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How to quit the Hobby/Addiction?

gambler

New Member
Nov 1, 2007
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I recall my Granfather went through a red lite in his winged baby blue chevy on Cavendish and Somerled back in the late 50s or early 60s i screamed from the back seat "Its a red lite" - thing could be very different.
They say you remember strong impressions from childhood. Not to mention the insane predators around St. Monicas school at that time.

There is the practical, emotional and the spirtual. Maybe in that order

Regards
 
Apr 16, 2005
1,004
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Gary Larson Fan here

gambler said:
I recall my Granfather went through a red lite in his winged baby blue chevy on Cavendish and Somerled back in the late 50s or early 60s i screamed from the back seat "Its a red lite" - thing could be very different.
They say you remember strong impressions from childhood. Not to mention the insane predators around St. Monicas school at that time.

There is the practical, emotional and the spirtual. Maybe in that order

Regards
Actually I chose that signature line because when I first came across it, the mental image cracked me right up. Thought I'd share it. You can probably tell I'm a fan of Gary Larson and The Far Side. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.:D
 

Cliff Nobles

New Member
Feb 20, 2008
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Im also addicted and im consulting for that.
I left my girlfriend because i felt so ashame and guilty, i couldn't go on with loving her that way. I lost thousands of dollars in the hobby and im only 33 years old. My problem is i have specific desires. Like most of the time im looking for woman with bubble butts (round ass). I get a fix and i need to rub and squeeze those ass cheecks no matter what.

Even if i masturbate it can stay in my mind until i meet the right SP.
But then again, when you found the right SP, you want to stick with it. Very bad.

One thing is for sure, we almost all need sex. Especialy men.
Funny thing is the more i talk about that subject the more i can't find an explanation to why we are so addicted to sex....:(

I think it has to do with the laws of nature....
 
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General Gonad

Enlightened pervert
Dec 31, 2005
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ColoradoOUTspoken - Sex Addiction

SEX ADDITION WITH FAWN OATES: What does it mean to be a sex addict? How do we separate normal sexual behavior from deviant sexual behavior? Fawn Oats discusses this topic with Denver's Tiffany Jones, registered sex therapist, and head of the sexology center.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=XvxVY_71cT8

GG
 

General Gonad

Enlightened pervert
Dec 31, 2005
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gambler

New Member
Nov 1, 2007
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Im not gonna post what I think now because Im off the wagon and it wont help anyone here.

Anapose? male menapose?
 
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erase

General Gonad - thanks very much for posting the links to the YouTube videos. I was very moved listening to the George Collins interviews - not surprisingly I can relate on a very deep level to virtually all of what he said.

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Just checking in on this thread - glad to see some discussion and again really appreciate the videos posted by the General.

I've been 'on the wagon' for quite some time (since December). I basically had no choice - both financially and career-wise the choice was between abstaining (from the hobby) and disaster. I'm very lucky in that I did this before 1) getting caught by my wife, 2) getting my finances into such a deep hole that I couldn't recover, and 3) frittering away so much of my unstructured work time that I ended up getting myself fired. Any one of these things could easily have happened but they didn't.

I don't miss the hobby - I still have somewhat of a problem with porn but not as bad as it's been, and porn is still methadone compared to the heroin of hobbying. Might be ok for some, but I am someone who absolutely should not be hobbying, and also should not be doing porn either.

One good (but tough) move was to seize some financial opportunities I had to pay out virtually all of my hidden debts, and then restructure finances so that there is virtually no way I could hide anything from my wife (couldn't do this before, because I was servicing too much debt). I shudder to think where I'd be today if I had used the above-mentioned "opportunity" to go on a hobbying binge...

The final hurdle is the possibility that the extra income I made on the side to dig out of debt will be tough to hide or explain to the wife at tax time... (any suggestions welcome). I have almost covered all my tracks, but not quite. Once this is over, I hope I can stay away for good as the stress has really been overwhelming at times.

By the way when I check out this thread on MERB it's the only thing I do - don't look at any other parts of the site (if you are wondering what a recovering addict is doing on MERB). This thread and the supportive comments and otherwise intelligent discussion have been a great help.

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General Gonad

Enlightened pervert
Dec 31, 2005
3,459
6
0
erase said:
I've been 'on the wagon' for quite some time (since December). I basically had no choice - both financially and career-wise the choice was between abstaining (from the hobby) and disaster. I'm very lucky in that I did this before 1) getting caught by my wife, 2) getting my finances into such a deep hole that I couldn't recover, and 3) frittering away so much of my unstructured work time that I ended up getting myself fired. Any one of these things could easily have happened but they didn't.

erase,

Good for you, you took the measures that are needed to ensure your happiness. I think the most important one is the joint bank account. If you hide finances from each other, it is easy to hide other activities.

The thing to remember when you know you are addicted and in deep trouble, is that this hobby isn't worth your life or your happiness. It's a black hole that can suck you in like a vortex and spin you around real good.

At my worst, I was seeing SPs and MPs almost twice a week. I thought I was bad but I later found out that some guys book the same SP three times a week and book other ones from the same agency with the same frequency.:eek: There are guys out there that hobby like maniacs on drugs but they rarely post about their experiences or their addiction.:rolleyes:

Stay the course and don't look back.;)

GG

P.S. I like your handle; I wish I could erase the last couple of years from my life.:rolleyes:
 

lrninnout

New Member
Apr 4, 2008
25
0
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Re-read what you posted

erase said:
Wow - thanks for all the supportive and thoughtful replies.

Writing this post, and reading the responses has been a good first step for me in hopefully keeping this sane. For me there are two potentially destructive effects (and maybe a third).

The first is money - the problem is that my cash flow is so complex (well-paying full-time job plus consulting work BUT a family and a fairly high standard of living) that it's easy to justify nearly anything and 'launder' my hobbying expenses. I can pay all my bills ok - it's just sometimes hard to track the long term impact of the expenses and occasionally there is a month where I have big expenses and someone is late paying what they owe me and the margin I spent hobbying would have been nice to still have (I'd say I spend about $300 a month) or I just feel like it would have been nice to make some other discretionary purchase.

The second is time - MERB is definitely part of my problem, and I confess that I have been a real lurker (often because after an SP experience - good or bad - I just need to get away - not because I want to hoard info). Often a typical pattern is that I just wake up in the morning with this burning urge ('craving' - a hallmark of addiction) and when I get into my office I'm checking who's available for the day and relentlessly scanning reviews. I could have done some pretty constructive things in all the hours I've spent like this, but I manage to get my work done. It's just getting increasingly on the edge and I know I'm missing opportunities that would have been rewarding on a personal and professional level. As I mentioned above I have a demanding day job plus moonlighting - it's not like I have a lot of extra time.

The third - maybe - is my marriage. We have a lot of problems, and there are times when my wife just basically treats other people, including me, like sh*t. You might suppose that somehow she knows, consciously or unconsciously, and the treatment is a result of that knowledge. However although my secret sexual indulgences are something that started long before I met my wife, the abusive behavior preceded any dalliances on my part during our relationship by a long time. I basically have zero social life, as she dislikes all my friends and controls virtually every second of my time, and the whole situation is just extremely isolating - the simple human connection of an SP (and I realize it's a business transaction but then so are a lot of things) ends up being incredibly compelling as an outlet, and it's a lot simpler than having an affair - I have plenty of opportunities but I'm pretty sure this would be *more* disastrous than the hobby could ever be in emotional and (since it would likely be with co-workers) professional terms. Also ironically after the outlet of an SP experience, I often feel a renewed appreciation for those things I have in my family life that I won't get from SP'ing. I expect a number of guys probably feel similarly in that in a sense hobbying is *saving* my marriage.

It's clear to me that, at the very least, I'm vulnerable to this getting to a problem level. I'm not going to make any unrealistic promises about stopping, just trying to keep it reasonable.

Thanks for the replies - maybe we can consider this a thread open for anyone who wants to vent or talk if they feel the hobby is getting out of control for them.

e

It sounds like you need to step back and re-evaluate your life, not this hobby. This hobby seems to be the only thing that you have as a true escape. Why do you need to escape? You don't want to be in this marriage. Your words are very similar to the words of some of the women I have worked with who have been battered. Their spouses try to cut them off from the rest of the world so they have no choice and feel trapped. You need to realize that this marriage is wrong for you and break it off before you lose 15 years of your life to depression!!! Whether she likes your friends or not doesn't matter. If she respects you she will tolerate your friends. If she respects you she will want you to have a social life. Step back and evaluate your situation assuming you have done NOTHING wrong ever. Just evaluate it that way and see where she stands. You will see that you would be better off without her. Sorry to say it, but you can do better!
 
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lrninnout said:
It sounds like you need to step back and re-evaluate your life, not this hobby. This hobby seems to be the only thing that you have as a true escape. Why do you need to escape? You don't want to be in this marriage. Your words are very similar to the words of some of the women I have worked with who have been battered.

There is no question that my wife's behavior meets every criterion for emotional abuse, and your advice to assess the situation as if I've done nothing wrong is quite appropriate.

One of the things this hobby has cost me, though, is that I just can't feel that I've done nothing wrong. My self-respect within the marriage is already pretty much crushed. Add to that the fact that I really have jeopardized my family's finances, and perhaps taken risks with my health; as much as one might be able to rationalize it all, in my heart of hearts I feel that I have been quite a failure, at least to my kids.

If I had been a straight arrow, it would be a lot easier to get on a moral high horse and defend (or extricate) myself from the abuse. My biggest terror right now is that we will get into counseling, which will lead to questions about finances, which will lead to discovery of my hobbying activities, which will lead to public humiliation and loss of my kids (ironic, since I think I'm by far the more emotionally stable parent). To put it into perspective, my wife treats me like a contemptible loser when some small innocuous thing goes wrong - what the h*ll is she going to do if she finds out what I've really been up to?

Maybe I'm fooling myself but I feel my only hope is to make it through a long clean spell to let all the financial and other skullduggery fade through the mists of time before I feel strong enough to defend myself the way I really should be.

I was feeling better for a while as I have been quite successful in distancing myself from the impulsive behavior that got me so deep into trouble, and have largely dug myself out of the financial and time holes I'd created. However there's been a resurgence of panic as tax time threatens to raise some stuff that's going to be hard to explain...

Thanks as always for the supportive ear,

e
 
erase,
I just found out about this very interesting thread today, and I read most of it.
And something very simple has come out of my mind: have you ever considered divorce as the real solution to your problem?
It might not be the ultimate solution, but the first you should try, that's for sure.
Sorry to be so direct, but I have been through this too.
All what you have been saying and discribing here makes a lot of sense, except one: your marriage and your thrive to ''save'' it. What exactly do you want to save?
 
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coco-des-îles said:
erase,
I just found out about this very interesting thread today, and I read most of it.
And something very simple has come out of my mind: have you ever considered divorce as the real solution to your problem?
It might not be the ultimate solution, but the first you should try, that's for sure.
Sorry to be so direct, but I have been through this too.
All what you have been saying and discribing here makes a lot of sense, except one: your marriage and your thrive to ''save'' it. What exactly do you want to save?

If it wasn't for the fact that I have young kids I'd be 100% in agreement with you (I have this irrational fear that I could be "outing" myself giving this much personal info, but I suspect I'm far from the only father on this board... right, Elliot?)

However given the realities in my life, I feel the right way to go is to first clean up my own problems, then see what can or can't be done with the marriage. It might well end up in a divorce, but at least I'll have tried.

Also I have to admit that my own problems (hobbying, leading to time and financial issues) have contributed to the stress that makes the marriage as bad as it is. My wasted time and money have brought a lot of problems into my family (I have largely dug myself out of the worst holes, but it was close), and right now it's very hard to stick up for myself because of the guilt I have (and fear that a real blow-out argument would lead to questions I just can't answer). I have to at least see whether some period of better behavior won't improve things - I don't want to put my kids through a divorce, which I think would be really hard on them, without at least trying. I would also be happy if I could salvage my marriage (although I know it's classic abused spouse behavior to keep blaming yourself and staying in an abusive marriage no matter how bad it gets).

Thanks for participating in the thread,

e
 
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manumetal

Hobbying saves marriages
Apr 27, 2007
141
41
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My addiction

Erase

Hello my name is Manu and I'm a provider..olic..(like they say in the AA)
Thank you for this very interesting thread.

Like many others I'm rarely looking at this side of the forum, I usually quickly look to see a report on providers and select my next visit based on recent reviews.

Your thread really woke me up.

The addiction is real for me, like a junkie, my addiction grew over time from lap dance strippers to full service strippers, from HJ MPs to FS MPs and then rarely to SP(due to lack of opportunities). With cravings and overdoses.

Somewhat like you, I ran a separate credit line which was “under control” until I changed jobs and all expenses where refunded along with the pay check(joint account), then the credit card used for cash advance and hobby expenses was almost fully loaded. I thought I was going to have to confess, with the consequences you also want to avoid, but instead the bank sent me a letter saying that they were seeing I was having difficulties paying the card and gave me an extra margin and offered to forget about the minimum payment for that month!!! Of course the family’s credit rating is good. So off I went again getting deeper in debt.

I now realize I’m not alone. I have the profile of an addict, my personal and professional life is affected by it.

I decided to clean up my credit as much as I can to get to a point where I can either clear the card(at the present rate I’m looking at years!) and if it fails, confess to a less emotional addiction, like gambling, and work out a payment deal.

This is my story
Manu


 
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bensonnobalia said:
Gee. It sounds like the quack charges just as much as an SP. If that's the case...I may as well stick with the hobby!

Hmmm. I have to say that thought did cross my mind, and I know the comment was made somewhat tongue-in-cheek.

However you can also do the following math:

  • 10 sessions with the counselor x $110 = $1100

vs

  • the amount I figure I've spent on SP's over the last couple of years = $7000
  • plus interest charges on various credit balances that didn't get paid out due to hobbying expensese = $more than a thousand
  • plus possible self-destruction of career = $hundreds of thousands - $1M
  • plus divorce = $the sky's the limit
  • plus losing my kids = $priceless

By the way when I mention loss of career, it has nothing to do with any kind of public disgrace if I got caught. Rather it's simply the possible consequence of the hundreds of hours I spent scanning SP web pages and reviews trying to find that perfect experience (which was very often a big disappointment). This lost time has definitely set me back, and has threatened my professional reputation for reliability (though I've managed to undo this to a large extent - nobody ever knew what I was doing, or even that time lost to an addiction was the problem; just that I wasn't following through on all my commitments).

Anyhow I'm writing this mostly for myself - I haven't actually tried the counselor but for a variety of reasons I wish I had.

Don't take offense at this reply - your point is well taken that counseling is not cheap. However if you're really in trouble it could be money well spent.

e
 
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erase

This is my story
Manu

Hey Manu,

Thanks for the post, and I hope this thread helps in some way.

I can only tell you my way out (assuming I am out - it's better now, anyway) - I was lucky enough to do some additional contract work to generate a couple of big lump sum payments that I was able to keep discrete and use to pay off *all* my hidden debts. Then I restructured my finances to make it *impossible* to hide anything, which pretty much killed any temptation. We addicts are creatures of opportunity - the most dangerous thing for me is unstructured time and a big chunk of extra cash in my non-joint bank account.

I am very lucky I was able to claw together funds to dig out of debt, and I can't realistically keep doing the extra work so doubt this will fund future hobbying. If I hadn't had this bit of good luck, I probably would have been outed and I fear it would have been disastrous for me and my family.

The only other thing I can say is that - oddly - now that my finances are less desperate, I actually find I'm more responsible with my money. When things were hopeless, it was like I had nothing to lose and was so stressed anyway that the quick high from an SP was a welcome release from the perpetual, crushing stress. Now I just feel less tempted.

Good luck with your situation - I really had to get it into my head that I absolutely can not do this if I want to salvage my life (I realize this is not the case for many others here).

My last SP was in December, so that makes about five months now.

e
 
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erase

Another observation about my (hopeful) recovery

I've noticed a couple of unexpected things during my attempt to stay a recovering SP addict.

The first is that, while I was perfectly willing to commit some insane splurges when my finances were a complete disaster, I actually feel a lot more responsible about money now that I'm out of debt and my finances are together. I blow less money on other things (it was not just SP-ing in the past, but little things like eating out - I mean at restaurants) and am actually enjoying this completely unfamiliar feeling of *not* being perpetually on the edge of financial disaster.

The other, maybe less positive thing, is that when it comes to those corners of my life that I still want to keep discrete (writing this post for example, as well as some indulgences in porn, the reduction of which is my next 'project') I've found I'm getting much worse at keeping it secret. When I was at the peak of my hobbying addiction, it was like I had nerves of steel. I could come a hair away from discovery and casually come up with a brilliant cover story without breaking a sweat (although I'd usually be sh*tting myself inside afterwards). Lately this facade has completely crumbled, and I now pretty much panic any time I come close to getting caught. My behavior in these instances is a lot more awkward, and in a couple of cases (relating to porn) I've pretty much blurted out a confession (first time ever getting caught in decades). Although you'd think some confession might be a good thing, it hasn't been (although nothing too disastrous has come out and the resultant wounds are ones that time will probably heal - unlike some others that could have been inflicted).

I think the latter point is partly the result of fatigue and accumulated stress - another sign that I just have to stop getting into situations that I have to keep secret. It may also be that I just got overconfident, since in a way I was feeling like I "got away" with it all for years without getting caught. Even if I stay completely clean, it will take years before I'll be free of the constant subliminal stress about the threat of disclosure.

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martinl68 said:
Without that addiction you wouldn't be there to talk about it. For a specie to survive it has to reproduce itself, simple as that. That's why the men think about sex million times a day.

While there's a certain logic in this, my problem is that my distant ancestor would have been sitting there yanking it while looking at dirty cave drawings instead of running away from the sabre-toothed tiger about to put a fang through his head... a wonder I'm not extinct.
 
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martinl68 said:
I've read the whole thread, very interesting. I started another thread in french with the same thoughts without knowing this thread. Basically I'm in the same boat as the original poster.

I read the thread you started - we are very much in the meme bateau.

e
 
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