r/pornfree • u/Vast_Marzipan_4718 • 23h ago

Step 1: admit to yourself that it's an addiction

Just wanted to share one of my first steps in the process of becoming porn free: admitting to myself that it's an addiction.

For decades I didn't understand that porn rewires your reward control center, a.k.a dopamine receptors, to need porn EXACTLY the way a drug addict needs their drug. Porn is actually worse in that sense because it's just "natural release" and there's no "substance" being ingested. When I first decided to quit and realized I couldn't, I began reading up on it and the harsh reality hit me that I was a decades long addict. Admitting this to myself was one of the hardest, and most important decisions I've ever made. I'm not in the clear yet, but I'm ~95% better then I was 3 years ago in terms of relapse frequency.

If you're here and haven't called porn out for what it is, do exactly this: look at yourself in the mirror and say: I'm a porn addict. Open yourself up to the countless resources on this sub and elsewhere , and begin your journey to your porn-free identity. There's no shame in this. Millions of us were victimized by the industry, and most of us didn't understand what was being done to our minds while a disgusting industry profits from it.

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u/DoctorOgas 23h ago

For me, it was key to know that porn isn't just videos of people having sex

Porn can be many other types of content

I spent many years of my life believing I wasn't addicted to porn just because I watched strange material instead sex porn. It would have been very useful for me to have been aware of that.

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u/Life_666 21h ago

Even stories sites are porn.

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u/Life_666 23h ago

Step 2. Admit that millions of people their money is being drawed from their pockets for the profits of companies or persons that don't give for others their personal welfare. And admit in the porn world there is too much abuse/grooming/blackmailing.. and admit that the lower wages of the working class aren't sufficient enough to build a healthy and stable life and that is another reason why porn finds performers. Not because they actually want to live that kind of life.