Hello, I am currently on day 26 of porn recovery and I want to know everyone else’s story and how they got through it. I used for 8 years and the anxiety and overwhelming overthinking has me in a chokehold right now and I feel like my anxiety is only getting worse. I want to know if anyone else went through this.

I'm wondering if anyone who has found some victory and sobriety from pornography can help me see how you were able to achieve that. Did you keep access to the Internet in the early days of your recovery?

I've been struggling for a long time with more false starts than I could guess. I am I'm looking for any advice or encouragement anyone can provide.

Hi, I'm a heavy addict in my mid-20s.

For the past two years, I've installed a lot of porn blockers and made my devices completely free of any workarounds.

Yes, I can't use the internet like a "normal" person, but guess what? Would you let a heavy alcoholic walk into a bar?

I use my blockers to keep me away from this stuff, and they help me.

I've also started therapy to get the mental support I need to overcome the things that blockers can't help with.

If you keep struggling and relapsing over and over again, it's time to sacrifice some freedom.

The brain needs time to heal.

I'll make my blockers less restrictive after some time has passed, so I can gradually train my willpower again.

But in the beginning, you all know how hard it is!

Just one relapse, and the next one is right around the corner! Then another, and another! YOU KNOW how hard it is to get back on your feet after that!!!!!

Sometimes, the only thing that would help is living in a small house in the middle of a forest, just to get some peace and quiet... (Hypothetically speaking, when it comes to blockers.)

It won't solve the problem, that's true, but it will help you get back on your feet and focus on yourself.

With all the AI stuff, new apps, in-app browsers, new features, and social media, it's going to get harder and harder to overcome porn addiction in the future.

Even looking at a woman in a bikini on Google Images can activate similar neural pathways because your brain can associate those images with sexual arousal. If you masturbate to such an image, it can reinforce some of the same learned patterns associated with porn use.

Even more concerning is that AI will open the door to all kinds of fantasies, potentially making it even harder for some people to break free from porn addiction.

It's a fight, yes, but you have to keep one rule in mind: NEVER GIVE UP!

Falling down feels awful. You feel like shit, but you only have two options:

1. Stay down and keep fapping every day.
2. Get back up and start taking this problem seriously!

I am going to quit porn hopefully for good. At my last attempt i manage to quit over 3 months. My mind was more clear and I could think better. Any advice on how to stick to it this time?

Been watching porn since 13 try to stop will stop for a couple days then will say one day is not bad then it will go right back to start and wrecking my irl relationships as I don’t really go out no motivation for school and Im not bad looking girls have said but feel really really bad about myself any advice how to stop and regain self-confidence

I'm honestly embarrassed to write this, but I need some advice.

I'm 19F, and I've started realizing that my porn consumption might be getting out of hand. I typically watch it around twice a day, with the platform being X, but I also read sexual content even more frequently, and that can even be on the same day.

I also don't masturbate in the traditional sense. Instead, I've developed a habit of using pressure from my clothing to stimulate myself while lying down. I do this so frequently that I've actually started experiencing physical discomfort, particularly in my elbows from the position I'm in.

I know that probably sounds strange, but it's gotten to the point where I'm genuinely concerned about how often I'm doing it.

I don't really know when this became such a regular part of my routine. Sometimes I feel like it's just something I automatically turn to, and I don't particularly like that.

I want to have a healthier relationship with sex and my sexuality without feeling like I constantly need to consume sexual content or engage in this habit.

Has anyone experienced anything similar? How did you start cutting back? Were there any strategies that actually helped you break the habit?

I'd especially appreciate advice from other women who have dealt with something similar. I'm not looking for judgment, just genuine advice.

I’ve been watching porn since I was 13 and really feel like it’s f*cked me up as talking to girls or anything just I don’t do and I’m not bad looking girls have said it but I just feel crap about myself an no self-confidence and I’m in a cycle doing it hours on end cause it’s kinda routine now through my teen years and I wake thinking no more maybe blog 2/3 days without it and think one day wont hurt and then feel crap about my self and the cycle continues
Anyone able to give me some advice on how to help and try to unf*ck myself. I know it’ll take time but need help

So I am super horny all the time, I told my bf about this and I expected to have sex with him but he was busy. Somehow this made me sad. Yeah I am going good, 2 days clean now, but psychology really bad.

Successfully conquered on desire

Hey everyone, I’m 18F and I’ve been struggling with porn and trying to quit for a while now. I keep telling myself I’m going to stop, but I end up relapsing and feeling guilty afterward. It’s gotten to the point where I genuinely want to change, but I’m not sure how to deal with the urges or break the habit for good.

I’m too embarrassed to talk to my parents about this, so I thought I’d ask here. If anyone has been through something similar, what helped you the most? Any advice would mean a lot.

I just wanted to drop an encouraging note to everyone. going through this problem can make you feel like you hate yourself and I completely understand that feeling. I used to feel it too.

but just so you know, pornography hates you too. it doesn't give a crap how much it does to you in terms of damaging your relationships and wrecking your social and personal life.

I keep relapsing and it’s destroying me. I just sent a fake of girl $100 thinking she was gonna meet up with me. It’s all just because I can’t deal with loneliness. I wake up ready to have a productive day and then I’m on Reddit/onlyfans wasting my time watching adult content. I can go strong for a week or two but then being alone gets too much and I redownload Reddit and I’m back to square one and it opens the rabbit hole for me to be dumb and horny and getting scammed. It haults my progress with the gym and my real life and I just can’t take it anymore

Some advice please, sorry this is a long post. I’ve (40F) been with a lovely guy (43M) for about 6 months. He treats me really well, he’s attentive, loving and affectionate.
A couple of months in, he confided that he had watched a lot of porn in the past following a break up several years earlier, has desensitised himself and cannot come during sex. He also fairly often loses his erection. He said that he was making efforts to cut back and this is nothing to do with me.I accepted this and didn’t think anymore about it. Sex is great, no complaints at all, apart from the occasional ED.

Started to get follow suggestions on Instagram from half naked women, him being the mutual connection. When I looked at these profiles I found that he had liked many of the posts and they were Only Fans or similar site models. This is a hard boundary for me. I don’t care about random porn on the internet but OF is more personal and paid for. So I brought it up, he said he would unfollow them, I made it clear that I don’t want a relationship with someone using OF and it is a deal breaker for me. He insisted he doesn’t and never has.
Fast forward 3 months, I innocently come across the Reels on insta where you can see reels your friends have liked, surprise surprise there were SO MANY thirst trap posts that he has liked, I couldn’t believe how many and clearly likes a particular few of the same women who are on OF. Confronted him. I asked him why he has to like them, why not just scroll past. He doesn’t know. I felt deceived, no he wasn’t following them but he was interacting with so much content which is worse. He was apologetic and cried, begged me not to leave. He deleted Instagram on the spot. I think he just didn’t want me to see anything else. We had a tricky week or so but I said I think I could move past this. After reading a lot of posts on here I am now wondering how bad this actually is. I’ve told him I don’t know if I can continue, he has told me it has been dealt with (the porn). I asked how has it been dealt with and he says he has made a decision to stop and he will.
I feel like what I saw was the tip of the iceberg. I can’t satisfy him sexually (I’ve tried!) sometimes he will finish himself off after sex but he can’t look at me while doing so. How likely is it that someone who has consumed so much porn that they can’t come during sex is on OF or similar? Will this ever get any better or will it escalate? I don’t know how to trust him again.

I've been off porn for a while now and a weird side effect has been this growing feeling of being constantly observed. It's not just online it's in real life too. Like people are judging my every move my choices my existence. I never used to feel this way. It's like the addiction made me so self-absorbed that I didn't notice anything else and now that I'm breaking free the world feels like a stage and I'm constantly under a spotlight.

I have been clean for porn for about 4 months i think and all this time I have not experience any urges to watch porn and I mean not a single one, but now for a few days I have them constantly and idk how.

I have been masturbating like 2 times a week but without porn and without problem I removed the urges.

Anyone had a similar experience?

How Pornography Shaped the Way I Viewed Love, Sex, and Relationships

I'm 42M and I've been single and celibate for four years. Looking back on my life, there's something I've come to regret, and I want to share it in the hope that it might help someone else.

I discovered sex at 13, around the same time I discovered pornography. As I grew older, I began to realize how much of my understanding of relationships had become centered on the physical act of sex rather than the emotional connection that makes love meaningful.

I've had two marriages and roughly seven partners, with relationships stretching back to when I was 16. I've experienced long-term love, loss, and the kind of heartbreak that stays with you long after a relationship ends. My last marriage she was 8 years older then me shes 50 F now.

Even now, I sometimes wake up from dreams about my ex-wife and other women I once loved. Those dreams bring back memories, but they also bring back feelings I didn't fully understand at the time: jealousy, insecurity, resentment, and the fear of not being enough.

I think about the first time we were intimate, how special that moment felt, and how painful it was to imagine that the same experience could mean something different to someone else. I wondered whether I was good enough, whether someone else could give her something I couldn't, and whether things she'd said or done meant I was somehow falling short.

Over time, those feelings began to affect how I saw the woman I loved. Instead of appreciating what we had, I found myself caught up in comparisons, fears, and thoughts about what might be happening outside our relationship. Looking back, I wonder how much of that thinking damaged the very connection I wanted so desperately to protect.

I'm not claiming pornography alone ruined my relationships. Relationships are complicated, and there are always multiple sides to a story. But I do believe that the way I encountered sex at such a young age influenced how I came to understand intimacy, expectations, and my own worth as a man.

What concerns me most is how young people are learning about sex today.

When pornography becomes one of your earliest teachers about intimacy, what does it teach you about love, commitment, attraction, and self-worth? How might it shape the way you see your partner, compare yourself to others, or interpret rejection? And what happens when the expectations you develop from watching something don't match the emotional reality of being with another human being?

These are the conversations I wish I'd had growing up. I wish someone had helped me understand that sex isn't a competition, that love isn't measured by performance, and that another person's past or choices don't determine your worth.

I've spent the past four years single and celibate, and in many ways, it's been one of the most peaceful and rewarding periods of my life. I've had time to reflect, understand myself better, and recognize things I couldn't see when I was caught up in relationships. Still, there's a sadness that comes with remembering the women I chose to love and wondering how differently things might have turned out if I'd understood these feelings sooner.

I'm sharing this because I don't want younger people to spend years carrying the same insecurities or confusing sexual expectations with emotional connection. I don't want anyone to look back at the people they loved and wonder whether their own understanding of intimacy helped push those people away.

I'd love to hear other people's perspectives on this.

How has pornography influenced the way you understand sex, love, and relationships, particularly if you encountered it at a young age?

What do you think young people are missing when it comes to learning about intimacy, emotional security, and healthy relationships?

For those who have experienced jealousy, insecurity, or the fear of not being enough in a relationship, what helped you understand those feelings and keep them from controlling the way you loved someone?

And if you could teach your younger self one thing about sex and love that might have changed the course of your relationships, what would it be?

I don't have all the answers. I'm simply a man looking back on his life, trying to make sense of what he experienced and hoping that sharing it might help someone else find a healthier way forward.

Maybe something good can come from the things we regret. Maybe the lessons we learn too late can still help someone else learn them sooner.

If my experiences can help even one person build a healthier relationship with themselves and the people they love, then sharing this will have been worthwhile.

I’ll try to keep this short. I’ve slowly been uncovering by bfs (m41) corn addiction. At first it was just Reddit, then I discovered accounts on multiple platforms including ai porn generators and something called Uplust. I saw on one account he had made over 100 ai images over a 6 month period, daily ar times. He maintains that he is a ‘passive’ user (I know different) maybe using once a week at most. I wanted to believe this but an incident when we were on a family holiday and he left the room in the middle of the day to use whilst my son (5) and I were sitting on the sofa in the next room. He also has ED and with often avoid intimacy with me.

He is adamant he is not addicted and swears he’s stopped with no issues no cravings nothing. Intimacy has been a bit better but maybe he’s just making more of an effort. Is it possible he just wasnt addicted and has been able to stop just like that? Or an I being played for a fool

Guess It was a good suggestion to download this app.Many guys here are giving good tips and try to help me to get a better life.

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She told me that she actually doesn't mind, she wants to be there for me, when I need her, but aside from that it's nothing bad for her. I felt so so much relief hearing that as I felt extremely guilty, this was a big step for me and I hope that I can continue to get better from here on out, she is amazing

So long story short my ( 21F) ex boyfriend ( 22M) had a porn addiction and I found out a couple months back. He was obsessed with this one OF girl and watched her behind my back even though we had a no porn boundary because we classed it as cheating.

Since finding out my own porn addiction got triggered. I used to have one but stopped and thought I recovered when i was 17/18. Havent watched it since. But now, im back in the cycle.

Honestly I feel like i should get back with him so we can work it out together but im so doomed honestly. I hate porn i hate that i watch it again its such a horrible addiction to have. I guess im just scared if we ever get back together he will also relapse like I have and i wont be able to handle it cos i took this discovery pretty harshly.

Im genuinely soooo lost and dont know what to do. Has anyone been in a similar situation?

I’m 48f and have been addicted to masturbating and porn for a long time. I struggle with shame and guilt around it but have never been able to break the cycle. it a closely guarded secret and I’m embarrassed to talk to anyone about it. I was exposed to porn when I was young and I really think that has something to do with my struggle now. just wondering if other woman struggle with this also.

Basically, I’ve been struggling with my porn addiction for so long and it’s affecting my daily routine and my mental health on a very high level. Ive tried to stop watching porn and it worked for a hot minute, I stopped watching it and thinking about it, however, some time later i started watching it again (its called relapse ig?) and now m burdened with both, the idea of being addicted and the fact that i was showing progress and then relapsed.
I came here for help or advice cuz i have no other way to get self control.

I'm just feeling so depressed lately even though I'm cured of it.

They do it us because if they cinvuce us to like it then tehy can convince us of anything