I was the same, would get so engulfed in a porn and masturbation “session” that I’d go without food or water for sometimes at least a day at a time.
I didn’t have the healthiest relationship with food, and I remember one day after having a takeaway I thought I’d balance it out by masturbating the entire next day and not eating.
It is crazy what the addiction does to us.
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Day 50 free from porn and Day 48 free from masturbation.
The depressing feelings from being unemployed has been weighing on me hard lately.
I feel like i need to constantly search and apply to jobs.
Which then leads me to neglect my social life. I stay in rather than go out, so I will have more time to look for work.
It’s like the shining. All work and no play.
I’m exaggerating, but it is bad.
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You’re allowed live while looking for work! I understand the pressure tho. Could you work out a schedule for yourself? Mark down times for doing chores, job hunting (which is your “work” atm) and leisure time. We don’t spend every waking hour at work anyway so why sound job hunting be that way? You won’t have good results if you do things at the expense of your mental health.
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Therapy has helped me alot too not just with my addiction, but getting to the root of alot of my issues. Still have a long way to go. Any nice techniques you care to share?
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The only time i can comfortably do well is when my insta has a ton of reels about sad things and makes me cry…im not sure why crying makes a big difference for me…not sure if thats a technique 
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Day 52 MO
Day 54 P
Do you guys count as a relapse a quick few seconds of seeing porn images on your phone when testing out filters on it?
The thing is when i was testing out the filter i got aroused from it. I think because it’s still a dopamine seeking behavior. Seeking to see if the filter works or doesn’t and if it doesn’t then you see a little bit of porn.
The thing was: i was testing out adding a new DNS on my wifi on my phone to see if that filtered out anything, but like 3 times when trying different combinations of filters it didn’t filter anything. This led me to see static porn images in google images twice and something on a home page of a porn site. I didn’t get a good look any of the images since i X’d out of the pages so fast. All times i quickly X’d out of the page and didn’t continue to stare at the images.
I did have some positive result to this though:
I found out my app: “Opal” from the Apple App store that i use to prevent access to apps while i sleep could just block a single app and then have the feature of Private Browsing turned off basically indefinitely. So even if i turn off the Content filtering in Screen Time on my phone i will still have that added protection there that private browsing still won’t be accessible.
I ask if it was a relapse, because some might say since you became aroused by it then it is a slip.
But others might say, it was a practice for self control which actually builds your self control, so it’s not a relapse.
I’ve heard that people that can go to porn sites and quickly leave them without engaging with them builds self control because it’s actively denying yourself of something that you have easy access to.
i did not Masturbate, or look at porn for longer than like 5 seconds at a time.
What do you guys think was it a slip or not?
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I think it’s a judgment call. Given the accidental situation, your intent, and that you immediately closed those images, I would say, give yourself a break. I do not agree that trying to “practice” by visiting porn sites is a good idea. It sounds like controlled drinking for an alcoholic. Once you have admitted your addiction, you know you have it. No need to keep running tests.
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@LifeWarrior135
Only you can determine if you should count that as a relapse. Nevertheless, it’s great that you were able to turn away and shut it down!
A strict way of handling a borderline case would be: if you have to ask, then it probably was a relapse.
Another way of seeing it would be looking at the motivation. We come across triggering images often and are bombarded with thoughts all the time. Some physical actions, like arousal, are quite instant. It’s a human way to react to stimuli. The question here is, and we need to be super honest with ourselves, what was the motivation. Did I seek images in order to get titillations? Did I entertain sexual thoughts/arousal after coming across something triggering? No one can answer that for you because we’re at different points in our recovery. It’s not so much about outward things per se, but about motivation and honesty, IMO.
This sounds like exposure therapy done backwards. In this therapy “a person is gradually and systematically exposed to the feared object or situation in a controlled and safe environment. The goal is to help the individual become desensitized to the fear, ultimately reducing their anxiety and improving their ability to cope with the fear in real-life situations.”
The goal of recovery is not become desensitised to porn/sexual images/masturbation. It’s a legit method but not for addiction. There’s really no need to test your sobriety deliberately. Life will test it for you. You can’t fight fire with fire. I try to strengthen my self-awareness, positive thought processes, healthy habits, stress management etc, whatever pulls me away from things that feed the addiction.
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I’m not an alcoholic but i feel like this could relate to any addiction. We use addictions to mask what we don’t want to face in the real world. It’s easier for people to resort to pmo to get their sexual needs met than to find a partner, but it isn’t truly satisfying. We turn to pmo to avoid rejection.
75 days in…. All is well!!!
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Nice work.
I was at 39 days but had a small reset.
I need help guys. One of my triggers to relapse is stress.
I am unemployed and i have an interview on Friday and one on Monday. These are stressing me out.
Please Remind me it’s never worth it.
Thanks
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You’ve recognised your trigger. That’s a big plus.
I’ve found that if I can recognise I’m getting triggered as it’s happening, the chance of me relapsing massively reduces.
I remember walking to a job interview, feeling stressed, feeling anxious, thinking to myself if I can just get through the interview then I can go home and act out as a “reward”.
I don’t know why or how, but the realisation popped into my head that I was just being triggered by the stress of the job interview, and that I was reaching out for my old coping mechanism. Once I realised that I was only wanting to act out because of the stress, it became a lot easier to say to myself “no, I don’t act out anymore, it’s just my addict brain using these negative feelings to try and disrupt my recovery” and this stopped me from slipping into relapse.
You know all the reasons not to act out. A lot of us have the same or similar reasons, you might have some unique to you. I’m not gonna get into them because you already know them.
Try and continue to work on your recovery tools, whether that’s meditation/mindfulness, journalling, attending 12 step meetings, therapy sessions, or coming on here and engaging in the threads.
Your outer circle stuff is what stops you from slipping into your inner circle acting out.
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Congrats on the interview and it’s never worth it to act out.
Stress usually gets to me as well, and then in the end after acting out I feel so much more disgusted with myself.
It’s never worth it. Just keep going and you will get better at learning to manage these stresses.
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How did the interview go yesterday?
It had good points and bad points.
After i asked how’s the management i stupidly said I’ve had some bad bosses in the past.
You should never bad mouth your old employers.
Also when he gave me the background check paper i thought it was sorta a job offer, so i said i can’t accept anything yet since i have other interviews to do yet.
I heard you shouldn’t say you are interviewing with other companies either.
I did mention why i want to work there well i think: i want to be more active and get some sunshine outside.
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Those are both constructive activities, so that should help 
I’ve got my fingers crossed for you!
Anyone here that is married that struggled with sex or porn addiction in the past?
Are you now able to have healthy sex with your spouse without any withdrawals after?
I’m going to more meetings now and will also ask for a sponsor. I need help.
Thanks
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I keep coming back to masturbation (without looking at anything or even fantasizing in my mind about things, it’s just me seeking pleasure in of itself) after abstaining from porn for a long time thinking i’ll be able to separate the two and i can just masturbate and not look at porn.
I sorta feel like once they are linked they are forever linked though. Because if I’m going stay away from porn for good and I want to start to masturbate again then it’ll eventually lead back to looking at porn or fantasy again to aid the masturbation.
What do you guys think? Can you separate the two?
Should i just stay away from masturbating so it doesn’t lead me to look at porn ever?
I guess it comes down to what your views are on masturbation as an activity by itself as well. Do you feel it is okay to masturbate when it’s not connected to viewing porn or fantasizing?
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For me personally, no. I tried for a while but realized that for me they both come from the same root source, so separating them makes no difference for me to find my freedom. To be free, I have to choose to be sober from lust, and work with people who can help me do that and maintain it.
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