Journey's End

Despite recent slips, I believe the journey out of porn has ended.

I may still slip, but I'm wise enough to recognise when I do, and I haven't really been on a binge for some time. I really believe there has been progress, and that I have changed. My view of myself, my view of acceptable behaviour, my opinion of porn; all have changed more in the last year than any of the previous eighteen or so since I discovered MB.

From here on, I am on a new page. Over the two years this blog has been running, I have got to know my demons. I know when they're likely to strike, and I know what sort of stick I will need to fight them off.

I'm not free; not by a country mile. Porn still has a grip on part of me, but it's a weakening grip. I can ignore it, most of the time. But there is work to be done.

And it starts by me making a fresh start. I am stepping out of internet anonymity, and back into the real world.

The journey out of porn may have ended, but the journey into God is just beginning.

Seems like everyone's quittin' the porn team...

This former pornographer, for one.

And this former porn star.

God bless 'em both.

Procrastination

Wasting time online today, Matthew brought my attention to these Demotivators (yeah, thanks Matt!)

I then spent hours trying to find a really funny one that I could use as a desktop wallpaper or something, to, er, motivate me (ironically). Eventually I settled on this one:

So anyway... have done well today, a little spell of temptation around lunchtime, but nothing I couldn't deal with. I got done the work I had set myself to complete - and then some.

Obviously I did digress into timewasting at one point, but I did need a bit of a break.

Unfortunately, I'm not doing so well as far as the whole Bible/prayer thing goes. I need to get that habit up and running before I get bored of just not doing porn for the sake of not doing it.

Got a busy weekend ahead, so I don't expect time to act out... I'll be back Monday.

Day One

Well, I made it to the end of the working day with no mishaps. It wasn't easy - especially when I inadvertantly followed a link to one of the less wholesome newspapers our nation's press has to offer - but I withstood the temptation, got done what I wanted to get done and did not slip up.

Having said that, it wasn't easy, and I did find myself procrastinating during the day - a thing that can lead to a slip all too easily.

Tomorrow I'm going to try the other thing I failed to do today - start the day by reading the Bible and spending a few moments in prayer. There's no point me forcing porn out of my life if I don't replace it with something better, is there?

Still struggling

I have been struggling for a few weeks now. I've left myself open by not being strict with myself on borderline stuff, and a bout of illness wiped out any kind of resolve I might have had last week. As a result, I fell badly at the beginning of this week, and am struggling to pick myself up again.

Which is unfortunate because I've hit on some inspiration for the porn addict's story I've been trying to write, and really need to get on with it, but I can't seem to focus with all this negativity in my head.

I am going to try to get back into the blogging habit, make a point of coming here every day and making an honest report of what I've been up to. I hate having to report that I mb'd, or went looking for porn, or ogled some girl at the newsagents, or whatever it is. But unless I'm strict with myself on that, I'll forget how bad this can get.

I'm also going to try to spend a bit more time at higher-calling, where I can learn from other people, and hopefully make a start on rebuilding my spiritual life, which has inevitably suffered of late.

So tomorrow I make another fresh start.

On a knife edge

At the moment it seems to only take the smallest thing to send me off the wrong way down the information superhighway...

It's only a matter of time before I get flattened by a cyberjuggernaut, I'm sure.

Anyway, I think I may have come up with a way to work a story of addiction into a sort of fantasy story I started a while back and ran out of steam with. I expect that combination would render the thing unmarketable, but I might do it anyway, so that (a) I'm writing something, and (b) I'm using it to work out my problems. If it approaches something like finished I might post it here. Who knows, it might be the catalyst I need to get a non-fantasy story going too.

Updates, possibly, here in the future.

Lazy

I have spent a lot of the last 3 weeks walking in the borderlands of my favourite sin. So-called 'soft' porn (can anyone smell an oxymoron?), masturbation, and just entertaining the thoughts that lead to these things. I thought as long I stopped there, as long as I didn't go looking for the less 'acceptable' side of porn, I would be OK.

I thought walking the edge like this would give me time to build up the strength to get away.

Instead I got complacent and fell right back in.

Now I've realised that all this, as well as being pointless, was plain laziness on my part. I just want this to be over, to have my life back and be happy. But the truth is, these behaviours are so ingrained that I can't just turn away from them without some effort. A lot of the time I either forget that, or I just can't be bothered putting the effort in.

Having realised that, I can try to put it right. The weekend has passed and left me with 2 100% clean days behind me. Now is as good a time as any to start putting the effort in.

And not just for a week or two, but every day, for the rest of ever. And (pardon my French) that scares the ever living crap out of me.