u/ClueApprehensive6044

I started my recovery journey from porn with a very heavy punch to the gut. My best friend lashed out at me for being a pervert and always talking excessively about girls, their body parts and seeing them as just objects. He felt very upset and left a long message in our boy's group chat that he's extremely uncomfortable with meeting us and that felt like a stab in my heart because he always respected me and realising that he's seeing me the way he is killed me. And I wanted to shift my perspective towards myself and started with Day 0 yesterday.

Today, I completed my Day 1. Honestly, it felt like taking a highway ride to a beautiful view up the mountain but many times today I came dangerously close to falling off the mountain. It's like everywhere I see, I see sex. I opened my instagram feed to see beautiful women, either half naked or talking seductively. I opened my twitter to see edits made on actresses. My screen time today was more than 8hours and I spent almost 5-6hours on these two apps. Frankly, the only thing I didn't do was masturbate but I don't think I didn't consume porn. How can a person whose brain is filled with porn addiction come out of this if all he sees on the internet is seduction or sex?

But the good thing I felt after so long was the time that I was able to sit infront of my laptop to do my work. To have an immediate comparison from yesterday, my longest spell of continuous work was 30mins. Today, I made it my goal to sit infront of the laptop for atleast 2-3hours and guess what, though I had to stand up and walk for every 30-45mins, I returned to my laptop after very short breaks like 5-7mins. There was very minimal loss of focus and I was able to complete my day's work even before the day ended. For comparison, I always tend to procrastinate until very late at night and curse myself for staying up late. This is a big step forward for me.

I know it's very early to give credit for this productivity to abstinence, but there was a significant improvement in productivity from yesterday and my only change was I didn't masturbate today. Nevertheless, I'll keep continuing my fight against porn and I don't think I've been this serious about porn ever before. May god be with me on this. May everyone who's fighting this fucked up habit gain strength and come out of this.

Thanks for reading!

I’m a 29-year-old guy, and today something happened that I think will stay with me for the rest of my life.

My friends and I have a WhatsApp group. There are six of us, and we’ve known each other for 15 years.

This morning, one of my closest friends sent a long message to the group. He specifically called out three people, including me, and said we were becoming “peak perverts.” He said he no longer enjoyed talking to us because every conversation eventually became about women, sex, or objectifying someone’s body. He even said he would rather meet only the other two friends because our behavior made him deeply uncomfortable.

At first, reading those words felt like getting punched in the stomach.

Then I realized why.

Because he was right.

Whenever the three of us meet, almost every conversation revolves around girls. We talk about who slept with whom. We show each other pictures of women. We zoom in on body parts. We rate them. We sexualize strangers. We laugh about it as if it’s normal.

Today, for the first time, I stepped outside that bubble and saw it for what it actually is.

It’s not funny. It’s not “boys being boys.” It’s objectification.

The worst part is that I don’t think this is who I really am.

I’ve been addicted to pornography for around 14 years. I watch porn every single day. I masturbate two to three times a day, sometimes more.

I’ve tried quitting countless times, but I’ve always relapsed. At this point, I genuinely feel addicted in the same way someone can become addicted to alcohol or cigarettes.

Looking back, I think porn has gradually trained my brain to view women primarily through a sexual lens. That mindset became normalized because my closest friends and I constantly reinforced it in each other. We weren’t questioning it—we were feeding it.

Recently, though, I’ve started noticing something else.

I’ve been struggling to socialize naturally. Building and maintaining relationships feels harder than it should. Even during conversations, I sometimes catch my mind reducing women to appearance instead of seeing them as complete human beings.

I also recently ended a 3.5-year relationship with someone who was genuinely kind and caring. There were multiple reasons behind that breakup, and I don’t want to oversimplify it by blaming everything on porn. But I can’t ignore the possibility that years of addiction affected how I viewed intimacy, relationships, and emotional connection.

Today felt like someone held up a mirror that I’d been avoiding for years.

Another friend in the group immediately apologized after reading the message and admitted he’d become someone he didn’t want to be. Reading that made me realize I’m not the only one who needs to change.

So this is Day 0.

I’m posting here because I want accountability.

I don’t want to spend another decade letting pornography shape the way I think, speak, or treat women.

I want to become someone who sees people as people again.

I’ll be documenting my journey here—the wins, the failures, the relapses, and the progress. If you’ve escaped long-term porn addiction, I’d genuinely appreciate hearing what helped you.

Thanks for reading.