If anyone would like to share their story with me, young, old, partners, family members etc please submit your experiences with porn to me on my contact page. If you could please also include your age, sex, country and relationship to porn or porn's consequences it would be appreciated. Names and contact details are not needed.
Thanks for you story, it will help others!!!!
Words from Eddie
Eddie 33 Married 11 years
The path that led me to become a porn addict started at a young age. I was excited by underwear catalogs, nudity in movies, the sex ads in the back pages of magazines and newspapers, etc. I guess that is a normal reaction for a kid, but it didn't stop there. I
had older cousins who introduced me to porn magazines and I would obsess over them for hours. Though I didn't have them in my own possession so I could escape from them when I wasn't with those cousins, that is until I discovered my dad's stash of porn magazines and videos. I would seclude myself in my room with porn magazines eventually masturbate. When my parents were gone, I would pop in one of my dads videos for an even more "exciting experience". This continued on until I joined the Marines when I "graduated" to strip clubs and other sexual acting out. I married at the young age of 22 and told myself I wouldn't need Porn now that I'm married. I thought that if I had a wife who is fulfilling my sexual needs, then why do I need porn? Well it wasn't quite that simple. I didn't realize that I was already addicted. It was only about 6 months into my marriage when I first got busted for having porn on my computer. I explained and rationalized it but I realized that this bothered my wife more than I thought. It was at that point that I realized that either I would have to stop watching Porn or hide it real well. Well, I didn't want to quit and thought I could hide it well, so that was my choice. That began a pattern of me acting out with porn, getting caught, doing a better job of covering my tracks, restoring my wife's trust, getting busted again, and repeating the cycle. Only thing is, I never really regained my wife's trust. It was simply her hoping that I would not continue to hurt her again, but hurt her I did. We had numerous times when it seemed that divorce was unavoidable, but somehow she kept taking me back. Its a shame that I caused so much pain in the marriage. It was the seeds of lies, distrust, betrayal, along with secluding myself, and choosing porn that poisoned the marriage and led to other problems. What did all of this do to my wife? It completely crushed her self esteem and self image, it destroyed her trust in me and pretty much crippled our sex life. My wife did nothing at all to deserve this and didn't need the added pain and stress in her life. It was all me and I was too selfish to make a genuine effort to stop. The last few years I desperately wanted to stop, but my attempts were futile. After trying to go cold turkey a few times, I pretty much gave up and continued to use porn "carefully", not taking the risks that I took previously, to avoid getting caught. Last year my wife and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary and things couldn't have been better! Then came January when I got busted for seemingly the final time. I was watching anime with gratuitous nudity in it. I tried to rationalize that it wasn't technically porn but realized that it was just as bad. I was still getting the same excitement from it. The only thing that saved my marriage was me finally making the decision to get help and work on changing myself. I had promised all of this in the past but never followed through. This time was different though. I took action instead of making empty promises. I started reading recovery literature, I found online websites like feedtherightwolf and yourbrainonporn which helped explain the physiological aspect of my porn addiction, I joined an SAA Meeting and started admitting to my wife all of my dirty secrets. I also made calls to my dad, brother and sister sharing my story with them just to release the bondage of shame and guilt that was holding me back from recovering. I am now about a week shy of 5 months sober from Porn and Masturbation, both individually and together. I am working my SAA program and have a sponsor that I call *almost* on a daily basis. I still have triggers and I know that I cannot afford to get complacent or let my guard down. But I can honestly say that I am improving myself every day. I am not only kicking my porn addiction, but I'm working on myself as a man and as a husband. The dangers of porn are real and much of the time it starts at a young age. I support this website because I want to stop the cycle so that my story is not repeated!
Words from Nick
Hello all who are reading this. This is a short article I am
throwing together on the fly for someone I have corresponded with on an online
support forum for those trying to moderate or eliminate pornography usage in
their lives. Her name is Camille, and I am inspired by hearing her story or how
pornography has affected her and her family, and I have been greatly inspired by
some short daily meditations she has posted from the Center for Healthy
sexuality. I am just explaining that by way of explaining how I came to write
this article.
So my pornography use story started in the back alley of a house me and
my family used to live in all the way across town, I was young and me and my
friend discovered underground swinger listings or whatever they were in the
alley back there and my dad was furious when he found me with them, somehow he
failed however to impress upon me what was wrong with that and I wasn’t
discouraged , some may say that no young man would be and I can’t say thats
wrong with any certainty but perhaps it is. From there there was the Joy of Sex
which really isn’t so bad, but I am listing it because it is part of my story. I
used to keep ferreting it out from where ever it was and I was fascinated. Then
there was a shoplifiting expedition in my teens in which me and a couple family
friends went and stole a few smut magazines from a corner store, that was
probably formative in some way I can’t adequetelly explain, I didn’t enjoy the
idea of being bad! I just loved women, that is how it has always been for me
with porn use, it has been a window to project upon and adore women through, I
have never relished the idea that it was debasing or anything, not trying to
talk myself up it is just part of my story. The next step was my introduction
to hardcore across the country visiting with friends of my dads, his sons had
some VHS porn which we watched and that was a whole new level of projection for
me, when they were gone I snuck in and watched it by myself. Finally I got my
own disc of porn I could watch by myself when my parents were gone and it was
thrilling and intoxicating. And then there was the internet boom and that is
when I really got hooked. I want to point out without saying too much about it
that during this time I was struggling in school and that was a particularlly
tough challenge for me because both my parents were teachers and I was an
outspoken and thoughtfull young man who really wanted to excell but I never
did, and I attribute my failure in school mostly to pornography use, same with
my difficultys with socially integrating, I know most kids struggle with these
things at various times but not the way I did.
So as soon as broadband wireless was available I would watch
porn pretty much whenever I could sneak it in, sometimes when my parents were
home and I felt sly enough to quickly hide it and cover my tracks if necessary,
usually when they were gone though.
This is my basic story, a couple basic ideas from “feed the right wolf”,
one is the idea that our minds abbility to funnel and prioritize proper
decisionmaking is harmed by regular pornography use, and the other is from a
traditional Cherokee folk tale and is the name sake of the website, the outline
of that story is that a wise old elder is telling a young man that there is a
fight that goes on in every man, that is the fight between the good wolf and the
bad wolf, the good wolf being honorable, courageous chivalrous and loving, and
the bad wolf being cruel, deceitfull, greedy and jealous, and the young man asks
which one wins, and the old elder pauses auspiciouslly and says “ the one you
feed”.Other than that another thing I want to bring up is the
sexualization of violence , debasement and disrespect, the sexualization of
being bad, all wound up with the sexual stigmas of many cultures but not
necessarily representitive of what we should aspire to with our sexuality. a
much more rewarding path is sex in the service of love and
compassion.
I have been struggling now for several years now, I have made it several
months completelly abstaining from pornography use a couple times, and I have to
say each time I do I find that things get a lot harder at first and then
eventually my capacity for enduring and overcoming challenges increases. For
example I became a lot more organized when I first started taking this all more
seriously. I am having a difficult time transitioning to adult hood and I
think quitting pornography for use is one of the single most important ways I
can live by what I believe is right. I wish all of you struggling with this,
either with a loved ones self injuring behavior the best of luck. With alot of
hard work and a little luck we can all find a way to change our habits for the
better if we really want to.
In solidarity,
Nick
throwing together on the fly for someone I have corresponded with on an online
support forum for those trying to moderate or eliminate pornography usage in
their lives. Her name is Camille, and I am inspired by hearing her story or how
pornography has affected her and her family, and I have been greatly inspired by
some short daily meditations she has posted from the Center for Healthy
sexuality. I am just explaining that by way of explaining how I came to write
this article.
So my pornography use story started in the back alley of a house me and
my family used to live in all the way across town, I was young and me and my
friend discovered underground swinger listings or whatever they were in the
alley back there and my dad was furious when he found me with them, somehow he
failed however to impress upon me what was wrong with that and I wasn’t
discouraged , some may say that no young man would be and I can’t say thats
wrong with any certainty but perhaps it is. From there there was the Joy of Sex
which really isn’t so bad, but I am listing it because it is part of my story. I
used to keep ferreting it out from where ever it was and I was fascinated. Then
there was a shoplifiting expedition in my teens in which me and a couple family
friends went and stole a few smut magazines from a corner store, that was
probably formative in some way I can’t adequetelly explain, I didn’t enjoy the
idea of being bad! I just loved women, that is how it has always been for me
with porn use, it has been a window to project upon and adore women through, I
have never relished the idea that it was debasing or anything, not trying to
talk myself up it is just part of my story. The next step was my introduction
to hardcore across the country visiting with friends of my dads, his sons had
some VHS porn which we watched and that was a whole new level of projection for
me, when they were gone I snuck in and watched it by myself. Finally I got my
own disc of porn I could watch by myself when my parents were gone and it was
thrilling and intoxicating. And then there was the internet boom and that is
when I really got hooked. I want to point out without saying too much about it
that during this time I was struggling in school and that was a particularlly
tough challenge for me because both my parents were teachers and I was an
outspoken and thoughtfull young man who really wanted to excell but I never
did, and I attribute my failure in school mostly to pornography use, same with
my difficultys with socially integrating, I know most kids struggle with these
things at various times but not the way I did.
So as soon as broadband wireless was available I would watch
porn pretty much whenever I could sneak it in, sometimes when my parents were
home and I felt sly enough to quickly hide it and cover my tracks if necessary,
usually when they were gone though.
This is my basic story, a couple basic ideas from “feed the right wolf”,
one is the idea that our minds abbility to funnel and prioritize proper
decisionmaking is harmed by regular pornography use, and the other is from a
traditional Cherokee folk tale and is the name sake of the website, the outline
of that story is that a wise old elder is telling a young man that there is a
fight that goes on in every man, that is the fight between the good wolf and the
bad wolf, the good wolf being honorable, courageous chivalrous and loving, and
the bad wolf being cruel, deceitfull, greedy and jealous, and the young man asks
which one wins, and the old elder pauses auspiciouslly and says “ the one you
feed”.Other than that another thing I want to bring up is the
sexualization of violence , debasement and disrespect, the sexualization of
being bad, all wound up with the sexual stigmas of many cultures but not
necessarily representitive of what we should aspire to with our sexuality. a
much more rewarding path is sex in the service of love and
compassion.
I have been struggling now for several years now, I have made it several
months completelly abstaining from pornography use a couple times, and I have to
say each time I do I find that things get a lot harder at first and then
eventually my capacity for enduring and overcoming challenges increases. For
example I became a lot more organized when I first started taking this all more
seriously. I am having a difficult time transitioning to adult hood and I
think quitting pornography for use is one of the single most important ways I
can live by what I believe is right. I wish all of you struggling with this,
either with a loved ones self injuring behavior the best of luck. With alot of
hard work and a little luck we can all find a way to change our habits for the
better if we really want to.
In solidarity,
Nick