Talk about it to the world

Well here I am, on day 16 and still doing o.k. I feel that the since I have started this blog and came out about this that things have gotten easier. I am still anonymous, but at least this is something. I have been on the verge of telling my wife or friends about this for years, but I have not had the courage. I don't know if I will ever be able to tell the truth. I am ashamed of of this. I know that I should not be, but I hear others talking about people who look at porn and they make fun of them, laugh about them, and accuse them of being sick. I just laugh along, but I am just shriveling up inside. I don't know what is wrong with me. My family never talked about sex. They never came to me and gave me "the talk". No instead they just left the Joy of Sex out for me to look at when I was 17. By then though it was to late. I would watch R rated movies and masturbate to them when I was 13. I went to boy scouts camp once and was told about a guy who found a porno mag while hiking near the bridges. So I went and looked every where until I found some. Then I would bring it home and masturbate and feel awful about it. I was about 14 at the time. Things just kept getting worse and worse. Soon I would throw it all away, and then have to get more. I found that I could sneak up behind adult book stores and find some in their garbage. Then in high school a guy showed me how to connect to BBS's using my modem and I downloaded as much porn as I could find. I learned to be good on computers and find ways of hiding the truth from everyone. This kept up for years and years. Once I got to be 18 I would go and buy some just to have it. I met my wife when I was 18 and it really did not help much. Just someone else to hide the truth from. I then I went to college and found out even more about networking and computers just to find new ways to get porn. Usenet, ftp's, encoding, decoding, Proxy servers, routers, everything just to get more porn. I have tried and tried to get clean, but everything has failed. Then I got a job with an office and things just got worse. Being in IT I have found ways to around almost any security that is put in my way. I learned that it was difficult to detect my activities. So this is when I started to put up my own blocks. Parental blocking softwear, blacklists, anything I could think of. And then I started to look for porn that would go around all of blocks. I hate to say it, but almost all of my computer knowledge hes come from porn. I am older now. Over 20 years of this and I am sick of this. No more! I will keep at this until I can fix this. SO that is a brief of my history. This is the first time I have put this down in writing. And still I have not said it all. Someday maybe.

Been a while but still going strong

I have not posted all week. Been busy with work and life. It is always easier when you get busy. You don't think about your habit as much. I find also that hard work or just working out helps to. But if I work hard in the morning I find my defences are down at the end of the day. Just be strong an keep positive.

Day 7

Well I have survived to day 7 although I stepped into the area of gray yesterday. But I did not see anything hard or even that is considered porn. Anyway, this did bring me down a little. This stuff is everywhere! Just normal searching will bring this stuff bubbling to the surface. I was looking for music and this led to sites with adult content on it. I did not click on them. I did not browse. I just tried to advert my attention to the music I I was looking at. Anyway. I consider this still O.K. I found focusing on a goal, what I was looking for, and let myself get distracted helped. But oh the temptation.

Shields still holding captain!

Well this morning has been tough. I got board and decided to "test the defenses" I put up. I want to say that I was not wanting to view porn, but that might not be entirely true. I did want to see how well my all of my blockers would work against my attempts. I did not try that hard, and everything held. Then I got up and walked away. I stopped after only about 10 minutes of trying. I really feel that this was an accomplishment. So I am glad to say that I am still free.

Day 4 and still going strong

Well this is day 4 and I am still going strong. I was tempted yesterday but got up and took a short walk. Still good.

Clean house!

Another thing that I do to help me break this habit is to clean house. I don't mean my house. I mean take all computer links, images, movies, magazines, anything and everything that has to do with your habit and throw it out. This sounds easy, but if you are like me you might have spent a long time building up all of this stuff. This stuff and you can almost form a bond, or a type of security blanket. But you will never be habit free if all this stuff is there. Don't tempt yourself. I tell you, when you do this the feeling of freedom after words is incredible.

Day 3 Free

Well here I am on day 3. My goal is to hit 30 days. That's not to long. Just take one day at a time.

Hope. Easy to say tough to believe

I don't know if this is true for others, but hope that you will some day break your habits and change is the most important thing. I find myself reverting to bad habits when ever I start to get down, depressed, and discouraged.

What do you do? Do you give up and just say that this is impossible. I have said this more times then I can count. I have said, "Never again!", even more times. This has caused me to try and justify my actions. Make it seem that it is not a problem. But I know that I am just lying to myself.

So how do you keep that flame of hope alive? This is the most difficult thing. I really have no answer for this. Everyone is different. My hope comes from the desire to change. The more I focus on my goal the more closer it seems. For every victory I have, I feel pride. For every failure, I try to pick myself up and move forward. But it is tough. I think that I can do this. I have HOPE that I can.

Can't touch that!

I am talking about barriers not the MC Hammer song. In my attempts to stop my browsing behaviors I have found that barriers work fairly well. However, the truth is that none of them are fool proof. The thinking behind this is that it gives you a second chance and makes it a little bit tougher to get there. Since humans are by nature lazy creatures this works to help discourage this behavior by creating extra work.

There are several tools to help and several tools to avoid. The first tool is the one right in front of you. I am talking about your web browser. Most web browsers allow you to block certain websites. These are the sites you most commonly go to exercise your habit. Here's how to do this using the two most common browsers.

For Internet Explorer, got to tools. Click on the Security tab. Click on the Restricted sites icon towards the top. Then click sites. Start adding the sites here.

For Firefox it is a little harder, but still easy. I have found that the best tool is the add-on called LeechBlock. To add it to firefox just click on tools, then add-ons. Next click get add-ons then type in Leechblock in the search bar. Then install the add-on. Next under the add-on menu again, click options under Leechblock. Then enter in the domain names. This one is very powerful because it can use a wide range of wildcards. Lets say I want to avoid any site with teens in the url. Just enter in *teens* and there you go.

Just for the record there is a browser to avoid if you have bad habits on the internet. Google's Chrome. It is wicked fast, but it has no blocking ability and in stealth mode seems to be able to ignore some of the download limits that companies like rapidshare use. I say avoid it because the last thing you want to do is to make your habits easier to do. This was by the way my latest downfall. But I have taken if off my computer and hope that this time I will not fall back into the habit.

Stop the Trash

So this is the first post in this Blog so I feel that I must explain what this is about.

The truth is I have a problem viewing porn on the internet. Yeah I know who doesn't. I have been sort of addicted to porn since I was 16. So for 20 years I have been hiding in shadows and trying not to let anyone know. It has not been easy. However, I work in IT so I know networks, programing, computers, and some hacking. This effectually means that I can and have found my way around most blocks that are put in my way to view the stuff. Now I know that I am not alone out their. And it does not have to be just porn. Gambling, chatting, social media. It all could be an addiction that can get you in trouble at work.

So now to the point. I am creating this blog because I have been frustrated trying to find ways to help me stop doing this. I have looked and looked and looked. You might think that this is easy, but for every block put in front of me I have found a way around it. Now I am not here to share how I find the stuff or how I get around the system. I am here to to sort of make a journal of how I will break the habit and what specific techniques I use. I know that every one is different so I am hoping to have other contribute as well and have this blog be a depository for all of this information. Big goals I know, but I think this can be done. With everyone's help I am sure that we can make this a great spot and help many people to stop the trash in their lives.