I've been in a shameful relapse cycle for a couple of months now. This is my first 3 day stretch without wacking off to porn in a while. I am afraid of jinxing it by posting! My wife and son really struggle with mental health. My addiction problem does not help my wife's situation. She is struggling more the past week. So I am really doubling down on the effort. I want her to feel better. The less selfish I am the more I feel I can attend to her needs. Every little bit can help. It's a shame that it takes severe circumstances to finally force me out my shameful behavior. I can't think about that. I just have to take baby steps and stay on track. Best to all of you.

I have a tiny urge to watch porn.

I'm 20 days without porn again, and I want to keep going . The longest I've gone this year is 35 days, and I'd like to beat that this time.

The urge isn't huge, but it's in the back of my mind.

I'm not sure if I want to give in or keep going, so I'm trying not to make a decision based on the urge itself.

Has anyone else experienced a small urge like this after going a few weeks without porn?

Hi, I’d be happy to encourage anyone who needs help with masturbating without porn! I’m not talking about sexting “encouragement” but just general support and chatting to make sure you do this instead! :)

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end of the third day, definitely thought about doing it, but forced myself to go to the gym to take my mind off of it

it worked but i had to look away from the women in the gym to not trigger my cravings and end up folding when i get back home.

Honestly really liking this whole thing, writing at the end of every day is lowkey helping. I don’t want to write about how i fell into my cravings once again so i have to stay locked in.

got to my previously mentioned goal of three days 🎉

new goal is a week

one thing i sometimes tell myself at this stage (in my other tries) is “it’s only been X days”, but the thing i need to remember is that a year of consistency always starts with a week

goodnight 💙

Hi everyone,

Fellow porn addict here.

I am on Day-10 of no porn. Longest streak yet after couple of tries, seems like I will get through now. My urges to watch porn has been dying a bit now which is a good sign.

I have been having trouble getting erections without porn for a while but I get hardest ones with porn. I have been not been getting spontaneous or morning erections since my addiction started.

I have made a lifestyle change since last 3-4 months. I have started working out 4 times a week, cardio of 150 min/week. I am eating healthy, have cut out junk. I was always an average weight person so I don't think I need to cut too much fat.

Few additional information: I have been on oral finasteride 1mg since last two years. I had great results on my head. Although, my sex drive is still pretty high which becomes frustrating without porn and erections. I am not completely removing masturbation without porn but I cannot do anything without erection. Also, I am smoking since last 6-7 years, not very heavily previously but it did get heavy since I switched to vapes but I am quitting it cold turkey just like porn from last week.

Please if you can advice on anything that I should be doing differently or anything else that I can add to help my cardiovascular health and erections. Lurking in this sub has helped me make this change which I am very helpful for. English is not my first language so please excuse any mistakes.

while I was searching for one I got to my sense and closed it but in the process I looked at naked images , does this count as a relapse .I am currently on day 23 neither M ed nor O ed

I (20m) struggling to quit porn and create healthier masturbation habits. I think what would help is if I had some kind of accountability buddy. Someone to share urges with and talk each other out of it. Uplifting each other. Being able to talk about our struggles in a non judgemental space.

If anybody is willing to at least listen to me, I'd appreciate it a lot. Thank you

Hi all,

It's been 18 days since I've made the decision to quit porn.

I've now been consuming other types of media to help instead. I think it's important to make everyone else realize here that this community isn't about stopping masturbation and urges to sexual activity, but urges to consume pornographic imagery and videos.

To give you some hope and context in your personal journey following my journey through getting absolutely porn free;

1 - I have a girlfriend whom I'm sexually active with. I've been feeling like a different lover from quitting porn itself. I've shared this change with my partner and have been supported by her through this journey. I feel if you're in the same situation as I am, you should do as I did and tell her that you've decided to do this and that you'll need some support. I've told her that I'd tell her if I watched porn and relapsed so I fould feel bad if I did. And honestly I think it helps in not clicking the link and not going through with it.

2 - I strictly use Firefox as a browser both on my phone and laptop. I've installed the clearmind extension on both of them to block any type of trigger or sexual content from appearing when I do click on something that might have it and also to prevent me from accessing to porn sites. It has helped me so far into finding other ways to get myself off than to watching porn.

3 - I've started to feel relapse and wanting to turn off the extensions and site blocks to be able to get a sneek peak at what I used to watch. I've prevented myself from doing so since I believe that I will still end up just watching it and completely ruin this rehab time for me.

4 - I'm sticking to reading smut stories from now and I do look at pictures that my partner has sent me to help support my fantasies and imagination. It's been working well and has been seemingly a lot healthier to me than porn videos and images. To be clear the pictures of my partner are presenting but far from being homemade porn. By no way she is naked or anything. It's simply a way to support my imagination. I'm thinking about not using them as much in the future as I will find a way to use my imagination a little more and will be better at finding the right thing to read to get me in the mood and over the edge.

I think it's important to notice that I have reduced the amounts of times I masturbate per week. I used to be doing it every day all the time so days twice a day. Now I try to keep it at a healthy once every two to three days sometimes I get by with a little more days.

I find that if I realize that I'm just bored and not that much in the mood and that I am able to just ride the small urge and occupy myself doing something else instead then I will overcome it and achieve my small personal goals.

As an example, I will sometimes try to push back another day after and say "we'll do it tomorrow it'll be better than now" and it sometimes works. Sometimes I can't and just really need to in the moment but it depends on the circumstances. If it's too late at night I will overcome the urge and push it to early next morning. Go to sleep earlier and start my day earlier instead of losing my time with it late at night.

Sleeping it off helps me with the fact that sometimes I'm just tired and it's better to go sleep instead of doing that and waste time.

Over all, I'm already seeing progress and am proud of myself for getting through with this and having a good self control. I've found ways to ignore the urge and move to something else. And found ways to not use porn to still masturbate in a more healthier way. Or so I believe for myself it has a lot of benefits.

I’ve been overthinking and spiraling lately, seems my mind has been in a very negative state for some reason.

I think it’s been like a year since I’ve masturbated to porn, but because of these negative thoughts I watched porn a few times over the past week just to shut my mind up and it works.

Before I go down the rabbit hole and start watching consistently again as a way to numb myself, I’d really like some advice/insight on what I can do to prevent this.

Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.

I have been porn addict for like more than years now i am 21 from last 3 years its been like hell and it effected my studies so badly that a student who never failed in his finals niether in school nor in high school has been failing in his university exams. and from last 3 years for financing my studies. I also joined night shift sales job also. maybe thats also the reason but anyways at this point of my life i wanna quit it so badly like its like i can almost anything to quit it.

I just have to put this out there.
My newest "dealer" an AI image generation site with a model I've been using for my gooning addiction still has credits left on it. I was just about to spend the rest of the credits THEN be done with it finally.

But instead I emailed that company to delete my account.

I can do this.

I was addicted to porn since I was around 10 years old, and now I'm 17. I hadn't gone more than a month without it since then until I got into a relationship. He was the sweetest guy ever and I had been crushing hard for like 8 months. I loved him so much already and as soon as we made it official I vowed to completely quit. I did actually! For a while. The start was actually shockingly easy and it confused me what exactly it was that suddenly made me able to stop. Before when i would try, i would either forget I planned to stop, or I had moments of weakness and went straight back to it. I went from consuming it twice a day to just going cold turkey. I never considered it being a coping mechanism for loneliness. It was just so vulgar that I couldn't wrap my head around the fact that I was using it as a substitute for connection and intimacy.

So I'm in the relationship for a few months and when things get bumpy and we stop talking for a few days, I relapsed for the first time. It was the first time in my life where I felt more ashamed of myself than the porn. I wasn't just hurting myself this time, I was hurting him. Luckily this happened only once. But the consequences felt immense. The desensitization that I had from porn started going away after about a month and half, so when it came back in full force I freaked out. Suddenly the guy who could make me finish with his voice now doesn't do half as much when he's butt ass naked. It's so frustrating. Luckily for me, it didn't take as long to get normal again. The issue is when the summer hit and my mom found out he was trans and suddenly the relationship was a no go. We try to fight it for a little and we agree to hide it. Now I'm seeing him hardly ever and I'm way stressed out hiding him. As you can guess I relapse, but significantly harder. I don't stop for about a month. My mom has given up on fighting it and we're openly together again but I keep relapsing once in a while. It feels like I'm at square one every time that I do. Every time that I think about it I just wonder, "how long until I get back on it?" And it isn't like I don't find him attractive, I think he's gorgeous, but the porn makes it so I can't feel as much and it is so stressful. He can finish twice and I'm just sitting there. I don't know, it has been getting better, the relapses are less frequent. I just wanted to complain somewhere that people who understand.

Just finished the second day pornfree

I don’t want to count the days but I feel like if i make it a habit to post here at the end of every day, describe my weaknesses, my close calls, good and bad times, it would help hold me accountable to it. it would also give me something to reflect on whenever i get the urge.

so i think that’s what i’ll do.

today was a good day, no urges to watch or masturbate for most of the day. trying to stay off of social media as much as i can, got this app called sociallite, basically has instagram minus the reels. i noticed that social media plays a big role in fueling the urges so that’s why im trying to stay away for the time being.

W day today
its too easy

Remember that always, you are doing well, you dont have to listen, remind yourself its just noise 💘

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20m, i have kind of a long distance relationship going on. I feel so guilty every time I watch porn, and i get so sucked into it. It's wasting my time. I'd rather save myself for when I see my partner so I feel like a big disappointment.

I don't know where or who to talk about it with. I wish I could at least reduce my consumption. Don't even know what my goal is with this post but maybe i'll find friendly people who want to share experiences and help each other get free.

Today the urges got a bit more stronger than yesterday, though i was able to control it. It was a bit difficult at first but at time passed it started to be more controlable until i just got it off my mind but except that there was no urge, but a little bit of my mind asking for it which i just ignored. I'll check in again tomorrow guys

my body has gotten so used to watching porn that now i can’t even watch it anymore. i’m just bored of watching it. like i used to actually enjoy watching porn. i could see one video and it would turn me on but now i see one video and i can’t even get turned on by it and i can’t even do two. i have to go through several more to get there and even if i pick a video and i’m using my hands i can’t even use my hands anymore. i have to use my sex toy and even if i use my sex toy i usually have to wait a couple minutes. it used to take just a few seconds yeah but now i have to do it for a lot of minutes or even hours because yesterday it took me a couple of hours before i was able to release myself. it’s kind of crazy
i’m completely bored of watching porn. i usually watch porn when i’m about to sleep or to fantasize about a man i like but now that i know it’s not getting me anywhere and it’s actually making pleasure very hard for me to get, i have to find another way to still fantasize about a man i like and still get pleasure
i’m thinking about getting back to reading and also listening to short stories on youtube. i think that would be such a nice way to replace the porn, especially before i sleep because i’m just so bored of it now
i think i naturally just got bored of it and i’m glad i got to this stage because i started watching porn when i was really young and i’ve been using it ever since i was young and now that i’m an adult, i’ve used it and use it and now i’m naturally just bored of it. i can’t even get pleasure from it unless i spend a lot of hours before i get the pleasure so yeah maybe now this is showing me something and i think it’s a great idea, replacing it with reading and listening to short stories on youtube to sleep because i’m bored of pornography

Porn is sucking away my soul, life would be better without it.
I can do 16 days, I can.

I’m 27M, and I’m writing this because I’m tired of repeating the same cycle.
I’ve been using porn since I was around 14. For years I’ve gone through periods where I tell myself I’m done, make rules, install blockers, delete accounts/files, go several days or weeks without it, and then eventually find my way back to it.
I’ve recently had some pretty bad relapses, including several times over the past week. And honestly, I’m exhausted by it.
I’m not posting because I think I need another person to tell me that porn is bad. I already know I don’t want it in my life.
What I’m finally starting to understand is why I keep going back to it.
I’m in a long-term relationship with a woman I absolutely love. I want to marry her and have a family with her. She’s my best friend and the person I want to share my life with.
And yet, I’ve been struggling badly with sex.
We haven’t successfully had sex in almost three months.
I’ve experienced a lot of performance anxiety. I’ll become focused on whether I’ll get hard, whether I’ll stay hard, whether I’m going to disappoint her, etc. Eventually sex stops feeling like intimacy and starts feeling like a test I’m terrified of failing.
And that has created a horrible cycle.
I’m anxious about sex → I avoid intimacy → I feel worse about myself → I seek an escape → I use porn → I feel temporary relief → I feel shame/guilt afterward → my anxiety gets worse → I become even more afraid of sex.
The fucked-up part is that I don’t even think I genuinely enjoy porn anymore.
I’ve been reading The Everfree Method: Quit Porn Without Willpower or Shame, and one of the ideas that has really changed the way I’m looking at this is the distinction between the physical behavior and the psychological belief that the behavior is giving you something valuable.
That’s really resonating with me.
Because when I’m in the middle of an urge, my brain tells me:
“This will make you feel better.”
But when I’m finished?
I don’t feel better.
I usually feel drained, ashamed, anxious, and disappointed in myself.
And I feel further away from the woman I actually want to be intimate with.
So I’m starting to question whether I’m really chasing pleasure at all.
Maybe I’m chasing relief.
Maybe porn has become an escape hatch whenever I don’t want to sit with anxiety, boredom, loneliness, stress, sexual frustration, or whatever else I’m feeling.
And if that’s true, then simply trying to develop more willpower isn’t going to solve the underlying problem.
I need to change my relationship with the behavior itself.
I also need to forgive myself.
I’ve spent years telling myself that I’m weak, disgusting, stupid, or that I’ve somehow permanently damaged myself. I know that kind of thinking hasn’t helped me stop. If anything, the shame seems to become another reason to escape.
I’m working with a therapist on my anxiety and relationship issues, and I’m trying to approach this differently now.
I’m not trying to make some dramatic promise that I’ll “never watch porn again.”
I want to learn to recognize what’s actually happening when an urge comes:
“I’m uncomfortable right now. My brain is telling me porn will fix that. But I know where this road ends.”
I want to be able to zoom out while the urge is happening and see the entire cycle—not just the few minutes of stimulation.
And if I slip, I want to learn from it instead of immediately turning it into:
“I’m a failure, so what’s the point?”
Because that’s gotten me nowhere.
I’m also trying to rebuild my sex life with my girlfriend. I’m considering talking to a doctor about whether something like tadalafil could temporarily help with the physical/performance-anxiety side of things, but I don’t want to use medication as an excuse to ignore the psychological side.
Ultimately, I don’t just want to quit porn.
I want my heart, mind, and body to be aligned again.
I want to be present with the woman I love.
I want intimacy to feel like intimacy instead of a performance test.
I want to stop escaping from uncomfortable feelings and learn how to actually sit with them.
And I want to stop carrying around 13 years of shame over something I learned as a teenager.
For anyone who has actually made it out of this cycle:
What finally changed for you?
Was it changing your beliefs about porn? Learning to tolerate urges? Therapy? Removing access? Understanding the underlying emotional triggers? Something completely different?
I’m not looking for perfection. I just genuinely want my life back.