“Poooooooooorrrrrrn . . . . . Pooooorrrrrrrrrrrrrrnnnn ….. Porrrnnnnnnnn ….” . . . I grunted as my lifeless corpse limped closer to what it needed most. Shuffling, slow, and primal I fixed my gaze on the “food” glowing off my computer screen, . . . calling me . . . I called back, “poooorrrrrrrnnnn.” Now sweating, my heart beating faster then it did all day. All day, I knew relief was coming, that I would feel again. “Pooorrrrrnn.”

I saw nothing else in the dark musty room. My lust was insatiable, I could not quench my thirst. Porn was the center of my life. “PORN!”

I was a “Porn Zombie” – a lifeless bag a skin not much different than the zombie made famous in George Romero’s Night of the Living Dead. In this 1968 horror film classic, the dead come back to life as lumbering corpses hell-bent on feeding their insatiable craving for human flesh.

Ugly, unaware, vacant, and sad . . . that was me, the “Porn Zombie.” In my case, however, the flesh I craved was in the form of pixels on my computer screen – the most incredible combination of “1s” and “0s” mankind has ever invented – Internet porn. The Porn Zombie is a great analogy for my struggle. I want to use him to highlight a couple of things. I finally put that bastard Porn Zombie out of his misery years ago. I did it by actually learning to listen to him. In fact, turns out he’s my greatest teacher.

My Life As A Porn Zombie

I was a Porn Zombie slumming in the haze of pornography addiction excited only about my my next feed. I got particularly excited to plan my Porn Parties. Of course, I would have my normal porn meals throughout the week, once, twice a day, sometimes three if I had discovered something new to beat off to . . . but nothing burned alive like the anticipation leading up to a Porn Party.

Unlike Romero’s Zombie, I possessed sufficient cognitive functioning to plan my pathetic porn parties and plan I did. It was an instant shot of dopamine to my brain when my wife told me she was going away for a few days. I would plan weeks in advance for that porn beat off orgy.

I’d collect party favors like alcohol, chewing tobacco, cocaine, and Adderall. I wouldn’t do all of this together, usually, but I wanted the option just in case I needed to get higher, and I often did. I did have a steady favorite that would always accompany me to my Porn Parties — chewing tobacco. Can you imagine the smell? I can.

So instead of hanging out with friends and living, I was stuck to my jerk off chair, alone, in front of my laptop with my pants down. The house was dark and stank like funky ball sweat produced by my lots of solo sex. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING else mattered during this time, not my kids, wife, friends, job, NOTHING. I was a Porn Zombie.

Part of me was convinced that I was enjoying this; that this, sitting alone masturbating was what I really wanted to do. The physical urges, the pleasures, the pains, the pulls were all computing as something I enjoyed. It helped me relax, it was my fun time, and it helped put me to sleep at night. This was my quality alone time.

This addiction had infected my brain, re-wired it, and had written a new program. That program was “porn can help you with anything.” My thinking had become corrupted. I was plagued by obsessive thoughts. I no longer had control, and this is important, I could not remember a time when I did have control – when I wasn’t a Porn Zombie. Not remembering this gave me the the sense that I had always been messed up, that I had always been this way.

That is a lie that the porn brain wants you to believe. The porn brain wants you to die for that belief and it will protect it at all costs. The porn brain needs its fuel. And in my case, and for many others, “shame” fed the fire. It was a cycle that I thought would never end, because it had been so long since I had know anything different.

Zombie Is Done For

The Porn Zombie can be stopped. It’s not easy. It’s a lot of hard work, but it can be done. One of the first techniques I learned was to disidentify with this Porn Zombie or my porn brain. I learned to start doing what we call dialoguing where I talked to my Porn Brain.

Porn Brain was strong. It felt like I was talking to an impenetrable force. At first I felt crazy, talking to myself, only to hear nothing in response. I said “this is nuts.” But when Porn Brain started to talk back, wow, now that was powerful. I knew I was onto something talking to, writing to Porn Brain. Engaging in these conversations with myself, first of all made space between me and the addiction, and secondly, I could begin to see that I was not the addiction, not my mind. Thirdly, I found an opportunity to experience who the real me is.

From George at Compulsion Solutions I learned about “being in essence.” This was a relief because white-knuckling it was not working for me. The dialog work, along with a number of other skills I learned from George helped me to unveil the mystery of Porn Brain and how to help convert that porn energy into healthy, positive things in my life. I learned about the real “F” word: Fun, something I had lost the ability to have.

Now life is amazing – the Porn Zombie groans no more.