Today is my 7th day without porn. As I have mentioned in this blog, my addiction was a weekly endeavour. It was like I just couldn’t get through that 7th day. So today is that day.
What I have been doing to support myself this week is I have been approaching this whole process from a kind of ‘prevention is the best cure’ kind of approach. So I have been supporting myself throughout this week to remain as stable as I could within myself throughout the week, and not allowing myself to go into to many highs and lows, particularly when it comes to sexual excitement.
‘Sexual Excitement’ is a phrase I often use to describe that particular experience or energy that IS the point I am in fact addicted to. So this week I have been supporting myself with stopping my participation in this particular experience and energy.
What I have observed is that when I support myself on this level of stopping my participation in sexual excitement that it supports me in remaining much more stable in relation to when those urges and wantings to watch porn come up. What I found about my addiction is that the ‘participation’ doesn’t simply happen when I watch porn. In fact there is a build up to it. Where first it begins in a moment where there is an image from some porn video or magazine or pic I saw at some point in my life and this flashes in my mind, and then within me emerges this ‘sexual excitement’ this desire to look at this image, to participate and engage with it, to linger on it because in doing this I am experiencing a positive experience. Like the HIGH the drug user experiences off his drug. That to me is the ‘addiction process’ taking place. Often, its only later when that leads to porn which is a more extreme version of this process that can take place within me in a significantly smaller version throughout my day where its like I don’t even see it happening. though I have learned to now see this when it happens even on a small level.
Or another example would be when I am walking down the street and I see a women out of the corner of my eye who looks attractive, and then suddenly I am like gripped with this urge to look, to stare, to peek, to see what this women looks like and to ultimately get another ‘hit’ of this ‘sexual excitement experience’ through looking at her.
So what I have come to understand is that stopping my addiction to porn means stopping these pre-porn stages of the porn addiction. And not only just trying to stop at the last minute when the porn is knocking at my door.
So, what I have been busy with this week and I have practiced this in the past as well is stopping those kinds of engagements of myself, whether its looking at an image in my mind or looking at an attractive women on the street. Rather, I focus on my breathing and don’t participate with this act because then what happens is like I am in these moments actually feeding my addiction, and then if for instance I do this all week, then I have spent the week practicing ‘giving myself permission’ to participate with my addiction, and so this not only weakens my resolve to stop, but it also builds up that sexual energy within me where eventually It just becomes to much and I experience myself as not being able to take it any more and then I give in and watch porn.
So I have observed these dimensions about my addiction and so I am practicing ‘prevention is the best cure’ or supporting myself to get to the root of my addiction process. I find when I support myself throughout my day to stop my participation in sexual energy, that this ultimately supports me in stopping my participation in porn.
There is never any guarantees I have found with this point. Where for instance in the past, I have been supporting myself effectively and suddenly fell back into the habit. But, I can see that supporting myself throughout the week to not participate in these smaller moments of temptation has brought much more inner stability to my process of correcting my addiction and so I continue to work with this point.
Participating with porn I do see as an end result but in terms of the my ‘porn addiction’ it extends further than just porn I watch on the internet. My Porn addiction is also the addiction I created to looking at women I see on the street or participating with sexual play-outs and fantasies in my mind.
I have been busy trying to stop this addiction now for some time. I could even say for the last 7 years, and at this stage, I am seeing, and approaching this now from the perspective of doing a complete overhaul. Just cutting out some of the components of the addiction never was a recipe of actual complete correction, and this is what I am interested in and so now I am focusing on all the different branches of this addiction that eventually lead to that moment where I watch porn. And so this week have really zoomed in on these pre-porn stages of porn addiction.
So, throughout this last week, I have really just focused on the simplicity of myself and have been looking at ‘who I am without all the energy’ without all the ups and downs that I have conditioned myself to exist within and so have been just supporting myself to remain more even-keal. And Accepting this simplicity of myself instead of trying to lunge or urge after some experience, some energy hit I get from looking at women or seeing some image in my head or on a screen to give me a kind of energy zap! to get me high for a moment.
So instead, I have been allowing myself to be alone. To be alone without this energy zap. To just be alone without having to connect to the web and entertain myself. It’s a work in progress and I have some way to go, but this has been a cool point to work with and I see it is beneficial to continue supporting myself to get acquainted with “who I am without the constant hits of sexual energy” And to focus on this Self, this Simple Self.
Resources for Support in Overcoming Porn Addiction
Porn Addictions Journey To Life Blog
https://pornaddictsjourneytolife.wordpress.com/
Awesome Video Series on Understanding Porn Addiction https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhlBoXrt81izh7FcmWZ_wG8DZk18aOZGk
Facebook Group For People Walking Through Porn Addiction https://www.facebook.com/groups/167089990144572/
Facebook Group for Partners of Porn Addicts –https://www.facebook.com/groups/1619123951634417/
Porn Addiction - My Story 