Tantalus

Hi. My GP suggested I completed a self referral to a resource offered by my local NHS trust. They have a "website" for people living in the area. I filled in a self referral form and this was swiftly followed up with a telephone consultation. Based on my answers a referral to a psychiatrist and an appointment followed about a month later. I meet with them fairly regularly at my GP surgery, at a time I can hide fairly easily. The appointments offer "talking space" and that is pretty much all that has happened - it's given me someone to talk to in absolute confidence. I sometimes feel it is an abuse of NHS resources but I have a problem and need help. No one knows about it, save for my GP, who hasn't asked me about it since I made the original approach. I should say that I've not 'fessed up my addiction to pornography, but have spoken about other issues which are tied. I still haven't decided whether I should say.

Hi, I'm sorry it's been a while and thanks for the comments. I've been trying to forget and trying to ignore, but I've come back as I acknowledge this as a problem now. Some months on and whilst no negative consequences seem to have come from the slip up I mention, I find myself in the darkest place I have ever been in my life. Whilst I am content in my family life and should be satisfied by this I still use porn far too frequently. I'm full of self loathing and disgust about it but I seem to lack any self discipline. I am desperately unhappy. I feel extremely lonely and don't socialise. I am struggling at work and have no confidence in myself. I have put on weight and have little exercise and I find myself angry and irritable. I have also had suicidal thoughts as my psychological problem and feelings of despair have reached an all time low. Reaching for the porn has, all too often, been a release from these thoughts. When the suicidal thoughts happened I realised I needed some kind of rapid external help so I turned to my GP and, fortunately, I am now benefiting from frequent conversations with a psychologist. I talk about all sorts of things though never my use of pornography. Despite this talk, my reliance on porn for comfort and the countering feelings of despair and self loathing I get after climax have really grown to be too much and I've come to realise that they are a huge driver of my issues rather than a symptom and treatment. I've come to see my use of porn as a vicious cycle and I fear I won't make any real progress in my linked issues unless I face up and admit to this. I don't feel I can do this to anyone and feel alone, helpless and scared. For the moment (fortunately), the only person being really harmed by all of this seems to be me. Aside from the artificial joy I get from visualising my wife I am really getting nothing else from porn and I really, really want to stop. I am trying to increase the amount of time I spend in open plan offices, and I'm limiting the opportunities I have to be alone. I am, however, finding the psychological pull of pornography difficult to manage when I do have opportune moments and tackling this secret alone is tiring and difficult. I'm hoping that posting here will help.

Hello, I have registered here after a "slip up", which may yet have disastrous consequences, has led me to consider whether I have a sex addiction I have lost control of. This is my deepest and darkest secret, and I'm terrified it's gone too far. I am mid-life, married, with two young kids. I was first exposed to pornography in my earliest years. My father kept a stash of soft core mags in a corner of his wardrobe and some of my earliest memories are of going to have a look whenever I was left alone upstairs. This was pre-adolescent and I must have been around 6 or 7. I just remember getting nice feelings from looking. I think I may have been caught as the stash was reduced to one or two, presumably my father's favourites, which I discovered after an intensive rummage. These, plus one or two additions, got me through school, puberty and adolescence. Then when I went to college I switched to mental fantasy, for fear of a stash being found by room mates. I met my future wife at college and, for a time, that craving was dealt with by actual physical contact. But even that wasn't enough so, with the internet in it's infancy, I discovered dial up stills. Exposure to free, secret, porn imagery became much easier as the web developed. All the time I've managed to keep a lid on this, waiting until my wife had gone to work or was in bed for a quick fix. After the kids came along it became harder to find time, but then smart phones and bathroom locks helped. I'm now in a terrible situation. I work in alone in a private office, and whenever I get lonely, bored or want a distraction the porn option is always there for comfort. This has become far more frequent as my work has grown more remote. A drastic change in financial security and increased job insecurity has made it worse. Porn is my release. My happy place. I've tried all sorts of moral rationalising -visualising the subject as my wife, trying to limit to soft stills rather than films, but as sex has inevitably become less frequent (kids ever present, wife ever tired, never the right time etc etc) I find myself relying on it more and more, to the point it is almost my default happy place. I pride myself on having no physical and limited digital traces. No files or images, nothing twisted or sordid, just the internet and incognito searches for models with my wife's characteristics. It was a quick Google search whilst inadvertently connected to my work Wi-Fi network that has led me to here. Whilst it was a single instance and quickly spotted without anything being accessed, I'm terrified it's going to be reported, identified and of any consequences that may come. I really don't know what to do. Whilst I have started to acknowledge I may have a serious issue, I have no real desire to suddenly cease the habit of a lifetime, especially when it is one of my few sources of pleasure in my increasingly desperate world. Any advice gratefully received.