u/ImportanceThese5535

Man, what a journey.
I don't know what to say, honestly.

I went from a mindset of "I am not worthy enough and will never be forgiven"
to
"I can quit, I can be forgiven"

I did also realise, the addiction might just be a symptom of a deeper, underlying problem. I reached out for help, and will continue to reach out until I get help..

Unfortunately, my eye got hurt so I can't give you a really long post on what changed and what I found out about myself, but my eye won't let me. I might follow up in a few days though.

Regardless, I want to thank everyone who has supported me throughout this journey, I will keep you lot in my mind and pray for you.

Eye is really bugging me, I should shut it now.

This won't be my last time coming back.

Bye for now

I don't know what to do anymore, this journey is coming to an end and I realised how much help I need, help from someone who sits down a listens, a real person, not a text on a screen.

I will seek out for that help, I encourage you to do the same

My Journey is not perfect, but I learned a lot and I encourage everyone to do the same. You can quit, yes you can!

What have we lost?

What is it, that addiction took away from us, can we even remember it?

Recovery isn't this terrible thing to be in, it's freeing, it's gaining something back, gaining back what we lost.

Some people have been addicted for so long, they have never even found what they where supposed to find, so in recovery, it might not be a 'gaining back' but a 'gaining more / new'.

I am exited for that, I am excited to see what life has to offer, what God put out there for us to get, once we gain back the freedom we never had with this addiction.

Are you excited too? Or is it too abstract yet?

Blessup

Recovery is about gaining something back. To an addiction, we all loose something, the more we get away from it, the more we gain back what we lost.

I never knew I was into reading books, I am curious what else I will gain back once I am fully recovered.

Perhaps, I will feel like a kid again?

It's coming to an end, and throughout this, besides reddit, Terry Crews has been a big inspo for me.

I've never seen a celeb talk about it the way he does, so openly at that volume.

Also, I noticed the importance of positive self talk, seriously.

Your day is made up of a lot of little decisions, try to make the rights ones in those small moments, stack those wins, feel good about yourself and success will compound.

Also, I will change up my environment, I have been at home too much the past few days.

Blessup

Today was ruff, no one got back.

C u tmr

My inner need to be accepted.

Yesterday I realised, one of the biggest reasons why I might be addicted to this is because I gave myself the fault to a lot of things that happened in my childhood, harm that I had no control over.

I gave myself the fault and drowned in guilt, because loss of control as a child is scary and my way to gain control back was to guilt myself into saying "I could have controlled what happened, but I chose not to because I was too scared"

It sounds weird writing it out, because it doesn't make any sense, but that was my thought process, protecting me from the things that happened.

Later, that involved into a thinking of "My existence is just a burden to others", I thought, if I'd breathe, I'd take another persons oxygen away. I basically guilt tripped my existing.

As I grew older, it became less, but never disappeared. I noticed myself crying out of guilt anytime I bought myself something expensive or any time some major positive event happened.

To compensate, I learned to never accept any gifts, to never be a burden and to be the yes-man.

Not only that, but my inner child felt the deep need to be loved and forgiven for things I never had any responsibility for. At times, it felt like the pressure was unbearable.

I guess, at some point, this sickness of pornography seemed like a way to get attention, to be validated, to feel special and as an escape from the constant pressure I put myself under to not be a burden.

But pornography never actually gives you real attention or validation, it is just an illusion, leading you to yearn for more attention and novelty.

I assume, that might have been part of the reason why I started over attaching to being validated by others. My entire self worth was tied to performance and validation, so whenever performance drops, I put myself under even more pressure, which leads me to more guilt and shame, making the chances higher to slip back into bad habits.

I don't have any advice to give to myself here.

That's why I decided to reach out to a therapist. I don't really know how to work this stuff out, and I don't think the internet is the best place to get help for that.

It's odd, when I write it out or even think that the things that happened in my childhood are not my fault, it seems reasonable but my mind can't really grasp it. If I had to explain that feeling, it's like telling your friend that one motivational quote you heard somewhere, but never really understood the meaning of.

I don't know what to make out of this, but I'll get back to you tomorrow hopefully with good news regarding the therapist.

Thank you for reading this, it means a lot and I hope you could gain some value in this.

Blessup

My journey is coming close to an end. I learned a lot, and want to thank everyone who has supported me throughout.

I want to touch on something many people might not really think about.
When people try to quit, at some point our addictions might argue and say "Maybe I am not addicted... Maybe I overreacted" or worse

"Why do I even want to quit, if I have these infinite options and I am hurting no one"

Sometimes I feel like, we forget why we even got on this path, so let me turn this question around.

What happens, if we never quit?

You might want to ask yourself this question. What type of person will you become, if you don't quit. What will you loose out on, what will happen?

I asked myself this question, and porn turned into a cage. Into a cage, hiding the beauty of the real world. Into something big and evil, destroying so many peoples lives.

I used to struggle with the thought of "missing the unlimited novelty" but that was because I never thought about what I was loosing if I where to give into these impulses.

Terry crews said, the definition of recovery is to gain something back.

We are all on this path, we all 'already' quit, but recovery takes time, the same we it takes time to get back what we lost.

I am curious what life outside of the cage looks like. I don't ever want to be in that cage, ever. I don't want to become the person, stuck in that cage, ever.

Recovery might be hard, but I believe it is worth it, because we gain something that we never had...

The Freedom to say "no".

I want that freedom, and I want it for you too. Also, I downloaded ResetHive, pretty cool app with some useful material, 100% for free, you should look into it.

Anyways, the price of not quitting is the price of freedom and the gain of quitting is recovery, which is freedom.

I want that.

C u tmr

Just checking in today. I listened to a podcast by Terry Crews and realised, it might genuinely be worth it to check out a therapist, though they do cost a lot.

I am definitely going to go back to a SAA meeting, not because I need it, but because being in a space with real people, real faces that share the same problems help me to not feel alone.

Shame thrives in isolation, and isolation can also be, being around tons of people if none of them know what you are really going through.

c u tmr

My desires are not evil. The action can be.

This is what I found out today. The past few days, I have been working really hard on "not escaping" which led for my urges to pretty much disappear for about 4 days.

The part I forgot, is that I am human. My urges will not disappear, I am still a man with testosterone, so when it hit me, I was less prepared than I thought I was.

It made me realise, running away from my urges is just another form of escapism.

Yes my protocol work, and the breathing techniques, but it also has to work when urges hit, not just when the urge to escape comes.

To not confuse anyone, I differentiate the urges:

1. Urge to escape (scrolling, asking ChatGPT random questions, doing anything besides what I am supposed to do)

2. Urge to escape by relapsing or the urge to watch adult content.

Through my protocol of what to do when an urge hits (read my other post, I think it was day 18), I pretty much got over the first urge, which made the second disappear. But once I willingly, not out of escapism, indulged in activities which where the result of the first type of urge, it created a strong wave of the second type of urge which is significantly harder to sit with.

All I know is this. Our lives consist of habits, whether good or bad. To change them, we have to find alternatives. My protocol is the alternative. I stop escaping, it's just a matter of repetition. The more I sit with my urges and continue doing what I am supposed to do, the more I train my brain to not escape.

It is possible. Other people have successfully done it, people who have it similar to us, or even people who have it worse than us. It is not impossible.

If you read it till here, imagine for a second how a life without this terrible thing would be. How different would you deal with difficult situations? At some point, we would not even want it, we'd rather just work out, or continue doing whatever we are doing in that moment.

We can, I can, you can.

Please, do not give up on yourself, you deserve to be free from these chains.

You're not missing out on anything if you quit, you only gain.

See you tomorrow

10 days left.

I am pushing the longer journal till tomorrow. Today was the same as yesterday, pretty much no urges, I didn't escape anything.

I will keep it short today.

Talking about short, I feel like my journals have been falling short. I'll give you a deeper insight tomorrow.

For today, what I noticed was pretty much nothing. Literally, nothing. And that's a good thing. I believe today was the first day where I did not escape one single situation. With "nothing" I meant "no urges", literally none, at least not so much that I'd consider them urges, rather quick, fly-by thoughts.
It's crazy, the first day I did not escape any situation was also the first day with no urges.

I'll keep going like that.

If I can, you definitely can too.

Blessup

Not a lot to say today, other than that Escapist distraction is definitely the number one cause of relapses and urges.

I guess, I just have to keep going, keep being uncomfortable and regulate myself.

Wish you the best, c u tmr

I NEED ADVICE!

I think I am starting to get the hang of it, but I am not sure.

Don't get me wrong, it's still hard, but if I truly work on my escapism problem, I feel like my urges become significantly less strong, in fact even disappear sometimes.

Now I did my second lesson on Mark Quppets course, and I have to say... I have mixed feelings about it.

He talked about with the 3 frontline questions, a protocol you take once an urge hits that goes like this:

1. What do i want?
2. How do I win?
3. Who will I become?

That sounds great, but for me, it just opened up the space of negotiation. My protocol for whenever the urge of escapism hit was this, and it's been working great so far:

1. Breathe and stay still
2. Forget about doing whatever you want to escape from
3. Take the absolute smallest step towards where you want to be

And most importantly, my protocol includes the rule of "not thinking". No overthinking, no explanation, just turning your brain off, calming your nervous system and existing, then taking action.

When I used his system, my brain instantly went from "I want to be the type of person that doesn't escape reality" (third frontline questions) to "but everyone fails" which opened the door to thinking too much, which leads to negotiating and runs the risk of relapsing.

Maybe I am approaching this wrong, or understood the FrontLine questions wrong.
All that makes me wonder, is doing whatever you're trying to escape from, by not thinking and just doing unhealthy? I mean I am just turning my brain off, not sure if that can backfire, but it works great.

Would appreciate some advice.

Love

Escapist distractions... It's always that.

AND, his course really gives some insights. I'll update you tmr. Going strong

I'm halfway through. This time, no running away. Yes I have busy days all week, extra busy so I'll be extra tired.

But that's not the point, the point is having a lot to do, so that I have a lot of opportunities to sit with discomfort with no opportunity to escape.

The core of my problem is escapism, and I believe, if I can get over escapism, I will be able to get over this as well.

I haven't looked into the course yet, but I already find it easier to deal with urges, by just not escaping from situations. Getting done with what I am supposed to get done with gives me a different kind of joy, a lasting one, not an artificial one.

Tomorrow, I will look into the next lesson of the course, I'll let you know.

Best

Ruff restart, ruff day. I'll keep it short and start the lessons tomorrow.

Don't loose hope, even if you think it's impossible, it's not. I was about to loose hope, thinking "what's even the point anymore?" but forgot the whole point was it to get so far to think that, and then to not give up.

Bless up people, c u tmr.