A Sex Addiction Story

At 3 am, the darkness of the night is especially opaque.  So much
so that it serves as a perfect boundary, not only between night and
day, but also a boundary for my compartmentalized life.  One
compartment includes the “real” life.  The one lived mostly in
sunlight by a 55 year old married father and professional.  That’s the
one that people see during the daytime.  The one that works an office
job, has raised his children, and meets his responsibilities.  The
other compartment  brings us back into the darkness.  The thick
darkness when the sun has disappeared for hours and everyone else is
asleep.  There is unnatural light of course.  It’s the light of the
computer screen shining into my eyes.  My eyes are glued.  Either to
an adult chat room chatting away with another adult, or to a “free”
pornographic movie that I found after searching for the perfect visual
stimulus.  I’m also naked which makes it easier to create a slow build
up, or “edge” my way to an orgasm.  Sometimes, in a weird way, I think
about those sessions as an opus, slow movement, followed by faster
ones.  Each one contributing in its own way to the ultimate crescendo.
Sadly, that crescendo is always followed by a mountain of guilt and
shame.  Sensations that kick in immediately.  The next day, my real
world self looks at this scene and sees sadness, and ponders how I got
here.  The 3 am self doesn’t care as he searches for that next hit
of dopamine.


How I got here is a story that starts in my early teens.  Thirteen to
be exact.  That was when I was first introduced to porn.  Like others
it was an experience with my older brother.  I was way too young to
see these images but growing up in a conservative home, there was not
much formal sex education and he thought ‘I needed to learn somehow.’
The videos were explicit, and there were the token orgy scenes, as
well as, one on one, lesbian, and threesome scenes.  Plenty of variety
in each video to please the most curious eyes.  Some were thought out
stories, some were just a parade of nude women and men having sex.


Either way, the images were too much for this young boy who was
already jacked up on testosterone, curiosity, and lust.  That is how I
see things now anyway.  My first time masturbating was after watching
one of those movies and sleeping on his couch.  Thinking back now, my
sister-in-law at the time must have had some inkling of what I was
about to do, because after she set up the sheets on their living room
couch where I was to sleep, she left a box of tissues on the floor
beside the couch.  I didn’t realize it at the time, why she had done
that and even remember thinking I didn’t even have a runny nose!  When
my hand’s curiosity found its place on my body and I eventually
experienced my first orgasm that night, it became clear.
Embarrassment, guilt, and confusion, were the emotions I remember most
about that first time.  Especially the thought of seeing her at
breakfast the next morning.  While the rest of the time at their house
was uneventful, I will never forget the feeling of how she must have
known what I was about to do and just feeling wildly ashamed of that.


I certainly didn’t realize it at the time but, feeling ashamed would
be an emotion that would stay with me throughout my life.  It would
be, and still is late in my 50s, a weight I carry with me from the
minute I wake up until the minute I go to sleep.  The person that
walks around everyday, husbanding, fathering, and working is
thoroughly ashamed of the person who is up at 3:00 am watching porn.


As I grew older, I started renting my own videos.  By the time I was
16, I would close the door on most Friday and Saturday nights while
watching porn in my bedroom.  The addiction was forming.  I remember
telling myself, “just this once,” or “let me just…”  I would strip
naked, watch and masturbate.  It wasn’t long before I’d look for more
stimulation, wearing my mother’s old pantyhose while watching porn
became a thing, and so did using lotion or petroleum jelly on my body.
I also distinctly remember a day in high school walking up the stairs
beside my crush at the time.  She was a beautiful, warm, and sweet
classmate.  She was also talking to me, which for a teenage boy made
her immensely more attractive.  For my part, on the outside, I did my
best at talking, flirting, or whatever I could to keep the dialogue
going.  On the inside, the shame, disgust, and humiliation of what I
had watched, and done to myself the night before clouded my head like
a dense fog covering a deep meadow on a cool spring morning.


I was a somewhat normal teenager and young adult on the outside.
Going to school, working, dating,  were all part of my real life,
although feelings of teenage love engulfed me during the day, lust and
perversion replaced those thoughts at night in my bedroom.  I would
fantasized about almost everyone in my life. friends, classmates,
teachers, customers and co-workers at my job.  I would masturbate
thinking about them at night and then be ashamed the next day when I
saw them. Just like my crush.


Upon graduating college, and securing my first job, it didn’t take me
long to hire my first masseuse.  She was kind, gentle, new it was my
first time and went further with me than I ever imagined.  The term is
happy ending, and now I was hooked on this too.  I remember spending
many Saturday afternoons, after telling my friends I had to work, by
making appointments and getting massages.  Technically, I hired my
first prostitute on New Years’ Eve, 2003 when I found myself alone in
my one bedroom apartment after being with my friends.  The images of
all those black evening gowns and shapely legs in nylons were too much
for this 20 something.  She came to my apartment and we cuddled,
showered together, massaged each other and she helped with reaching
orgasm several times.  No intercourse though.


I was intimate with a few women through romantic relationships and did
lose my virginity to an older woman when I was 19.  But I remember
thinking that most of my attention in those relationships were about
sex.  When and how was I going to have it.  I destroyed a few of those
relationships because I never really understood how to communicate my
desires, and found that nobody I was with could match the images I had
formed about what my lovers should be like in my head.


I went through many stretches, some weeks, some months, where I tried
to “give it all up,” cold turkey.  Each time, those stretches ended
with either watching porn privately, or finding some paid sex worker
to spend time with.  Once the internet took off, all hope of me
winning the battle against my addiction to porn was lost.  I found
ways to watch porn without anyone knowing, not even the cashiers at
the video store, or the convenience store. No video stores, no
secretly buying adult magazines, although I still occasionally did.  I
eventually even found ways to connect with other adults with the same
interest in porn as I had.  I chatted on adult chat rooms and even
found myself on sites where people could meet for casual sex.


Eventually, I even found myself experiencing orgasms with men.  First
online then with male masseuses.  Then, through those sites where
adults could connect for casual sex.  Throughout all of these
experiences my life remained compartmentalized.  Although the walls
were cracking.  I would occasionally miss a day of work from going too
many nights in a row with virtually no sleep.  Or, even worse, miss
time with my family because ‘I didn’t feel well.’  If I found a way to
pay for a paid sex worker without my wife knowing, I would make up an
excuse on a Saturday or Sunday to ‘go into the office.’ The more the
interference of my nighttime life interfered with my daytime life, the
more I felt embarrassed and ashamed of what I was doing.  None of
those emotions ever were enough for me to seek help.


Along the way, I either rationalized the experiences, or negotiated
with myself by arguing, ‘this would be the last time.’  However, in
the end, as I look back now, the addiction had completely taken over
my life.  If I was an alcoholic, I might be described as a functioning
one.  I was able to meet nearly all of my obligations while
maintaining this addiction.  The problem is, even today, if I let
myself go down this path, I cannot face the people in my life with
feeling ashamed of who I am, or better said, what the addiction has
led me to watch, fantasize and do.  Those people include co-workers,
mentors, siblings, and now wife and kids.  It is hard to describe the
feeling of sitting next to your kid knowing what you know about your
behavior.  Embarrassment and shame don’t give it justice.


So, where does that leave me?  The answer is not great. Earlier today,
the day I wrote this, I found some time to watch porn.  Earlier this
same week, I found time to spend a significant amount of time on that
adult chat room.  However, and this is a big step for me, I met
someone who suggested I tell my story and seek help.  Amazingly, my
biggest concern of seeking help, outside of losing any anonymity, is
that I like watching porn and chatting about sex.  As I write that
sentence, the sadness of it isn’t lost on me.  But, if there is a
corner that may have been turned in this mini saga, it is that I’m not
completely opposed to seeking help.  It is also that I convinced
myself to write this so that someone out there who may be going
through the same, or similar thing, may know there is someone in the
same proverbial boat, feeling the same feelings.  Maybe they will seek
help or at least start to admit to themselves that this is an
addiction.


This is especially true, as I think about 20 somethings today, who
never had to sneak a magazine or video into their home.  They can feed
their addiction in a completely anonymous way.  Plus, the barriers to
entry are extremely low.  Free in fact.  That adult chat room, free.
That online porn, free.  Free of course monetarily, but not
emotionally.  Hopefully, in some small way, this article can
counteract the extraordinarily strong forces that push these images
and opportunities for easy access sex into young men’s lives.

A group is called SLAA, i.e. sex and love addicts anonymous. It is nothing to be ashamed of So many people have these issues. Website is www. slaanei.org.