hello everyone,
so hard to decide...do I want to stop? continue? it's sometimes so obvious. sometimes so unsure. like I want to leave myself an out. I feel like I am leaving myself behind. but.....I don't want to be this guy forever. 

It's hard to accept on a personal level what we know on an intellectual level. This nisoyon makes us live a double life which is really living two half lives. We don't realize how handicapped we are from the psychological affects of porn and masturbation.
   It's our friend that helped us deal with things in life, we used it to fall asleep, deal with stress, anxiety, boredom, depression, lonliness...
The part we don't see is that it actually is the opposite of a friend that helps. The cycle is that we get an emotion that's hard to deal with so we turn toward porn and masturbation. This semi numbs us for a fleeting moment and appears to fight off the emotion. But what happened to the things causing those emotions? They weren't dealt with, they're still there. So you effectively are just pushing off the emotions which will resurface even stronger once the euphoria of lust runs out. Then we turn towards Lust again but need something stronger to numb ourselves. Then the emotions are again being pushed off and compounding, then we try to erase them with Lust, then the emotions come back... until we're so numb by Lust that we are just numb from Life.

    You may feel that your leaving part of yourself behind, but I say that you're becoming who you actually are. Stepping away from the double half life and entering the single life of yourself. There's an amazing feeling once free of our "friend" Lust.

Keep on Trucking, One Day At A Time!!

It can sometimes be hard for a person to decide what they really, really want. It can be especially hard to desire to be sober at a time that you don't even know what exactly it is like to leave drunkenness behind. My friend, perhaps having an objective person to talk to would help you figure out what you really want?
Wishing you all the best,
Eerie

Oh my, your post hit me so hard. This exactly what i told R eerie about 2 months ago.
I dont even know, i was so confused what i wanted.
I hope Hashem gives you the guidance and the right prospective.

My dear friend you do wanna stop . 
   

This is the first step of the 12 steps. "We found that we were powerless over lust and that our lives had become unmanageable". The only way I found that I could make the decision to stop was to realise how garbage my life was with lust. I used lust on and off 24/7 as an escape from simple things like work or tiredness or loneliness. I estimated the hours/months/years of my life spent lusting and acting out. I realised that I was less than a second away from lusting and acting out at any given moment not knowing when that moment would be. I realised that as a result of my powerlessness I really struggled to do basic things like getting to start doing an assignment or being connected to family members. Once I could finally understand how destructive my using was then I could finally understand that I had no other choice but to stop. But how? That is what all the other steps are for. 2 I realised that Hashem was the only one that could help me. 3 I gave myself over to Hashem being truthful and surrendering all of the lust that came up by telling Hashem exactly what lust I wanted and then asking Hashem what He wanted me to do. I had been trying to hide from Him and instead I needed to do the exact opposite, tell Him exactly what I was fantasising about, and praying for the people I was lusting after. 4 made a list of resentments and fears and 5 try to give them over to Hashem and another human being, surrendering the past negatives (resentment) and future negatives (fear) rid me of many reasons of why I was running to act out. 6 made a list of character defects that were playing a part in my resentments and 7 prayed to have them removed and replaced by the opposite i.e. control replaced by acceptance, pride replaced by humbleness. 8 made a list of people I had harmed and 9 proceeded to make amends to those I had harmed again removing any final reasons for escaping from life. 10 keeping up with steps 4-9 on a daily basis, 11 including prayer and 12 helping another person through this process as a friend or sponsor. This process I have done up till step 9 and continue doing step 10s on a daily basis which takes a 15 min call with my call buddy or writing it down for 2 mins.
Thanks for letting me share,
Meir

A question to ask yourself is "Do I want to be happier?"

If you do, then stopping this behaviour will help you be happier.