Hello. I've been following this subreddit for some time now and the advice from its enduring and supportive members has been especially significant in helping me to escape from the grips of devious.. devious porn. I thought I'd share in my celebration with the community who made it possible.
Ever since I was a young lad, maybe around age 9, I was hooked. The shame, guilt, and isolation stifled my personality and character, and most notably, warped my view of sexuality. For years I truly believed this was just who I was, and that I'd carry it to my grave. Now, after more than 14 years of severe addiction, I have been free for over a year from the poison, from the brainwashing, and most of all - from the fear.
Life feels absolutely exhilarating now. I have all the energy I should've had all along to deal with the stresses of life and to finally attack the root causes. For years I blamed the tiredness, the fog, the regular iratibility, and most importantly the lack of life-giving drive on "getting older" and my "deficient brain".. how foolish of me.. It was never age or lack of something others had. The fog lifted so quickly it made me laugh, and mornings stopped feeling like climbing out of a hell hole. Motivation is in abundance now. I genuinely never thought see the day.
The relief is likened to waking up from a very long and very tiresome limbotic nightmare. Or like reaching for the walls of your prison cell and falling head-first out of the room, realizing the walls never existed to begin with.
And the gains, the glorious gains! My confidence. My courage to speak up, to walk into a room and just be myself without needing to "take the edge off" first. My concentration, which I was sure I'd lost for good. The hours and hours I used to hand over every week are mine again, and I'm spending them on real things and real people. Even the dark shadow at the back of my mind, the constant low hum of guilt and the dread of being found out, has gone. I never knew how heavy it was until it was lifted off my shoulders.
To be honest with you all, I didn't believe I'd see any of this, or arrive at the day where the power of my cravings would shrivel down into a tinsy-tiny force -- so pitifully easy to squash. Now, on the odd occasion it nudges me, it acts as a pleasant reminder to celebrate the delightful emancipation of my mind and vitality, and the shattering of the lie that porn has anything to offer besides deterioration.
Even on my bad days -- which, yes, I still have -- I can say to myself, "man, at least I don't have that horribly exhausting addiction anymore" and I seem to become quite cheery after that. A bad day is just a bad day now, and nothing more.
If you're sitting there reading this and feeling like it's hopeless, like you've tried everything and you're just an exception, I was exactly where you are. For 14 years! Every relapse convinced me I was the exception, too, and that I just needed to be stronger... I was wrong, and so are you. This isn't a sentence for life nor an uphill battle.. The cage porn put us in was never locked, and one day you'll look back and wonder how it ever trapped you in the first place.
I could go into greater detail of the endless torments I suffered whilst being addicted, and also of the many, many great positives I've experienced being free. But I'll leave that for another time.
I truly wish for all to experience the joy that comes from finally being free. I have real compassion and empathy for anyone still caught in it, because I lived there for such a long time, sometimes without any real hope.. in fact it is my goal to help at least one person to be where i am - entirely free and living gloriously without it.
Freedom is real, within everyones grasp, and it is so much sweeter than you can imagine.
It'd be a privilge to answer any questions you have (although, I may not be exceptionally prompt, so please bear with me).
Godspeed.
-David