| Playa93, it seems like you have a serious problem with porn. You'll find overcoming this to be a huge blessing - you'll develop self-mastery, self-discipline and self-control that very few people posess - and these are key characteristics of an alpha male. You cannot truly lead/be in charge of anyone/anything else, unless you are in control of yourself.
Recovery requires first and foremost a burning desire to only satisfy your sexual urges with real life women. I say it in that way rather than the conventional approach of saying 'I want to stop watching porn' as you don't want to be focusing on what you want to avoid. Many people in recovery make the mistake of saying 'I want to stop watching porn'. This is focusing on the negative. Since the mind cannot process negatives this is like a negation embedded command, your subconscious processes it as 'I want to watch porn', so always focus on what you want, by saying you want to only release your sexual energy in normal sex with a real life woman.
I'd also advise you not to think of yourself as addicted. This goes against most 12 step programs where people say 'My name is so and so and I'm a sex addict'. The reason I say don't think your an addict is due to the labelling the word 'addict' brings. When you think of the word 'addict', it brings associations of relapse, struggle, willpower, etc. Make recovery easy, and imagine how life will be when your only sexual outlet is with a real woman. Think of this not as an addiction, but as a negative behaviour/negative thought process, for that is what it is really. That's the best way to go in my opinion, and I've had the most success myself with this approach (and I've tried almost all the others!).
Second, give yourself rewards for progress. For example, treat yourself to a box of your favourite chocolates when you are a week free, treat yourself to a meal out when your a month free, and so on.
Install a webfilter. No webfilter will block all porn, and all filters can be disabled/bypassed if you know enough about computers/networks. But thats not the point - even if you can disable any webfilter, it still has its place - it acts as a delay, so any quick impulses to act out can be thwarted. You can say to yourself 'hey, wait a minute, is this moving me towards my goal of enjoying sex with a RT woman?' If not, STOP! Take a few deep breaths and then go and do something else (e.g. go running, meditate, etc).
A good free webfilter is K9 Web protection. You can also use OpenDNS if you know how to configure your routers DNS settings. The benefit of OpenDNS is it will filter all devices connected through your router, irregardless of their operating system. This way you can filter not just computers running under Windows, Mac OS or Linux, but also games consoles and phones that connect through your router.
Most modern OS's have a parental controls feature installed too, its a good idea to use this in conjunction with K9.
A webfilter will also prevent you being 'triggered' accidentally.
You may also want to put an add blocker on your computer too, many of these PUA forums have adverts for products. They use the lust mind gate regularly so will show attractive women in provocative poses in the adds, which can be triggering.
Delete all porn from your computer. This is hard, but its critical to success. Having porn saved away means your not fully committed to overcoming this negative thought process. If deleting your collection is too hard, I suggest encrypting it, with a program that takes time to decrypt the porn. There are some encryption programs that offer OTF encryption, where an encrypted volume is created and the porn is available immediately after you enter the correct password. I advise avoiding these, as like with the webfilter, there is no delay for you to regain volitional control of yourself. If you have an encryption program that takes time to decrypt each file, it gives you time to stop yourself. I recommend using Sophos Free Encryption for this purpose.
Creating a 'delay' between acting out is very important. This gives you chance to break the standard stimulus --> response cycle, and instead replace it with Stimulus --> Choice --> Response.
That choice is to do something other than porn, something constructive.
Understand also that the root of most addictions, including porn, is stress relief from negative emotions. Like all addictions, porn works very well as a stress reliever, but only in the short term. It has long term consequences. Reminding yourself of these consequences can help you to chose to do something else other than view porn.
Have a busy and active lifestyle, so you don't have time to view porn. Go out sarging regularly, join clubs, take up a martial art, take up a hobby, join a gym, do volunteer work, etc. Your day will be so full you will not have time for porn, and you'll be meeting new people too, rather than isolating yourself (which is something porn thrives upon).
If you still struggle, there are some websites for you to check out, mainly:
pornaddictioninfo
recoverynation
yourbrainonporn
You can also read books by Patrick Carnes, such as 'In The Shadow of the Net' and there is a book called the Porn Trap, though I cannot recall the authors name.
Hypnosis recordings can help too, I personally have found the recording by 'hypnosis direct' to be very helpful. The 'hypnosis downloads' recording is good as well, as is the porn addiction recording by Richard MacKenzie, although his is rather expensive!
There are recovery groups that are available in most major cities. I went to SMART Recovery, which is based around CBT (Cognitive Behavoural Therapy, not the other type of CBT you may be aware of if you watch too much femdom porn!). SMART recovery is for all addictions, though you tend to find that most people there are recovering alcoholics, so you may find your the only porn/sex addict there. Thats no problem though, you may find that nobody wants to shake your hand at the end of the meeting, but your not there to get approval from them, your there to improve your life and learn techniques to break free. You'll find that there are many parallels between porn and alcohol addiction, and the techniques apply equally to porn as they do to alcohol addiction.
If you feel a bit anxious going to a SMART recovery group and want to go to a group with only porn/sex addicts, you could try a 12 step program. There are many of them for sexual addictions, such as SAA (Sex Addicts Anonymous), SA (Sexaholics Anonymous), SLAA (Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous), SCA (Sexual Compulsives Anonymous). These groups offer more specialised knowledge about recovery from porn/sexual addictions and you don't have to worry about being the only porn addict in the room. The downside to these 12 step programs is there is a lot of 'God talk', and I find the 12 steps very dis-empowering, as the basic premise is you are powerless over your addictive urges, and only God can remove your 'defects of character' and 'restore you to sanity!'. At the SAA group that I attended, there was also at least 3-4 convicted pedophiles there. It is not my idea of fun to be in a room with such people, holding hands and hugging. Make your own mind up though, there is some wisdom to be learned from these groups, especially if you can find a good sponsor. One thing that I learned from SAA is to be very careful with having too much sex and allowing this to get out of control. You hear about PUA's having sex with hundreds, sometimes even thousands of women. There is nothing wrong with having lots of sex, with lots of women, when you are in control of yourself. When you are driven by something else, and you cannot stop, that is when it becomes a problem.
Last edited by _ecudes_ on Tue May 22, 2012 10:14 pm, edited 7 times in total.
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CHAT
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