This turned into an epic, so it’s only for the patient :)
I come from a fairly poor family. I have two younger brothers. My parents are average, ordinary people. My mum has worked in the same factory job for many years, on three shifts, for a miserable minimum wage. My dad is a handyman. He knows everything about building; he could put up a house on his own and finish it. Even so, he slaved all his life for peanuts and ruined his health at work. His health is wrecked, his heart included, and he can no longer work.
Sometimes I see that tiredness in his eyes. Maybe that’s why he escaped into alcohol for as long as I can remember. Something was eating him; he was full of disappointment and wanted to feel better for a while. He didn’t drink every day. He went on binges, about twice a month on average. Only someone who has or had an alcoholic father will understand what I’m writing about now. Hiding it from the neighbours, questions like “So how’s your dad?” Constant stress, arguments. The worst was when he had nothing left to drink with, because Mum had taken his bank cards or the account was empty. Then the borrowing started, and drinking away the last of the money. The shakes, sleepless nights; once he even ran away from home through the window because he was shaking so badly and had to have a drink. Not even a heart attack stopped him. Then the stress was doubled. Will he make it through the night? Will his heart hold out? He’s just had a heart attack, and he’s shaking like this… I can see that picture as if it were yesterday. To this day I admire my mum for putting up with all of it.
As the eldest, it affected me in a particular way. I became more responsible than my age; extra duties fell on me: looking after my brothers, cooking, cleaning. Often I had the whole house on my head, including my drunk father. I had to be like that. I had to be strong. On top of that there were frequent moves from one rented place to another, and helping Dad with renovations, because he took cash-in-hand jobs on the side to make ends meet.
As a young person I was overloaded with duties, yet I was always among the best students at school. I don’t know how I managed it. Maybe because my parents told me all my life that learning is the most important thing, and that parties, girls and friends would come later. Nonsense, haha :) But I think they wanted the best for me; their advice just doesn’t fit today’s reality. For them, a degree meant a brilliant job and brilliant pay. They explained their own poor work situation mainly by the fact that they hadn’t finished a proper school, university or even their final exams.
I was always like this anyway. Shy, reserved. I felt inferior because I wasn’t as outgoing as others. Less brave, but hungry for knowledge, with a huge imagination, full of questions, doubts and reflections. I also have an artistic talent; I drew brilliantly. Probably inherited from my grandmother. I knew poverty and the feeling of going without. Even hunger. I didn’t want to end up like my parents. I believed school would get me out of poverty. When I finished university I would “be somebody”; I would have a comfortable life.
Instead of an academic high school, I chose a technical school for electrical engineering. My parents weren’t happy, but I wanted to be good at something, not just learn generalities. Despite everything, it was one of the best periods of my life. I had great teachers, with passion and a real calling. There, for the first time, I heard my maths teacher say: “You’re an incredible student for your age: ambitious, outstanding, with an unusual personality, as if from another era. You deserve success in life. You have to achieve something; you can’t waste yourself in this grey mediocrity. You deserve a beautiful life.” I graduated with distinction, one of the best in the school. At home I never heard even a simple “I’m proud of you, son.”
All very nice, you’ll think, so where’s the problem? People have bigger problems than this. But, as you can guess, there’s a second, dark side to me. I don’t even remember the first time I masturbated. It feels as though it has always been with me. At first it was innocent: a few photos that fell into my hands by chance, fantasies. We didn’t have internet at home yet. I started like everyone else. But the line is very thin, and before I knew it I was spending a huge amount of time pleasuring myself. Over time I did it every day, several times a day. A ritual. School, food, homework, jerking off, sleep. Round and round.
When we finally got internet at home, around the end of middle school, I was completely lost. I could spend a whole night on porn even though I had school in the morning. I was like in a trance, barely conscious. Contact with girls: zero. There were only four of them in the whole technical school anyway. I felt as if I had two personalities. People saw me as a role model. I didn’t drink, didn’t smoke, I studied brilliantly. Spotless from the outside. Inside there was that second me: a young, sensitive boy buried in duties, stress and fears. Lost, without role models, support or good advice. Broken inside, sad and unhappy. But the worst was still ahead of me.
The wake-up call came in my final year of technical school. I decided to go to some extra classes with my class. It was spring. The teacher brought up the subject of porn addiction. He started talking about how it pulls people in, how it makes them lose their way. I sat there stunned, as if someone had hit me over the head with a brick. It dawned on me that maybe this was why I felt so powerless and dulled.
I decided then to stop, but the habit didn’t let go easily. At first I didn’t know how to go about it. I’d last two or three days and then go on such a binge that I didn’t sleep for two nights. Just like my father… except instead of alcohol I had videos. Sometimes I shook in front of the computer like an addict.
Meanwhile I finished technical school, and although I had three job offers straight away, I went to university in the same field. That turned out to be a big mistake. My picture of university shattered very quickly. I got the worst teachers of my life: a bunch of old goats who treat students like rubbish. I have honestly never met such rudeness, and from people with titles! The knowledge they passed on was completely detached from reality. I thought it would make me good at something and help me in life, or at least inspire me or point me in some direction. I was terribly disappointed. I became cold and unfeeling. This wasn’t how I had imagined it. I came to hate education. When I look at physics now, I want to throw up. Those people took away my curiosity and any desire to learn.
I developed a nervous condition. Heart and stomach problems started. I became a terrible pessimist. I stopped enjoying life, stopped laughing. I felt my whole world had collapsed; my whole life plan lay in ruins. I had always believed that university meant something, and then came this collision. I remembered my maths teacher’s words: “Even though you’re very good at maths, I don’t think a technical university is for you. You’ll wear yourself out there.” Her words turned out to be prophetic.
All of it was the last straw. I sank completely into porn. I walked around constantly pissed off, angry, fed up with everything. I moved on to harder and harder genres. Erection problems appeared; I needed more and more varied videos. Somewhere deep down I knew I was doing wrong, but I couldn’t stop. I lied to myself. Sometimes I’d be sitting there at five in the morning after a porn marathon, wondering whether it was even worth going to bed. I had to leave for university soon anyway! More than once I promised myself: never again. But then something would get hold of me and I’d make excuses for myself. I don’t think I’ve hit rock bottom yet. So many important things I’ve screwed up through my absent-mindedness, lack of sleep and constant tiredness.
But in the end something clicked. After yet another marathon, with tears in my eyes, I realised that time was passing. Whether I like it or not, I’ll die one day, and then money, degrees and learning won’t help me. There’s no power against that. In the face of passing time we’re all equal. Is this what the next years of my life are supposed to look like? One day I might be 80, and what will I remember? Hundreds, thousands of hours slipping through my fingers, wasted on some videos?! Where would I be now? What level would I be at if I hadn’t squandered my precious time on it?
Today I know that “it is not titles that honour men, but men that honour titles,” as Machiavelli said. Your worth is shown by what kind of person you are, how you treat others and what principles you live by. The letters in front of your name you can shove where the sun doesn’t shine. I’m in my fifth semester. I kidded myself that it would get better. It hasn’t. If I end up having to repeat a course, I’ll drop the whole damn thing.
I’ve been reading about this problem for almost half a year. My recovery has had its ups and downs, and I had a small slip, but I’ve been clean for almost three months. I’ve gone back to old interests, I play sport and try to fill my free time as much as I can. I’ve started playing the guitar. I go out among people and I’m breaking down barriers with women. I’m learning to control my emotions, because there are still a lot of negative ones in me. I’m trying to calm down. I’ve started the process of fixing my life.
But today the dark side of the force hit me hard again. One of my best friends, and I don’t have many, stabbed me in the back, as they say… My mood swings are incredible even now, but I have to get through it. I believe it will get better.
In my story I focused mainly on my childhood. I wanted to describe it because I think addiction isn’t only a cause but also an effect. The road into addiction looks similar for everyone, but the reasons sometimes lie much deeper than we think, and they can be different for each person. I already know what mine are. Paradoxically, the addiction made them even stronger. But just as everything begins, one day it ends.
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