The things people noticed, the conversations they avoided, and the changes they’re still working on.
Porn and gaming filled the hours I was afraid to spend with other people. Work, friendship and movement slowly gave those hours another shape.
Read the story : I could never stop at the time I had plannedI was hard as a rock with porn and limp with my girlfriend, and I blamed her. Then she borrowed my laptop and saw my browser history. Two months in, my libido is at zero.
Read the story : I blamed her for my soft erections until she found the porn on my laptopThree months off masturbation while still watching porn did nothing. Only after I stopped the porn too did my erections harden and the wet dreams start, at 33.
Read the story : It took almost a year of quitting before I noticed any improvementI started watching porn to make sex with my fiancé feel better. Instead I began dodging sex, hiding it from him and sinking into low moods.
Read the story : I watched porn to enjoy sex more and ended up avoiding itMy partner quit porn and I gave up my own occasional use alongside him. Five months on, his morning erections are back and so is the spark between us.
Read the story : We quit porn together and the butterflies came backAt 24, my friends think I sleep with a different woman every week. In reality, since nineteen I've gone soft with every woman, yet porn always works.
Read the story : Everyone thinks I'm a ladies' man, but porn took my erectionsI'd gone 77 days without porn, running 10 km a day and looking women in the eye. Then I slipped. I'm not letting one day undo it, and I'm not going back.
Read the story : I relapsed on day 77 and decided it was the last timeI told my fiancée about my porn problem and she promised to help. Then she found my videos. Now I'm out of work, back in the habit, and she has no idea.
Read the story : I told my fiancée about porn, then went back to hiding itAt twenty, two weeks without masturbating was my longest in three years. I checked whether everything still worked, twice, and after the second time I had nothing.
Read the story : Two weeks clean, then I tested myself and my erections vanishedAfter five years of nothing but porn, I met the woman I'd waited for. I get erections at night, but with her they fail when it matters.
Read the story : I finally met the woman of my life and couldn't get hardHe said he loved me while we went weeks without sex, then admitted he was addicted to porn. Nine months on, I keep catching him and I can't stop checking.
Read the story : No sex for weeks, then he told me he was addicted to pornEvery test came back normal, but I had no morning erections and went limp around women. A month without porn and three weeks without masturbating changed that.
Read the story : A month off porn and my morning erections came backEvery time I swear it's over and mark it in my calendar. A few days later I forget why, justify it easily, and only remember once I've slipped.
Read the story : After a few days I forget how much I don't want pornHe stopped for me, not because he saw a problem. Now he's on edge and isolating himself, and I don't know whether to step back or stay close.
Read the story : My fiancé quit porn because I asked, then pulled away from meI quit porn the night I met her. The limpness came back fast, the pills worked only at the start, and now I'm wondering about pumps and injections.
Read the story : Viagra helped at first, then stopped helpingWhen I finally had a girlfriend, sex was nothing like what I'd watched for years. Now she wants me, and I want porn.
Read the story : I stopped wanting sex with my girlfriend, but not pornWe're expecting a baby. He knows he's hooked, lies when I ask, and when we do have sex he gets no pleasure from it. Nothing I try reaches him.
Read the story : My husband has avoided sex for two years, but he still watches porn almost every dayQuitting makes sense on paper, but loneliness made it easy to keep going. A failed night with a girl was my warning light, and I'm still fighting.
Read the story : With no friends and no girlfriend, porn filled all my free timeAt 24 I wrote about myself as a character, a man who keeps promising and keeps failing, to see how it looks from outside and write him a way out.
Read the story : I kept losing to porn, scared for my erections and my orientationThe early improvement faded. My libido is low, my morning erections are gone, and I'm barely holding on while I decide whether to wait or see a doctor.
Read the story : Months into quitting, my libido still hasn't come backIn bed with women I drifted off, lost my erection or needed porn from memory. Five days into quitting, my libido is gone and I'm counting on it returning.
Read the story : I had to replay porn in my head to get hard with herI've never been kissed, I lost my friends to the screen, and my degree counted for nothing at interviews. Now I'm finally on a break from porn.
Read the story : I'm twenty-seven and I feel I lost the best years of my lifeSex stopped when my wife got pregnant, and I escaped into porn. Three years on, I love her, she wants me, and I keep letting her down.
Read the story : Since our son was born, porn has replaced sex with my wifeI went from a boy who couldn't look at his own reflection to a confident man doing well at work. Yet my longest break from porn is under three weeks.
Read the story : I stopped being shy, but I still couldn't stop watching pornLess than a year earlier I'd had normal erections with women. Three weeks off porn, quitting feels almost too easy, but my drive hasn't come back.
Read the story : At twenty I realised I no longer reacted to women at allMy husband says watching is harmless and only occasional. I know he watches almost daily, while sex with me has become a weekly favour.
Read the story : He watches porn every morning, but sex with me feels like a favourMy erection held the whole time, but nothing we tried let me come. My girlfriend thought she didn't turn me on enough. I suspected my grip.
Read the story : I could stay hard with my girlfriend but never finishI went from an easy-going kid to someone who avoided eye contact and couldn't make himself study. Two weeks in, I already feel much better.
Read the story : I used to look people in the eye. After years of porn, I couldn'tI managed three weeks without porn and felt great. Since then it's a loop: I give in, and the moment I finish, the disgust comes back.
Read the story : The second I finished, I was disgusted with myselfI quit for real after meeting the girl of my dreams. Three weeks in, my anxiety, fog and anger came back, and I couldn't tell if it was withdrawal.
Read the story : A month off porn, and almost everything made me angryI cycled through long breaks, returns, depression and six-hour sessions. This is where I was when I finally described the pattern.
Read the story : I didn’t know whether I would ever get outOrdinary porn stopped working, so I went further. At 23, with no girlfriend and a failed night with a woman, I didn't know what I was anymore.
Read the story : I drifted into trans porn and started to question who I wasAfter two years of erection problems, therapy and a relapse, I'm off porn again, but my morning erections haven't returned and the flatline drags on.
Read the story : I'm still waiting for my morning erections to come backPorn and overeating filled every evening while my life went nowhere. When I finally tried sex, I couldn't finish.
Read the story : At twenty-seven I'd never even held a girl's handMy first time with the girl I love failed because I couldn't get fully hard. Now I'm three weeks without masturbating and unsure what's normal.
Read the story : I couldn't get fully hard on my first time with the girl I loveFive months after quitting porn I feel more confident and drawn to women, but I can't balance a high sex drive with the energy I lose after orgasm.
Read the story : Five months off porn, I'm torn between feeling charged and wanting releaseChecking for new videos became my ritual before sleep. I finish fast, so I hid in masturbation, and my girlfriend doesn't know. Today I'm stopping.
Read the story : I scrolled porn in bed until 3 a.m. and feared finishing fastMonths off porn brought back my morning erections, but not my nerve. Fear of finishing too fast kept me out of bed, and the pills only gave me a headache.
Read the story : I carried two pills in my wallet like a man of seventyAt 26 I had never had intercourse. With every partner my body didn’t respond; alone with porn it did. Fear and loneliness kept pulling me back.
Read the story : I could get hard with porn, but never with a partnerI'm 23 and still a virgin. I ended things with most of the girls I dated; they left me indifferent. I've lost to porn so many times I've stopped counting.
Read the story : I never fell in love, because porn always felt easierTen years of porn pushed my fetishes further and drained the joy from my life. Four weeks into quitting, I nearly slipped, and I'm practising eye contact.
Read the story : I stopped enjoying anything, and now I'm relearning eye contactFor two years he barely wanted sex and said it was my fault. Then he admitted to daily porn, and now I can't tell whether he's telling me the truth.
Read the story : My boyfriend blamed my moods, then admitted he watched porn every dayI'm 31. After a breakup my porn kept escalating and my erections failed with each new woman. Now I'm falling for someone and still can't.
Read the story : My porn drifted to trans videos, and with women I went softMy father drank, and I was the model student everyone admired. Porn was my hidden second life, and it cost me sleep, calm and years.
Read the story : I'd finish a porn marathon at 5 a.m. and wonder if bed was worth itI let my business sink into debt while my evenings went to porn. Four weeks without it, I'm slowly starting to feel things again.
Read the story : At thirty, my business was gone and porn was all I waited forI'm 29 and had been off porn for months. Then I had sex: a half-hearted erection, fifteen seconds, no pleasure at all. I don't know what's wrong.
Read the story : Eight months off porn, and I was still only half hardA few months after I started masturbating to porn, my orgasms with my boyfriend stopped. I blamed him and the relationship, not the hentai.
Read the story : I could only climax alone, never with my boyfriendI'm 22 and still a virgin. Porn and weed pulled me towards material I hate myself for. Two days ago I decided to stop both.
Read the story : I started with softcore and ended up hating what I watchedWell into quitting porn, I started getting close to my new girlfriend. Afterwards I'd feel foggy and flat for hours, almost like after a porn marathon.
Read the story : Being intimate with my girlfriend left me foggy, like after a porn bingeI had trouble concentrating long before porn. Late nights of gaming and porn left me exhausted, and my hand kept wandering even when I didn't want it.
Read the story : Gaming and porn kept me up until four in the morningFalling in love made me look hard at my life. Two weeks off porn I feel full of energy, but I'm ashamed of what turned me on and afraid it won't reset.
Read the story : I fell in love with a woman, but cross-dresser photos aroused me mostPorn never seemed to hurt sex with my wife. After the divorce I went limp with new partners, the pills did nothing, and even hard I couldn't finish.
Read the story : After my divorce, my erection became a lotteryHe could only finish by hand, and I could see his mind drifting to porn. We agreed he had a problem, and now I'm trying to help him quit.
Read the story : My boyfriend got hard easily but couldn't finish with meAt 32 I quit porn overnight. Five months on I feel more confident, but my libido keeps returning and vanishing, and I don't know why.
Read the story : My libido came back for two weeks, then disappeared againI used it when life felt hard and as a reward when things went well. Finding other people with the same struggle made change feel possible.
Read the story : Porn became my response to every kind of feelingI'm 29, divorced, and women simply stopped attracting me. A few days ago I finally quit, and I'm riding out the mood swings.
Read the story : Looking back, porn wrecked my marriage and my interest in womenAfter a great start, my partner always had an excuse. Then I checked his history and saw he watched porn right around the times he turned me down.
Read the story : He was always too tired for sex, but not for pornTwenty years of masturbation as my fastest release. Then short erections, avoided penetration, and medication that helped until my blood pressure rose.
Read the story : At 32, my erections got shorter and I began avoiding sexI used to be the relaxed one in every room. Porn left me tense in company and finishing too fast. Slowly cutting it out is bringing me back.
Read the story : Porn made me anxious around people and quick to finish