Hi

The realization

My earliest memory of doing it, I was about 9 years old. For sure not older than 10. For about 20 years I have been addicted to this "process-addiction" (as apposed to a substance addiction). The funny thing is that although I ahve promised myself and tried milions of times to quit, nevertheless, I did nto know it was an addiction. It's been a week since the realization, and I have been dry for that long too.

Frequency

It used to be every night. I used it to put myself to sleep. This was during high-school and beyond. I began renting soft-porn videos from the store. That I enjoed emmensly. But the costs are too high - and it really takes alot of thought to appreciate the costs. And although sobriety is not as exhilerating, it does carry a serenity, a solid foundation of good, healthy, strog, hopefull, wanting to build, positive, forward looking. But it takes dicpline and nurtring what you hold to be important.

Very unfavourable feelings created

I felt alone, unwanted by people. I felt unable to achieve enough closeness from my good friends. These feelings lead to self-hate. All of this and I did not relate it to masturbation. I felt shame and embarrassment. This affected my self-expression. I felt guilty and naughty. This made me hide, even within myself. I thus became quite reserved, and also distanced myself from people. So where did myonly thrill come from? Yip - masturbation! And so the cycle began again, making things worse and worse.

Why I stopped

I became dysfunctional. I was fatigued. I had no self confidence. Then I read somewhere that if you are constantly doing things you don't really want to do, you are letting go of your inner-strength, when what we really want is to harness that inner-strength.  You render yourself untrustworhy. I couldn't rely on myself even for the most simple / mundane things. I lost my job. I got very low for 2 years. I want to use the term depressed but these days this is a strictly clinical term, of which I was not thereof diagnosed. I am only getting ready now to even bring myself to find an occupation.

I cannot continue now. I gotta disconnect now from the internet. The temptation is always there to enter a destructive site. I gotta get away from this machine now.
Discipline is the fabric to consrtucting big and powerful things. I shall be disciplined now! Bye