I just need someone to talk to. My porn addiction has expanded into finding this past year. I’m 19 and I feel like I’m spiraling down. It’s affecting my girlfriend so much.
I’m going to get therapy soon but i just relapsed. I just need someone who understands what I’m going through. That’s all.
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Maybe Matt could help
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Welcome. There are many on this site that can relate to your addiction. Glad you’re here and reaching out for support.
Another option for you is to join the conversation in the thread below.
PMO - Porn, Masturbation, Recovery
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Hey Josh. Welcome to Talking Sober! 
Porn addiction is a real thing. (There’s a big debate in psychiatric circles of exactly how to define it but basically I mean this: watching porn and masturbating is a habit some of us pick up and we struggle, sometimes for years, sometimes decades, to stop. For all intents and purposes, that’s an addiction.)
You are 100% not alone in this. If you search “PMO”, “porn”, “masturbation”, or similar terms in the search bar you will find dozens of threads about this.
You say it’s affecting your relationship with your girlfriend. The same thing happened to me. My porn, masturbation, orgasm (PMO) habit severely affected my physical (and emotional) relationship with my wife. (The physical and the emotional are interconnected. A healthy emotional relationship makes a healthy physical one, and a healthy physical relationship - which can be penetrative sex but is also affection and general body contact - supports a healthy emotional one.)
My brain got so used to porn-masturbate-orgasm that I couldn’t reach orgasm with my wife. The psychological “training” of having porn for orgasm, and of being alone in front of the computer, was so deeply set that there was no “habit” of reaching orgasm through sex with my wife. (Think of Pavlov’s dogs. It’s the same.)
The good news is this is 100% fixable. It takes time, but with daily attention you can do it.
For me, my real progress in recovery started when I connected with a sex addiction recovery program in my city. There are programs like this all over the place:
In my case I joined a sex addiction recovery program at a clinic, I paid to attend a group with other men in recovery, and there was a psychologist mediating the group. We followed a program from Facing the Shadow and Recovery Zone 1, both books by Patrick Carnes. (Facing the Shadow comes first. It’s the first book in the series.)
These books are meant to be done in a group, with a mediator. Of course you can read them on your own but the real insight comes in group work.
Being in a group with other men struggling with their sexual behaviour was enormously liberating. All of a sudden I didn’t feel alone. Also, at the same clinic, there was a group for partners of addicts, which my wife attended. (In my wife’s group it was all girlfriends and wives of the men in my group.) They studied Facing Heartbreak.
The most important thing is to remember that you can fix this. It takes attention each day but you can do it.
If you’re comfortable, can you share some thing about specifically the struggles you’ve been having with your GF? If you want to message me that’s fine too. (Tap my icon and there should be a “Message” button. If it isn’t there it just means you need to make a few more posts to unlock that capability - be a little more active, then the messaging function is unlocked.) I may be able to offer some specific advice.
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