Journey to Recovery Starts - Porn Addiction ends

[PAKills]

Hi AllI have tried to summarize my story as best as possible but since being new to the forum, I will give as much detail as possible with exactly where I am in my life with P addiction.My addiction started at around the age of 14 maybe even before that, I can't quite remember. We all know how it starts, first with soft core pictures not even any naked individuals, then you crave more and you find more appealing pictures including naked ones.This becomes boring within a short while and before you know it you're into extreme hardcore movies (Yes, the pictures get boring as well). But it doesn't end here, Extreme Hardcore becomes boring and now you're into what I call "Sick P". This just grows and grows to a point where I couldn't find anything more sick than what I've already seen. The fake joy only gets better when you find something more sick than the previous scene you've watched.Together with the above, I began masturbation. This would be atleast 4-5 times a week. The only thing than helped arouse me during this task was fantasizing about girls I knew and putting their faces over the faces of the porn stars I've just seen. My room was not secluded and having a desktop meant I wasn't mobile so could only masturbate in the bathroom without actually viewing a porn video.This continued till the age of 20 and over the years my addiction just couldn't be satisfied. I'm still a virgin up till this age (20) and felt inconfident to approach girls. Over the years, my libido dipped and erections became weaker. It was at this age that I decided to marry (Yeah, I know it's young but it's been the best thing I've done in my life). Few months before marrying, I began getting anxiety attacks due to the fear of having ED. My fear came true when on the first night (both of us loosing our virginity), I came before even any penetration taking place.After that it was just downhill at the beginning of our marriage. It was a huge blow to my confidence. I visited a urologist who prescribed viagra but I was definitely not going to be taking that stuff at the age of 21.Eventually with the support and help of my wife (for which I love her dearly), we both lost our virginity after a few days of being married. Not long before marrying, I had stopped watching P. For the next few years of marriage, sex was satisfactory. Sometimes I would have a OK erection and sometimes I would just loose it with it not returning that same night. This was a nightmare. As I mentioned above, not long before getting married I stopped P but not long after marrying I started again. This was on and off for the next 6 years. I always found excuses to watch it. I would tell myself things like "I need to find ways to spice up my marriage" or if we would have a fight over her not being in the mood for sex, I would resort to porn. If we planned a special night, days or weeks before the scheduled date, I would be visiting porn sites learning something new. If we planned role playing, I would be on the porn site seeing what can I find. I always was blinded by the excuses I made up. The planned night would go OK although I can't remember having a "full on" erection longer than 5 minutes without penetration or stimulation - I would just loose it instantly.I am now 27 and up until a few days back, I continued making excuses to watch porn so to better our sexual relationship. I even resorted to having my wife watch a movie or 2 to see the joy I find in it. She reluctantly would do it for me just to please me. Well that's not all she would do to please me. Normal love making became boring for me and now I wanted to be a porn star. I would make her take part in crazy stunts or new sex acts that I've seen in the movies but it just wasn't enough. Watching porn and trying to act it out is 2 totally different scenarios. The feeling of the act just was not the same as watching it and this is where the addiction causes most harm for couples in my opinion. As I was saying, a few days back we planned a special night and back was I to the P scene looking for new stuff to please us. Anyways it was atleast 2 weeks before the night so I was on the P sites for that amount of time. I should mention again that up until now, I would visit sites for 2-3 months at a time and then stop for another month or 2 before going back and this happened on and off for the last 6 years. So as I was visiting sites in the last 2 weeks, I found what I needed to but something else caught my eye and I got consumed as usual. I went to the extreme of the extreme, finding the most sickest things I could. Anyways it came to the night and it was time to perform and Boooom, I loose my erection. As I said, my wife is patient and supportive so we get intimate but no erection. We move into the bathroom and have a shower and then because we both clean I get her to do some dirty stuff that we would normally not do in the bed room. And I'm hard again - but not as hard as I would want to be.Never the less, a few days later we get intimate again and Boooom, close to penetration and erection disappears. Now I'm freaking out and she's all calm trying to calm me down. She manages to masturbate me while I fantasize (she doesn't know that) and I orgasm. Everytime I'm with my wife, I don't really fantasize but the flashbacks of the porn images I've seen comes flooding in and I try and get her in those positions but the feeling is never the same. Most of the time I'm with her, I'm trying to imitate some movie I'd seen, that's how bad things got because otherwise I wouldn't get aroused.This is when I drew the line.I obviously noticed the connection between P and my ED. Did a little googling and came across brainonporn.comFrom there I landed here. I read the success stories there as well as tips but now its time for me to start my own journey to kick the life changing habit.I've been free from P for the last week. I try my best not to picture any images from any of the movies I've seen. I haven't masturbated since being married (6 years). Everytime I see a hot girl I look away. Anything that triggers these porn memories, I stay away. I'm so worried about my next encounter with my wife that I don't know if I'd be able to atleast penetrate her. I'm embarrassed to even tell her about my problem as she will feel disgusted about me watching porn and it won't be difficult to put 2 and 2 together to realize most of the acts we've been doing together is from porn but I have to break it to her eventually.Here's to the start of my journey to recovery.I have a few questions and look forward to the comments of my new found friends.1) I have read a little about rebooting the brain and I know each individual is different but does rebooting entail disassociating yourself from porn completely or is there more to it than that?2) How do I go about re-wiring my brain?3) Whilst in this rebooting and re-wiring process, would you suggest I have intercourse with my wife? Reason I ask is I've seen many posts wherby guys have abstained from PMO for weeks but since for me it won't be self induced M and O, would it be OK?4) Can I use sex enhancement pills during this process just so I can keep my wife satisfied?I really look forward to hearing from everyone and will be sure to keep in touch.Wish me luck.ThanksRegards

[Disillusioned]

Hi PA Kills,
I want to welcome you to TTF, where there are many different people and even members from different countries. WE all have one thing in common and that is that we have been hurt by P.
As I was reading of your ED problems, I was wondering if your urologist did a Testosterone level. Lab studies have revealed that levels are dropping in younger people these days and are wondering what might be the cause. Some have suggested that female hormones that cannot be processed out of our water systems might be at fault. There are also hormone disrupters in many every day items, such as cosmetics, sun screens, scented soaps, etc. Any of that may be at fault, so you should find out if this test has been done, if you do not know.
Most of the authorities about PA advise an initial period of abstaining from any type of s-xu-l release. A couple is encouraged to cuddle, touch, hold hands, etc., but not actually have int-rco-rse to the point of O. This gives the brain a chance to reboot.
Many men who are heavily into MB also experience PE from many sessions of trying to accomplish release before being discovered.
That also creates problems when a man is with a woman he loves.
YOu mentioned not wanting to drag your wife in on all of this, your PA problems. I suspect she has a pretty good idea that you have problems in that regard. Where do these creative ideas about positioning and such come from? She has to wonder, knowing that you were both virgins when you married. You might want to let her know it is a problem now, as, like you said, she will eventually put it together. Just consider it. She might gain insight reading on here, or given a book to read so that she can understand.
I am sorry this is affecting your life at such a young age. It is vile and should come with a warning about its addictive properties.
We have other young men who have come here and have problems and want to get this out of their lives before imposing such grief on an unknowing spouse. Recovery is possible, and it is hard work.
There is a new sticky about what works. Suggestions in there might be helpful to you.
What is usually done for recovery is recognizing all possible triggers, and coming up with strategies to be in place and used when you run into a trigger that tempts you to use. Many find physical exercise helps. You also have to recognize that there are situations which will tempt you, as in coming home to an empty house or apartment. What are you going to do instead of using P? Can be pushups, can be running the sweeper through the entire house, taking out trash and going for a run...something that you must do instead of. It sounds like abstinence might also benefit you as a way to reboot.
Keep posting and reading so you know which direction you are planning to take. Let me remind you that s-xu-l thoughts and images travel the circuitry of the brain 2% faster that ordinary thoughts. It is why advertisers use s-x to sell everything from aardvarks to zebras. There has to be a scantily dressed woman with a come hither look in her eyes to sell almost everything.
My h's P use made me feel so ugly and unattractive. As a kindness he bought me two books about accepting myself the way I am and look. Both had scantily dressed, partially nude figures on them. Why do you suppose he picked up those books, even while trying to help me recover from his PA?
It is so ingrained, it is hard to recognize, but it certainly can be done.
Best wishes on your journey.

[PAKills]

Hi DisillusionedThanks so much for your response. It's so good to know I have friends who will back me up and help me along the way.My Urologist didn't do a testosterone test - to be honest I found him to be one of the worst doctors I've come across in the medical field.I did consider this could be a problem but when I came across the youbrainonporn website, I dismissed this as a problem simply because all the testimonials found on that site were similar if not exactly the same symtoms as myself. If a reboot and rewire doesn't solve the problem then I would have to consult a physician but for now I'm trying to stay away from an embarrasing situation as far as possible.With regards to my wife, she definately knows I have a ED problem and undoubtably she knows where I get all these creative ideas from but what she doesn't know is the extreme pics I see - to her she probably thinks I look at a site here or there just to learn a position or 2 - little does she know that once I start, I go on a so called "spree". Extreme hardcore P it is with me - nothing satisfies my desire more. I will definately take a look at the sticky.I don't excercise - I'm quite lazy in that regard but that needs to change. I try as far as possible to divert my thought from P as far as possible and I can assure you it's no easy task. In fact, you will be surprised to know that before finding out about how detrimental P is to my health, I I just accepted that I have a ED problem due to all the masturbation in my teens and would deal with it with the use of medication later in my life when the problem got serious but there's new hope - the hope that I can recover to 90% of what I was at the start of this addiction with will power. For me the hardest part of ridding this addiction in not stopping myself from watching P - that's quite easy and I've been able to give it up for 2-3 months at a time previously but little did I realise, the problem I was carrying along with me throughout my life was the images that were embedded in my brain always dictated how I was to have intercourse and up until now I never found that to be a problem but how foolish was I - it was a bigger problem than watching the actual porn. Just a small example - at bed time if my wife was asleep and I was coming to bed, I would close my eyes and fantasize about her in some compromising position that I've seen months before. Like I said, I never found anything wrong with this. This is also how I would masturbate to orgasm in my teens - all I could do was fantisize about some hot girl getting it on with me in some hot scene of a P movie. So basically I screwed up my own creativity and imagination as it was replaced with P.Today, I took the suggested test found on Brainonporn. The 2 tests goes something like this. First test is to start to arouse youself but masturbating but try to blank your mind out or think of stuff more sensual rather than the porn you've been watching all your life.For the second test, do the same test as the first but this time picture the best porn scene you've seen and masturbate.So as I said, I went for it. I did the first test and it was extremely hard to get an erection. I masturbated and did whatever physical acts I could do to get and erection but not even a semi-hard erection could be seen.Whilst doing the first test, I switched my thoughts to some porn scene I've recently seen and put my wife as the image of the woman in the scene and within few seconds was hard, harder that normal but not rock hard like how I would like to be.This morning I went ahead for a test again but this time I was deternained to get an erection by not thinking porn at all. It was difficult - damn difficult but I just concentrated on various different things like work, general to do things, things that happened during the day, concetrated on more sensual stuff like the task I was doing and blanked porn out of my head completely. It took a while but I finally attained an erection although not as hard of an erection as the test I did with porn thoughts. By the way, for both tests I didn't masturbate to orgasm.The tests conclude that I most likely have Porn Induced ED. I also wake up in the morning with an erection, so the penis seems fine - my brain is messed up with all this porn that any sexual encounter has to entain something from P for it to be a worthwhile - how screwed up is that?I'm glad I found the weekness now the journey continues to fix this.When ever a thought of porn pops up in my thought, I quickly brush it off and quickly brush it off and replace with something else.I will keep you guys updated.Please feel free to comment in any way possible.I truly welcome any suggestions.RegardsPAKills