I Relapsed After Not Watching Porn for 90 Days

The life of a porn addict is nothing if not confusing. Most days it's, at a minimum, haphazard at best.

After giving up porn three years ago, I began the terrifying journey of getting out of it. After relapsing for three weeks in November, I now know what I must do to stay the course.

Porn recovery isn't for everyone, but then again, neither is porn itself.

This is what I learned from giving in after 90 days. Not giving up of course, just remembering where I need to go.

The backdrop

I hadn't been connecting with my girlfriend when it happened. More specifically, I hadn't been emotionally honest, and it was making me wonder if I was going to lose her.

I felt rejected when my flirty texts went unanswered that month, when she didn't touch me like I wanted, when she passed up opportunities for date nights that could lead to sex.

She knows that I'm an addict and loves me anyway. She adores me. She admittedly doesn't always have my drive.

Things came to a head when I cooked dinner for her on a Tuesday and threw a tantrum when she left without making out me. She explained she was on her period. When she got home, she texted, "I think maybe we should take a break."

Like I said, emotional honesty. I failed to offer it, and wound up incredibly anxious.

When I'm anxious, I feel afraid. When I'm afraid, I reach for porn.

The jack off

The next morning, I woke up to two very big mistakes. The first was reading her message and thinking, I don't want to deal with this woman. The second was leaving my phone only inches from my private parts.

I picked up the phone and within seconds, began scrolling. I turned off my internet filter. I was speeding down into the depths.

When you think you need porn to function, it doesn't matter what you're looking at, only that something is staring back at you. I continued furiously. My dick began its old, familiar rise.

I couldn't tell you what I looked at, only that I didn't look for long. I orgasmed and got up slowly to wipe myself down.

Afterward, I deleted my browser history, but the message from my girlfriend was still unread and blinking.

The deep stuff

"I've got some work to do," I told a buddy I'm lucky to walk through life with. He's out of the dating scene and married. He's out of the porn game, too, and became a body builder to redirect his testosterone.

"What do you mean?" he asked, and I went on to elaborate on the F words. Not just fear, but failure. The two are intertwined historically, like Hamilton and Burr.

There's so much I fear in the life I've built. It's self-inflicted, the forever single or never having kids parts. Much of this has to do with not thinking I'm good enough. I focus too much on making something of myself instead of recognizing I'm already a good person.

Within this, porn is the escape hatch. I run to it instead of drawing from my deepest wells. It is the "weapon" I turn to instead of working things out with people. In this instance, I'm grateful to have friends who listen to me when I haven't always returned the favor.

I hung up with my buddy and took it easy the rest of the day. I breathed in and went for a walk. I didn't pull the trigger again on the metaphorical gun that's almost killed me.

The get back up

Despite this setback, I still want to turn my phone off at night and in the morning. I want to get out of bed and meditate instead of masturbating to online videos.

I even want to return to the woman I love if she'll have me. In the interim, I've jerked off to multiple women she pales in comparison to in mind, body, and spirit.

Beyond pornography, there is still a thirst for life that's beating. It's there as long as I recognize it as my own.

In a previous article, I spoke of the feeling, the dopamine rush that pornography brings that is so difficult to diffuse. That withdrawal is now being replaced with shedding skin, which, though uncomfortable, is preparing me for another phase of transformation.

It is moving me toward a place I want to discover, but have been afraid to claim for myself. It's a journey to an ideal that is not about gaining milestones, but surrendering daily to an imperfect self.

I believe my true self that will come alive through suffering and the victory of saying, "Not today."

I want to know who I am by eliminating porn. I want to accept that person. I just have to accept myself along the way.