Month End results

Well, the last couple of weeks have dragged May up to a pretty respectable month, and my running total at it's highest month end level! Yay!

Assuming that I survive today, here the month by month update:

January - 48.4% free
February - 67.9% free (01.01.06 - 28.02.06 - 57.6%)
March - 67.7% free (01.01.06 - 31.03.06 - 61.1%)
April - 53.3% free (01.01.06 - 30.04.06 - 59.2%)
May - 80.6% free (01.01.06 - 31.05.06 - 63.6%)

OK, before I get too excited about the numbers, lets get some targets set. It would be nice to get through June with a 100% record. But to avoid the extra pressure, I'll just aiming to keep that monthly figure above 80%.

And my immediate aim, having smashed through the 13-day barrier that has bothered me over the last few months, is a further 14 days without porn or mb. Day 13 being Monday, today is day 2 of the 14. Look, I make the rules. Deal with it!

Two weeks clean!

Today is the first time I've been able to say that since... Crikey, August!

I'm not sure whether that's good or bad?

The batchelor life

The other night, just for a couple of hours, I had the opportunity to live the batchelor life I never had.

In the past, when such occasions have arisen, I have taken them and abused them, spending the time time cavorting naked with, well, myself. Overindulging in porn and mb. Spending hours online, downloading filth. Seeking out mucky films on TV. Watching mucky films I may have discreetly taped months ago in preparation for just such an occasion.

Even when, a few years ago, my wife was in hospital for a couple of weeks, I would get home after visiting ended, and shoot up with porn of some description.

I'm not proud of these things. God knows, there's nothing there to be proud of!

I mention it only because yesterday I had the perfect opportunity. It was the middle of the night. I was alone in the house. I sat in my bed with my laptop on because I couldn't sleep.

I thought about doing porn. It wouldn't do any harm. I could even lie in in the morning. It was a perfect opportunity!

I dismissed the thought.

Just dismissed it. Just like that. And went surfing some Christian blogs and discussion boards instead.

And so it begins.

A week without porn, and the withdrawal starts. The last two nights have been largely sleepless. That's been my only sympton in the past, although a couple of evenings ago I had an inexplicable bout of nausea and mild trembliness.

I'm really, very tired. It's annoying, but not as annoying as being a slave to lust.

The trouble is, when the withdrawal starts, so does that nagging voice telling me I know what to do about it...

I will struggle on. I've achieved so much more over the last week than I would have done if I had been mb'ing regularly. Porn steals time, and adds nothing to my life but guilt and shame.

I will battle on. No retreat, no surrender.

Progress report

Unusually, the reason for my non-blogging lately is not because I've been too busy porning, but because I've been too busy to porn.

In a nutshell, it's going well at the moment. Which, of course, is usually the kiss of death.

But there is one thing I am aware of. I still feel distant from God. I still need to reconnect. Maybe it's a strategy on his part, but I know that won't happen if I give up and go porning; so I don't. It's working at the moment anyway - it's been a week with no porn or mb, and I'm still feeling good.

Keeping busy

The last couple of days I've been very busy - hance the short absence from posting - and I've barely given porn a thought, except to think 'well, it's been a while since I had the urge to do porn'.

Which just reinforces what I've always thought: boredom is my main issue. When I'm working at home, if I get bored I'm sat at my PC, which can be the gateway to a whole world of unsavoury enjoyment.

So I must try to keep busy.

I should also try to remember that, however much time and effort I spend hunting down and downloading a nice set of pictures of my favourite net girl, I'll only repent and delete them all tomorrow. Better to just cut the middleman. Save a whole lot of time and misery.

Back to reality

Before I start, any fellow strugglers reading should know that what I'm about to write may be triggering.

I was just thinking about my latest binge, trying to work out what set it off. While I still can't narrow that down to one thing, I know exactly what finished it.

It was a single picture. She had a name; lots of them do, I don't tend to take much notice, except with the girls I start to obsess over and stalk across the adult pages of the 'net. She wasn't one of those. Just another girl who loves to show off her body, or so we're led to believe. She was only a girl, too - I mean, nothing nasty, just one of those girls who proudly proclaims having 'just turned 18' or whatever, like that makes it all ok...

Anyway, the picture. It might have been a close up shot, or it might just have been a big, high-res picture of which I ony initially saw this part. It wasn't gynacologically close up or anything - I think that was what did it. It could, in fact, just have been a random holiday photo; she was even dressed. And that was kind of the point. What I was looking at could easily have been just a picture of a girl on the street. What I was actually looking at was the small of her back, very close up. I could pick out tiny details on her skin as if I was right there next to her.

No doubt, that's exactly what some guys like to imagine with these pictures. But for me, that was when I realised that what I was looking at was a real human being. An actual girl, with dreams and aspirations, which I like to think extend way beyond 'showing off my body'. A real person, a young person, who got dragged into the world of 'glamour modelling' rather than flipping burgers at McD's to get her through college. Somebody's friend, somebody's sister. Somebody's daughter.

For a split second, I wasn't just looking at a cluster of attractively arranged pixels, but a person. And what I was planning to do with that image.... once again I was disgusted with myself.

It was time to purge and start again.

The vicious circle

I feel diconnected from God.

It gets me down.

I escape into porn.

It stops me reconnecting with God.

It gets me down.

I escape into porn.

Feeling down.

I just wish I knew whether I'm feeling down because I've just come off a porn high, or I went on a porn junket because I was feeling down...

Feeling quite ambivolent about the huge stash of porn I just trashed, having spent most of yesterday downloading it....

Wish I could get out of this vicious circle I seem to be stuck in.

How about a(nother) fresh start tomorrow, eh?

Slipped again

I just slipped up again. I think I'm bored, tired and a bit frustrated at various things.

I've still not regained my ability to connect with God. And I don't know how to.

I'm too tired to think about this, yet I'm considering the possibility of going back to that porn site. Like that would achieve something.

Maybe I really don't want this enough.

How do I make myself want God more than porn?

Do I want this enough?

There were times during the last few weeks that I didn't want purity. I didn't want to be free of this addiction. At least, not enough.

There has been too much to struggle with, and I simply couldn't be bothered struggling not to MB. So I did MB. And, pretty soon, I was doing so habitually, day after day, and then needed a little something to help me along, and was back up to my neck in porn.

Not only had I lost the will to fight though, I had started using the problems building up around me as an excuse to act out. If my wife was on a downer one day, as soon as she went out I'd have my trousers round my ankles and be booting up a porn site...

I'd like to say I realised what I was doing before it went too far, but really, any involvement in porn is too much.

But it's good enough to say that I realised what I was doing. And stopped.

That didn't go so well.

It started off OK, but then other things in life went a bit pear-shaped, and I wound up in the binge-purge cycle again. About a week ago I finally got sick of staring brainlessly at naked women for the nth time, and now I'm back.

There is still stuff going on, stuff I won't be airing even under cover of anonymity. Stuff I've got to work out so I can get straight with God and my brain can regain control from, well, you know.

So, April went way down to 53.3% free of p&mb, and dragged my running total down accordingly:

January - 48.4% free
February - 67.9% free (01.01.06 - 28.02.06 - 57.6%)
March - 67.7% free (01.01.06 - 31.03.06 - 61.1%)
April - 53.3% free (01.01.06 - 30.04.06 - 59.2%)

And for the record, today is my 6th consecutive day without p or mb.