Day 8

I’m struggling today, too.

I got through yesterday by writing about 1200 words on why my habit why so deeply ingrained. I have to confess though that after mentioning the women I was looking at in FHM etc, I ended up Googling them all to see if the images I used to look at were available online. They are.

That was a huge mistake. Nostalgia and addiction are not a happy partnership. It’s like my brain was saying to me “Remember all those good times? One more for the road won’t hurt…”

Yeah, right.

I think I might need to meet to meet all the women I’ve masturbated to, have them tell me what they think of that and then slap me. I think I might finally overcome it, then. Or just develop a fetish for being told off and slapped.

While I’m confessing, I have let myself Google things I shouldn’t again today. I stopped myself from actually acting on it, but a few of my fetish keywords made there way into the search bar nonetheless. I have pretty terrible will power at the moment. So I did some push ups and put on a worship CD – I’m hoping even I can be trusted alone with broadband internet with Jesus music blasting out. If I manage to make it through tonight without relapsing, maybe I’ll keep that strategy in mind.

Actually, I am pretty sure I will make it through tonight now. This blog was a good idea, I think. Instead of masturbating, I can just keep on making notes about why I don’t want to.

A comment was posted on my first post: “when our internal boundaries fail, it is good to have external boundaries”, and the guy proceeded to suggest I try some net filters. It was good advice – the trouble is, I have tried this before and it hasn’t worked for me. I know why it didn’t work. I’m too cowardly to admit to another person that I need help. Which means I have no accountability partners or sponsors – one of the keys to addiction management. I know I should get a sponsor – but I’m a coward. I’m ashamed and embarrassed. So I set up the filters on my computer: a mix of OpenDNS and locking Google and Bing image safe searches to strict across all the web browsers and devices I have. This was pretty effective, until I decided to unlock them whenever I wanted to look at porn again. It was an inconvenience, but probably still faster that dial-up…

I had to basically accept that porn was always going to be available, and that I should instead try to filter my own thoughts instead. It worked for 70 days – but then I relapsed and now the chaser effect is hounding me whenever I’m alone.

Anyway – I think I’m safe for tonight now. Signing off.