What’s going on, guys? For about the last 3 years, I have been battling an addiction that has been compromising my future and my relationships. When you go on adult sites, you may see ads for cam sites. Well, sometimes I’d spend an hour or two on an adult site, trying to find the perfect video, and then one day I finally caved in and wanted to see what the fuss was about for these cam sites. It was probably the worst decision I ever made.
I got sucked in slowly, but surely, over time. It started off with maybe one or two $10 purchases, tipping a model $10 here and there. Innocent, nothing huge, nothing significant. But, after about three to six months of experimenting and visiting these cam sites, I realized myself going on it more and more frequently. Fast-forward to the last, I want to say, 8 months, every single month I have been spending any and every last bit of extra money that I have coming in monthly on cam sites, on online paid porn, on models. And it has not only compromised my relationship but my future.
Luckily, I have a very understanding partner. You guys all know her as Nicole Drinkwater. And I finally had the courage to open up to her about it. Because I had no savings. I had nothing for my future. And even at one point I was getting to a negative balance. And I had to make excuses as to why I couldn’t afford to go out to this nice dinner, or why we couldn’t take this trip here, or why I couldn’t do this or that. I had to make excuses because I wasn’t ready to admit the truth. The truth is that I had been wasting all of my money on this cam site addiction.
I had always been someone that I thought was good with money, in the sense that I didn’t spend my money on clothes, anything materialistic, on cars, anything that I didn’t need. So when this came about, I don’t know how it took me so wrong to realize how bad it got. And when I realized how bad it got, it was a case of every day saying, “This is the last time.” And that went on for months and months.
Now I came up with a system with Nicole after opening up with her where every single morning she goes through all my bank accounts. She knows where all my money comes in and where all my money goes out. Now we’ve built up that trust and it has been working. So for the last, I want to say 2 months, we have had this system in place. I haven’t spent any money related to anything that I was wasting all my money on before. So I’ve made huge progress considering the last 2 years all of my extra money has been going to these cam sites leaving me with nothing every month. And in the last 6 months, in a negative balance.
But before the pandemic happened is when we had this system in place. Had I kept this up, had we not worked out a solution, I’d be in a very bad place right now. Maybe having to borrow money from a friend or needing to take a loan out. I don’t know what I’d be doing, but I’m so grateful to have such an understanding and loving partner to help me work through this addiction. Because I wouldn’t have been able to progress, how I can see it, without her. We actually had worked out a really great system. It’s still working right now. I haven’t spent any money on anything related to that. I’m proud of myself, and it saved the relationship. Because, had I kept doing it, of course there would be no more relationship.
So how I came to opening up about it to her was because I so desperately wanted to overcome it. I realized how much of it had consumed me. Not only when I was active on it spending money on it in the moment, but even when I would go to the gym and do other activities, I found myself constantly thinking about the next opportunity I would get to spend money.
I was so embarrassed and humiliated to open up to her about this that when I opened up I had to have her stand behind me ’cause I couldn’t bare to look her in the face and tell her where all my money had been going. And it was the best decision I have made, because as I said, it saved our relationship, it saved my future, I now have a savings. And it had prevented me from having a much worse lockdown and a much worse experience in the pandemic, had I not overcome this addiction. So shout-out to Nicole, because she has been an integral part of this healing process. I can’t say I could do it without her.
And the message of this video is, of course, the first step is admitting you have an addiction. I think that’s common knowledge. But for me, what made the biggest difference was opening up to someone that I really loved and trusted. And because of that, because I opened up to her, we were able to work out a solution.
So take that, and do with it as you will, but this is just what has worked for me. And something I’ve been struggling with for a long time. And from my social media, how could anyone ever know this is something I was battling? But the truth is we all have our trials and tribulations. This has been the biggest one I have faced in the last few years, and I just wanted to share it with you guys. I hope it can be useful to some of you. I hope maybe if you’re battling an addiction of your own, that you can maybe take my advice and open up to someone you love and trust and work out a solution together.
For more, see cultural resources on overcoming pornography addiction.
