Sex / Pornography Addiction Support Group
Sexual addiction, also sometimes called sexual compulsion, is a form of psychological addiction to sexual intercourse and other sexual behavior.
I've been addicted to porn since i was 14 years old. For me its all about the rush of excitement for something new and more taboo than yesterday. When I was young it was very exciting to see a woman receiving a facial but eventually that didn't do it for me any more. Eventually, nothing is exciting enough, no mater how dirty, violent, or taboo. I swear i'm not gay but after years of watching all kinds of porn, i found myself excited by gay porn. I don't have a problem with gay people at all but i know I'm not one myself. I don't find men attractive at all. The thing I'm attracted to is the taboo of it all. I though it was harmless as long as no one else found out. The problem with that is, if you do it long enough, and you have people in your life... eventually someone is going to stumble on your search history, or something will happen to get you caught. Nothing is more humiliating to me that having people think of you in a way that actually doesn't describe you. An ex-girl friend & a few friends found some stuff on my computer & its a horrible feeling. The worst part is, I find myself getting sucked into this world of gay porn and i feel like Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde. when i'm horny I sometimes have this feeling that i need to satisfy and when I'm not i do not have this feeling at all. Just to be clear I'm not 100% gay porn. its more like 95% straight 5% gay and there are sometimes months between viewings where i'm not interested at all. Anyways, currently I believe that one of my close friends knows my dirty secret and for the last 3 days I've been racking my brain about the consequences of this. Now i may be faced with the consequences of having to explain to my friends that I'm not gay when someone found gay porn on my computer.
If you can relate to my struggle it would be very helpful to talk about this. Please, no religious talk, I don't go for that brand of bullshit.
If you can relate to my struggle it would be very helpful to talk about this. Please, no religious talk, I don't go for that brand of bullshit.
Right off the bat, there is no need to be so hostile. Just to be clear, watching gay porn does not imply that you are gay but it does point to something more disturbing which is your level of escalation in your addictive cycle.
Porn addiction is exactly as you have described that has happened to you, now the first thing that needs to happen is for you to educate yourself as to what you are up against and it can be found here: www.yourbrainonporn.com.
Next, let go of the shame, guilt, and self loathing because those are the very things that fuel the addiction. Next, enter a recovery program since you are anti religion or anything closely resembling it, then Recovery Nation may be able to assist you acquiring the tools that you require to conquer this addiction. The main thing is that you follow the guidelines and stick with the program no matter what.
It will not happen quickly, it took me 2 years to feel semi normal and 3 to feel like I was before the addiction and I was addicted for 30 some years. The main thing is to be patient, practice self care and remain positive. Most important, stop worrying that you may be gay, it is not the worst thing that can happen to you, the worse thing will be that you may find yourself so addicted that you may not be able to bounce back, so it is better to nip it in the bud as soon as possible.
I know you and religion are not pals but there has to be a spiritual practice during recovery. I am not religious either but I do meditate and rely in my inner strength to get me through tough times. We need to develop that aspect of ourselves, we need to have hope, faith and conviction that we can make it through this, and not rely so much on the man made world as it were to get us through life.
If it were not so, I would not have been able to stay sober for so long, to get me through incredibly strong urges and even times when I thought I'd not make it through the addiction but I did not rely on my own rational strength but the strength that comes from within me and it is the source of all things, that keeps beating my heart and makes me get up in the morning, call it what you want.
So now, what has happened? My life is a clean slate, anyone can log into my computer and find nothing incriminating, no videos in my collection that could incriminate me, save for Young Frankenstein which may peg me as ghastly silly.
My life is an open book and no, I do not deny that I once had a porn addiction, there is nothing for me to be ashamed of, I see now that the addiction taught me a lot about myself and thankfully, it showed me that there were areas of my life that would not have been worked on were it not for the addiction.
Lastly, the crux of this addiction is the belief that we need it to feel better but the truth is that without our full participation and cooperation, the addiction cannot exist. So what needs to happen is to realize that without us, there is no addiction to be had, period. This is important because when we get urges, withdrawal symptoms, this tiny nugget can get us past them because we realize that we have always have the power to overcome it, and that is essentially what an addiction is: Our way of abdicating our own personal power to something outside of ourselves which can never have and has never had power over us, to begin with.
As for not being able to have healthy sexual relationships, porn cannot be blamed for it entirely. We are not taught to have them, to begin with due to society's rather repressive sexual beliefs which, in turn makes us turn to porn for release. All that energy has to go somewhere, right? So now, that my mind is not as repressed as it was once was and that I love, respect and care about myself, the result has been that I no longer care whether I ever have sex again because I no longer see sex as a need or as a way to define me as a person but I do have a lot of non sexual intimate relationships with my friends. Amazing, uh?
Hope this helps,
Wolf (6 years sober)
Don't give up.
That approach may not make people enthusiastic about helping you.