Well, I wonder why of all nights I joined this website tonight, but I already see where my limited experience can help. All right. Great. You know it's wrong. You think you're working towards stopping. Right? Well, you're wrong. The fact that you failed once means that this is going to effect you for the rest of your natural life. You know why? Because anything that you are addicted to changes your brain chemistry for life. You think that a recovered smoking addict never wants to smoke again? Or a crackhead who survived the withdrawal and has quit for years? No, they don't. But their body does. And they proved time and time again that their body had absolute power over them. This truly is going to effect you for a long time, and to a lesser extent, for life. Right now, you see woman and girls as objects. All members of the female gender within your age of preference is an object for appeasement, little more than a cheap sex toy. You don't believe me? Keep a close eye on your thoughts the next time you go to sleep, or are waking up to something other than an alarm clock. You'll find them going all over the place, a significant number of them in *that* direction, some of which are involving people you know. Having been there, I know. And having come clean(at least for the time being), I also know how easy and quick you would go into denial over my accusations if we were face to face. An addict lies to himself, thus he lies to others. First off, you need to identify your stressor. Mine was exactly that: stress. When I came across porn for the first time as 13, I was curios. Few months later, looked at it again out of curiosity, was like that for a few weeks. Then I just stopped. It was nothing but a fascination. It wasn't until I was probably 14 when porn really became a controlling factor in my life. I mean, my mom was bi-polar, my dad was working two jobs most of the time, my younger sister had turned into a little twit since she went to that god-forsaken middle school, and my baby sister was onto me about every little thing I did, something I had to endure due to the favoritism that was(and sometimes still is) shown towards my younger siblings. Along with that, I was still dealing with a traumatic and borderline violent experience I had at a Boy Scout Camp when I was 11. Unfortunately, as I learned to deal with all of these stresses at once, I created another. So by the time I was 15, I was pretty much hooked, and while I knew intellectually that it was wrong, I was not particularly ashamed of it. By then, I had pretty much learned every trick in the book to covering my tracks, even to the point that a government agency would have a hard time recovering any records of what I did. And by then, I had learned of the pleasures of masturbation. The combination pretty much had my addiction set in stone for the next two years. Every year after that, I kept telling myself that I would have this fixed by my next birthday. And at times, I thought I had. I went without it for what would feel like forever. In reality, it was no more than a few weeks at a time. And for every day I stayed off, my next bad streak would be 2, 3, 4x as long as I had abstained. At points, I would cry. And every time I went through those streaks, I have now identified one common factor in all of them: hopelessness. When I had lost all hope, I was the weakest, and most prone to external influence. When I was 17, my hormones settled down. A little. And it was during this period I believe I began making the most progress. It took time, but I came to identify my weak and strong periods, and what actually were the effects on my mental health. I did an experiment a while ago. I abstained for a week, then allowed myself to fall(well, I give myself a little too much credit there). For that day, and the bit of the next, I found myself more inclined to act aggressive, and though I disciplined myself to not act on it most of the time, it did slip through my mask a few times. I also found myself swinging to the extremes of my emotions more easily, I actually found that I was experiencing chest pains which I had for years looked over as a result of my (former) weight, and I was inclined to fall into that feeling of hopelessness. Unfortunately, I can not say I completely ended my activities for God, or the Church, or even myself. I entered into a very powerful, very loving relationship with someone whom I had met a number of months back. I found myself unable to fully enjoy the relationship, nor could I find myself to be a worthy partner and potential life mate with something so trivial controlling my life. This woman truly softened my heart as a person, and gave me the motivation I needed to attempt a stop. Since then, I have installed a series of countermeasures on my computer(the only one I used for that due to some weird sense of honor), and when I revealed to her my problems, she accepted the responsibility of being steward over the access to these programs. Unfortunately, sometimes the journey of a thousand miles ends badly. In a relatively recent time, I found myself at my computer at 2:30 AM. I was tired, I had had a bad day, and I really didn't know what I was doing. Hell, who am I kidding. I knew exactly what I was doing. I found a way around my own countermeasures, and I even said to myself, "Might as well enjoy the entire night. Going to hate myself in the morning." But after the first time, I basically just collapsed, and I nearly cried, something I honestly haven't done in a very long time. I felt a sense of emptiness, of longing, and my body knew this wasn't right. My body knew I shouldn't be wasting myself on this, but sharing this with someone, and my mind knew only with somebody I loved, and something deeper told me only at a certain time. Whether that be the years of Mormon "brainwashing" as I liked to call it at one point, or something more spiritual, that's up to you to decide. Fortunately, since then, my resolve has been absolute. I do my best to avoid these situations at all costs. My suggestions are first, pray. Kinda cheesy, right? Well, despite my youthful rebellion, I never stopped praying in private, nor during meals. I have always believe it to work. In the long run, it at least boosts your confidence. Next, find someone you can trust, someone you can confide in. At your age, that person should be an adult whose morale disposition is not in the least in question. You need support. My biggest mistake was trying to fight this alone. A warrior who has no reason to fight fights poorly. You need motivation. Your mission MIGHT do it for you, but realistically, has that helped you much? I don't think you would have been hitting the porn so much if it did. Find something, anything, that gives you the strength to endure. I would say until you're married, but, well, that isn't always the case. Porn is like a drug, and when used in conjunction with direct stimulation, can make your body dependent on it for sexual performance. The saddest story I have read so far is of a married woman whose husband had to turn on a porn tape in order for them to share the most intimate of moments, because he was not physically capable without it. Do your research. Avoid the sites that say, "It's natural, it's healthy." I continue to do research on the subject, and they still screw with my head if I don't watch myself. And when they say masturbation in males is a natural release for excessive fluids? It's not. Those are called nocturnal remissions, and they happen all on their own. Kind of like saying forest fires are natural when somebody starts it with a match. But the sites that explain the truth, the chemical effects sexual activity(especially sexual activity without a partner to which you're emotionally attached to), those are the ones you should visit. Now, the last thing I would encourage you is to read your scriptures. At least one chapter a day. Now, don't just go from start to finish. Find someone you like, or a topic you like. I've recently finished Ether and Moroni in the Book of Mormon. And believe it or not, I almost cried at the end of Moroni. I was kind of like, "That's it?" You don't know what happened to him afterward. And his words were so right, so powerful. IT is unfortunate how much our current world resembles the Nephites towards the end of their existence. Another reason why I'm so desperate to strengthen my own weaknesses. Now, the last and most practical advice I can give you is put internet filters on your computers, any that you have access to during hours or in locations in which you can be alone. I would suggest Blue Coat K9. They're pretty much infallible, but I would still go put in all of your favorite websites(you know, the dozen or so that you know don't have viruses, and still have your favorite genre?) manually. And make sure to get the https trick covered. http://www.lds.net/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=397708 Let's say that's a porn site. Well, in the case of most web filters, including some instances with K9, you can bypass them by using a secure connection. Generally a little slower, but it gets you what you want. You do this by replacing http:// at the beginning with https://. https://www.lds.net/forums/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote=1&p=397708 While K9 will block most sites even with this method, unfortunately, this was how I fell through last time with a site which I had memorized. And make sure somebody else has the password. While you shouldn't be able to figure it out EVER, you need to make sure you can uninstall the program without having to wipe your hard drive. Let me tell you, K9 is nearly impenetrable. I've tried every trick in the book(books, actually). But, ultimately, it's up to you. But you will be a better and happier person for it if you can go a long time. I'm talking half a year to a year, not a couple months. And make sure you have some Tylenol or ibuprofen around, because the withdrawal pain can be particularly nasty at times. I remember this quote from an article somewhere: "...to Gethsemane and back..."
