Starting with a badge

Hello, I've taken a step forward with quitting by submitting for a badge. I don't want to have to reset it too soon. My goal is 90 days without viewing anything, but honestly I know that it negatively affects my mental state every time I go checking all the usual sites for updates. I think it's best if I stay away from pornographic material for good.

I feel my heartrate go up and my blood pressure drop as I start to go through the steps to turn off porn blocking features on my phone. When I browse 2-3 times a day that easily takes up useful hours and leaves me with no energy. My brain goes into overdrive problem-solving how I will find the perfect content that makes me forget about all my problems for a while. It doesn't exist. I would have found it by now. I remember clicking through hundreds of pages of porn window-shopping when I was 13, and I have pretty much the same behavior now in my 30s. I might tell myself I'm headed straight to a specific video to be quick, but that never really happens. I scroll and preview and lose all track of time.

I want to take a break from thinking about pornographic narratives. I want to give my eyes a rest from graphic content. I want to focus my energy on other things like studying and hobbies and being present in each moment. These are the things that I enjoy in life. I'm tired of recognizing body parts and remembering full names and histories of pornographic work. There are other things I need to remember right now and that information is not helping me.

There is a part of me that wants to use porn, and I have difficulty living with that part. I know that it is signaling a deeper need for me to accept and heal my relationship with myself, but during cravings it is hard for me to remember that fact. Instead it feels like my brain is telling me I'm going to die if I don't take a break from my responsibilities and peek at some graphic visual stimulation.

For me, porn has very little to do with my preference for naked bodies. It has little to do with the kind of intimacy I desire. Porn searches are not a window into my secret truth. My addiction to porn is only as related to the bodies and acts that I watch as the flavor of beer was when I was deep in alcoholism. The only thing that matters for me with porn is how hardcore and perverted it is, and when I drank the only thing that mattered was the % ethanol. I have worked through about a million forms of denial to reach this understanding of myself.

I'm sober from alcohol 3yrs, and since making some life/career changes this year my priorities shifted to working on my relationship with myself. Porn is the biggest roadblock in my life right now. Every time I feel like I am approaching a major mental breakthrough and improvement in my life, cravings for porn go through the roof because subconsciously my brain is scared. I feel like my past self is about to die and I will become a slightly different person, and I get stuck. Porn is the mechanism that my brain uses to keep me frozen so that nothing significant changes in my life. It wants to keep me safe. Unfortunately, it's also keeping me miserable. This time, I want to keep my eyes on the goal and keep moving incrementally toward significant change. If anyone relates, know that you're not alone.