jabaroo,

All of that you mentioned are symptoms of low sense of self and lack of self esteem. Perhaps as you implied you think you are not worth the effort however, it comes a time in all of our lives when we realize that whatever we are doing is not good for us and it needs to stop.

I remember recommending a book for you called, "You can heal your life" by Louise Hay. That book can be a start for you to do the work you need to do to remedy this situation and move towards recovery.

I will say that not having been able to be in a relationship for 5 years is not exactly a failure. However, if the reasons why you are not in one are due to your own low sense of self, then that is a problem.

Maybe what needs to happen here is what I recommended to another one who was not trying very hard to stop either, which is to get real with yourself and admit that maybe you would rather engage in unhealthy behaviors until the cows come home, that you really do not care what anyone thinks deep down, you'll do what you want and that's final because you'd rather be a slave to the addiction than to actually do the work to get out of it, that you get a pay off out of it, that you really do not think you are worth the effort, insert excuse here and see where you want to go from there.

But at the heart of all of this, you need to be honest to yourself and find out why you are behaving in unhealthy ways, it is not a matter of so much cowardice but a lack of willingness to change. Let's face it, if you stay as you, are as uncomfortable as it may be, it is still very familiar and if you change, you do not know exactly what that looks like so why bother to change right? Better the devil you know.. yadda yadda.

Take me for example, for years I told myself that it was fine to be a slave to porn, not years, decades, and then one day I had to get real and say that not it was never okay, that I led myself believe it was, then after that hard to heart talk with myself, I decided it was better the unknown than the familiar and I did the work, it was not pleasant but I'm glad I did.

I am not saying this to compel you to seek help but to illustrate the games we play when we choose to engage in unhealthy behaviors. This is not something that people allow it to get out of control, it has an escalation mechanism built in and healthy people do not need porn, that's most crucial to understand. You will only be haunted by your mistakes if you choose to focus on them. You do not work so much to get over them, you simply admit you made a mistake, choose not to make it in the future and move forward, and if you keep making the same mistake, then you stop and look at what is at the root of the behavior and then you change it without it costing you points on your sense of self..

How do you know you are lying to yourself? Easy, you start making excuses not reasons for engaging in the unhealthy behaviors and you refuse to change said unhealthy behavior. For instance, in your case, you may say, "But I am depressed, this is the only thing that makes me happy" or "I don't think I have what it takes to go through all of that and what if I go through it and I end up worse than I was?" I got a million of them but at the heart of all of those is the inherent aspect that you really do not want to get better and that's fine too after all this is your life and the only one you are really hurting is yourself.

And lastly, you know what they say, you can lead a horse to water but you cannot make him drink. This to tell you that we've been at this for almost two years by my calculation, so my question to you is: How much longer will it be until you say: enough is enough? I'm asking not so much because this may impact on someone else but you mostly and to ask yourself how much longer are you going to allow something external to rule over your live in such a tyrannical and thoughtless manner? It is always up to you to accept full responsibility for your behaviors, good or bad, to do otherwise would be abdicating your own personal power which is what you have been doing all this time, by the way.

Hugs,
Wolf