeling and with time I felt that my prayer was answered. The addiction didn't go away, but I seemed to find just enough self control/motivation/discipline/whatever to quit cold turkey. I know religion isn't usually a well-received remedy, and it's not required in order to quit porn, this was just my experience.

I don't have any advice for you, but I just want to say good for you for taking this step and seeking help with this. You can do it. Thanks for sharing your personal life with us. It is inspiring for other people battling their own troubles, such as myself, who are still afraid to start seeking help from others.

It seems like the problem you want to solve is how to increase the amount of physical and sexual intimacy with your wife.

Are you sure the problem is pornography? The vast majority of the male population consumes an enormous amount of pornography and is still intimate with their partner. I think you should be open to the idea the problem might exist elsewhere.

Is the problems a lack of mental or physical arousal?

If it's physical you could try getting prescribed viagra, if it's mental a sex therapist might help.

Also if your wife is open to it, you could watch porn together.

If you're wanting to quit porn for its own sake(usually religious) then probably other people's advice would be more beneficial.

If it's possible for you, see a qualified therapist. They will help you unpack the the problem and see if from different perspectives.

I would not trust advice you find on the Internet, it could just compound the invisible biases you already have (this is a risk with therapists too, but less so since they're trained professionals).

Shop around for a therapist. If you have friends who know you well and can recommend a therapist ask them for a recommendation.

Best of luck, seeking out help is the first step.

My heart is heavy for you. This is a difficult thing to overcome. I am sure, given your comments, that you have tried high and low and have come to the same conclusion.

I was in the same boat, being highly addicted to porn and not desiring or enjoying sex with my wife. When we did have sex, my mind was elsewhere having sex with these women in my imagination and yes it was slowly killing my wife. She struggled with feelings of being unattractive. You think you are hiding it but it is a dark life that manifests itself in other ways. My addiction lasted 16 years and grew worse with time.

I tried to quit as much as I could but would always fall. Maybe I went a few days or a week at best.

Until I discovered Jesus Christ and gave myself fully to Him. I became born again and truly relinquished control to Him.

Hear me please, there is NO other way to overcome this as it is a spiritual battle that has been well thought out and efficiently deployed in these end times for the masses.

Take heed, just being born again didn't do it. I had to fully, 100%, give up myself and He showed up big time and broke those chains. That is the ONLY way that works. Now, I have no desire to watch porn nor do I look at girls lustfully and in fact, TV shows with nudity offend my spirit (hopefully you'll come to know what this means).

I realize this won't be popular here but having tried all other ways and failing, I invite you to try Him out (if you haven't already). Know that He loves you so much and is waiting for you to invite him into your heart.

Cry out to the Lord and invite Him into your heart. Cry out to Him and acknowledge that you, on your own means, are unable to overcome this spiritual onslaught and ask Him for grace to overcome. He will show up because He promised He would and is no man that He should lie. I am praying for you.