Married for 1 year, been with her 13 years, I need to reboot.

To add on this, the people that do succeed are of the personality to accept and adopt rigorous discipline AND OR have a full support network of tools and have reached a point of desperation (impending loss of job, marriage, jail, public discovery) or are able to become desperate for a better life and can sustain that sense of desperation.

 

There is definitely a pessimistic aspect to repeatedly telling people they are going to fail. Why not use supportive optimistic stats? Like "you are xyz times more likely to have long term recovery of you do xyz".

 

Exactly, focus on helping people with this. Rather than continually pointing out how many failures there are. People here are looking for help. Not to be shamed.

 

There it is. That shame is what you put on yourself. It’s part of your addiction, a huge part. I have not shamed anyone. If a Doctor tells you you have cancer, it’s not cure-able but you can get in remission, but very few do, is he shaming you or being pessimistic or is he kind in preparing you for what is ahead of you? My sil had cancer. She had the entire family convinced she was going to beat it. The trauma and shock everyone except my husband and our family felt was heart wrenching. Diagnosed Oct 16. I did the research and told my husband she only had a 5% chance of making it longer than 6 months, Only a 30% chance of making it to February. She died beginning January 3 months after diagnosis. They hadn’t even told her kids yet! Just because it’s not fun or pleasant to hear doesn’t mean it’s shaming or pessimistic. It just is what it is. For the record-SO’s of sex addicts are some of the most optimistic people on earth. They try for decades to make their marriages work always believing their partner can and will change, going so far as to ignore every damn red flag and their gut because they are so optimistic.

 

I think there's a huge difference between a physical diagnosis and what I'm talking about.

You can't just tell a depressed person they are depressed and not expect that to affect them. And that theres very little help for them for example. You are painting with a broad brush in your example.

Addictions and terminal cancer are not the same. Mental and physical health while linked are very much different.

Suggesting that essentially no one will succeed I think can definitely be taken as shaming them.

There are better ways to say what you are saying that can help facilitate positive responses from those looking for help.

 

I never said no one will succeed. I said very few do. Statistics say 5%. That’s from the professionals, not me. Mostly because the addicts themselves don’t treat this as serious as a medical diagnosis or even as an addiction. You cannot win a fight if you don’t know your enemy. No matter how much you want it, or how optimistic you are about it. You cannot win a fight if you don’t know what armor to wear or what weapons to use. That’s not shaming, that’s bluntly telling you what you face. Every single
one of you COULD beat this. I mean, just stop. It’s that simple. Except it isn’t right? You’ve tried that. Or maybe you haven’t. Do you understand your triggers, your addiction cycle, how adhd affects you, how depression influences your addiction, have you identified your inner, middle, and outer circles. Do you know why you’re an addict? Do you know if you have I.A. About 30% of addicts do and you can’t fix your addiction without addressing it. Do you understand the role shame plays in your addiction, do you understand the brain changes that have taken place because of your addiction? Have you explored emdr to help heal trauma you might still have, neurofeedback to help with adhd if you need it. Have you watched the backwards bicycle to see and understand the difficulty in changing the neuropathways of addiction? You see, I actually think all of you could get into long term recovery. But most don’t even know what they need to do to be successful and spend years on here relapsing and frustrated and some suicidal. Talk about depressing and frustrating, when the tools are right here to be successful.

 

Relating watching porn to cancer is kinda wack

 

You completely are missing the point I'm making. I'm not going to hijack another's post further because this isn't helping them.

Just think about it for a while.

 

Lol, the denial for both was whst I was thinking!

 

Sadly, my husbands porn addiction has done more damage to our family than a cancer diagnosis ever could. I would never leave my husband if he was sick with cancer. However, I will not stay if he should he go back to using his drug of choice porn. It’s his choice, in his control. If he wants to throw 36 years away to masturbate then I no longer want to support him in his destruction of himself. After 4 years in recovery, the difference between who he is using and who he is clean had been put in the spotlight and I will never go back to living with that miserable shell of a man.

 

So are you venting here or trying to help others?

 

Eh speak for yourself. My wife told me she has no problem with me watching porn. I’m doing this on my own.

 

Yes, everyone’s experience is different. Usually when the partner can be honest about their addiction the relationship does get better. It’s the lying and deception that does the most damage ( in my opinion). I had no problem with porn in the beginning of our relationship.

 

If I were venting, I’d be far more brutal. You have literally damaged your brain and your body. Unfortunately most men don’t even see this as a problem until they realize they don’t have a desire for their partner, or they can’t get it up, or even worse they prefer masturbating to actual sex.

 

None of which actually applies to me. Other than that it has affected how I cope and handle things. If I was though I most definitely feel shamed by the posts above.

Though I think it would be helpful for many struggling to be kind to others that may be struggling more than you.

I'm sorry for the pain you have through.

 

You’re very fortunate! Recognizing it can become a problem before it’s actually had those effects is awesome. I feel so sorry for my husband not realizing what he was doing to himself. Had he gotten help at your age would’ve been such a blessing. He didn’t start experiencing major physical problems until he was 45 and his use escalated along with depression.

 

For me personally the day 4 Mark to the day 12 or so have been the toughest days as far as urges to look at P. After that things get much better on a day to day basis. I've never had the issues you do with libido etc, but it does seem common for people to have a flatline period where they have no sex drive at all during reboot. This is just temporary so don't let it discourage you. There's no doubt this is going to help you!

A great way to test your addiction is to do what your doing and keep track of how to feel. Removing PMO will feel much different for you mentally and emotionally. You will start to notice how big/small the addiction is and how it affects your life.