So i’ve learned from so many struggles the Addiction that also has to go is Video Games. It’s the biggest Dopamine push not named PMO in my life. It makes my PMO addiction look silly in comparison. Your talking about 30+ years of gaming. I’m a 40+ year old man that still acts like a 12 year old when playing competitive games. I throw controllers, yell at myself, heck i yell at my kids. Then i self sooth and turn to the ‘other’ addiction. They both have to go, it’s that simple. Day 5 on Video Games. Day 12 on Pnog.
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Welcome to the fire brother!
I think we can all relate to your story. For me, I was exposed to porn very young and developed a fascination for it that’s lasted decades. The important thing is you’ve recognized the destructive behavior and now you’re taking the steps necessary to overcome it.
Keep up the fight, become accountable, practice mindfulness. And rejoice in recovery! 
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I will continue from this read I’m so happy to find a group as this I’m a porn addict have been addicted for 15 years now give it take and I’m currently on day 0
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Hello, welcome.
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Upcoming milestone for you. Stay strong.
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Back to day one. I’m so tired of being a slave to this addiction. It is draining my soul. I just want to be free of the bondage of this addiction. I don’t know what to do anymore. I feel pretty hopeless with regards to overcoming this addiction. I am happy some of you are having success. It’s like when is this going to end. Anyways, might come in here to check in more occasionally. I need to stay connected with others that struggle with the same struggle. Thanks for reading this random ramble. Feeling low and had to bring it to the table.
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Back on day 15, i have made a promise with 4 friends of mine, we will do 365 nofap.
My brain is claiming for porn and masturbation all day, but our promise keeps me on track.
Hope this is the last try.
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Welcome back!
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2y 3m 8d clean of pmo
I started my journey towards sobriety in the summer of 2020, when my suicidal depression had lifted. I was out of work, out of shape and still somewhat out of my mind.
Fast forward 2+ years, and I’m planning a wedding for me and my Man. I never dared to truly let myself hope I’d be in this position someday. I know a marriage isn’t a happily ever after but let me ride this pink cloud for now, ok? LOL 
My Man knows about my sexual traumas and addiction. He knows I’m in recovery and that I’ve been in therapy for a number of years. He is understanding, supporting and not at all judging or awkward about it.
As we are planning to move in together I’m not sure how to prepare myself. I want to ask you for advice but I’m not able to form a sensible question. I have no idea what it entails to be a sex addict in a relationship. Thoughts and tips are welcome. Ty
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My experience is limited - and didn’t end up with any positives as we had a bad breakup over it. Use this experience at your own risk…
----possible TW for sexual abuse----
I’ll start by saying that good communication (which it seems like you and your beau already do pretty well!) is the key to any successful relationship. If you talk about it and take time to know what you are feeling and why you are acting the way you do and ensure both partners understand where the other is coming from, almost every problem can be solved together.
In the end it was a lack of open communication that led me to act out - instead of using porn I used my partner to escape from my negative emotions. It led to me pushing her to a point where she wasn’t comfortable but did not want to tell me because I was too pushy. I often worry (though she has told me she’s moved on and forgives me) that I spent so much time convincing her to sleep with me to make all my problems disappear that she didn’t feel like she could even say no. For a long time, I felt a lot of guilt and shame because I felt like I used her and took advantage of her.
If I could go back, I would have slowed down and asked for a good conversation about how I was feeling and why I wanted to have sex with her at that time. It would have been good conversation and I feel that we could have chosen to have sex or not in a healthy and more open communication environment - when I wasn’t just reacting by asking for sex, but we both made a clear-headed decision to have sex for the right reasons.
I know you’re pretty good with this kind of thing, Olivia. I don’t know you perfectly, but I think you already know what to do and what not to do, and that you can trust yourself to make the right choices and not be afraid.
I’m so glad that you’ve found this wonderful man and things are moving forward so well. Hope to see myself in your shoes someday soon!
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Thank you for your insight and honesty. Good points. Yes, so far we’ve been able to talk openly and that means the world to me.
I’m hoping that when the time is right a suitable person will cross paths with you Nate 
P.s. My shoes 
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Hey group! Hope everyone’s doing well, I haven’t been here in a while.
I need to be accountable about something. Last night, I went on YouTube and started looking for women doing various erotic things. No nudity, but it was still inappropriate. I also googled a few images and gifs of the same nature. Although I wasn’t looking for nudity, there were quite a few images that were very inappropriate and it took too long for me to turn it off.
I don’t like how I feel this morning, so I’m confessing my sin before God and men. I’m owning up, I apologize for my actions, I have made a course correction, and I’m back on the path.
Stay strong. Stay positive. Always remain vigilant.
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Thanks for sharing that. I know what you mean. I did the same last week. You lost a few battles with lust. But it doesn’t mean that you will lose the war.
But that’s where the real war is. Isn’t it? In our own minds. And if I don’t take every battle seriously, losing battle after battle after battle with lust and fantasy, then I will lose the war. And I will fall back into that same pile of dirt of porn.
But I’m winning more battles than I’m losing. And it sounds like you are too. So we’ll be victorious. I believe that
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Good words brother. I know I feel crummy today, but when I look at things from a broader perspective, this is nothing compared to where I was a year and a half ago. I was so deep in it that what I looked at last night was nothing compared to what I was viewing. That’s a scary thought to think I was that far into the mud that I couldn’t even tell I was dirty anymore. It’s good to know my conscience has healed quite a bit. Still have room to grow, but I’ve definitely healed.
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Hello!! Everyone has passed through this, I understand you. Don’t feel guilty, use those “bad” actions for rejoicing yourself and finding a way to improve.
We always punish ourselves when we have short moments of debility intead of using them as a learning.
Keep on the good path, I know you are doing great.
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Hello tribe, I have a question. I have a feeling like my sexuality is somehow… divided. On one side, there’s what I call organic sexuality including flirt, foreplay and intimacy with a real life partner. On another side, there are things that I used to get myself aroused solo; images, stories, porn, fantasies etc. I’m ashamed of the things I’ve consumed. They’re not something I’d like to experience in real life. I think. I hope.
My question is this… If you could identify yourself in my text or otherwise have words of wisdom… Have you been able to untangle yourself from things that you don’t want to get titillations from?
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I am in exactly the same situation - or at least it feels like that, I would describe it about the same way - in my marriage.
I don’t have an easy answer. I haven’t figured it out yet.
I suspect the answer is probably an organic process of exploring sexuality and arousal. I recently got this book for me and my wife to read together and it has questions and activities for exploring and developing and discovering arousal paths:
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This is the kind of healthy sexuality that I avoided.
This is the unhealthy addictive sexuality that I’ve used to escape. At least, unhealthy for me, because I was addicted to it. Even when I was with a real life partner, I turned it into an unhealthy isolated experience. And I now have to avoid the unhealthy. Only by avoiding the unhealthy, do I allow the healthy sexuality to enter my life. Otherwise, if I don’t avoid the unhealthy, it’s impossible for me to be aroused and partake in the healthy realm of sexuality.
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Yes, I can finally say that I have. But only by not looking at or thinking of such things that would open the gateway to my addictive such to partake in the unhealthy.
An alcoholic doesn’t let his addiction beat him because he doesn’t get into the ring with it. Nor does he try to reason with the addict. Like a 2 year old HULK, the addict within me cannot be overpowered or reasoned with. The alcoholic experiences freedom by not taking that first drink.
I experience freedom by not taking that first look or that first thought. I no longer, as a daily practice, allow my eyes and mind to roam wherever the addict pleases. By choosing not to think or look at any other woman, my wife becomes my one and only. She becomes the most beautiful woman in the world in my eyes. I finally do what I promise on our wedding day; to make her my one and only outlet for sexuality. No more comparing her to another. Thus, no more addictive tendency to be dissatisfied with one or more of her qualities. No more PIED. No more titillations because I don’t give myself permission to expose my addict to any thought or image in which my addict could use to escape.
This had to go really deep. Because put me in a room with people. Even people at church or with relatives. And I can turn the room into porn. Put me into a dark closet. And I don’t need to see. I can take a thought, a fantasy, and turn it into porn. I need God at this point. To deepen my relationship with Him, like a lot. My thoughts stay on Him, and I remain in a continued state of prayer. Yet, I don’t do this perfectly. Many times, I’m guilty of walking in life on my own power. Trying to be like everyone else around me. And I’ve stumbled in lust and fantasy a number of times during this stretch. But I’m winning significantly more battles than I’m losing with lust and fantasy. So I finally feel free. I no longer feel like I’m in unstable equilibrium where one wrong move will lead me down the slippery slope to relapse. No longer do I feel like a vampire living without his daily intake of blood with each day of sobriety more brutal than the last until my tight grip finally gets tired out and I let go of my flag of Sobriety.
I feel free.
I finally feel victorious.
I finally conquered.
And now I have to experience reality with all of it’s ups and downs. As well as looking back and seeing all the messy pieces of destruction that I’ve created that need to be picked up and repaired.
God has been with me all the way. I honestly didn’t see Him most of that time. But He slowly led me out of that backwards world I was living in. A world in a hole far, far away.
If He can do it for me. He can do it for anyone.
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