How I Survived the Pandemic as a Porn Addict

As an addict, my biggest test during the global pandemic of the past two years did not come from the fear of contracting COVID strains, the anxiety of losing multiple jobs and income streams, or even the frustration (and mounting anxiety) of addressing a chronic back injury I walked into the pandemic with. It was simply being home alone. Being alone, as an addict with plenty of time on my hands.

During the initial days of lockdown, I busied myself, so those hands wouldn't touch myself. So they wouldn't bypass the protocols I set in place: the passwords, the IP addresses. I initiated my own lockdown, so I wouldn't relapse and lose my momentum gained the previous year.

What followed over the ensuing twelve months was one of the most unexpected, elongated dream sequences of my life. Somehow, and within some perfect, cosmic timing, I steadied myself and did not slide back.

Here are some strategies I used to turn a corner when I least expected it. How I kept myself together when the world was falling apart.

1. Using the collective pause to collect myself

Alone in my apartment in Los Angeles, I spent the last two weeks of March buying groceries, gluing myself to MSNBC and uninstalling firewalls to view my porn of choice as my anxiety skyrocketed. Contrarily, at the beginning of April, I pressed pause and reflected on just how far I had progressed in my recovery the past two years.

Would I throw it all away because the drama of the pandemic was heightening my stress response? Or would I shift gears? The world was giving me a moment to decide.

When I say I'd come a long way, I had shifted so positively in the previous two years I was beginning not to recognize myself. I had admitted my addiction to my girlfriend in 2018. When she broke up with me, I entered rehab, gained a sponsor, moved into an apartment and, uncharacteristically, did not panic.

I started freelancing, started socializing. I gained another girlfriend by flirting with a cute woman at a bar that summer, and it was the first time I told someone new about my porn problem without officially being in a relationship with them.

I had already begun to change before the pandemic, and I didn't want to change back. I wasn't going to. I cleaned myself up, turned off the computer, and took a breath.

2. Sending out emergency flares for help

With most non-essential services shut down, I quickly came to rely on Zoom meetings set up by my rehab center, as well as the availability of my sponsor I had already been working with for two years. The former occurred weekly, but the latter, almost daily. I needed someone to talk to who had the experience to meet me in a critical and vulnerable place.

What surprised me was how much I began reaching out in addition to my rehab cohort: to West Point classmates across the country, to my Mom and Dad, to L.A. friends I realized were unaware I was walking a razor's edge.

I have written about my porn struggles in the past, but for the first time, desired to speak to people directly. I wanted them to know I was in trouble, but was taking steps. This was a new kind of accountability for me, the proactive kind. This was a chance to go on the offensive and talk openly about an issue that is still too often undiscussed.

Starting rehab in the fall of 2018 remains perhaps the best decision of my life. By using the pandemic to take even more initiative, I expanded my support network as well as update loved ones on my journey at a time when most addicts battle alone.

3. Avoiding gateway drugs that lead to porn

When it comes to my addiction, one, small, thing I'm grateful for is how my exposure to pornography as a teenager played a part in saving me from other drugs. It most certainly saved my wallet. I've stayed away from all manner of opioids; I've never taken meth, "benzos" or any kind of painkillers.

Imagine my surprise when, as summer 2020 began, I found myself inching toward porn with the assist of two I didn't see coming: sugar and marijuana. With anxiety levels still high, it made sense I would crave more dopamine. My "cheat days" became a fruitless exercise in curbing my desire to sit and binge all day.

I observed that if I took even the smallest amount of THC on those days, my appetite (and desire to binge-eat) would be activated. A few hours later and I'd find myself downing tacos and finishing entire, 7 oz. bags of chips. It was as if my brain had staged a prison break and was ransacking my entire house. I knew what it wanted: to masturbate to porn in order to complete the trifecta.

Things came to a head one Saturday in July after I came home and started making dinner. I took an edible and turned on Interstellar. Two hours later, I soared with Christopher Nolan, Anne Hathaway, and found solace among Matthew McConaughey's tears while eating cookie dough ice cream at midnight.

But I did not stream pornography after the credits. The weed and sugar, together, were enough to send me out of this world.

Afterward, I stopped going to the dispensary and reevaluated both my cheat day meals and use of edibles. I discontinued the latter for the remainder of 2020. My diet remained unchanged because eating anything I wanted once a week gave me a short leash of freedom, essential for an addict, just ideally without a stomach ache.

4. Seizing the moment to turn the page

On April 16, 2020, I began one of my longest NoFap streaks to date - 115 days without porn or masturbating to it - and quickly realized I was rising where, so often I prepared myself to fall. Before the year was over, I achieved another 130 combined days of no pornography. I was changing my life within a singular, moment of great pressure. I was doing it. No one could take that from me now.

My timing was critical in that I had rounded the corner of 2019 in a state of disrepair. The aforementioned relationship had faltered. My girlfriend broke up with me and I drank my way through Thanksgiving to begin a new accountability streak on December 1st.

Speaking of numbers, I knew that for an almost 39-year-old at the start of lockdown, my addiction was going to go one of two ways: either, I would control it and use the time for self-growth or my entire apartment would turn into an anxiety-driven, masturbation free-for-all from which I would not recover.

Addictions grow stronger the longer you feed them. Eventually, they overpower you. I'm happy to say I celebrated turning 40 in 2021 instead of mourning another year of backsliding and loss.

There's a gentleman I met in rehab who is almost fifteen years older than me. Currently, that puts him at 55 and from what he's shared, he's been using porn for over forty years, the entire length of my own life.

He told me once, "Trust me. Nip this in the bud now before it does irreparable damage, and it will." In the months prior to the pandemic, I felt his words. They ingrained themselves in me as I realized my second, full decade with the drug.

I celebrated March 2020 by locking the door, streaming some porn, and masturbating. Many of us did. The difference between them and me is the long, treacherous distance between habit and addiction.

For a moment, I found myself on the wrong side, on a dark night, on a dangerous stretch of road. Then I found my way back.