With me, as I imagine it is with a lot of people, the slide downward is slow and gradual and eventually it feels inevitable that I will do something I regret.
Usually when I start something new, or after a nice contrast in life, I feel invigorated, energetic, excited, positive etc. etc. I am doing good things for myself and others, feel a connection with Hashem, and generally life is pretty good.
At some point, something happens to make things a little bit harder. Let's say one week I have a lot of schoolwork to do and I think to myself "I'll skip the gym today". Seems reasonable right? I go right back to the gym tomorrow.
But maybe the next week, I still have a lot of work to do and this time it's easier to skip the gym. So I skip exercising the whole week.
Now I'm getting more sluggish because I gave up the gym. It's harder to get up in the morning. Things are still manageable but everything feels harder and less exciting, and I start to *need* tasty food, or naps, or any small treat I can find that isn't too dramatic but feeds my need for something to make life OK for the time being. A little something extra. I also start to inexplicably fall asleep during the day for hours at a time.
Now the idea of going to the gym is out the window, I'm struggling to get up in the morning, I'm procrastinating all the time and so I'm behind on my work, I've stopped talking to other people and socializing or finding opportunities to socialize.
And finally, I hit bottom and look at porn.
What's the solution? I see that it's a cascade and I need to prevent that first slip. But I can't always be on top of everything, especially when life is unpredictable...I know I had opportunities along the way to reverse the process but I didn't really believe it was happening until it was too late. It's happened many times before, so why don't I notice it?
Anyway, I would really appreciate advice people can give, and it would also help to know that others experience this process too, and that from that stems their addiction.
