u/Emergency_Series_964

I (M) had a really open, honest conversation with a good friend recently about porn and where we're both at with it. It didn't go badly, but it left me more confused than before, and I think I need outside perspective.

Some background: I've been watching porn for a long time. It has varied over time, when I'm more stressed and in difficult seasons it was daily, but when I'm back home it's more like every 2-7 days. I've tried to quit before. Never successfully though, it's kind of always been there since I've started in one way or another.

Now here's the part that's messing with me, my friend and I see porn completely differently. I've always seen it as an addiction, something that I can't escape, and that I've been trying and trying without any progress. But they pointed out that I hype it up way to much. That I treat it like this insurmountable thing, when maybe it isn't.

That's what I need some help on. I feel lost in what to do about it, like how to go on just stopping.

In the past I've tried cold turkey, all sorts of wisdom methods, easing it off etc. But all along is it actually as hard to quit as I've always told myself? Have I been giving it more power that it deserves? Or is shrugging it off how I've stayed stuck. I genuinely don't know anymore which framing is true or if I've just been going with the one that is more convenient. Maybe I'm just stuck up in my thoughts with no action, because I've been "TRYING" to quit porn, but have never actually quit. Trying isn't doing, I've just continued with porn.

I don't know. After that conversation I just feel especially down and feeling like I need to do something about it. I have a gf, and it bother them a lot that I'm struggling with it too, less about the struggle but more about the fact that I do it. I just feel like shit. Like I don't want to do it but I always find myself doing it.

For people who've quit, did you start thinking about it differently? does that actually matter, or was it just taking action?