Tipple's Journal

[tipple.downs]

Hi everyone,

I guess first, I'm so glad I found this site, I'm so glad that it exists. I'm way to ashamed to admit my addiction to anyone so this is really the first place I've had the chance. I've been sober for almost a week now, unfortunately, as I'll explain, that isn't very long for me so I'm living in fear of a relapse, but hopefully with the support of this site as well as other steps I plan to make, I'll be able to kick this once and for all.

My addicition sounds like a pretty normal P addiction on this site, it's gone on from a very young age (13?), it focuses on celebrities and soft P, its mostly on the computer but then when I used to live with my folks, I used to stay up late and watch on TV. These days its become highly ritualized... I've been married for over a year and my partner has never found out about it because I guess I'm very good at covering my tracks and she trusts me so much. So when I'm in the house alone, which thankfully since I've got a new job isn't so often, first of all I obsess over whether or not to go on the computer and look at P, then inevitably I do, then after its all over I feel a deep sense of shame and sometimes promise myself that this is the last time and I'll never to it again. Sometimes it varys in that I'll obsess even for days before it happens, sometimes I overcome the urge and at times during our relationship mainly when there's been no opportunity, I've simply repressed the urge without even thinking about it, that's why I'm so afraid of relapse because even when I've gone months without the urge it can suddenly rear its ugly head.

My wife is a strong feminist, before I married her, I felt bad about looking at P from a vaguely religious perspective, I grew up fairly religious, enough to know that masturbation was "wrong" and there's definitely always been a subvertive aspect to my looking at P. Since I've got married, I have a much stronger moral reason for not looking at P, irrelevant of whether I feel like its emotional infidelity, I know that it fuels an idustry which at its worst enslaves and traffics women and children, I also know that P has created in men completely unrealistic expectations of what women are supposed to be that makes real sex increasingly unnattractive to modern men. I can only feel thankful that I myself am still very attracted to my wife and although my addiction affects my sex drive, my desire for her is still strong. Finally I know that P turns all women into objects in the eyes of many men, and that it is largely responsible for the phenomena of sexualizing women on first meeting them, something that is all too common and acceptable in society.

So I know all this, I know it rationally and yet still I can't control my impulses and worse, I feel I can never tell my wife. And part of me thinks that feeling is actually right. My wife since we met has had a number of hang ups about me and sex, I fear this revelation may just destroy her, and even if it doesn't I'm pretty sure she'll never trust me again. There have been a few incidents that fuel my fears, at one point she found out that I had been to a batchelor party where there was a stripper, she completely lost it and in the end the only way I could find to move on was to lie to her and tell her that I walked out of the room before it happened. This lie was told over two years ago and although I feel incredibly shameful about it, its not something I think I could ever go back on without destroying our relationship. Since then we found out that my brother went to a big strip show in Europe while on a batchelor party and apparantly regularly visits strippers. She will never see him in the same way again, I would go as far as to say that she loaths him and what he represents. I don't think I could handle her thinking of me, even for a moment the same way she thinks of him. Finally a part of me thinks that it would actually be incredibly selfish to tell her, because the only reason why I would do it was to gain her forgiveness and make myself feel better and so telling her and causing her some much pain, destroying her image of her husband who is always on her side on this issue would be too much.

So in my head it all culminated a week ago, I just started a new job at a company that amongst other things does design work for magazines, one such magazine is on display just outside my office with the top half of a naked woman on the front, bad luck hey? This set me off obsessing about it until I started spending time looking at P at work, something I've never sunk to before. This was last monday, I managed to stop myself from finishing off but still I felt absolutely ashamed about it, that night there was a new revalation about my brother and all of a sudden my wife was presenting her opinion and trying to get my backup and while I backed her up, I felt like such a hippocryte (not something I haven't felt before but this time even stronger) and I decided that I had to change. And the next day at work I found this site.

Being someone who these days is very agnostic about the whole higher power thing, I don't think a 12 step program is right for me. I think a book would be better but I'm hampered by the fact that I feel I have to keep anything I get on this issue hidden. I've tried cognative therapy on this and while I think I understand some of it - essentially I believe that under the great guy that people always tell me I am, I'm actually a shameful person who could never live up to those expectations and that sense of shame is what leads me to punish myself with addiction to P - but that understanding hasn't managed me to avoid relapse. In the past I've been successful at giving up smoking by making reaffirming that quiting is the best thing that ever happened to me and never feeling like I'm making a sacrifice by doing it, that paradigm shift worked there but I have failed to implement it with P.

So I've found this site, and my hope is that through keeping this journal that in and of itself may help me to break this cycle. Thank you everyone just for being here, I've been sober since 21 April 2008, I hope that I am able to keep it up this time and not let myself, my wife or any of you down. I know that if I am, it will be the best thing that every happens to me.

[Nordman]

Well done, friend. Welcome to site!

Nordman

[FoolishMind]

Tipple.Downs thank you for posting that thorough insight into your current situation, and of course welcome to the site.

You clearly have a a very clear understanding of yourself, and are by no means lying to yourself. I can feel a huge level of burden and stress on your shoulders as you explain your situation and the reluctance to involve your wife on this. With your explanation on your wife, and her thoughts toward your brother, i also agree that perhaps certainly at this stage it may not be best to involve her. Although I would not completely rule it out, as her reaction should not be assumed.

So you have come to a point, where you know this is enough, and you would ultimatley like to click your fingers and have the urges simply removed from your head. This would basically stop your P viewing actions. Well If you think about it, you have kind of done this already with your smoking. The addiction in smoking is the nicotine in your body, and when you deprive yourself of a cigarette, the nicotine starts to leave your body and you get what is called a pang. That little voice in your head saying have a ciggie!

Well most addictions are quite similar yet im still trying to get my head around the smoking and I think I know why. I have been a PA for in excess of 10 years and have been married for 5 years. All 5 years, I have let P affect my marriage. Was clearly not as gifted as you to hiding my secret. I am delighted to tell you that I am approx 4 months P free now.

So what did I do? very similar to what you have said with smoking, Not quitting anything, just said thats it, no more. And focused on the positives, and replaced my free time (that was previously P Time) with constructive things, and family time.

Why have I not been successful with smoking? I have tried to apply the same concept, but I think deep down, I want hang onto it. If i have the slightest inkling that I am missing something, it just wont work.

With P, I found it so much easier, and that was because of this site.

1) I realised I was not alone
2) I educated myself, on the damage P has caused relationships and character changes
3) This site also allowed me to feel supported by other members, and I focused on helping others, which inturn made me feel like I was using my horrible past, as a positive, to educate others.

The best advice I can give to you at this stage, is to start your journal on this site. Your initial post is a great one, so as soon as you create your journal, I will merge this post into it.

In your journal, be state why you think this started, and share your strategy to also help others that can relate to your situation. Acknowledge when you are weakest, what are your biggest triggers etc. For each of those, make sure you have a counter. So you are fully prepared for every temptation that is thrown at you.

Ultimately, realise you are doing this for yourself, to improve your life. I can personally assure you, that ridding P from your life, improves every other aspect of life.

For me personally, it has improved my marriage to heights I have not experienced, It has improved my character (i.e. no mood swings) it has improved my focus and concentration, which inturn has helped at work. and has generally made me a more calmer and constructive person.

Wish you the best, and look forward to following your journal.

FM

[tipple.downs]

Hey,

So first of all thanks to Nordman and especially to Mind for your already making me feel welcome here. This is my journal and I'm gonna try and write in it every couple of days hopefully with good news!

I've been reading around the site and other people's posts and I wanted to talk a little bit about my immediate triggers and then some of the longer term ones. A big one that people have mentioned is seeing women on TV shows and in movies and then looking them up on the net, that's a big one for me and it can happen that once I see someone on a TV show I'll obsess about it until I get the chance to find her. There's no logic to it and to a certain extent I reject passing the buck onto society and saying these images of women tempt us too much because I don't think that women should have to restrict what they wear or what they look like because we can't control our libido, I think that we need to learn to control our libido. These days I have some other triggers, boredom, being alone and then some that are connected to my wife. When we argue, or when she's depressed and comes to me for comfort and I don't know how to comfort her, these triggers make me feel like I have a "right" to do it. Deep down though I think the trigger is inadequacy, because I can't comfort her I must be inadequate anyway so why not just look at P.

In terms of what I'm doing to try and counter these triggers. Firstly, now when I'm on my own, I have this site, if I need a displacement activity, this may be it. Secondly, I'm doing excercise, I bought a bike and taking regular rides although the P continued while I was doing that but now I have the will. Third, I'm taking steps to improve my relationship with my wife, in particular being more honest with her about how she makes me feel when I'm depressed. With regard to the TV shows and movies, I really don't know what to do, I think my strategy is going to be that if there's any chance that the thing will have triggers in it, then I'll allow myself to watch it but only with my wife, she would notice if I suddenly stopped watching some of our favorite shows and its also impossible to always know when there will be a trigger.

When did this start and how? The easy answer is I don't know and it's true to an extent but here are my guesses. My earliest experience of a woman's body was my mother, that's not particularly unusual, thinking back though I think that I probably spent an unusual amount of time in her presence when she was undressed, I don't feel so bad about this because I was young. But I guess there's a strong chance it starts with her. It's also worth adding that my mother never had the conversation with me about objectifying and sexualizing women, and I guess like many of us, there was no strong female role model explaining why porn was wrong from a feminine perspective.

I think I was unusually sexually precocious as a child, even from as young as 6 I started exploring. From about 10-14 years old I became a bit of an exhibitionist, at sleepovers, I would get over excited at get undressed. Again, I'm not sure how much of this is totally unusual, but for me I guess it fits into a pattern.

I also though about sex a lot, I remember one night wishing that I had breasts and then feeling so ashamed of myself that I stayed up crying for hours. I remember that I had a whole load of fantasies that basically involved having naked women turn up in my room, and when I heard of hypnosis and self-hypnosis, I spent quite a while trying to hypnotise myself into experiencing these fantasies. RPGs, whether board games or on the computer, all involved a certain amount of private sexual fantasy and it's no surpise to me that I got into the Leisure Suit Larrry games when they came out.

My other early experience of nudity was as a six year old on holiday with my family in America, a horror movie was on TV in my parents room and we were sitting around talking/watching it. There was a scene that started sexual and then turned into horror. I remember it so well because I'd never been so scared before. I screamed and screamed and refused to go to sleep that night, even after everyone else had got to bed, I remember staying up reading the Magic Faraway Tree.

The fact that these memories are so vivid whereas most of my childhood is such a blur, I guess reinforces the fact that they are probably important. Having two older brothers, I was exposed to P at a fairly young age, I remember a copy of a magazine that floated around my house for about a month, I don't remember how old I was but I guess 10 or 11. Around the same time I started MBing, mostly in the bath, and before anything came out but I guess I was giving myself weak orgasms, not really knowing what they were at around 12 years old. When I got my first windows computer, I discovered dial-up bulletin boards, this was about maybe 13 years old, unsurprisingly, I used them to search for pictures of women, that continued seamlessly into my internet habit which continued since then.

This is the most full confession I've ever written, and I'm sorry if its embarrasing or hard for some people to read, I've found it scarily easy to write and relatively free from embarassment, which is again, a bit weird. All I can say is that even as I write all this stuff, I find it hard to put it all together and work out exactly why I am as I am and what I need to do with these experiences to overcome my addiction. I recognise that may be a subject for a therapist but I can't really afford one. I'd appreciate any of your thoughts!

[seeker]

T.D.,

Don't EVER tell your wife. It's better that she never knows this mischievous side of you. She'll never trust you again and the dynamic of your relationship will be ruined forever.

After being mostly P free for several months I can tell you that the experience is quite liberating and self-empowering. It also will energize you sexually towards your spouse and put a real bounce in your step. It's very simple really- the images and videos that you are absorbing are diluting your sexual energy and attention in a very negative way. I find that the internet is exponentially worse than the tele probably due to the fact that you are in more control of your viewing patterns. You need to find something to replace your bad habit (I don't subscribe to the belief that it's an addiction) when the 'urge emerge'. I suggest exercise, books, movies, work, meetings with friends and of course more time with your spouse and family. You'll get through this stage and look back on it as a bad phase in your life that you put behind you, trust me.

Once you've kicked the habit the images will fade and your interest in flesh and blood will intensify. I actually have blue balls for the first time since I was a kid this week! Can you believe it? Also, don't be afraid to MB once in a while. It's not a sin- that's absurd- and you'll feel better afterwards. Just don't overdue it, know your boundaries and live well my dear gentle soul!

One last thing- stop feeling guilty! That gets you nowhere. Instead of guilt focus on fixing the problem. That's what I'm trying to do with marriage, and although it's hard I'm making progress.

Good luck my new friend.

[Dominus]

T.D.,

Don't EVER tell your wife. It's better that she never knows this mischievous side of you. She'll never trust you again and the dynamic of your relationship will be ruined forever.

Seeker, Much as I respect your opinions, I think that this is not good advice. A good marriage is centred around trust and openness, if you start keeping secrets from your wife then the opposite is likely to happen and she is more likely to mistrust you.

[seeker]

Seeker, Much as I respect your opinions, I think that this is not good advice. A good marriage is centred around trust and openness, if you start keeping secrets from your wife then the opposite is likely to happen and she is more likely to mistrust you.

I respect your opinions too. Some things should be kept private and this is most certainly one of them. Would you tell your wife that you secretly fantasized about sleeping with her best friend if it was true? Bet not. Boundaries need to exist.

Kick your habit alone if you can. I agree trust involves honesty but telling your spouse that you have an abuse problem with P could easily destroy your relationship forever and at the very least leave you feeling in an inferior position in the relationship.

Do not do it.

[Dominus]

Would you tell your wife that you secretly fantasized about sleeping with her best friend if it was true? Bet not. Boundaries need to exist.

I do concede the point that there may be occasions that things are better not said for the sake of not unduly hurting the other. And evidently there are some driven individuals - like yourself who can beat this thing more or less alone. However if one has alone tried and failed multiple times it is time to acknowledge that a change of tactics is required. I know from my own experience that without assistance I would find it difficult not to slip back sooner or later, and observing the experiences of others on this site, statistically those who involve their partners or a close friend generally seem to fare better than those who keep it secret.

Granted its not easy to tell them, or for them to hear it from you. But surely it beats them finding out by themselves which they inevitably seem to do given sufficent time, and by which time they are usually in a pretty low level of self esteem.

Reading through your post am I right in thinking that things are picking up with you and your wife? if so then thats really great news.

[tipple.downs]

Thanks Seeker and thanks Dominus, you've both given good advice and I think the honest answer is it depends on the circumstance, this is one of those times doing something is both the wrong and the right thing to do. As far as I'm concerned, telling my wife is more wrong that it's right, but only just. I know there's stuff my wife already wishes that she didn't know about me, and trust me, I'm not such a bad guy, so why add another to the list?

As for the masterbating thing Seeker, I do know its not a sin, but I want to learn to address all my sexual energy towards my wife. Also the fact is that every time I masterbate I go one step further from an orgasm that is about two people sharing a human experience and one step closer to an orgasm that is devoid of all feeling and just about releasing something - pun intended - and I'm pretty sure that this road leads directly to porn.

Truth is I've had a hard couple of days, its complicated but my wife is depressed for reasons that have nothing to do with this. And when she calls me at work inconsolable and the conversation ends with her still feeling inconsolable - I know that's the meaning of the word inconsolable - I feel completely impotent, and I can't get on with my work. And part of me feels angry, and part of me feels useless and I think in the past I've allowed these feelings to justify me, looking at porn. What I keep having to remember is that although I'm doing it for her, most importantly I'm doing it for me, not looking at porn ever again is the best thing that could ever happen to me, its been 10 days which is not a really long time for me but I know I'm going to continue, and as I do, I'm am going to feel better and better about myself, or at least not feel worse and worse.

Thanks again!

[Dominus]

Sorry about hijacking your journal with our debate! I can respect your stance on these issues. I mentioned here before somewhere that my Gran used to say "to much sex is bad for you, share it!" which always stuck in my head. Despite popular opinion I don't think MB is a a particularly useful activity.
Sorry about the problems with your wife, I really hope that you can be succesful in helping your wife sort out her depression.