I have been struggling with this challenge for years. I think I'm finally in a place in my growth that I have a chance to succeed. I am more consistent and disciplined than I have ever been before.

A couple of years ago I was dealing with a drug addiction. One that had been a problem for many years but came to a head when I could no longer function in life. I dealt with it and have been clean for over 20 months. Honestly, staying away from drugs was actually easy. I made the decision to stop, attended an outpatient program, and didn't really have any urges. I had a lot of work to do with getting my life back together,  I had to learn how to function in life without the aid of drugs and deal with the underlying problems, but actually staying away was never an issue.

Staying away from porn has been the opposite. It has been a seemingly impossible task. The longest I have been clean is 15 days, and that was an intense struggle. 

Last night I had an epiphany. I was thinking about how it's so hard to stop this addiction, but drugs were so easy. What is the difference? I believe the reason why is that drugs were very obviously ruining my life. I could not function. I was extremely depressed and isolated. Yes, they gave me intense pleasure, but the pain was also very obvious. The reason it was so easy to quit was because I was able to keep all that in mind. The consequences of even one more time were extremely clear to me. 

In contrast, porn doesn't seem so bad. I can function with this addiction. I am not depressed. The pain I feel is not even close to the pain I was feeling. 

I best way to go forward is to make the negative effects of this addiction clear and obvious. I need to list them, rank them, and review them. This way whenever I feel any urge, awareness of the consequences will come along with it. With knowledge and awareness, stopping will be much much easier and more likely to succeed. 

Welcome brother. Strong guy that you are ;-). Thanks for joining the club!

first of all, i would like to say that i am quite impressed with your control over your drug addiction. many of the people i know who were addicted to drugs, did not have such an easy time with it. i cant imagine it was too easy for you either.
about the porn adiction, i think that we should look at it at a different angle. you feel that the fight with your porn addiction should be the same as with the drug addiction. you feel that just like the awareness of the negative effects of drugs helped you stop, so too the awareness of the negative effects of the porn should help you stop.
although it makes a lot of sense and is true to some degree, i think that a different aproach is required for several reasons.
the knowledge of the negative effects DOES NOT TAKE AWAY THE ADDICTION. it may help you control yourself and in your own words stay away, but the addiction is still there. the help with the addiction came from the program you attended and the work on putting together your life. the reason this helps is because the drugs ruined your life and the need to put it back together forced you to use these methods to control yourself. your lack of knowing how to deal with the underlying problems of life caused you to turn to it so the work on dealing with these problems without it, forced you to learn how to control it. you have to first find what issue is causing the addiction (maybe shalom bayis) and realize you MUST STOP and then find the negative effects of porn to keep in mind for your day to day control. 
another difference is, drugs is a physical need caused by a need to run away from life's problems and the need for the drug grows as the dopamine need grows. although p*rn addiction works in the same way, i believe there is a yetzer horah for arayos which helps along. every human being has this yetzer horah, but the size of the yetzer horah is as big as the outside need for it is.
let me explain with an example. take someone who has never had any exposure to the dirty world and has no major problems in life. the extent of his yetzer horah is probably looking at woman in the street. put a computer in front of him and he will probably not do much to try to bypass a filter or go onto any sites. even if he would try to bypass the filter he wouldnt be able to, due to his lack of advanced knowledge in computers. but someone who has internet and is aware of what is going on there,  no matter how little he knows about how to work computers, he will somehow be able to find ways to bypass the filter and figure out what sites will have the juciest stuff. thats the power of the yetzer horah.
in short, drugs had an initial cause, then turned into an addiction. so you must deal with the initial cause- the underlying problems, then control the addiction- keeping in mind the negative effects. p*rn has the initial cause- underlying problems together with the yetzer horah, then the addiction. however along with the addiction grows the yetzer horah, and with each new stage and each new thing you try, a new yetzer horah and initial cause is created. so it does not help to just deal with the underlying problem and then control the addiction. you have to fight the actual yetzer horah in stages. this will not work with just reminding yourself of the negative effects. this will only happen if you tackle the p*rn issue stage by stage until you are down to only having to keep your head down in the street. 
how do you do that? welcome to gye!
hope this post was not too long and too deep. much hatzlacha.

Welcome. You have come to a good place. There are many tools available here and many people willing to help. Hatzlocha.

Welcome, you mentioned you went to an IOP for your drug abuse. Seems that you considered your drug abuse a medical issue and sought treatment. For me sex addiction is a medical issue and therefore I seek medical treatment.

Shalom and Welcome!!

This is a great place so try to stick around. It will help you ingrain in yourself the importance of staying sober today! The more you are oisek in it, the more important it will become in your life. For me, whenever I had a lust attack it never helped thinking about the damages it does to my life, for my lust is strong enough to justify anything and totally throw me off. 

What helps me is keeping porn off limits in terms of access, and trying to avoid anything that used to lead me to triggers. 

Much hatzlacha on your journey!

Thank you for taking the time to write this out. I think you made a lot of good points and gave me a few things to think about. 

For me, I think the always present knowledge of the consequences is one of the most important things, perhaps more than most other people. That is maybe why I had such an easy time quitting drugs. It wasn't the first time I had tried going clean, or even the 10th. I had even gotten long stretches of clean time before then. I always went back though, because I forgot the consequences. I would say "one time isn't so bad" and then of course it wouldn't be one time and I would spiral down. 

It is the same with this additiction. I've had clean time before, but I always go back. I forget or convince myself that the consequences are not so bad. That is why I feel I have to focus on them this time. 

I am not disparaging the other work I did with drug addiction, I think it was definitely vital. Because of that I have worked on the underlying problems a lot, and I continue to work on them by seeing a therapist every week. 

I don't think underlying psychological issues are what's causing my current addiction, although I'm sure they don't help. I think it's more the base instincts, or yetzer hara, the dopamine addiction, and habit that really drives it. I don't know, I could be wrong though and this is just how I feel right now. I'll think more about it. 

I'm looking forward to using the tools of this site to break free!

Very interesting!! If focusing on the destructive consequences works for you then, by all means, go for it! But don't feel lost if you learn down the road that you always feel that "one time isn't so bad". There are many more tools besides of knowing the consequences. 


Again, I can only talk for myself, but for me, I abuse porn as a painkiller and ultimate shelter from all of my life's problems. That resulted in my life increasingly getting messier, for I wouldn't face my problems, rather run away from it through porn and lust. Every time I faced stress, disappointment or emptiness in my life, instead of dealing with them in a healthy and effective way, I would avoid it. That made lust so destructive in my life. But this realization only got me to be determined in getting sober. It never helped me fight lust heads on. I can't fight lust. I try to stay far from it, once we meet, I'm usually done. 

Anyways, I hope you find sobriety on your journey!

Cheers to a clean day!

LoveU,Hashem wrote on 21 Nov 2017 23:54:

I appreciate LUHashem's point. For myself I also thought of my struggle as a Yetzer Hara only thing until I joined this forum and realized that I was more anxious that I thought and it played a major part.