BTK128 Touchstone

Life in Recovery
21

Thanks for checking in ICanAndWill.

It’s… going.

For 2024 and 2025 I logged days when I would PMO and slip from the path. Almost always it was a Monday and Tuesday. For me, these two days is a perfect storm - often more stress with work, privacy from everyone as I WFH, and a desire to destress/settle into the week with ease.

I won’t be fucking up today though. I struggled a LOT the last few hours and got through it. I’m sure I can push myself and refuse to give in for the remainder of the day.

If I can get thru today, I have a full week under my belt.

Dear Day 7,
Fuck you - you will soon be behind me.

edit 4hrs later - damn do I hate this day. I feel like I’m boiling inside. Like I have no willpower to be struggling this hard with something so seemingly simple. I have a support system, I have a spouse, I’m still having sex. But still, it feels like I’m on fire from the inside. I hate it. I am sporadically yelling obscenities around the house. Constantly cleaning this or that. I only have an hour to get thru. I think I will. I just fucking hate this so so so much.

22

Please skip if in a vulnerable headspace about porn addiction.

I’m going to use this space as a method to verbally process.

I see where people get in deep and I’ve experienced elements of that. It has stolen time from me and I have found myself masturbating without a sexual goal - but one of chemical requirement. I relate to that. I have used porn as a preference over my sex life. I have used porn as a means to not be vulnerable. I relate to that too.

But this board and other stories of porn addiction go beyond that - stories of masturbation while driving and getting in accidents, truly risking employment for porn, masturbating for 12hr days, etc. Tbh, I don’t relate to that part. I have no judgement whatsoever because I can understand elements of an addiction, but that isn’t the relatable pieces. The real deep ones, they aren’t my story.

I am seeing an argument that porn is something we should not consume or support, and I agree with that too. Just like I agree that we should be patrons of local brick and mortars, should stop buying food at a drive thru window, should donate our time to non-profits, and need to support local farmers, etc etc - the list goes on. While I remain ignorant to the conditions of porn, I find myself having a hard time seeing it as a product of consumption anymore ethically corrupt than the counter of the examples above.

Then, I have influences on me - my therapist says I’m not an addict because I have a good handle on curbing bad behaviors before slippery slopes. She works with addicts heavily. My wife said she was comfortable with me having a relationship with porn - that she thinks it’s a negative thing for me if it’s excess, but that my choice to go back to viewing porn after working thru addiction in 2024/2025, did not bother her. She felt I was in a healthy place.

Another facet there too - my relationship with porn is so fundamentally different than it used to be. For something like 15yrs I used porn in all the negative, relatable ways above. I literally separated intimacy and love with sexual gratification - fully uncoupled. I created a constant chemical need for masturbation and excess pornography. I saw it as a hobby and sexual liberation. After fighting compulsive masturbation and refusing pornography outright, I found myself in totally different headspace. A headspace I am still in today.

Nowadays, I do not totally uncouple sexual release from intimacy and sexuality. I now recognize the gap between a chemical imbalance or desire for novelty vs authentic sexual arousal. I am still a moron with a monkey brain who experiences the desire to masturbate for zero reason but procrastination, avoidance, coping for overwhelm, boredom, etc - but I recognize the fight now. I know several triggers and can feel the variance between craving/compulsion and authenticity.

I think my predisposition is quite negative - I have an addictive personality and an addictive sort of history with a very toxic product that has stolen a lot from me. But, I am just not sure I am an addict. I may have been an addict previously, but I worked really hard to see the other side of things. I don’t feel ANYthing like I used to either…. I feel very different about porn now.

So, I am having a hard time with this goal. I don’t believe in having goals for the simple sake of having them - and this is one I am struggling with. ODAAT - I can see meaning in that. There is no reason whatsover to take something this nuanced and complex, and simply go back to porn without waiting a day. I’m not at risk for going back to porn today. If I choose to not watch porn tomorrow, then I won’t.

But, I don’t know what the end game is yet. I had intended to go 30 days porn and masturbation free. That would mean through May 27th. I start a new job June 15th, and know that I will be quite stressed then - that’s a period I intend to have my spouse lock down my ability to access porn, certainly. Because I see the trigger to over consumption coming at me - the stress, procrastination, overwhelm, etc. May 27th thru June 15th? I don’t particularly care if I am watching porn or not, so long as it’s in moderation, not bottomless content (for me, I feel that browsing Reddit is very different than the entire internet), and the basis of my watching it is valid (actually horny with no intentions to have sex)

So of course I am thinking - why 30 days? It seems so arbitrary. Every day that feeling of how arbitrary it is, is wearing on me.

I lowkey don’t expect responses on this - I would probably not help me out either. Feel like I am coming across as some head up my own ass guy. I really love this community, I just worry that I am an outsider who doesn’t really belong. If I question being an addict fundamentally, I worry I don’t fit.

Thanks

1 Like
23

And just like that I’m back to 0. Or not counting at all. I’m thinking not at all - just cancelled my VPN subscription.

1 Like
24

Thank you for sharing how you feel about Porn and your journey with it. There is no shame on voicing your opinions and no shame in relapsing. Shame is the thing that drives me back to PMO.

I do see where you are coming from, your therapist and your partner don’t see it as a problem but, in many ways, thats not the question to ask. Do you see it as a problem? You mentioned at the start you wanted to go 30 days without PMO. Do you feel like that is something you can do?

I have no answers for you. I am glad you are here, checking in, being part of this community. All I can tell you is I have spent decades telling myself I didn’t have a problem until I tried to stop. Then I realised that it was so difficult to and I couldn’t get beyond a week.

I hope you find what you are looking for and the forum is here always.

1 Like
25

Your value, worthiness, acceptance, dignity, etc. is so much more than decades worth of sobriety…or even weeks…sometimes even days.

It’s immutable because you’ve been created in the Image of the Most High God, and He has adopted you through the Blood of the Lamb to be his beloved son.

That never changes.

Whether you’re actively an addict or a recovering addict.

Count the days. Stack them up one-by-one.

Don’t count the days. Ignore them and let them stack up in the background like compound interest on an annuity.

Or, surrender under the immense pressure and take a break… let yourself get swept down the river a little bit further before trying again.

Your value never changes.

You’re welcome here. Always.

I let shame keep me from this community for too long. I’d delete the app, download it again, “fail” and delete it again. I did this over-and-over. That’s something I regret. I could’ve used the constant support. Just know we are here, unconditionally, because we get it.