It's always a good sign starting off a "success story" with a failure. Last night I viewed pornographic material. Simple as. So climbing the mountain restarts.
I should write some more about my addiction. Just to get clear. From the age of 14 I started regularly masturbating and viewing pornographic material. Originally I felt guilty, yet after a year or so it became the new normal. My background is not super religious so these lapses in observance didn't seem like the biggest deal. I suppose I never thought I was addicted. Although I never supposed I wasn't either, and didn't assume I could stop whenever I wanted.
Starting this process well over a year ago now (although I've been on this website for just under a year), has revealed some very interesting things to me. It has taught me that I was far more addicted to pornography than masturbation. By a country mile. In fact my addiction to masturbation was only a sideproduct of my pornographic addiction which was massive news to me. It also taught me, recently, that achievement through persistence is very much possible. And BH I'm still maturbation free for more than 100 days now. To the point where I've stopped counting. In this regard I feel I've really put it past me. In the same way that in the past I've successfully put other addictions past me (cigarettes, and marajuana). It an achievement but it's also a mental watershed, and it becomes absorbed as a strong part of the personality.
Still my pornography addiction still rages within me. That's not say that there has been no progress. The vast vast majority of days in the last couple of years I have not viewed pornography, this is to the extent that I have become resensitized to it. In fact as tragic as it is when I watch pornography now it's pretty laughable. This things which I find myself searching (which is really how it feels, I've written before that "I" take a backseat and I allow the addiction to take over) are worlds apart from the hardcore material I used to search for, this is the kind of things that broader society probably wouldn't even call porn, more evocative images, crossing the line to magazine pornography. And yet even then I find myself looking at an image, and not looking directly at the evocative parts, satisfying my addiction by merely seeing stuff out of the periphery. In fact looking at stuff directly is almost unpleasant and causes me to recoil, it's too much (such has become the level of my sensitivity). So my viewing of pornography is very much a case of sideways glances and recoil, whilst sitting very still.
But, that being said, it's still pornography, and I'm still feeding an addiction which refuses to go away. I don't want to try too hard to analyse myself. Instead I want to point to a few things I know to be true and explain how I'm going to proceed from here on in.
I know it to be true that I have three types of desires when it comes to pornography, two relate to women in general: 1) animalistic/natural for pleasure and gratification, this leads to tendencies to objectify, and see that object. 2) human for intimacy and closeness. Third is just the build up addiction itself.
The first two are an inherent part of who I am and with or without pornography will remain present whether I like it or not. The third will stop being a relevant factor after long enough abstinence from pornography. Sometimes, of the first two reasons, they work together to motivate me, sometimes just the first, and sometimes just the second. The second reason, seeking intimacy through pornography is deeply problematic, and thankfully I only have this to the smallest extent, only when I'm feeling low, which is why it's so important that I work on building up myself and my self confidence etc so I don't stoop because of this.
The first reason is essentially a constant, but in our religion we look to control it and channel it in the correct way. It's important to point this out, because it cannot be a legitimate aim to get rid of the first factor entirely. That would be a waste of time, unnatural, unhealthy, and unproductive. The aim with 1) is to channel it, the aim with 2) is to fix it, and the aim with 3) is to let it sort itself out over time.
It's really important that I keep persisting as I have done, as every fall brings a wave of guilt and a feeling of completely letting myself down and all I have done up until that point (as a great Rabbi once said, it takes a lifetime to soar, but only a moment to descend to the darkest depths of gehenom), but the tactic for success cannot be (just) to build myself internally, it has to be to circumvent reason 1). Therefore I am going to do the following things which I know work very well, and have worked for me in the past:
A) Not get into the ring.
By: making sure to stick the the Taphsic method (I only seem to fall between nederim), and being very makpid on Yichud with the internet. The Torah knows that if a man and a women are in Yichud and they feel comfortable together, over a long enough timeframe something WILL happen, so the Takana of Yichud was introduced to avoid this entirely. It's about NOT getting into the ring. The internet is very much like a woman, over a long enough timeframe, in Yichud, for someone previously exposed, something will go wrong. So the "trick" is to never be in Yichud with the internet, also something I have been relaxed about, but when I am strict about it things go very well (and this also applies to a Television too).
B ) build my life outside of the ring.
by: focusing on growth of self esteem, focusing on learning and spiritual growth, focus on productivity. For sure one needs to become the person who would never succumb to addiction, but that seems to me to only be possible when enough space has been created between you and the addiction.
All in all, restarting the 90 days from today, if I focus not on beating the addiction, but sticking to both A) and B ) I should do very well. If I move the fight to outside of the ring, I should finally achieve something very special, and keep you all updated as I move forward!
So here goes...
Warning: Spoiler!
