Hey there @longRoad21 - while celebrating my first month porn- and masturbation-free with my spouse, I had some time alone to journal (spouse was having a foot massage and pedicure, she loved it while I was writing away for a good hour). In 'The Final Freedom', Doug Weiss has a powerful chapter called Psychological Freedom. Among other gems, he recommends writing two letters; a Thank You letter, and a Good-Bye letter. So I filled up a page thanking Pornography for all the good times it provided me, all the entertaining hours, all the good feelings, all the variety of naked people doing things to expand my imagination. Thanking Pornography sounds strange, doesn't it? Well there was plenty of things Pornography did for me. A few other things I thanked Pornography for was to salve my wounds from long ago, to ease my raw feelings about loss and rejection and pain, it was an anesthetic, a numbing agent to help me forget. Another page was filled with the Good-Bye letter. Good-bye because you, Pornography, almost ruined a 20 year marriage. Good-bye to the delayed ejaculation problems plaguing my sex life. Good-bye to the lack of communication in the bedroom. Good-bye to the lack of intimacy with those closest to me. Good-bye to the secrets, lies, guilt, shame, aloneness, meeting my own needs, thinking I'm different than anyone else in my sexual needs. Good-bye to the loss of hours, loss of focus, loss of money spent on my sexual addiction, loss of self-respect, loss of what-could-have-been. Yesterday I listened to Porn Free Radio episode 107 to 109. Matt Dobschuetz said something striking: "Pornography wasn't our problem. Pornography was our solution. Our solution to loneliness, to craving acceptance, to a need for an escape from our troubles, to boredom, to just feeling tired. And once that solution is no longer an option, well, we are here sitting in our feelings of loneliness, of craving acceptance, of feeling our troubles, of feeling bored or tired; what will we do now in its place? New habits of connection have to be formed in its place. Otherwise we head back right to porn and masturbation, or other ways of acting out. (I'm learning that porn and masturbation are on a spectrum of sexual addictions, that have all the same root causes which is why sex addiction is so difficult to break.) And breaking this addiction is not easy, reading here for just a few threads will convince you of that. I wish you the best in your journey.
