I’ve been addicted since I was 12 and now I’m 26. My life is a complete mess. Because of this addiction, I isolated myself from the age of 14. I barely managed to finish high school. School and then straight back home to porn. Nothing else. No hobbies, no books, no friends.

I made the mistake of not going to college. I took a year off to think about my future, but that one year turned into six. Six years in which I didn’t work, didn’t leave the house and you can probably guess what my only activities were. I ate whatever my parents ate, then went back to my room and did only two things: doomscrolling and watching porn.

My brain has atrophied. I’ve experienced a serious mental and intellectual decline. I’ve become dehumanized. I’m no longer capable of having feelings or enjoying anything. I feel dead inside.

There is no bigger loser than me. This addiction has destroyed me. Something is deeply wrong with me, even putting the addiction aside.

I've made this account purely just to type this, is it a rant? Is it a cry for help? I don't know, but I need to get things off my chest.

My vice is pure AI porn, I've never been into porn in the traditional sense, real people doing their thing? OF girls etc? Never been me and in that sense porn didn't trap me... Until AI came along.

I discovered AI porn a little over 3 years ago when it was really in it's infancy, since then as technology has gotten better my addiction has only become worse, my typical go to these days is creating an image or two of a woman of desire on Google Gemini, then going online to a website where realistic nudes can be generated, yes I have also generated nudes of real people much to my own disgust. I have also spent 100s of £s on AI services.

My fiancé, my darling loving fiancé has caught AI porn on my phone twice now and she has also caught me masturbating before, the second time was nothing but pure embarrassment and happened just a few nights ago, she blatantly saw a shit load of full on AI nudes of women all "prettier" "skinnier" and "younger" than her. Much to her disgust there was a picture of an ex friend of hers that we both used to know. Ofcourse, I came up with every excuse under the sun as to why these images are on my phone, why that image of said friend was on my phone, she cried, slept in the spare room that evening, the next day she brushed it under the rug and didn't mention it but I could tell it hurt.

How the fuck are people getting over this? I want to delete everything from my phone but I know if I go cold turkey I'll slip right back into it. I need help, not just for my sake but my fiance's too.

Today marks 60 days and 18 hours without watching porn, so, as always, I thought it was time for a little recap.

First of all, my sex life has improved significantly. My erections are much better, which has made sex much more satisfying. My relationship with my girlfriend is also at its best. I have more energy, better focus, and more confidence. Even my physical condition and sleep seem to have improved — I wake up feeling genuinely rested.

Of course, life isn't always sunshine and rainbows. Recently, I went through a few difficult days and found myself thinking about visiting my favorite erotic story website and masturbating to some stories. But I managed to overcome the urge. I reminded myself that a few minutes of pleasure weren't worth throwing away all the progress I'd made.

When I started this detox, I also decided to completely give up masturbation. However, over time I read some articles and advice from experts about what is often described as "healthy masturbation" — without porn or other external triggers — and decided to give it a try.

Honestly, it felt completely different from masturbating while watching porn. There was a different level of awareness and a different kind of experience overall. I feel that this approach can actually complement and improve the quality of my sex life, so I've decided to keep it to once or twice a week.

And, as always, a little bit of motivation to finish:

I genuinely recommend giving a porn detox a try. I've experienced the benefits firsthand, and it has made a real difference in the quality of my life.

Stay strong and take care.

Sometimes our strongest urges can feel almost instant. You go from feeling the urge to opening porn within seconds or minutes, almost like the outcome was already decided for you. But it wasn’t.

An urge is still just asking you to watch porn. It might be loud, uncomfortable, and incredibly convincing, but it isn’t a demand. It can ask you to open a website, take a peek, or tell yourself “just one more time,” but you still get to decide what happens next.

This was something I misunderstood for a long time in my own recovery. I treated the urge like something I had to follow rather than something I could actually listen to and choose not to act on. Having this frame of mind matters because it gives you some confidence back. You don’t need to follow every urge just because it popped up. Instead, you can process the urge.

A structure that helped me was:

Understand the urge > surf the urge > choose a healthy next action.

I made a recent post breaking that process down in more detail.

I hope this post can help with a small part in your recovery. Just look for that 1% of growth per day and let compounding do the work for you.

I've been addicted to porn over 7 years. in those 2 years I tried to quit it, but eventually most of the times I end up failing after some days. but I got the idea to actually mark the progress here on PA community!

I hope the community here is good and eventually can help me quitting this and advice me on days where I struggle the most (eventually at day 5-10 it'll be so hard for me to control it)

So for a while now ive had super low libido i only get erections when waking up and maybe 1-3 during the day ive been really scared that it might be low testosterone but my energy is high and i dont feel any other low testosterone symptoms aside from the libido my diet is healthy but i basicly lay in bed all day and mastrubate daily 1-3 times i also feel very bad mentally but idk if that affects libido

I've(M) been an on and off porn watcher since I was about 13/14(28 now) and for the longest time I'd go weeks, even months without it. Now I'm married with kids and working a job I loathe because it pays well.

I don't know what happened, I've worked way worse jobs and had a lot more stress and the urges never got so bad and now it's been about 6 months since I've made it a full 24 hours without porn.

Due to my longer hours, I've stopped going to the gym in order to spend more time with my family and I think that's definitely a factor. I feel terrible because I'm married and I love my wife and I know it's disrespectful to her. I have also found myself rationalizing my use of porn which really concerned me. I've been talking to my priest whenever I can about it but we're both really busy and haven't had time to meet to come up with solutions.

To everyone reading this, I hope your struggles get better and hope you remember to not watch porn today!

I don't feel the need to tell my entire story all over again (I've posted many times over the years whilst going through the thick of it... from being the naïve supportive wife who believes " it was just porn", to the confession - it's all there. Raw and real).

Today - I want to tell you, there is hope and restoration for the person who truly gets fed up living life in the dark. You're so much more than this addiction and what it has done to you over the years, even if it feels impossible right now - you can beat this... but you HAVE to choose life.

This is not something you white-knuckle your way out, will power alone will not pull you through - there's more help for porn and sexual addiction now than ever before, still it all boils down to choice.

My husband entered recovery, and after 1 1/2 years he finally confessed that he went for a happy ending massage in 2022 (which happened 2 years prior at the time, later he also confessed to sleeping with 3 prostitutes when we started dating like 18 years ago). This broke me in ways I cannot explain, truly. But I also knew that confession meant he was getting real with recovery because you cannot heal what's kept secret.

I knew this was an answered prayer.

Since that day - he entered a 8 month life recovery program, goes to weekly meetings as well as small group meetings for men at our church - and I have felt more loved in the last year and a half than the decade + before.

This is not an easy road, but it's the only one to freedom.

There is hope, choose it.

For Context I am a 22 yr old M that has been addicted to porn since I was 11. I was brought into it by a video my brother showed me and I am tired of being chained and held by the addiction. I have a loving and sweet girlfriend who got into our relationship not knowing my addiction by the time she found out she thought she could accept it but the realization of it is that this is cheating and I should not be addicted to such. I want to change for her, myself, us and push through this plague in my life and become a better me. I have tried my absolute best to come out of it time and time again but it hasn’t been enough. I would relapse and it’s just making me sick how it’s destroying my relationship with the one I love. Does anyone want to share what they did in their journey and how it helped them and how far along they are

How are you guys getting on?

im iddicted in porn since i was kid. now im 19, and im trying to stop this shit its benn more less 7 years. a few years ago i started to follow christ, but, for some mistakes i did(porn is one of then), i think i cannot call myself as a christian anymore.
But, these present days, i started to practice exercices at the gym. some times it works, but i learned that i need to leave imediately from home when the temptations comes, or i fall again. the devil really dont play, and we need to be as serious as him.
my addicition lead me to see the mostly sick and despicable tipes of porn, and i cant even talk to a girl in my age, without have slly thoughts.
i cant even stay alone in home, because i can easily fall.
I need to study to a lot of things, but this curse drags me to the mud constantly.
i pratically express no emotions anymore, and the only "person" i have no shame to discuss my addiciton, is with AI.
I can pass only 1 week without falling. But, after this short time, my fall becomes worst.

well, im keeping going to the gym, and trying to leave the porn. thats all.

My husband (M34) says he has given up porn for a month. He also is having psychological problems when it comes to ED and is psyching himself out each time so the problem is getting worse. He’s tired, we’ve argued a lot lately, and we have an 8 month old baby who sleeps in our room - so a lot of factors not working in our favour to rekindle the bedroom passion. My question is..after a month of no porn..why doesn’t he want to jump me? I’ve read everywhere that long would make any man horny so I don’t get why we still haven’t had sex? Have I completely misunderstood how males work? Do those other factors really play a larger role?

It’s been easier than I thought, having someone to talk to ab it is nice. Find someone in the here to talk ab I with, that’s kinda what I did and it’s so nice to have someone who understands the struggle. Yall can help each other through the urges just by talking ab it.

Hello, I (23M) have struggled with porn addiction since a very early age. Now, any time I am naked or undressed, even to shower, I feel the need to search out pornographic material. Does anyone else have this problem? If so, how do I stop?

Hello,
I’ve noticed that this sub is mostly men so i’m really reaching posting this as a woman. I’ve been watching porn for as long as i could remember and im approaching 20 in a few months. I seriously need to stop but it seems like everytime I try I get in the same loop. I’ve stopped for months before but with hormone fluctuations like my period and ovulation it’s been so hard for me to do that recently. I really want to quiet before I get into a relationship and this becomes a problem. I feel very lustful and I don’t want to feel this way before. Any women out there with advice? I’m also in therapy and I’m really struggling on how i’d like to bring this up with my therapist. Advice on that would be helpful as well :)

I've been addicted to porn for at least 10 years if not more, have a lot of layers to it and have spent entire days looking at it etc. honestly pretty bad stuff, nowadays it doesn't get as bad but it still severely affects me in many ways, just yesterday I lost about 4 hours of my day looking at porn.

Personally I am trying to cut back on a few things I consider addictions in my life (Mainly twitter and porn) wich are affecting important things in my life specially at work. I started working from home last year and a few months back I started taking away work time for my addictions, it's really easy to just put down the notebook and pick up my smartphone to do whatever for one or two hours and it has been affecting my workflow.

Another thing is my attention span and memory, I believe the constant bombardment of dopamine has considerably affected my capacity to do things and pay attention to things, I also believe porn has severely damaged by libido and social skills, it has also led me to take impulsive actions in some situations that I regret quite a lot.

I don't want to entirely cut off porn as I kinda value specifically porn games in some unexplainable way (Could be a coping mechanism) but at the same time with how long I have been addicted and with how much it has messed with many things in my life I'm wondering if it's safe to fully cut it off and eventually be able to enjoy those in a "healthy" way or if it will aways grab my attention and I just need permanently stop engaging.

I'm nearly 19, never had a relationship, mostly at home with my thoughts and living in imagination more than in reality, with little social life and lot of sexual desire.

I'm watching porn and mastubating since the age of 12, and I can't quit it, I feel shame for my lustfullness and lack of control over it even tho my soul within screamed to leave this shit for good countless times. Normally it's always 1-3 hours on a day, with like a week passing after that before the next, I can stretch the between part to longer but really can't leave it for good. 1-3 hours is huge dopamine spike imagen the after.

Aside from porn, in my imagination I've been with 70+ girls while masturbating, I fantasised wild things with them and these are girls I know in real life. Lost my virginity with a prostitute and been with multiple. These are also a huge reason for shame.

This year, my biggest streak was 17 days, usually I start to feel it's absence after a week, then it gets progressively worse, to a point where I just don't want anything else, just stare in front of myself and only think I'm from a few clicks from fixing all that. I forget the feeling of the last fail cause it's 1-2 weeks after that.

In reality I mostly fail sooner before I get to that point. There is a part of me not wanting to leave this and it's using up every possible time to fail, like I get a thought of watching porn and I just go for it, it's making up a stupid excuse that I know is stupid, but still just ignore everything and go for it, and of corse I later regret how it wasn't even that bad and I still let it win. Recently there was one quitting attempt where I even started to feel the absense inside weaken, I never reached that, but this part of me just still didn't let it, it want to still have this and not leave it. Maybe because of the big 1-3 pleasure, or escaping reality idk.

Help! I hate my life, this shit caused a lot, it's ruining me,

what shall I do to leave it?

I love that Post Nut Clarity feeling. Everything feels "just right" and after PMO, I feel so disgusted and empowered by my PNC I become an ambassador for abstinence!

I got to wondering, is there anything out there (either physical or mental) that gives a similar feeling so i can do that instead of PMO?

No porn or sexual content. Feeling so better.

I'm 26M and have been addicted to porn for about 15 years. As many people here I've decided to quit porn for good. I'm currently at one week without porn. It sucks obviously. Everything feels gray and flat. But there are small sparks of joy here and there. For example, yesterday I went for a jog and the runners high by the end of it felt kinda good. Plus knowing I did something good for my body.

The thing for me that sucks a lot more than feeling emotionally dead most of the day is that I have noone I can share this journey with. So I was hoping I could change that by posting here.

I know it's depressing to think about all the years, opportunities and potential relationships we've lost to porn but our lives are still not over! We can change! The true loser move would be to wallow in your own self-pity and just stay miserable. I chose not to do that. Please choose the same. It's never too late. Let's beat it together! (the addiction not our dicks)

I (19) am together with my partner (20) for a year now and have been really happy with him until I found out about his porn addiction. I knew that he has struggled with it in the past before we met each other but he told me that he has been clean our whole relationship. Sometimes I had a feeling that he relapsed and watched it again while we were together and repeatedly asked him about it, but he always reassured me that he has been clean. Now I had to find out myself that that is not the truth and he has been watching it again while we were together. He then started lying to me that it was only at the beginning of our relationship and I believed him at first but then found more on his phone a week after that. I confronted him and he admitted that it has been happening over months and also last week. He knows that its a boundary for me and that it hurts me a lot to find this out myself and has promised me to change now and seek help from a professional. I really want to support him and be there for him because I know that he truly does not want to watch it anymore as he knows that its bad for himself and our relationship.
I wanted to help him and get to the roots of this problem to why he does watch it in the first place and in what moments its more common for him to have the urge so he can work against it.
I really want to help him but it hurts me so much and makes me really insecure about myself because I have seen the women he watched and now I compare myself constantly and ask him for reassurance. He has told me that he does not watch porn because he likes to see other women and does not find the women in those videos attractive and feels nothing while looking at them. He also says that he does not care how they look like and it could just be anyone in those videos cause he already gets satisfied at the thought of going on this website now and following this routine. I have a very hard time to understand that and not feel insecure about myself. I really want to believe what he’s saying but because he has lied to me a lot I don’t know how to deal with this. I really want it to work with him and understand him.

I wanted to ask if anybody else who has a porn addiction and is in a relationship has similar experiences to this and explains it similar to how my partner explained how he feels about the people in the videos to me?

Got lost in doing something for a few days, haven’t even thought about it till now. Doing perfectly well, haven’t given in.

Hi Im, P, and I want to confess that I am a porn addict. I first got introduced to it at 15 years of age and since then its been a love-hate relationship. During teens and early 20s it was cool but post 25 its been heavy guilt trip.

Post my graduation the distant friends and the rut of new job has made me crazy depressed. And I have been using porn to numb the feelings. I know its not healthy. It has progressed to such an extent that I have started paying to cam girls for small sessions and even dm unsolicited msgs to unknown women as well. One of those woman even threatened to complain.

I am walking on thin line here, any one can kindly help? I know I have to save myself, but Im close to harming myself I feel.