u/Asleep_Presence_8879

Hey guys. I'm almost a full week in. Until now it's been pretty easy, because the intention stayed clear and I remembered why I wanted to quit.

However, that clarity is receding fast now, and I'm having my first real urges. Yesterday I peeked but closed the tab again. Today I'm browsing Reddit between work (was also messaged by an OnlyFans account looking to recruit me).

How do you remember the set intentions? Not only remember rationally, but also connect with that gut feeling? The past days I felt it as much as thought it. Now I can only 'think' it, and it doesn't feel like enough.

Yesterday I saw my gf for the first time in a while, and it's just before we won't be able to see each other again for a while. I'm on Day 4 now, so I was looking forward to cuddling with her. Then while we were cuddling, I felt this pressure to have sex, because it had already been 2 weeks since last time (I was away) and it will be at least another week before I see her again. So I initiated, and she responded, but I was not very attentive, more just using her for masturbation.

She didn't say anything but I think we both felt the same. I tried to address it, but she was unresponsive to it. Now I'm feeling guilty and worried that this guilt will cause a relapse today.

Can you help me get through today?

I just relapsed. Not very severely, but I realise now that it is a relapse. I was not watching porn, but did engage in an external stimulus to masturbate because I thought it wouldn't feel the same as when I watch porn. And in a way, it didn't! I don't have the same moral revulsion, nor a sense of guilt. But I think it did still follow that same general neural pathway that I'm trying to weaken.

Good to know for the future, that even when I seem so totally convincing that this will feel different, it still doesn't. I have to quit all external stimulus.

Next time, I will try MO without P, and see how that feels.

I feel like a lost cause. I'm in my mid-30s, discovered porn when I was 12. Have tried to quit so many times but I keep relapsing and ultimately giving up. Life is just too much stress and difficulty to not have this as a cope.

When I watch porn, I make decisions I am totally opposed to. It feels like I'm asleep, or in some kind of fugue state and when I cum, I 'wake up'. It feels like a totally different person, and I'm scared that I've created such a powerful cognitive barrier between the two states, that I'll never be able to be truly rid of the addiction.

I'm on Day 2 now, but I think I'm gonna need a lot of encouragement from you all.

I have struggled for years. I started watching porn at 12, and at 16 discovered catfishing, for which I used my girlfriend's pictures at the time. After that, I got obsessed with being cuckolded. Every girlfriend since, I've used her pictures to chase that fantasy online. Now, in my mid 30s, I am no longer using my girlfriend's pictures, which I am very happy with, but do still use my ex's.

I am absolutely horrified at what I have become and have tried many times to quit.

I've been in therapy for almost a decade to get at the root cause, and have tried to go cold turkey, with apps and blockers, but my porn-addled brain finds ways around them. It is like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. 'Porn Me' feels like a completely separate person and it scares me.

Last year I quit for 60 days, but the stresses and pressures of life get to me and I end up relapsing. I'm going to try again.

Yesterday I was anxious and panicked all day, having relapsed, stressing about what a disgusting monster I am, but then I had a moment of clarity and realized I could choose to behave differently. That has happened before, so I'm careful with my optimism, but it was such a relief to see the light and feel the weight lift off my shoulders. I deleted everything I had, reapplied the blockers and got rid of messaging apps I used primarily for this addiction. I'm committed.

Day 1.