Post by JohnG on Jan 11, 2007 8:08:46 GMT -5
Ok I am going to try this.
I welcome any comments in my journal thread.
This is day one of my sobriety.
I have been struggling with a huge internet porn problem since content became readily available. Prior to that I used porn magazines, both softcore and hardcore. I began looking at porn when I was about 7 or 8 years old (long before I started masturbating). My parents had divorced and my father told me where to find his old collection in the basement. He later bought mags for me when he gained custody. I know he had not the slightest idea that this might be a bad idea (this was in the early seventies) for a kid. He was a great Dad and without a doubt thought that Playboy is part of any normal adolescent's experience... His collection always consisted of a half-dozen magazines and I know his use was not compulsive or frequent. Mine, however, was addictive from the beginning.
I should mention that I have been free from alcohol in AA for fourteen years (in one week) and have gained some insight into my own behaviour. But although I have known for at least five years, maybe more, that my porn use was compulsive, I have either done nothing (didn't REALLY desire to stop), or couldn't. Just as with alcohol, I tried over and over to do it on my own, and of course, that doesn't work.
I am tired of this problem and want to stop. It seriously affects my relationship though my girlfriend is computer illiterate (I have to log into her email for her and push the send button after she pecks a message in about once a month). She has no idea what I am doing when she is not here but of course it affects our sexual relationship. She doesn't know why our sex life is so bad now and I have no intention of telling her. That will not help her. I want to get myself on the right path before she has to be REALLY hurt by it (by finding out). I have read a lot on the SO side and would rather she not have to go through that. And even if I were alone I (which I will be soon, as I am moving far away), I am sick of feeling worthless, wasting time, feeling out of control, the anger, resentment, fear, etc. that goes with any addiction.
I have tried (a couple of years ago) Covenant Eyes and asked two friends who know about addiction (one in recovery, the other a psychologist) to receive my reports. For a while this worked. I talked to my AA sponsor about the problem and occasionally in meetings. I should add that I live in the south of Spain and there are no 12 step sexual recovery programs here. Anyway, I found it extremely difficult to talk about this with them even though I received support I did not have the level of comfort that is necesary to speak openly and honestly. So, after a while I began to look at porn on late night TV (it comes in on the antenna in Spain - no pay channel required), then download on P2P file sharing and then I discovered a way around CE altogether. Finally I just got rid of CE because it was of no use anymore - the reports my accountability partners got were not reflecting the truth. And I sure wasn't telling them.
So I was doing no work - no reading, meditating/praying, no meetings or posting on a forum like this, nothing, and so what should I have expected?
I need to be pretty specific about my usage - I have to say this out loud, so to speak, or I will be "keeping secrets."
2-4 hours per day viewing
links on thumbnail post sites, mostly mature women-oriented
sex stories, mostly "incest" category - young men with mother or aunt stories.
a few pay sites - amateur mature women.
I think my mother son fantasies come from fantasizing about a girlfriend of my father's when I was very young. I engaged in inappropriate touching that she did not adequately chastise me for. She would just swat my hand and laugh, but never got really mad or even threatened to tell my father. She became my prime mb image and later I began to fantasize when I mb'd that she was my mother (so I would have constant access to her). I used to think, "if I was her son I would wear her down and eventually have sex with her." I never had any fantasies about my own mother. I did spy on my aunt one time but didn't see much.
I had an early sexual experience with my cousin (male) that I have never told anyone about, ever. Here goes. He performed oral sex on me and that was my first orgasm. After that I began mb'ing with the material my father gave me and with fantasies of his gf. All of this seems to have morphed into preferring sites and stories that help me fantasize being a small boy whose very attractive mother performs oral sex on him.
Even with total anonymity here I find it very hard to say this and admit it. I feel very ashamed. I want to have normal thoughts, to have a normal relationship - where I don't fantasize this stuff when I have relations with my gf. I know that means a lot of work and I hate doing work. I know from my experience as an alcoholic that recovery is a lifetime project.
I can't say it all right now - I just don't have energy, but I have covered the things that I am most upset and haunted by.
I hope to become a regular poster here. I don't want to be one of those that posts twice and is gone.
Thanks in advance for everyone's support. I also want to thank all those whose posts I have already read yesterday and today and that have given me the courage to post my story.
And just for the next 24 hours: no p and no mb. Till 1:58 PM GMT+1 tomorrow. I will worry about a more comprehensive plan later.
Wish me luck.
JohnG
I welcome any comments in my journal thread.
This is day one of my sobriety.
I have been struggling with a huge internet porn problem since content became readily available. Prior to that I used porn magazines, both softcore and hardcore. I began looking at porn when I was about 7 or 8 years old (long before I started masturbating). My parents had divorced and my father told me where to find his old collection in the basement. He later bought mags for me when he gained custody. I know he had not the slightest idea that this might be a bad idea (this was in the early seventies) for a kid. He was a great Dad and without a doubt thought that Playboy is part of any normal adolescent's experience... His collection always consisted of a half-dozen magazines and I know his use was not compulsive or frequent. Mine, however, was addictive from the beginning.
I should mention that I have been free from alcohol in AA for fourteen years (in one week) and have gained some insight into my own behaviour. But although I have known for at least five years, maybe more, that my porn use was compulsive, I have either done nothing (didn't REALLY desire to stop), or couldn't. Just as with alcohol, I tried over and over to do it on my own, and of course, that doesn't work.
I am tired of this problem and want to stop. It seriously affects my relationship though my girlfriend is computer illiterate (I have to log into her email for her and push the send button after she pecks a message in about once a month). She has no idea what I am doing when she is not here but of course it affects our sexual relationship. She doesn't know why our sex life is so bad now and I have no intention of telling her. That will not help her. I want to get myself on the right path before she has to be REALLY hurt by it (by finding out). I have read a lot on the SO side and would rather she not have to go through that. And even if I were alone I (which I will be soon, as I am moving far away), I am sick of feeling worthless, wasting time, feeling out of control, the anger, resentment, fear, etc. that goes with any addiction.
I have tried (a couple of years ago) Covenant Eyes and asked two friends who know about addiction (one in recovery, the other a psychologist) to receive my reports. For a while this worked. I talked to my AA sponsor about the problem and occasionally in meetings. I should add that I live in the south of Spain and there are no 12 step sexual recovery programs here. Anyway, I found it extremely difficult to talk about this with them even though I received support I did not have the level of comfort that is necesary to speak openly and honestly. So, after a while I began to look at porn on late night TV (it comes in on the antenna in Spain - no pay channel required), then download on P2P file sharing and then I discovered a way around CE altogether. Finally I just got rid of CE because it was of no use anymore - the reports my accountability partners got were not reflecting the truth. And I sure wasn't telling them.
So I was doing no work - no reading, meditating/praying, no meetings or posting on a forum like this, nothing, and so what should I have expected?
I need to be pretty specific about my usage - I have to say this out loud, so to speak, or I will be "keeping secrets."
2-4 hours per day viewing
links on thumbnail post sites, mostly mature women-oriented
sex stories, mostly "incest" category - young men with mother or aunt stories.
a few pay sites - amateur mature women.
I think my mother son fantasies come from fantasizing about a girlfriend of my father's when I was very young. I engaged in inappropriate touching that she did not adequately chastise me for. She would just swat my hand and laugh, but never got really mad or even threatened to tell my father. She became my prime mb image and later I began to fantasize when I mb'd that she was my mother (so I would have constant access to her). I used to think, "if I was her son I would wear her down and eventually have sex with her." I never had any fantasies about my own mother. I did spy on my aunt one time but didn't see much.
I had an early sexual experience with my cousin (male) that I have never told anyone about, ever. Here goes. He performed oral sex on me and that was my first orgasm. After that I began mb'ing with the material my father gave me and with fantasies of his gf. All of this seems to have morphed into preferring sites and stories that help me fantasize being a small boy whose very attractive mother performs oral sex on him.
Even with total anonymity here I find it very hard to say this and admit it. I feel very ashamed. I want to have normal thoughts, to have a normal relationship - where I don't fantasize this stuff when I have relations with my gf. I know that means a lot of work and I hate doing work. I know from my experience as an alcoholic that recovery is a lifetime project.
I can't say it all right now - I just don't have energy, but I have covered the things that I am most upset and haunted by.
I hope to become a regular poster here. I don't want to be one of those that posts twice and is gone.
Thanks in advance for everyone's support. I also want to thank all those whose posts I have already read yesterday and today and that have given me the courage to post my story.
And just for the next 24 hours: no p and no mb. Till 1:58 PM GMT+1 tomorrow. I will worry about a more comprehensive plan later.
Wish me luck.
JohnG