NO SURRENDER

[grillo]

I did 37 days and then fell. Now, I'm trying again and I swear I'm going to make it. I hope this journal will help give me the strength to follow it through. My wife is 5 months pregnant and I really want to get control of this thing before my baby is born. That will be a new chapter of my life and I want to make it a great one.

[grillo]

So a few words about me as I start my new 100 days. I'm on Day 1 and the sun is shining. I refuse to fall now and if any of you out there can help keep me up that is well appreciated. I'm not religious so my push to kick this porn addiction doesn't come from a Christian angle. I don't think MD to P is a sin. I just think it's a big waste of time, energy, money, sexual energy and it damages relationships and risks getting you in a lot of trouble. In those 37 days I felt stronger and got so much more done with my time. It was great. Once I fell, I stumbled in and out of M and P over a week. Now, I'm back on track and this journal is giving me the push I need.

[william1000]

Hi Grillo,

37 days is great. I think you can do 100 days this time.
Its a good target to get it under control by the time the baby is born.
I know when I was first in your shoes I had similar thoughts but didn't do anything about it.
I wish I had found this site then as it would have been a great help.
I hope to read your posts as you progress
Kind Regards
William

[grillo]

Day 2 and I'm woken by gray skies. But I feel really positive and full of energy. In some ways these early days are the easy ones. You are focussed and the reasons you want to kick it are at the front of your mind. But as time goes on those reasons get blurred. There is one moment of weakness and ....ahhhh.
So a little bit more about me: I'm 34 years old. I first checked out porn when I was about 14 - that's a relationship that has lasted two long decades. But it hasn't been constant. I had periods of years when I didn't use this rubbish, times in my late teens and early twenties when I just wasn't thinking about porn at all. But it seeped into my life taking a stronger and stronger hold. In the last two years, I have come to a few conclusions about it. They are pretty damn basic and everyone on this site has probably reached them as well. But for me they were an in important starting point to understanding this thing.
1) Porn is a waste of time.
2) Porn can be addictive.
3) I am addicted to porn.
4) I want to kick my addiction
5) It is pretty damn hard to kick it.
But I know that I'm strong enough to do it and with the help of all those out there I can do it. NO SURRENDER.

[grillo]

Hi William,

I really appreciate your kind words. The voice of others is an immense help in this struggle. Are you someone who has kicked it now? I would love to hear some of your story and thoughts about the nature of this addiction we have fallen into.

Allbest

Grillo

[freedom]

Thanks for your support.

And congratulations for your upcoming baby.

And good luck with you, you can do it.

[grillo]

Thanks for the message Freedom. The mutual support is what we need to succeed.
As the Romans said - sticks can be snapped one by one, but if they are together in a bundle they will not break.

[grillo]

Day 3 and I'm staying strong. The urges flutter into my mind and I shut them out fast. I have to stop my move toward porn from the first step, "nip it in the bud" as we say in Britain. My first step is usually watching music videos, especially on MTV Jams. They are so full of smut and women in g-strings acting they will do anything for men. That is the porn fantasy right there. I start to tell myself I can just watch the vids for a bit and enjoy them and there is nothing wrong - it is not porn and I am not jerking off. But I am too weak for that right now. The videos take me a step into the porn fantasy, the numb world where women are all sluts and sex slaves and we feel somehow emotionally comfortable. So it's no MTV Jams for me right now. That is no big loss because most of the music on it is total garbage anyway. If you have a good tune you don't need to shove 100 women in g-strings on the video. People will watch because the song itself is compelling. But when you have some mediocre idiot chatting nonsense you have to use some sexual fantasies to sell the song. Don't get me wrong, I love the Hip Hop back in the 1990s of KRS One, Wu Tang Clan and the Tribe Called Quest. I just think the music now has got lazy and decadent and relies on cheap smut to keep the sales up....

[grillo]

Some more reflections on porn addiction from my Day 3, Clean and Green.

I flirted with porn as a young teenager, didn't have too much contact with it in late teens to early twenties and then fell into it in a more intense way in my mid twenties. I'm now 34 and I have had an intense relation with it for about a decade. I've messed around with phone sex, peep shows, strip clubs and prostitutes as well. The hunger for porn has carried on during my relationships. I have gone to it when I am sad and lonely but also when I am happy, when I am drunk or hungover and also when I am well rested and sober. I have been married for three years and have got into a bad routine of waiting for my wife to sleep and then jerking off in front of the cable TV. I'm sure she suspects but she lets it go. A couple of times she says in a jokey way that I'm watching porn and I laugh it off. She is now five months pregnant and I'm determined to stop this now. I do not want to be looking at any porn when I am in the house with my baby. My mission is clear - no masturbation to porn or any other media. I'm not religious so I am going at this problem from a secular angle - but I think there is no big difference between the secular and Christian way of dealing with porn. We are all fellow humans in the same boat.

[freedom]

grillo said:

Day 3 and I'm staying strong. The urges flutter into my mind and I shut them out fast. I have to stop my move toward porn from the first step, "nip it in the bud" as we say in Britain. My first step is usually watching music videos, especially on MTV Jams. They are so full of smut and women in g-strings acting they will do anything for men. That is the porn fantasy right there. I start to tell myself I can just watch the vids for a bit and enjoy them and there is nothing wrong - it is not porn and I am not jerking off. But I am too weak for that right now. The videos take me a step into the porn fantasy, the numb world where women are all sluts and sex slaves and we feel somehow emotionally comfortable. So it's no MTV Jams for me right now. That is no big loss because most of the music on it is total garbage anyway. If you have a good tune you don't need to shove 100 women in g-strings on the video. People will watch because the song itself is compelling. But when you have some mediocre idiot chatting nonsense you have to use some sexual fantasies to sell the song. Don't get me wrong, I love the Hip Hop back in the 1990s of KRS One, Wu Tang Clan and the Tribe Called Quest. I just think the music now has got lazy and decadent and relies on cheap smut to keep the sales up....

MTV vids were for a long time, especially when i was younger, very big influence and trigger on me. The sexual content was overwhelming - and for a young adolescence addictive.

Just watching those videos and the easy girls they offer it gets you mind thinking about those things and raises the amount of your head filling with those thoughts, gets you more aroused, and more willing to slip. They are a trigger. They get you more and more thinking, naah - its not that big deal.

Even though its just MTV video it still can get you way much to the wrong direction.

The videos these days are often way too sexual for just the purpose of being sexual. Its perverse, its not real. These images alienates you more and more from yourself and your real life.

Good for you noticing how it is so easy take one step and then when youve taken it, the next one will start to make a lot more sense and before you know its all over the place.

Stay strong.

[william1000]

Keep it up Grillo.
You sound determined and want to change the patterns in your life.
With a baby on the way its a great time to stop.
William

[grillo]

Day 4 Clean and Green.
Here some more reflections on this porn addiction I made after reading the fascinating discussion on the board - "P.Addicts who don't have a Wandering Eye."

I think evidence shows that all kinds of different people with all kinds of different behavior suffer from porno addiction. There are guys who are very confident sexually and have had a lot of girlfriends who become porn addicts and there are others who are shy and lack confidence who fall into the trap. It hits rich guys, poor guys, black guys, white guys, fat guys and buff guys. So I think we can safely say that the behavior of one PA will not always be the same as another whether it comes to looking (or gawking) at girls or anything else.
I personally think that looking at an attractive girl is totally healthy behavior that is not connected to porn. It is better than porn as you are looking at something real. If I am talking to an attractive girl I will give her a nice smile. It is good to enjoy and be confident in your real sexuality. And if you are just window shopping what harm can it do. Obviously, when I am with my wife I won't look at other girls out of respect (and fear of getting an elbow in the face.) And as Sovereign so eloquently said, if you get a smack you have been looking too long. I think many of us probably have healthy attitudes and behavior towards women outside of porn. Our problem is wasting our time and energy jerking off to this rubbish. That is what I am focusing on. And I'll keep enjoying seeing pretty girls on sunny days.

[grillo]

Thanks for the word of confidence William.
Also thanks much for all comments and advice to TH, Freedom, Fragile, Matt, Maart and Somedude. The solidarity means a lot to me. Together we can beat this.

No Retreat.

[grillo]

Day five and the hundred days is still alive.
"Old habits die hard." Well shamefully jacking off to porn has become a habit and it too must die. I have been using it in an unhealthy compulsive way for 11 years, since I was 23. It has become part of my life and habits like eating, drinking coffee, watching TV and listening to music. It is something I easily do without much thought, that my body and mind are used to and expect.
Part of breaking from addictions is killing the habit. Take smoking. You integrate it in your life as part of your experience - after a meal, with a cup of joe, after sex. When you have give up smoking you have to sever that connection. And you have to keep it severed, stop the little devil growing back.
It is the same with porn. It has crept into my habits and found its place with a lot of my experiences - when I am tired and hungover and have no energy much constructive; on a Sunday after a binging weekend; late at night when I can't sleep; when I have some spare time by myself and there is nothing much going on; when I feel low and suddenly lack self confidence and when I feel happy and horny.
So I need to go through those experiences and not fall with porn. And I need to redefine those experiences without porn. I don't want this rubbish to have a place in my life. Or if it has any place, I want to be something I can look back on and remember I was addicted to and help others get away from on.
Well that's the idea, if it could be some way still. It's only Day five. But a walk of 1,000 miles stars with...

[grillo]

Day nine and I'm fine.
Temptation has tried it on a few times but I've nipped it in the bud early. Gotta to keep it up. Gotta keep it up. Last time I managed 37 days and then slipped so I know I have to keep up my guard long term. It's a marathon not a sprint.
But right now I'm nine days porn free and feeling good about it. And Pumas are in the Mexican finals to boot.
No turning back. No relapse. No retreat.