A Medical Student's Story

[HHH3]

Well, I'm not sure if you'd be surprised reading about a med student who has a porn addiction. First of all, in my case, I wouldn't call it an addiction by definition. It's more of a stupid daily habit. It hasn't caused me any considerable losses except wasting a lot of time, in addition to the usual feeling of shame/guilt which waned away as time went by.

It all started around 10 years ago when I was a little kid. Now I'm 23 and about to graduate. Somehow recently, I've been thinking of how stupid what I'm doing is. It doesn't make sense. And that stupid arousal state I get into is totally unnecessary. It's even distracting, as I'm studying most of the day sitting at my desk with my computer on, and those 'quick porn minutes' between my studying sessions have become more stressful than calming. Not to mention the insatiable urge to download more and more. It really wastes time I could be spending on anything else. Although I'm single, being in my type of society, I'm likely to get married soon. I don't want to take this 'habit' with me into marriage. I don't want to compare my wife's image to a pornstar's.

I want to end this stupidity. I've tried deleting the entire collection several times before, but I always ended up going back.

This time I wanna end this for good.

I installed the K9 web protection software, and though I do have the password, I've intentionally made it very long and complicated, and stored it away in my PDA. With this, and with the help of this forum, I hope I'd be able to get through this. I've just started today, deleting all the porn collection, and I've already been having some withdrawal symptoms like depression, anxiety, unhappiness,...

I'm going to hold on this time.

Thanks for your support.

[Daniel]

Welcome HHH3,

We've all been in that grief space where we agonize over the wasted time and energy. Let that be one component of your motivation to stay on the path next time an urge rolls into your brain.

Victory happens one thought at a time.

As a medical student you may or may not be familiar with the brain chemistry side of PA.. There is a very enlightening article (search for Super-Abundance), which explained to me for the first time the physio-chemical aspect of withdrawal symptoms, irritability, and the seemingly impossible-to-resist urge to get yet another fix. The best piece of news is you can get back to equilibrium and permanetly stave off those crushing urges.

You CAN clobber this brute habit and achieve long-term success by doing what you've already started: break up your routine, make failure hard, commit hourly to staying clean, remember the pain, read up here on the site, help others who are on the same journey, and you will begin to find your life as the way it's supposed to be.

Go Big,

Daniel

(PS: another interesting article on the mythology of P: HERE)

[forgotten_not]

It takes a lot of strength to recognize & want to rid your life of P. I'm glad you've chosen to do so before involving anyone else as well, & for that every SO is thankful.

[HHH3]

It's probably got something to do with high dopamine and to a lesser extent, serotonin. These hormones are the ones that make us "feel good". Once they are decreased by non-stimulation, you begin to "feel terrible" because your brain is used to a constant high levels of them.

Thank you guys for the replies.

[QueenofHearts]

For you to recongize this as a problem at 23 is a good thing.

The majority of guys, especially in your age group don't find anything wrong with P...and pick on people who do, making them feel like they are wrong or messed up.

Sex is just sex right? WRONG.

If you can beat this now you are doing the biggest favor for your life, and for the life of any future girlfriends or wife.

All the best in your journey.

[Benedict]

A lot of us are in or have been in the same situation. Wasting hours a day in a stupid habit that then we feel bad about. Really important to think through and write down all the pluses and minuses of the porn habit. Why you want to drop it, what your life will be like when you do. And identify the things that trigger the urges and develop strategies to avoid those triggers and to deal with them when you encounter them.

Lots of us find it helpful to start a journal. Some additional motivation to stick to your strategies, but also a place to work through your beliefs to healthier ones and to log success and failures, identify patterns, improve strategies etc.
Good luck.

[HHH3]

Thank you all for your input and your support.

I've indeed started a journal. It's here.
So far it's been a smooth remission. Benedict's advice seems that it would really be a good anti-relapse measure. I'll definitely try to write down a list of the negatives. It's better, I think, to have them written down to read everyday.