Belzedar's Journey

[belzedar]

Hello to anyone who reads this...

It is more of a journey to help myself, writing this, than for others to read but if you are reading, please try not to think too badly of me

I am male, in my thirties and in a relationship with a wonderful woman. I work away from home so am only with my family at weekends. I can't even rememberwhen I first started to look at P on the internet. Thinking back maybe 10 years I started with stories. I would sit at my desk and read and become excited....and I would go into the old MSN chatrooms and find someone to talk to and try my best to get the talk to a ual nature. Unfortunately, it wasn't difficult....and the worst thing was that the dirtier and more perverse the topics, the easier it was to find someone to chat with.

I was also single and lonely at the time, and would spend hours alone and bored and thinking back, pretty much depressed. My work was very stressful and my personal life quite empty to P and chatting in chatrooms becams almost a way to get through the days and nights. I would log on to my computer each night and read or chat until I was...well.....exhausted.

I was off work for several months a few years ago, and during my days at home with nothing to do, I met someone in a chat room abd we would roleplay every day for hours, it was very intense and very ual. It became an obsession of mine and I would almost resent the real world imposing on me, so lost was I in my fantasy world.

That has continued and even now, with me in a happy, healthy relatioship...I find myself every night that I am away from home logging on to my computer, going to chat rooms and talking until the early hours. So much so that usually when I get home at weekends, I am too exhausted to spend intimate time with my partner.

I know this is an addiction, that I am a P addict and I had a moment of clarity last week, a moment when I realised that what I was doing was wrong, that it could ruin my life in the real world. I then found this site, and decided to change, to try to become the person I should be without P in my life.

I don't know what will happen, I only pray I have the strength of character to resist. At the moment it is a struggle every time I have time alone not to let myself wander to stories or chatrooms....

anyway, enough of my waffling for now. I am switching my pc off as I feel very tempted, even after having written this.

to anyone who has read this, thanks for reading.

[seeker]

Confessing to yourself that you have a problem is the hardest part! You've taken the first step.

What I want to know is whether you are happy in your relationship otherwise and what about it you want to improve. If the intimacy is gone then I think you know where it went. I can't personally say that you can ever get it back, but it definitely is impossible if you are focusing your energy elsewhere.

[Dominus]

Hi Belzedar, welcome, I dont think anyone is going to think badly of you bcause we are all suffering or recovering from similiar life stories. Part of the objective of this site is to be a place where we can unload all our years of pent up secrets and start afresh.

you've made a great start setting it out so frankly and honestly, its not an easy thing to admit to such a deep rooted problem. you might consider telling your lady about it and she will be able to help you in your fight.

[belzedar]

Well, it has just gone 11pm, and normally I would be settling down to log into some chat room and lurk there until the early hours, alternating watching P with some roleplay chatting with some nameless stranger. Instead I am typing here, then going to try to get some late night work done and then go to sleep. This will be the first night I have been alone that I haven't used P as a way to switch my mind off and then later get to sleep so I have no idea if I will be able to sleep or not.

Even now, with my mind firmly rooted in trying to quit I keep thinking just a quick peek.....ten minutes in the chatroom, I won't even do anything, just lurk and chat...but I know that that would just be a lie, that it would turn into another night where I would indulge myself, then afterwards feel guilty and ashamed and disappointed in myself and thinking never, ever again. Yet another lie to myself.

Thankyou for your replies and your support and advice. To be honest, I really can't talk to my partner about it, I don't know why, part of me is ashamed and another part of me, because she is so open minded (she really doesn't mind P and often will indulge herself) thinks she will think I am mad. She has no idea of the extent of my addiction, she thinks I just look occasionally at it with her, and rolls her eyes at the idea of me watching it alone when we're apart as if to say boys will be boys. I think this is something I have to deal with alone.

I am firmly within the grasp of it, and it is such a struggle to break free.....I honestly never accepted the hold it had on me until last week when I began bringing my real life and pictures etc into my roleplay chats just to go that one step further....I realised then that all the talk of having to go deeper and deeper to keep the thrill going was true.

Tonight will be such a test, even now I am really struggling with it so I am going to log off and try to go straight to sleep.

Goodnight to anyone mad enough to read this!

[Dominus]

Hey - who you calling mad?? I represent that statement!

Sorry you don't have a support mechanism in the house, but your doing great. It may get pretty tough in the next days or weeks, I had headaches, insomnia and the like, but if you can ride that through it gets easier. just try to break the habitual cycle.

[FoolishMind]

Hi Belzadar,

Sounds like you really do have battle and a test of your willpower. Being alone is when temptation creeps in for me, and it can be quite hard to change your thoughts. I have generally managed to counter them so far by just playing a video game, or playing some games with my daughter.

My wife and I are no trying to incorporate some physical excersice into our lives now. So we are starting to play badminton and go to the gym and cycling. Removiing P from your lifestyle really does free up a lot of time. Make sure you fill that spare time up with something else, as through habit temptation will creep back in.

As Seeker has mentioned, you have done brilliantly to simply acknowledge the problem yourself and actively choose to change it. That is admirable, Keep the postives, and you will stay strong.

Wishing you the best in your journey.

[belzedar]

Hello again

Thanks to those who read and posted replies, you have no idea how much it helped reading them just now, it feels like I am not quite so isolated so thankyou

Last night wasn't the easiest night I have ever had in my life, but I managed to get through it by playing online poker (play money, I am not going to replace one addiction with another!) which wasn't ideal, as I was still sat at my computer until gone 1am.....but I am really pleased with the fact that I didn't go into any chatrooms, and I didn't look at any P so I feel like it was a small victory for me.

I did lie in bed sleepless for a while, and while I was I did a lot of thinking and I think that one of my big problems is the fact that I am away from my partner during the week and I have so much time that I spend alone...the devil makes work for idle hands as they say and I really feel that if I was at home with my family, living a normal life then I jsut wouldn't have the scope to spend time alone online indulging my addiction.

I think that a good thing for me would be to find a way to spend weekdays at home as well as weekends, and this problem wouldn't then be so huge. Having said that, I don't want to hide from my problem, I want to face it, confront it and deal with which means that I have to be able to be alone, with a laptop and not succumb. It is so hard though, today has been a huge struggle as normally in the afternoons I get a lot of time alone in the office with no risk of disturbance and I generally tend to spend most, if not all, of that time in chatrooms and looking at P. It is a real struggle and I am finding it so difficult to resist the temptation. I am determined though and so far today I haven't crumbled at all. Tonight I am going home to my family as I have the rest of the week off so if I can just make it to the end of the day then I will be ok until monday!

I know I am nowhere near to coming to terms with my problems as I confess that while I have been typing this, I have been thinking of ways to start talking about some of the things I have talked about in chatrooms, things that involved talking about my partner, and the thought wasn't as therapy, it was to...well, a form of my addiction I guess. I can't believe how my mind works, it makes me sick. Anyway, I haven't and at least I am thankful for that.

I shall sign off now as I feel like I have probably said too much but I feel a little better. I have decided brutal honesty and admitting my thoughts is the best way forward. At least on here I can be totally honest.

Thanks for listening and I hope anyone who reads this has a good weekend.

[Fraco]

Being on the road away from home is tough. Hotel rooms are deadly. Any possibility you could change jobs?

You aren't alone in the way your mind wanders back to areas you would rather avoid. Those of us who suffer with addiction to internet porn find all kinds of ways to search for topics that might cause us to stumble upon images or to find ways to be drawn into conversations and fantasies that satisfy our cravings.

Enjoy your weekend with your family. Be strong and feel the support of all of us who are struggling with you.

[Zibble]

Hi Belzedar,

Your story and your situation are very similar to mine. What hooked me initially was sexy words, not sexy images, partly because they seemed a little bit more innocent somehow, but also because I was able to make up my own sexy words and share them in chat rooms and the like. And I'm in a long distance relationship, so, like you, I only get to see my girlfriend on the weekends about once every week or two. I live alone, so there are a lot of nights when it's just a battle of will power between me and the computer.

One thing that really helps is to keep reminding yourself of all the reasons *why* you want to quit porn. And don't just think about this when temptation comes, but at other times too. Try to notice the ways in which quitting porn is helping you. For example, it's really important to me to have a respectful, honest and (sexually) healthy relationship with my girlfriend. Porn has gotten in the way of that, so that was one reason to get rid of it. Another thing that's important to me is to be able to treat everyone I know with respect. There are a fair number of attractive women that I interact with pretty frequently. Like probably most people on this site, I've found very effective ways to *pretend* (to myself and to them) that I respect and care about them completely. But usually part of me is always subconsciously thinking about them selfishly and sexually. And as long as I'm doing that, I can never really be honest with them, and that means I can never really treat them with respect. But I don't want to be pretending to be someone I'm not all the time. I want to really *be* the person I'm just *pretending* to be. And the only way to do that is to learn how to harmonize respecting someone with being sexually attracted to her. Anyway, my point is, you should frequently remind yourself why you want to quit, and take note of the ways in which it's working, how you're achieving those goals.

Another thing I wanted to say is that now that you're cutting out porn, you have to find something else worthwhile to do with the time that you're opening up. It's not much of a victory if you stop looking at porn, but spend all that time agonizing over whether to look at porn instead. I realize it's going to depend a lot on your personality what other kinds of activities would be worthwhile to replace porn with, but it would be a mistake to think that there aren't lots and lots of options.... do some exercise, read a book, do a crossword puzzle, whatever it takes.

One last thing: try to learn a lot about the negative effects of porn addiction. You're already interested in porn--turn that interest against your bad habit by becoming an expert on the bad effects of it! The more you learn about it, the more excited you'll be about overcoming your bad habits and improving your life.

These are some of the techniques that have helped me.

Best,
Zibble

[belzedar]

Good morning everyone....and thanks especially to Zibble, I found your words really, really helpful.

Am on my computer before the rest of the family rise, I have a few days off so haven't really had my usual temptations, however I have been online and alone for the last hour or so and although it seriously entered my head and at first I was really, really struggling not to go into a chatroom I haven't succumbed and now the need has left me and I'm going to go make some breakfast after this post

I think I will do that,try to focus on the reasons I want P out of my life, and try to fill my time with other things. The amount of time I will have if I am successful (if=when but don't want to tempt fate!) is scary, I can spend hours and hours online chatting, maybe being honest 15 hours a week, maybe more. Its time when my mind switches off to the real worl and I lose myself in a seedy fantasy world. What I hate the most is how again and again when I had indulged myself i my addiction, as soon as I switched the computer off I would swear to myself never again...and then as soon as I felt the urge I would log back on again and carry on. Such a vicious circle but at least now I feel I have taken the first few steps to breaking it.

One of the worst things is that my wife is on her computer all the time when I'm away. I know before we met she met quite a few men online and it really worries me that she will be up to all sorts of things while I'm away....I often wonder if I am just projecting my own insecurities onto her. Because I log on and engage in chatroom sex I sort of assume if someone spends a lot of time online on msn messenger etc then they will be up to no good, especially as I aid, she has met people online before me. God, I am screwed up

Well, I am going off now to make breakfast. I am really pleased with the fact that it has been several days so far without looking at P or going into a chatroom. I have logged onto my msn messenger accounts a few times but have 'appeared offline' as I didnt want to, and didn't, talk to anyone. I am a little mad with myself about that but I am going to try to stop doing that as well.

Thanks again to everyone that has replied, your words are so helpful and supportive and it is really good to know that I'm not alone.

Have a great weekend all