u/HistoryAfter1 — reddlx

Hello, here I will discuss my porn addiction in the hopes it may help someone and also to receive any helpful tips or feedback that could help in any way in my recovery journey. This addiction has affected my life and robbed me of many things that I wasn't aware of. I am a 27 year old male that has struggled with porn addiction for around 10+ years. I cant exactly pin point when the addiction started but I know the first time I masturbated was around age 12-13. Some kid at school was selling a cellphone and I told him if he could download me some porn videos on the cell I would buy it off him. I ended up buying it and went home and masturbated for the first time with the videos. Moving forward I would keep consuming porn like any horny teenage boy, sometimes watching late night tv channels that had nudity too. Looking back it all seems blurry but at around age 15 I moved countries and had my first experience with depression. Also I might add I hadn't had any sexual experience with any girl up until this point only some kissing and groping but no intercourse. When I had depression, I resorted to physical activity which was running. It helped out and before I knew it I was feeling better. During this time I didn't consume pornography in order to feel better so I might discard this as the beginning of my addiction. Fast forward to when I was around 17, I met a girl and ended up dating her. I had my first sexual experience with her when I was 18 and lost my virginity. I will add the first time we had sex, I performed well. The relationship was great and at the time I had no idea I had an underlying problem with porn until this one time something happened I didn't understand. While trying to have sex, I could not get an erection. Nothing absolutely nothing would get me aroused not even her touching me. At the time, I brushed it off and in my head I thought, ah no big deal, i'll just go home and finish what couldn't be done here by watching some porn and masturbating. Obviously this was a big red flag and at the time I was not aware of it. I came to realize that I could only perform under certain circumstances like the sex position counted a lot in order for me to get aroused. Now, I know this certainly had to do with wanting to act out what I saw in porn videos and doing it in real life and if it wasnt done that way, I would have a hard time performing. This is the first time I can say I now know I had a problem. The relationship came to an end and I fell into a deep depression for a few years. During this time my consumption increased in order to feel some sort of relief and feeling of good. Throughout my early adult years 20-24, I met new women that came and went mostly just something casual wanting sex more than any real connection. I could not perform on any of these women, and I still managed to not be aware of the problem I had, not even questioning as to why I could not perform. I would just brush it off and keep consuming porn in order to get the satisfaction that I couldn't get with a woman. It wasn't until I was around 24 that something came into my head and I finally started thinking, maybe I do have a problem. I started researching erectile dysfunction in young men and realized that It was a problem growing at an alarming rate in the society in young men. I contacted my doctor with this issue and of course the first thing they do is try to make you take pills to solve your problems. They gave me sildenafil (viagra). This did not help at all as I still had problems performing. As the years passed, I kept consuming and then I met my current girlfriend. I still had issues performing with her but managed to perform to some extent with erections not as strong as I would like and not as strong as when I would masturbate. I think she knew something was wrong but could not exactly pin point it either. These past few years I came to realize that porn was the problem and I was an addict. This year I managed to build up the courage and openly tell my partner that I was addicted to pornography. She was very understanding and has since been a great source of support and encouragement and yet I still manage to relapse to this day and this addiction still has a grip on me after all of these years.

In conclusion I think that many of us young men suffer in silence. Society still hasn't understood the grave dangers of pornography and its effect on your mind. The solution is to just throw pills at you but not find the root cause and fix it. Im sick, my brain is sick and I need curing. This addiction has robbed me of many things and I am working day by day, so far I think im close to a week clean but I know I can relapse at any moment. Also physical activity helps a lot, I occasionally go to the gym. For any young men out there understand that you're not alone and that the new trends that sort of down play porn addiction are entirely wrong. Saying stuff like gooning and edging and all that new lingo these teens and young adults say is a way to make it seem like its something fun and normal when it's not. This can seriously damage you and is bad like any other addiction. I still cant pin point when my addiction started but I know the damage it causes from consuming it year by year. Pornography is a poison that poisons your mind and I believe it is a tool used to keep people from reaching their true potential. For us to all be prisoners of our addictions.