I’ll try and be honest.
I didn’t start this journey at an easy time in my life.
My partner and I are on the edge of breaking up, and we have a 7 month old baby.
Because this is about porn, lust and sexuality I will share personal detail which I feel is relevant.
We haven’t had sex for 7 months, minus about twice.
During our arguments, my go to stress relief would be porn.
After getting kicked out of the house I would masturbate about 4 times a night due to extreme stress, trying not to feel my emotions.
Obviously it didn’t work, other than the few minutes of very miserable jerking-it.
I wanted to quit, but to be honest, I didn’t know I was addicted. I thought that its a normal part of being a man. I thought quitting pornography was basically a life of fighting my own nature.
Every time I would try and quit, it would be such a battle to not masturbate, a draining battle, which I guess I lost more than won.
But as I said, I didn’t realise this was addiction. I thought “well that’s just what it is to be male.”
I also thought that porn addicts must be other people. People with serious issues. Hardcore fetishes, no lives.
Wrong.
My new understanding is that everyone and anyone who watches porn is an addict. Because pornography is an incredibly addictive drug, that gives you nothing, and creates the need for its self in your life.
Quitting pornography isnt about giving something up and using willpower, in my opinion. It is an opportunity to go very deep, and to feel so much cleaner than you have since you started, in my case – 13 years old.
Its been a looooong a•• journey, I will tell you that much.
I have gone a year before without porn, but in that time, I was distracting myself with living in communities, hostels, travelling, yoga retreats, months in Ayahuasca centres. As soon as real life came back, I was back on the porn – still questioning if it mattered if I watched it or not. “Its my life” “Its none of my girlfriends business – the only problem is that SHE has the problem with it”
etc.
I even study plant medicine within an indigenous lineage. “Well, we can’t all be so pure.” “They don’t understand the temptations of the modern world. Sex is all about freedom of expression these days.”
Dios mio – Oh my God.
Until I very recently started working with a male healer. I needed an example of a clean man in my life. We went deep.
In the Ayahuasca medicine tradition, these healers can see your thoughts.
The healer watched as I faced all my porn addiction. My fetishes, which he saw, which his sister saw, while I was crying for how disgusted I was by myself. I’ve never understood, why do these fetishes have their hooks in me. Why can’t I masturbate to anything else. Why have I always hated touching myself without this warped stimuli?
I received the message through the medicine that it was finally time to really talk about my pornography use. My fetishes too.
In doing so, I learned a lot about myself. I let go of a lot of shame. I let go of much of its power over me. I put a post out on this forum, saying that I was looking for a sponser for ‘lust addiction’, which is a much more accurate term, and found a group. I also joined a group for tantric semen retention, with the intention of completely re-relating to my sexuality from the ground up.
I am thankful for this time of celibacy, because what I’ve also learned is that: I don’t even know how to touch a woman from a place of deep love, combined with good healthy sexual energy.
Again, I thought that this was a lofty goal for the spiritually advanced. Actually, I think it is our natural state, and that society is engineered to turn the sacred into fast food with as much poison in it for the soul as possible – but that’s another story, an interpretation, and not entirely relevant to an individual’s experience in reclaiming the beauty within their sexual experience.
I want to say - porn does affect the way we touch our partners. Even if we’re not trying to recreate porn scenarios/positions with them. It just changes the whole dynamic, insipidly, in our minds. It shuts us off from our potential to really connect, in loving union.
F•ck, I can’t stress enough. Loving union. What a gift from God.
I do not ever want to pollute these waters again in my life.
I have never had so much inner strength to be clean of this addiction.
I have so much more respect for myself. So much more gratitude and love for my self.
I feel God, quite often these days.
This is still one of the most stressful times in my life, and yet, I am not going to my vice. If anything, this is a testament to my resolve.
Early days, its only been just over 2 months. But my goal isn’t a year or 2. Its my entire life. And I don’t feel like Im giving something up anymore- what an illusion. I feel like Im gaining back my soul.
Note to anyone struggling with porn addiction.
I 100% encourage to find some kind of support group. I participate in online calls with a group. It is such an amazing support. Such a blessing.
Talk about your addiction. Talk about your fetishes. There is most likely trauma wrapped up in them which is affecting many more areas of your life than you are consciously aware. Loosen the hold of those energetic maggots so that you are no longer a slave to them. I started to unpack this with a therapist. Its been the first time in my life I’ve ever been transparent about it. What a relief.
Books are a huge support. There are a few lists you can find on sites such as nofap, to start painting a fuller picture of what porn is.
Its a journey, and has the potential to be one of the most beautiful rewarding ones in your life. Go deep. Take it seriously. Your capacity to give and receive love is waiting to blossom. Wow, how profound, and how simple.
