Telling dad about porn addiction

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Believe99

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Assalamualaikum,

I’m reaching out here because I have no more hope. I’m currently 20 years old and have been watching pornography since the age of 11 or 12. The addiction became severe in the last 3 or 4 years, to the point where I think I have some serious brain damage now. During this time period I would watch it for several hours at a time while keeping myself on the edge. This has definitely screwed up my dopamine and other neurochemicals in the brain. They say this horrible addiction messes with your brain in similar ways to Cocaine. Yesterday, I relapsed and ended my longest streak of 17 days by watching this filth for over an hour. I was just so upset I wasn’t seeing benefits of abstaining and just slipped. I keep making dua and praying to Allah to cleanse me of this sin and cure my brain. I used to be very social, happy, and had no problems before the last 3 years when my addiction elevated. Now I lost most of my hair because of it, became very socially awkward, depressed, started failing classes in school, isolating myself from friends, etc. My parents are worrying about me and think something is very wrong.

My dad is like my best friend and I tell him everything since I was young. This is the one thing I can’t tell him. I feel like I’m trapped in this addiction that has ruined my life and I want to seek medical help or something to cure my brain. I keep failing after 2 weeks or so because I see no benefits. But I am now reading it may take 1-2 years of pure abstinence to recover from this horrible addiction. I can’t keep going like this it even gave me suicidal thoughts. I wish I could go to a doctor and explain but I feel like they won’t be able to help and id have to go through my parents’ insurance as I still live with them. I’m wondering now whether I should tell my father so he could maybe support me but I heard that when Allah (SWT) conceals your sin you should not expose it. But I feel like this is different, I’m not proud of my sin at all, I just need real help.

Please I really need some advice, my life is ruined and I can’t take this pain anymore which came from my own wrong doing and sin. I would really appreciate any help.

Jazakalluhukhairan
 
Walaikum Assalaam

If you were able to abstain for 17 days, then do it again and try to go longer. Just because you failed the first time, doesn't negate the rest of the days. You have to keep trying until it is easy to give up. Secondly I don't know about the type of friends you have, but if they are good company, then pushing them away and secluding yourself would be counterproductive because then you're giving yourself more chances to be alone. You need to also remove your access to porn completely. It shouldn't be on any of your devices and you shouldn't have any accounts or ways to get to it. This is all psychological and I don't think that anyone can truly help you more than you helping yourself. You need to hold yourself accountable for your actions and only you have the ability to keep yourself from committing these actions. People can advise you but at the end of the day it's all on you. You keep saying that you fail every 2 weeks because you see no benefit...no benefit to what? To abstaining?? Well being addicted should be the number 1 reason to abstain. This will absolutely ruin your future, especially if you foresee yourself getting married. Or maybe you meant that you feel you aren't making progress. If that's the case then it is progress, just slow progress. You need to find better activities instead of running to porn. There are several healthier ways to release dopamine like learning a new skill for example. Just stay away from porn and keep working on it.
 
Thank you for your advice.

What I meant is that I’ve been living in a state where I don’t feel like my self. There is a neurochemical imbalance in my brain because of porn. Also, yes I did mean that after those 2 weeks or a little bit over 2 weeks I see no progress in my brain. It is a slow change because people said it takes up to 1-2 years. I keep isolating myself from friends because every time I go out I have social anxiety and I’m very awkward. I never used to be like this a few years ago. I used to be very social and fun to be around. I even have a much lower libido, I feel like a zombie and just a shell of my former self everyday. I’m just so afraid that I actually won’t heal until an entire year or two. I don’t know if you’ve heard of a movement called NoFap but some people say that abstaining for 90 days Can cure some people, but I was watching for hours at a time so I don’t know if I’ll recover before a year. It hurts so bad that I relapsed after 17 days yesterday because now it’s gonna take even longer to recover. Anyways, I’m going to make sure to go even longer this time and cut this filth out permanently inshallah.

The thing is my dad keeps asking what’s wrong with me and why I’ve been down for the last year or so and I don’t know if I should just tell him.
 
Walaykum assalam warahmatalahi wa barakatu,

Brother, you are in a very hard situation right now and InshaAllah you will find a way out of it. I have an idea that could possibly work, but before I mention that, I would like to give you advice. First of all. Whether you tell your dad or not is your choice as long as you have good intentions. However, this is YOUR test and he may not be able to do anything other then giving you advice similar to our advice.
It seems like you are already making an effort to quit the habit but you had broken it after 17 days. What is important for you to remember while you are trying to hold off is that one time you mess up could bring you back to the habit again! Also try to look up a bunch of religious lectures on this topic and how to get rid of it, it can help. Another thing you can do is try to fast which reduces desire. (But the thing you would have to do is refrain from ANY sexual activity during the daytime while you are fasting).

Try to make sincere dua at nighttime, in the middle of the night. Try to do extra acts of worships like waking up in the middle of the night to recite Qur'an. The reason for this is when you increase your faith and remembrance of Allah, you tend to have more will to hold back from sinning.

Right now, slow steps of the shayateen have gradually gotten intense so you are stuck in a trap with your addiction. But if you are able to eventually pull back and detox yourself, this shows how strong and faithful you are. Sometimes you will fail, but don't let this make you depressed, instead cry to Allah in sujud.
When it comes to an addiction, it takes a while to get rid of. The first month will be VERY hard, but no pain no gain, right? Eventually you will be impressed with the results and it will have a major impact on your worldly and religious life.

Now I have 5 methods that could be of help:
1) The shaytan do not like when you do religious duties right? try this. So basically as you start holding off from porn, Make some kind of promise to yourself (If you need to, use wAllahi. But understand that breaking a swear in Allah's name is very bad, so if you believe you will break it, don't use it).. SO basically, something like this "The next time I do this sin again, I will (insert a HARD act of worship that you would be lazy to do such as fast for a week, do a bunch of sunnah prayer, read quran for two hours, stay up praying witr for like an hour or something, or whatever worship acts you like)." This may help alot
2) Get a person you trust. You can ask them to set a parental lock on your internet or something so that way you cannot get access. But it may be preferable that you do not tell them why you need them to do this. Make sure they do not give you the passcode or unlock the internet no matter how much you beg for it. I dnt know how to do this locking stuff but look it up on the internet, do it for all your phones and laptops.
3) Set a Qur'an right on your laptop desk as a reminder.
4) Put the amount of time into Qur'an as you do with porn. Lets say you watched porn for an hour, try reading Qur'an for an hour. This is kind of similar to method 1
5) DUA

InshaAllah you quit. May Allah guide us all. I hope this helped
 
Last edited:
Thank you so much for your reply.

I think I will try my best to not tell my father at the moment. If I reach let’s say 30-60 days and there is no progress in terms of my brain becoming normal I may have to tell him out of desperation that my Brain is seriously damaged and I need medical help.

Inshallah I really hope it doesn’t come to that though and that if I abstain completely for 30 or 60 or even 90 days I will see improvement. The thing that I will make sure of is I will never watch this filth again inshallah. As for the lectures, I have been watching them for the past few months on YouTube and will continue to do so. I listen to Quran almost every morning on my way to university but I should try to read it more often too. I wish there was a way to block it completely from my entire internet. However, whenever this I come across this sin it is almost always on my iPhone and I don’t know how to block it from the iPhone. Sometimes I slip up and look at pictures on Instagram or something so it’s very hard to completely block it. I think I just have to immediately lower my gaze as soon as I come across something that could trigger me. Once again Inshallah I will quit and may Allah bless you for your help.
 
I have heard of ‘NoFap’. It is very difficult to do. I tried unsuccessfully several times before being able to achieve it, and I made it over a year and a half…but I wasn’t watching porn. I had quit porn completely long before that. Pornography does create chemical imbalances in your brain like you are saying. It messes with your dopamine receptors and the reward center of your brain in the same way that drugs do…It is a serious addiction.

Don’t worry about telling your dad. I would say for now don’t even think about NoFap at all. You only need to abstain from is pornography (for the moment). Take things one step at a time. The thing you need to focus on is not watching any kind of porn, at all. If possible try to figure out how to put blocks up on your computer/phone to block those websites. Even if you know the password to unblock it, it will be a second reminder to yourself to stay away. Use an adblocker to prevent yourself from seeing promiscuous and pornography adds accidentally. I also have an addon called ‘Image/Video block’ that I can use when I am visiting sites where there could be pornographic content that blocks all images.
 
Yeah it is very hard when it comes to social media. You should definitely make sure you unfollow suspected accounts that could have inappropriate pictures that will remind you. Lower your gaze when you leave the house as it could possibly help too. Musa brought up a good idea of using an ad blocker, it will be annoying but you are desperate at this point so try anything you can. And just remember that your outcome depends on what methods you use and how hard you try.
 
Reminds me of the red sunlight chamber in superman II..

Epic movie.
 
M.I.A. said:
Reminds me of the red sunlight chamber in superman II..

Epic movie.
Click to expand...

Astaghfirullah brother, that is full of shirk movie. Did you know 'superman' is supposed to be god?, there are many parrelels from Christianity and Superman, like jorel sending his only son to earth to be the saviour of mankind

And attributing such powers to a human (even if it is fiction) is idolatrous
 
Believe99 said:
Thank you for your advice.

What I meant is that I’ve been living in a state where I don’t feel like my self. There is a neurochemical imbalance in my brain because of porn. Also, yes I did mean that after those 2 weeks or a little bit over 2 weeks I see no progress in my brain. It is a slow change because people said it takes up to 1-2 years. I keep isolating myself from friends because every time I go out I have social anxiety and I’m very awkward. I never used to be like this a few years ago. I used to be very social and fun to be around. I even have a much lower libido, I feel like a zombie and just a shell of my former self everyday. I’m just so afraid that I actually won’t heal until an entire year or two. I don’t know if you’ve heard of a movement called NoFap but some people say that abstaining for 90 days Can cure some people, but I was watching for hours at a time so I don’t know if I’ll recover before a year. It hurts so bad that I relapsed after 17 days yesterday because now it’s gonna take even longer to recover. Anyways, I’m going to make sure to go even longer this time and cut this filth out permanently inshallah.

The thing is my dad keeps asking what’s wrong with me and why I’ve been down for the last year or so and I don’t know if I should just tell him.
Click to expand...
no people just say things
i know many people who stoped alcohol by them selves without even a help from any one and they become a very good person
they became more socializing and religious
its a tawbah and a change ... yes it make some time but it deserve to try again and again till you reach the goal
the sahabah where additives to alcohol some of them to zina and you know that these addictions work almost the same
how they get changed ?
as they could you can also ...
you just need patient and strong iman you should reach your goal one day but don't despair from the mercy of allah as long as you are trying and doing your best you will take the name of "awwab" which means the one who turns to Allah again and again
 
Umm Malik said:
no people just say things
i know many people who stoped alcohol by them selves without even a help from any one and they become a very good person
they became more socializing and religious
its a tawbah and a change ... yes it make some time but it deserve to try again and again till you reach the goal
the sahabah where additives to alcohol some of them to zina and you know that these addictions work almost the same
how they get changed ?
as they could you can also ...
you just need patient and strong iman you should reach your goal one day but don't despair from the mercy of allah as long as you are trying and doing your best you will take the name of "awwab" which means the one who turns to Allah again and again
Click to expand...

I was listening to a lecture Anwar Al-Awlaki was making about this and he makes the comparison to how Islam was successful in getting rid of alcohol during the time of the prophet pbuh vs why the US failed to do it during the prohibition of the early 1900s. Part of the talk was about how Islam first introduced the concept of taqwa into the hearts of the believers and how it was important to use that as the foundation of one's belief vs simply coming right out and saying haram halal, otherwise, without having a strong belief in Allah or the hereafter, it would be near impossible for people to give up customs, desires, addictions, and so on without the use of force such as was the case in the US. I think this is important because those of us who fall into these problems have to question our level of faith. Alcohol, pornography, and all these other things are a problem, but I think the lack of faith we have is the problem.
 
Believe99 said:
Assalamualaikum,

I’m reaching out here because I have no more hope. I’m currently 20 years old and have been watching pornography since the age of 11 or 12. The addiction became severe in the last 3 or 4 years, to the point where I think I have some serious brain damage now. During this time period I would watch it for several hours at a time while keeping myself on the edge. This has definitely screwed up my dopamine and other neurochemicals in the brain. They say this horrible addiction messes with your brain in similar ways to Cocaine. Yesterday, I relapsed and ended my longest streak of 17 days by watching this filth for over an hour. I was just so upset I wasn’t seeing benefits of abstaining and just slipped. I keep making dua and praying to Allah to cleanse me of this sin and cure my brain. I used to be very social, happy, and had no problems before the last 3 years when my addiction elevated. Now I lost most of my hair because of it, became very socially awkward, depressed, started failing classes in school, isolating myself from friends, etc. My parents are worrying about me and think something is very wrong.

My dad is like my best friend and I tell him everything since I was young. This is the one thing I can’t tell him. I feel like I’m trapped in this addiction that has ruined my life and I want to seek medical help or something to cure my brain. I keep failing after 2 weeks or so because I see no benefits. But I am now reading it may take 1-2 years of pure abstinence to recover from this horrible addiction. I can’t keep going like this it even gave me suicidal thoughts. I wish I could go to a doctor and explain but I feel like they won’t be able to help and id have to go through my parents’ insurance as I still live with them. I’m wondering now whether I should tell my father so he could maybe support me but I heard that when Allah (SWT) conceals your sin you should not expose it. But I feel like this is different, I’m not proud of my sin at all, I just need real help.

Please I really need some advice, my life is ruined and I can’t take this pain anymore which came from my own wrong doing and sin. I would really appreciate any help.

Jazakalluhukhairan
Click to expand...

all these problems will go away if you stop the porn addiction....if you are into nofap you know this and you know that there are people coming after after a year or two,even more....it doesnt take 90 days or 1 year or more...you always come back if you give in to it,even after 10 years,watching a video or two and boom,you are into it again....it doesnt take a specific time,it takes every day at a time...try every day to make it clean...salah,fasting and raising your eman are the most powerful tool agaisnt this,and you also know the others from nofap

dont tell your dad if you ask me,dont reveal your sin and he also may not understand...he never watched porn he might understand your addiction
 

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