Finding motivation to clean my life up

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Hi! I’d like to start by saying, I have been free from drugs for years now, and feel entirely independent from them, and have no desire to turn back to them. I can understand that I’m still categorized as an “addict” but I don’t define myself that way anymore, at least for drugs. As for alcohol, I am 1 year, 7 months and 10 days sober. I get urges from time to time but thankfully, I have a fantastic life partner that supports me and is in recovery with me. Now for my current issue…I am addicted to porn and masturbation. I went through a time in my life where I wasn’t in a relationship nor was I having casual hookups, because I never believed that was a healthy thing for me to do, so I turned to self pleasure. It created a very toxic routine where I would be at it multiple times a day. Now I’m down to one or two times every day or every other day for “completing” the “session”. I am deeply ashamed that I lack the willpower to keep myself from doing this. I hit a 2 week streak, or 14 days, of no porn or masturbation, and I relapsed. That was a couple months ago. I’m ready to give my life back to my creator while I’m still here nn this earth doing the good works that my creator put me here for. In no way am I having thoughts of serious self harm or any ideations of the sort. I believe I can do this. I want to start a family but the addiction has made it impossible for me to reach the finish line with my partner unless there’s porn playing. That’s horrendous. That’s lustful and disgusting that I cannot be the partner that she deserves. I am solely responsible for my misdeeds and damage that I’ve done to my brain and “sensitivity” down there, that’s led to this issue. I have no one to blame but myself. I have no one to admit these things to other than her and my creator. She’s very patient, kind and understanding, as I’ve had this conversation with her already and admitted to my guilt and faults.

I think the reason why I want to come on here and say this is, I think this will be my marker of when I started to hold myself accountable. I vow to reduce the sin of lust in my life. I vow to devote my time that I would spend masturbating and watching porn, to spending time with my partner or a constructive activity that improves my life or quality of life. I vow to be graceful with myself during this journey, yet not lenient to the degree of allowing relapse, time and time again. I vow to get closer in my relationship to my Creator, and continue on the path of spiritual, physical and psychological healing. I vow these things for the sake of my family, my friends, my partner, myself, and my creator. Thank you to those who have read this. Today is day 0 of my recovery from porn and lust, I have no hours of sobriety from porn, lust and masturbation as I write this. Cheers to the years away from this dark path, to come.

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Welcome to the forum! Im glad ur here. I am a recovering addict/alocholic and do not share the same addiction to porn etc. BUT there are many others on here that do! So ur definitly in the right place :slight_smile:

I know for myself that when i quit drugs and alcohol, other addictions began to pop up or worsen. I think it comes down to finding healthier ways to cope. What are ur reasons for engaging in porn etc? Is it to deal with stress? Or are u trying to “escape” in some way? I think in general, when it comes to addictions, we need to find healthier coping skills to manage the reasons why we choose to engage in those behaviours. Are there other things u can do to cope? Just some thoughts :slight_smile:

Take a look around the forum. There are alot of good threads to read and participate in. Glad ur here. Hope this foru. Is as helpful for u, as it has been for me.

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Thank you for your comment. I hope your sobriety is going smoothly.

I think my reason for porn is compulsive, it doesn’t relieve stress anymore, it isn’t an escape, I feels like a chore at this point that if I don’t complete the task, I feel it pick at the back of my brain constantly until something else grabs my attention. I think that my ways to cope will be finding a healthy compulsion to replace it. I’m not sure, psychologically, how healthy that is overall, but I’m willing to do that. For now it’s video games as I have a chronic illness that prevents me from going to exercise, which I would much rather prefer over video games, but the dopamine reward system built into the games, seems to scratch the itch some of the time. Its going to be an arduous journey, but it’s for the best, so I will do whatever it takes at this point, within healthy and sane coping boundaries, to beat this compulsion.

Thankfully, so far I don’t feel the need to cross addict out of alcoholism or drugs into something else. I enjoy the control I have, and I can even enjoy non alcoholic versions of my favorite alcoholic drinks and not get triggered by them into a relapse. I wouldn’t even say that my porn compulsion has increased since gaining my sobriety, as that was in full swing beforehand, and I’ve gained a small amount of influence over my compulsion.