I tried to quit on willpower for years. I'd have a good run, then slip, feel terrible and start again. What finally changed things wasn't trying harder. It was setting things up so I didn't need to.

Willpower fails because the version of you deciding to quit isn't the one who has to hold the line. You decide on a calm afternoon. The urge shows up when you're tired, bored or alone late at night, and that version of you has all the same passwords and none of the motivation. Expecting to win that fight every time is a bad plan.

A system takes that fight out of your hands. It's a set of layers that each make a slip a bit less likely:

- Devices: blockers on everything, with a random PIN you never see

- Your space: where your devices are, and where you use them

- Your physical state: sleep, exercise, not getting run down

- Your time: filling the gaps where it tends to happen

- Other people: someone who knows, even if they're just holding a code

None of these are perfect, and they don't need to be. Each one adds time and effort, and most urges pass before you get through them all.

The biggest change for me was blockers with a randomised PIN that only my accountability partner knows. Once I couldn't undo it on my own, a lot of slips just didn't happen.

The other half is how you handle slips. For me, the shame after a slip usually set up the next one. Now I treat a slip as information. What was going on beforehand, and how did I get past my setup? Then I fix that one gap. Over time the holes get smaller.

If you want somewhere to start, keep a simple log for a couple of weeks. When it happens, where you are, what you were doing and how you were feeling. Your patterns tell you which layers to build first.

What's in your system? Keen to hear what's worked for people.

I’m 20F and I’ve been struggling with porn addiction for about 4 years now. It’s something I’ve kept to myself for so long because I feel really embarrassed and ashamed about it.

I’ve tried to stop so many times, but I always seem to fall back into the same habit. Every time it happens, I feel disappointed in myself, and it’s exhausting knowing that I genuinely want to change but still struggle with it.

What makes it harder is that I don’t feel like I can talk to anyone about this. I can’t imagine telling my friends or family because I’m scared of being judged or having them see me differently. I wish I could open up to someone and talk about what I’m going through, but I feel too embarrassed to even bring it up.

Sometimes it feels really lonely dealing with this on my own. I hate that something I started years ago has become such a difficult habit to break, and I don’t want to keep living like this.

I’m only 20, and I really want to make a change before more years pass. I want to move on from this and feel better about myself, but I’m scared of trying again and failing.

I guess I’m posting here because I don’t know who else to talk to, and I’m hoping there are people who can understand what I’m going through.

Has anyone else struggled with asking for help because they felt too ashamed or embarrassed? How did you manage to start overcoming this addiction?

I really hope things can get better. I just don’t want to keep struggling with this alone anymore.

I've been watching porn since a very young age. As I got older it became something to do and watch I guess to help make me feel better I'm really not sure. I knew I shouldn't be watching but I couldn't stop. Now at 39 single mom to 1. I told myself I don't want to be addicted to porn anymore the way it made me feel after I watched it was disgusting. I now know porn is fake and real people in their sex lives don't behave this way most times. The types of videos I was watching was creating more anger for me. So I just suddenly stopped ...now 4 month free of all sites I don't have any reason to go on any of those sites. I just want to be free from it.

Hey guys, I'm trying to quit adult content and get masturbation under control. Anyone who's been through this, got any tips that actually helped? Just looking for genuine advice, no judgement :)

I’ve been addicted for three years. I started watching pornography when I was young—initially as a way of self-discovery—but in recent years, I’ve fallen victim to an addiction that has gradually destroyed my mind, my relationships, and my self-esteem. I’ve made several attempts to quit, and it has worked—at least for a while; the longest I managed to go without it was 54 days. I’m proud of that achievement, even though I eventually relapsed. I used it to escape feelings like boredom, loneliness, sadness, or guilt. It’s a vicious cycle, and honestly, I’m fed up with it. While this addiction might be eroding my self-esteem, I have the perseverance to try again, and I feel that’s what will eventually lead me—hopefully soon—to complete freedom from this addiction. I relapsed this morning and felt terrible (obviously). However, I stopped beating myself up a while ago and started viewing the situation in terms of patterns. I’ve noticed a cycle where I feel motivated to quit, but that motivation fades, and I end up relapsing. I’m going to research ways to break those patterns so I can try quitting again. I’d love to hear your suggestions or advice—it would help me a lot. Have a wonderful day, wherever you are, and thanks for reading this far.

It has been a little while since I hit 3 days. My all time PB is 100 days. My best streak this year is 56 days.

I hope that all of you reading this stay strong and stay away from porn.

I’ve been watching porn since I was 13 and I have been wanting to quit for quite a while. I’m constantly sexualizing things and my brain feels overloaded all the time. I have anxiety because I constantly think abt other girls that aren’t my girlfriend and I want to appreciate her more. I also just want the confidence that comes with quitting and to get rid of the shame.

The issue is that I like porn. I like being able to look at all different types of attractive women and explore different fantasies in a controlled space where I don’t actually have to physically engage with them (I don’t watch really weird stuff really). My girlfriend is amazing and she’s attractive but she isn’t my usual type and even though I love her when I try to quit porn I get really anxious because it feels like I’m giving up ever being able to engage with other things that I find attractive, it feels kind of suffocating and I hate that it does because it makes it hard to find the motivation for quitting. I want to quit porn but I still like it, if it wasn’t such a problem source in my life and relationship I probably wouldn’t care to quit, but I know that it will probably benefit me greatly to quit.

Does anyone else feel this way? How do you move past this feeling that you’re losing something. I know people say to just change your mentality but I haven’t really been able to do that. Some days it feels like I’ll never be able to quit, and that maybe I should leave and find a partner who is fine with porn. I think I’d like to break the cycle and truly do the detox and see how I feel (me and my gf have talked abt some form of sexual content being acceptable with boundaries once I have a healthy hold on my habits), but I get so anxious when I think about not being able to have that habit anymore. I need some guidance.

Completed day 18, on day 19 now...
Got intense urges today but yeah
urges/thoughts can't dictate actions

A lot of addiction recovery talks about "doing the work", as in methods, techniques or practices to avoid triggers and relapse. Whether it's 12 stepping, daily meditation or other.

Please send me yours, I would like some inspiration as white knuckling it for me is not working.

How many of you are also avoiding masturbating?

I once again lost after 11 days of going without it. Stress from home situation was the cruel pit this time.

I hate how quickly the dopamine of porn just hijacks your every logical senses. Feeling quite a bit down because haven’t been able to get to a month for quite a while.

Another day closer to becoming a porn-free version of me

.

I haven't relapsed yet this time, thankfully, 15 days without porn so far, but I have had so many close calls already. I tried quitting porn a lot of times before, and relapsed a lot, and after relapsing I always felt defeated, sad and helpless. Those negative emotions fed into it even more and I started the binge for a few days, draining all my energy. It takes a while after that for me to try and quit again.

How do you guys deal with a relapse?

I am a month into recovery. Which is something but also really sucks.

Usually now is the time people in recovery start touching grass, making friendships, maybe even think about a relationship, etc.

Me, I'm touching grass but the universe just sent me a giant f*ck you, laughing at me

I've been struggling with my identity since I was very young (biologically male)

But what i discovered this past month is that i hate being a man.

And will not enjoy having a relationship as man.

And just another f*ck you from the gods, i know what i want in a relationship, but will never have it. I want a healthy lesbian relationship with hand holding, talking, hanging out, etc

So its like the universe is granting me the gift of identity crisis

Great that i'm recovering but now in another hurdle in life

This is one of the only places I can talk about this openly.

Like many people here, I used to watch normal porn, Eventually, reading about the abuse and exploitation in the adult industry pushed me away from live-action content. But instead of quitting, I pivoted to what I thought was a more "ethical" alternative: drawn porn (Hentai, doujins, comics, and more).

That pulled me down a whole new rabbit hole. Over time, I wasn't just enamored with the new sensations, but with the sheer creativity of it. When porn is created as art, more so degenerated art, it opened up fantasies and concepts I'd never even considered. Before long, I started creating stuff of my own. I drew artwork, short comics, and posted them on various sites. I received praises, I got likes, I got to connect with some other porn artists, I loved creating porn, I wasn't just mindlessly consuming any more, I even made money doing it.

But the reality caught up when I realised I barely felt attraction to real people or excitement during real sex any more, it all felt "lame". That was my wake-up call, I tried to quit, many times, never made it past a week.

Today, after about 10 relapses over the past year, I hit the 2 weeks porn-free for the first time. The cravings are unreal, but the hard part is also the sadness. I miss being creative with porn, I miss drawing porn, I miss creating the stories, I miss talking to other artists, and I miss the side money. It wasn't just an addiction, it was actually my hobby, I wish it weren't so destructive, I wish I could still continue to do it without burning my mind further. I loved doing it. Trying to create non-porn stuff doesn't feel the same at all.

But, I can't afford to lie to myself, I NEED to quit, and I intend to do it. I'm just sitting here lamenting what I had to give up to try and get my mind back.

No porn and haven’t masturbated in the last 6 days, I do get those thoughts randomly from time to time but it’s going better than I expected.

Hello. I've been following this subreddi for some time now and the advice from its enduring and supportive members has been especially significant in helping me to escape from the grips of devious.. devious porn. I thought I'd share in my celebration with the community that made it possible.

Ever since I was a young lad, maybe around age 9, I was hooked. The shame, guilt, and isolation stifled my personality and character, and most notably, warped my view of sexuality. Now, after more than 14 years of severe addiction, I am finally free from the poison, from the brainwashing, and most of all - from the fear.

Life feels absolutely exhilarating now. I have all the energy I should've had all along to deal with the stresses of life and to finally attack the root causes. The relief is likened to waking up from a very long and very tiresome limbotic nightmare. Or like reaching for the walls of your prison cell and falling head-first out of the room, realizing the walls never existed to begin with.

To be honest with you all, I didn't believe I'd see the day where the power of my cravings would shrivel down into a tinsy-tiny force - so pitifully easy to squash. Now, on the odd occasion it nudges me, it acts as a pleasant reminder to celebrate the delightful emancipation of my mind and vitality, and the shattering of the lie that porn has anything to offer besides deterioration and death.

Even on my bad days - which, yes, I still have - I can say to myself, "man, at least I don't have that horribly exhausting addiction anymore" and I seem to become quite cheery after that.

I could go into great detail of the endless torments I suffered whilst being addicted, and also of the many, many great positives I've experienced being free. But I'll leave that for another time.

I truly wish for all to experience the ecstasy that comes from finally being free. I empathize with and pity those still chained to the life-draining force which is porn and would be happy to answer any questions you have (although, I may not be exceptionally prompt, so please bear with me).

• David

I’ve been lurking here for a bit before deciding to quit porn to see how long I can go without it. During this time, I’ve read a lot of posts from fellow soldiers who’re finding it super hard to quit, are relapsing and seem to have insurmountable shame around it 😕 all the power to you all and I hope you can forgive yourselves.

That made me question whether I can consider myself an addict at all as I’ve found it (relatively) easy to distract myself from the urges, though I’ve have had my fair share of slip ups in the past. For context, I’m a 31 yo woman who was exposed to porn before the age of 10 and since my teen years I’ve been consuming it on a weekly to multiple times a day basis. Until recently, I wasn’t able to orgasm without porn or toys. Especially now that I am porn free. However I can’t “masturbate to completion” on a frequency that I used to, inspite of feeling more arousal than I used to.

I understand that there are varying degrees of addiction but I am curious what we on this sub consider being addicted to porn.

I am happy to be at 2 days. I've been relapsing a lot lately. I'm ready to build up some momentum.

Ive come to the conclusion that im a porn addicted, and I want to deal with it

It started to affect my relationship, my work, my daily life in general. I woke up and even before I think about texting good morning to my girl, im already looking up something pornographic. Im kinda tired of this, which i consider as a start to really deal with it

In the past 3 years, this addiction in getting worse and worse, I dont really knows what exactly triggers me, but i can easily say that i watch pornographic content for at least 6 to 7 hours a day, in subreddits, instagram, videos and etc.. Last week while working i had a long porn video playing in my second screen

I created this account specific to look for some community to deal with it, im truly ashamed of myself, and wont talk about this with anyone around me

edit: Im also open to suggestions and tips to help me deal with it

Ok so I had been watching extreem unethical porn (not kids) but was pretty bad and did NOT align with my morals or beliefs and i feel horrifically sick now for what I watched, read or listend to. Even tho what I was watching was bad id come across worse things and they intrude my thoughts and make be feel awful (I was not attracted to thses they made me sick)

On top of that i recently told my fiance about what id watched and he was very unhappy (rightfully so) but understood its an addiction and was just as if not more upset I didn't go to him for help. I dealt with it on my own. I told him now because I wanted to go into out marriage completely clean.

Its the stuff I stumbled upon thats making me feel awful, I didn't want to read it or hear it. But I feel so guilty for it and for not giving every experience out loud.

Please can I have some of your thougs on my situation

.