The Pornography Trap
When I first faced up to my sex addiction, I realized how destructive the influence of porn had been. My saturation with porn had created distorted perceptions of women but also sex in general. That is why throughout my recovery, porn became a strict off limits area for me. I installed porn filters on my PC, in this way isolating myself from the potential influence of porn.
For 14 months now, I’ve gone without porn. There have been the occasional unlucky moments where you bump into porn, by coming across late-night tv, or flipping through a magazine with erotic content. Lately however I have found myself having more casual encounters with porn. I am not sure if this is a good or a bad thing. My therapist had emphasized to me in the past, that I should gradually learn to manage porn situations and should learn to treat them like any adult male should. Banishing sexual images from my life is impossible, and I should gradually get used to it again.
However I also found myself in situations recently that made me feel very uncomfortable. I was checking out the newspaper stand the other day, only to come across the porn mags. I looked at them with interest. In fact I toyed with the thought of buying one. I caught my mind coming up with excuses. I tried to convince myself that printed porn is not as bad as internet porn, and I can always throw it out if I want. (I guess because I associated internet porn with my sex addiction)
Worst of all though, I caught myself feeling that weird thrill. Checking left and right if anyone is looking at me. The feeling of doing something secret, no-one needs to know. And this thought gives me the Chills: because it reminded me all too much of the sex addict I used to be.
I’m on your side. I’ve been sober going on 9 years and though I still struggle at times, i’m way healthier than I was a year ago and way way healthier than 2 years ago etc. I just started blogging and my objective is to offer my experience in recovery to other men. So…we’ll see how things go. God Bless you in your recovery
There’s a lot of interest in this topic, but not all of it is from those addicted. There are many women who are the “collateral damage” of someone else’s addiction: daughters, sisters, mothers, wives and girlfriends.
For them, there is:
http://www.thepornographyeffect.wordpress.com
click on “previous posts” at the end of chapter six
to read chapters 7-12; the whole read takes 70 minutes or less.
Hopefully it offers insight and support to situations where understanding is needed.
I’ve slowed down on the massage parlors and call girls but I still sturgle with porn. I stop at the bookstore on the way to work about twice a week. i don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop. I almost wish I would get caught.