So… do you think about breakfast and whether Dostoyevsky wrote reliable narrator’s? 
Baseball 
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Shame keeps us imprisoned away from the people we need to press into the most.
You’re allowed to feel embarrassed; albeit, I believe we all can agree there is nothing to be embarrassed about.
Talk about relapsing! There’s a HUGE difference between trying over-and-over, and acquiescing to it through self-delusions and false pride.
I’m glad you’re still here, and I’m glad you’re still learning how to be a sexually healthier you.
Please don’t feel shame for being a sexual human.
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So many ways I can take this…but don’t want blocked. 
…
Love that for you.
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Hello again…
I never know what disclaimer to put on posts, but please skip if you feel in a vulnerable place with your sobriety - I fear that sometimes when I post something that challenges the general view of the forum, I could be giving someone an excuse to go back to PMO. Even for myself, I am constantly struggling with whether my current position is addict brain attempting to win, or my conclusions are truths for myself.
I caught up with my wife on where everything is at yesterday, helped settle my thoughts a lot. Learning of the three circles concept has been really valuable to me. I had a post awhile back some replied to that discussed the nuance of “addict” or not, and the replies there were also very helpful.
After quite a bit of deliberating, I’ve come away with a belief that I am using masturbation as a bad coping mechanism, and that is the root issue. My therapist had said the issue for me was masturbation several times, my wife has also noted several times that I need more coping skills, and when I consider my relationship to porn and sex the issue for me feels rooted in using sexual release as a means to an end that is not “healthy sexuality”.
For myself, I feel like masturbation is a healthy part of the human experience. I don’t think porn is. I’ll be honest though, I’m not sure if the juice is worth the squeeze on fully quitting porn for me. I’ve had a relationship with porn for 17 years, and while it’s not something I align with… it feels like it’s only fuel to addiction, not the root issue itself.
In my mind, there’s levels to porn use. Non nude media that isn’t pornographic inherently, magazines, DVDs, websites like Reddit that only contain images/gifs, then it really spirals out into the great big world of the internet - vanilla sites, fetish sites, etc. Plus behaviors.. it feels like there’s a difference in watching porn for 5 minutes versus an hour. Idk, hopefully relatable?
For me, I was at the deepest level my entire life. I spent full overnights as a kid browsing whatever I could find online. I escalated and escalated. I got married and figured it would end, but it did not. I saw a sex therapist and really repaired/fine tuned my sex life with my wife - full vulnerability and honesty met with acceptance, followed by healthy reciprocation for needs I have… but it didn’t stop. I planned my life around masturbating. I got a wfh job and deprioritized my job over masturbating. If I went out somewhere, I was often finding a way to masturbate before coming home. All of this feels disgusting to admit, but is true. Point being - I was at a really deep end of the spectrum.
From April 2024 to November 2025, I kicked porn really aggressively. I started adding a marble to a jar with every day I had that I didn’t watch porn. I filled a large glass jar on my desk. I went 30-40 day stretches at a time without it… I opened up to my wife about it more than ever… I really grew a lot too. I realized I had become a zombie - I had no idea what truly turned on felt like anymore, had no idea what it felt like to make myself wait or look forward to sex with my spouse. I also was fooled into thinking I was somehow apart of a true community - I thought the posters I was following really might value me. I also thought that because I embraced my sexuality by way of porn, and discovered myself by way of porn, that porn was actually a cornerstone to my IDENTITY. I defended it often which now disgusts me. Over that time getting more and more sober, I really did change my brain and relationship to porn dramatically - I’m quite proud of that too. I feel like now I simply see it for what it is - a disturbing industry, a marketing tool, a time suck, a poor substitute for human intimacy, etc.
My point is, I saw the other side a lot during my time. My entire orientation to porn changed. In December of 2025, I let porn back in - after candid conversations where I welcomed disagreement with my therapist and spouse, and a whole lot of contemplation, I arrived at allowing porn back in with some conditions; never opting for masturbation over human intimacy (always keeping a healthy sex life with my spouse as no 1), only masturbating as a method of relieving real human arousal - not as a simple means to an end or way to escape, not edging or turning porn into some sort of hobby, and restricting my content to Reddit only - no account or interactions with other, and full candor with my spouse on all fronts. A key part to this btw, was me requesting my device still stay totally locked down other than the Reddit app - meaning my wife still had my screen time locked down and still had a VPN porn blocker installed.
Well, December 25 → February 26 was the most stressful span of events I have had in quite some time. My feeling now is that I chose the wrong time, and that’s why I find myself on an addiction forum fully locked down again. I did poorly on moderating my usage to healthy means - not in terms of volume consumed, just frequency.
After being away from porn again though, and chewing on the three circles concept, I just cannot find myself putting viewing pornography or masturbating in the red circle. I feel like if my whole will and gut is not ready to shirk something as deeply embedded as those two things, I’m set to fail. And right now intellectually, emotionally, and in my gut even - I just don’t feel those two items are red circle behaviors. All that said, I’m very scared this is all just addict brain intellectualizing its way to DOC.
Anyways, thank you so much for reading. I’m unbelievably insecure every time I message here. I don’t have many friends - everyone went different ways after college… and I feel so alone. It brings a giant smile to my face just to get a heart on a post or message. I don’t have social media either and wfh 90% of the time with almost zero zoom meetings. Long winded here, but this forum means so much to me. I worry every time I post people are angry with my take or I’m hurting someone somehow. I pray not.
Sincere appreciation to all who read this, I need the real folks who understand to weigh in on my take - everything about it feels correct, but I’m scared. I just want to be a good husband and father y’all.
Thanks
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The good thing about this forum is that you can be totally honest. Or as honest as you dare. I don’t think anyone would be angry at you, and even if they were, that’s their issue. One can always apologise. Support is available and plentiful. Another good thing about this place is, that you can’t bullshit a fellow addict 
I’ve been called out on my BS a number of times, and looking back, I’m grateful. It’s an opportunity to grow. We have become excellent at fooling ourselves and others.
I should mention that I’m not familiar with 3 circles concept but I do get the gist of your text. If you’re not yet ready to say that porn and masturbation bring nothing good to your life, then that’s where you’re at. You are being honest and thinking about this comprehensively, which is good.
Reading your text, I see that your life becomes unmanageable when you let porn and/or masturbation in. You’re not in control of it and things won’t truly change until you’re ready to let it go. That’s the harsh truth. I don’t know how your marriage is like (and I don’t need to) so I don’t know how your wife would manage if you told her that you are not giving up PMO. Personally, as a wife, I would not take such statements lightly. You need to consider her, too.
Recovery is not hopeless, you know. Poor coping mechanisms can be unlearnt and replaced. Healing is possible. Keep going, whatever it takes. We are here rooting for you.
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I am only 90 days sober, so I don’t really want to be giving advice on quitting but I can tell you what I have experienced. Like you I have been using PMO for a long time, probably about 17 years, maybe 15 at addict levels, going back to teenage years.
My use always seemed to escalate ending with my “stopping’ only for it all to start again pretty soon after. This is not my first time quitting, just the first time I actually asked for help. For me the only option has been to cut it out completely, only form of release is sex.
I underestimated how much I used PMO as a coping mechanism. I have felt more stressed, anxious and depressed than I have ever felt in my life, but I do know I am doing the right thing. It seems to come in waves, the first few weeks were awful, then I felt back to normal for a month. Then I had a three week period around Easter that was like the start all over again but it passed. Now again I am feeling better, but I have more time and greater willingness to do more productive things with my time.
The one thing I know for sure through all of this, using porn is not going to make me feel better long term. it isn’t going to solve my problems, more elikely it will create more. It is easy for me to make the decision because I know my wife doesn’t want me using it either, and I want more than anything to rebuild her trust and love.
Sobriety for you will be different to sobriety for me, but talk to your wife. What does she think a good husband looks like? You don’t quit for them, but it sure makes it easier if you can see youa re becoming someone they want to be with.
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Thank you for sharing and opening up to us!
I am not addicted to PMO, but I am food addicted. There are some similarities between these addictions.
I love the three circles concept. I use it often to reflect wether a behaviour is helpful ir (potential) harmful for me.
IMO, what you are experiencing, is clearly your addiction sneaking in. We all know how addiction takes over our rational thinking and uses it against us. Oh boy, that voice gave me a thousand great arguments why I should / can/ may go down a road that leads directly in my red circle.
The more time I spend in my green circle, the better I feel and the less I miss using food as a coping mechanism. But! It needs a very clear decision and working on it on a regular basis.
May I ask: What’s in your green circle? Do you like to spend time there? Could you try to spend your time there and NOT in the yellow or red? Because that is what you need to do when you‘re struggeling.
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I’m back on 3 days clean and sober from PMO.
Its been really validating to come back to the forum and read other peoples experiences with PMO. I see a lot of myself in there.
For me, right now it feels like a tangled web. I’m going to try and explain my thinking but its hard because I am just so overwhelmed right now. I feel the need to add to the conversation, to throw my two pence in, I have no idea if it will help anyone. This is a long stream of conciousness ramble.
I started watching porn aged 12 or 13, so my time with porn is around 28 years. Even writing that is staggering to me. Its been in my life for longer than I have been working. It is the longerst relationship I have had and its deeply unhealthy.
I have tried many times to stop. At points in my life I was viewing it every day multiple times a day. Now it is a relapse between 4 and 14 days in. Over the years I have realised a couple of things:
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In combination with my Neurodiversity diagnosis I realised that I relapse on PMO when I am overwhelmed. This could be due to work stress, overwhelm due to too much sensory stimulation (too loud, too much information input, too many logistical challenges to deal with, to do list overwhelm, argument with my partner, emotional overwhelm).
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Porn has destroyed every romantic relationship I have had. With my ADHD I am prone to extreme moods, emotional blow ups, saying things and then instantly (or after the event) regretting it. I’ve done that just yesterday, again. I just threw my current relationship out the window because I couldn’t cope. My partner does not deserve that.
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Shame is a huge trigger, the more I watch the more shame there is. The shame leads to what I describe at 2).
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Porn addiction is sneaky, manipulative and will kick you when you are down.
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I go from full on abstinance to a massive binge, which ties in with my ADHD (all or nothing mentality).
I don’t have any answers as to how to fight this. I know I only use it as a release from the overwhelm, but that leads on to realisation 6:
- Porn doesn’t actually get rid of the overwhelm. Yes its a moment of relief but the feelings afterward, the guilt, shame, embarassment, frustration all get layered over the top of the existing overwhelm.
It also feels like a rut in the road which I keep falling back into. Its like I forget all the things I have taught myself about Porn. The fact I always have an arguement with my partner a couple of days after using. The fact I feel so absolutely awful for days afterward. The green, yellow and red circles. It all vanishes no matter how much I read up on the subject.
Someone earlier mentioned root causes. I’ve been doing therapy for around 3 years and through it I’ve uncovered multiple traumatic episodes including loss in the family (due to addiction), breakdown of past relationship and subsiquent custody battle , intense family illnesses. It is all this big jumbled soup of things that I can’t escape from.
Which is the whole point of addiction right? Its a desperate attempt to escape from the things that have happened. I find myself desperately trying to control every aspect of my life so I don’t get hurt again. So that I’m not disappointing another person, letting another person down, so that no one can tell me I am not good enough (verbally or even hinting it at), so that I don’t get hurt again by someone pulling the rug out from under me. When I can’t control things (which no one can) and it all gets too much I reach for Porn and I am off on the rollercoaster again.
That 28 years thing has really stuck with me. That is so depressing.
The thing is I have been told the answer plenty of times.
- Live in the present moment
- Let go of what you can’t control
- Advocate for your own needs
- Set healthy boundaries on your time and presence
- Radically accept what has gone before and what is coming. You can’t change it.
Yet the people pleaser in me and the trauma survivor in me is desperate for that control, that sense of being able to control something, anything because life is just too much, it hurts just too much. Things come out of nowhere and deliver a stab of pain from nowhere and it is excrutiating.
I think I am scared to let go. Scared to change and leave porn behind. It then becomes a list of “justifications” in my mind:
- How will I cope if I don’t have Porn as a backstop?
- How will I get rid of the feelings I don’t want to feel?
- You’ve “coped” so far.
- All of the trauma, Neurodiversity and diagnosis is just an excuse, you are just a terrible person doing a terrible thing. You are a monster and the feelings you feel are deserved.
- The only way to stop feeling 4) is to relapse.
I find myself spiralling often, which is where I am now. Something my now ex partner kept saying to me over the past few years is that I am clinging on to these beliefs for dear life yet the ground is only 3 feet away. All you have to do is let go. But it terrifies me and all that has happened is I’ve driven another person away, a person I loved dearly becase I cannot control everything, I cannot control my porn use and that powerlessness, the fact I can’t cope with life is terrifying as well.
Porn can never be in my life just in part. It has to be banished completely but to start down that road requires asking difficult questions of myself and the life I have built. I feel like it will all come tumbling down if I pull that first brick. If I don’t I’ll be buried under it.
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Thanks everybody for sharing your experiences
It really helps to see others having similar thoughts and feelings about the topic
A few days back, my wife and I had a fight because of things I’ve done in the past. Afterwards I felt so guilty, shame overcame me and other negative emotions spread in my brain to the point where I just wished for all of it to be over.
That’s when the addiction put its foot in the door: “Remember me? I know you’ve missed me. Care to have a look for old times sake? You’ll feel better after this, I promise.”
I no longer had control over my thoughts. I suffered, I fought.
But I won. I’m closing in on 9 months of sobriety and I don’t want to ever go back to the old me, the monster, the weak, the lustful.
Let that be a lesson to you: as described before, this addiction is sneaky and will try to make its way back into your life whenever it has the chance.
But it is up to us to say “no” to it.
One day we will all be free 
I pray for you, brothers and sisters. We shall overcome this obstacle and live happy lives 
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Thank you so much for your response - you are correct… I am not ready to concede that in the present moment. That may change in an hour or a day, a year, etc.
Your note that addiction is not hopeless is oddly what hit me the hardest. It sort of reminded me that the journey is feasible. It hit me hard enough that now I’m considering how much weight the simple feeling of difficulty is factoring into decision making. When you said it wasn’t impossible, it surprised me. Enough that maybe I’m walking around really feeling breaking this particular addiction IS impossible. I didn’t consider that block until reading your reply.
Thank you! And thanks for your note about posting too - much appreciated
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This was a really helpful message and a great reminder that porn or masturbation as an outlet is often a quick solve to a much larger issue. It feels so so easy to forget that it’s just one release that ultimately can turn into a lot of issue.
Thanks!
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Thank you for your reply! Especially your transparency - really appreciated.
My green circle feels so lame lately. Broadly it’s;
Exercise in moderation
Eating healthy without being too aggressive
Being totally on top of work
Consistent Sexual Relationship and communication w/ wife
Love of Self - pouring into myself before others
Hobbies with hands
Mindfulness
All of those behaviors heavily contribute to my overall happiness and positive state of being. Damn though if they aren’t energy sucking before they give back. Most of these are just life guardrails too, sort of preventative behaviors and not actual active things that help take me away from my issues.
If we isolate down to what is CONCRETE and FUN on that list (and don’t get me wrong, love of self / comms with spouse are fun - but in a different less tangible way), it’s just exercise for me right now. My only actual coping skill at the moment is lifting weights, and I keep getting injured. Over the last 2yrs I’ve gotten 3 or 4 injuries. When I get injured, I feel like a terrible dad and husband too, because I don’t keep up as well with housekeeping or throwing my toddler around / being fun.
My wife is all the time on me about finding good coping skills because exercise is too limiting by itself. I agree, but I am lost there. I really need stuff to do with my hands, but I’m yet to find that hobby. I play guitar but it’s become pretty unexciting to me the last few years. Same for video games - intriguing for an hour a day for a week or two if I’m lucky, but then I’m back to filling my space with a todo list that runs short far too quickly, and boring tv time.
Idk… I gotta work on Green - thanks for your reply!
Day 20 no P
Day 3 No MO
Back to 72 hrs with no MO. I usually would’ve gone on a binger after relapsing, but I’m holding up.
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Just found this group on here. First I’ll say I’m in recovery from alcoholism, but a little over a year and a half drug and alcohol free. Been through the steps of AA and have had a huge mindset change as a result between that and a therapy. Masturbation is still a struggle for me though. I stopped watching porn probably like 6 or 7 months ago and stopped using social media like Facebook and Instagram. Youtube has been my weakness with this honestly. I like YouTube for information and my regular interests, but of course there’s videos on their that are about as close to porn as it gets so it’s too easy to go on it for that reason. Anyway the main thing that bothers me about it is the self shame and that I can’t seem to go more than a couple days without doing it. I kinda just wanted to call myself out on this cause it’s been a tough issue for me to talk about honestly. Any advice would help. Thanks
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Question. I recently discovered that I looked at porn because I wanted to masturbate ( relieve stress, anxiety, boredom). Not because i ‘wanted’ to look at porn. I needed something to facilitate my need to masturbate. Looking at my cat, listening to classical music, or reading car magazines, wasn’t going to get me there. Porn was my enabler. Are you addicted to porn? Or the gratification? Im trying to see if I’m alone in this? Thanks for you sharing
I think for me its all of it. If I were to MO then it leads me back towards Porn anyway. So its all wrapped up for me.
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Thank you for this very honest post. I’m honoured that you would trust internet strangers with your deepest feelings.
There’s a saying in my language that translates as “a familiar hell is better than a foreign heaven”. It means that people are more comfortable in suffering they know than to reaching out for something new and different. I recognise your fear of letting go. We can face it on so many different areas of life, not just addiction recovery.
When someone has a traumatic past, as you do, their sense of basic security can be lacking. They don’t have peace and balance in themselves. You could call it self-trust or self-esteem. As their inner world (and often the outer too) is in constant chaos, they will grasp at anything to regain control. That’s how addictions start. That’s also how they end. The more you heal as a person, the more you are able to be at ease in your own being, the more you are able to let go… The less your addiction will grip at you.
Using porn as a coping mechanism gives you a false sense of control. You are a slave, not a master in active addiction. I understand that it is scary to let go of something you’ve had as your companion for decades. Please hear me: you were not made for porn, for consuming it. No one is. You were made to have a healthy sexuality to enjoy with a partner and to love yourself for who you are.
The shame… It is toxic and paralysing. When I started my recovery and “came out” with my shame to some of my trusted people (it was a very organic part of my process, which I don’t recommend as a must for others), I felt like throwing up. But I needed those confessions. Afterwards, I felt FREE, finally, after years of being terrified for being exposed. What I’m trying to say, is that there is a way out of shame. It’s a major player in holding us down.
Your life has become unmanageable. Your addiction has cost you a lot. What do you have to lose if you let go? When we let go of something that has become kind of an idol, it feels like dying. It’s horrible but, THERE IS LIFE AFTERWARD. You will become alive in ways you’ve never known before.
Sorry for the rant. I should be sleeping lol.
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Thank you, that has been incredibly helpful. I have a lot to unpack but I will come.back and reread your reply again. Knowing there is an “other side” from someone who has been through it. Knows it and has felt it is invaluable right now.
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